quinta-feira, 21 de agosto de 2008

Some things never change... Others...

Some things never change...

(although I believe I can change the ones I really decide I should - not without some effort though: try to guess which ones I'm refering to...)

  • I listen to Kizombas practically everyday
  • When I talk to my closest of friends (just like yesterday ;) ), it seems like no time has passed and no distance is there - some things are simply eternal and overcome any judgement, wording or traceable limits
  • I still have trouble going up in the morning and tend to stay in bed a little bit too long
  • I still don't know how but always find myself entertained until too late in the night (I wonder: could this have anything to do with the waking up part of it? :P Trust me, I tuck in a little bit longer even if I've slept for 12 hours - owl style? What can I do? That's just me ever since I remember: at night, that's when I'm creative, energetic, with time for myself :) ...
  • Lately, lacking dancing - DANCING HAS BEEN FORBIDEN IN BANGALORE CLUBS FOR THE PAST 3 WEEKS!!: can you imagine me living in such a city if this wasn't about to change in a matter of weeks?... - at night (among other things, namely domestic tasks), I dance and sing to both my years and sometimes the girls sleeping upstairs' - ups! have been trying to control, I swear! :P
  • Have my yoghurt with cereal almost every day
  • Have been being asked to write texts and to revise scripts

... On others I am fortunate to get confirmation checks...

  • Love colour! Love travelling! Love nature! Love smiles! Love international friends! Love speaking other laguages! Love dancing! Love people! Love cucumber! Love scarfs! :)
  • Ages flatten down when souls - the true Beings - and not bodies connect

... The rest changes in you for good and is simply destined to make you grow within!

  • Started liking to eat with my hands (the most unconceivable thing in my culture of origin: the first times, you feel like you're doing something wrong as this is what would be told if you did the same while you were being brought up)
  • No bugs or ants or dirt or smell around me disgust me to any level of real disturbance at this point
  • Love indian food with all its exquisitness, SPICES (!), never-ending colous, textures and tastes
  • I am now carefull with night time, don't take transportation alone at those hours either, walk with my eyes down as I don't want to cross the eyes of men, and whenever posible hold my brother-friends' arms or simply stand behind them as some kind of psichological shield (specially when travelling) - Gabiru, Deepak, you guys are the best protectors ever - luv'u!
  • I cherish now what before I had never thought of because I took it for granted: the possibility of allowing yourself to feel (most of the girls and boys here will see their spouses only once to thrice before the day of their marriage...)

Also to be continued...

segunda-feira, 18 de agosto de 2008

Olive oil: gods' nectar

To tell you the 'lightest' of my examples, but maybe the most obvious at least for tendencially pragmatic minds:

Olive oil is a very rare and hence very expensive thing in India (being imported namely from Spain). To give you a comparison, a 1 liter bottle may cost me an amount corresponding to 13 travels home-work.

Another fact that most of you know: olive oil is essencial in european cooking, namely portuguese, and me personally I use it for practically everything.

So of course I bought a bottle, but obviously kept it saved for a controled use.

Last week, while bringing the bottle back to my room after cooking, it was slippery so it fell off my hands to become an oil lake and dozens of glass pieces in my room floor.

For a minute, I was pissed off and thought only that 300 ruppees (3/4 of the content) were there lying on the floor - not to speak of the inconvenience and the mess. I commented this with my friends, the fact that what had gotten broken was exactly the ingredient that I cherished the most and had spent money on because "I couldn't live without olive oil".

But then, as lately with everything, I decided to accept what had happened and believe, also as always, that it had happened for a reason (one of them being clearly that I should have been more carefull and next time, I will). The hidden reason, there'll always be some, was yet to be discovered.

Well, what I am wanting to tell you is that, as always, life got back to me with the greatest of answers to such a simple thing. Acquaintances have been calling me "lucky". :)

The following day, I was in the supermarket and had almost forgotten that I had already decided that, irrespective of money, of course I'd buy a new bottle. But Rumzie was taking longer with her shopping and I ran into the olive oil shelf.

The truth is that, not only they were selling olive oil in a plastic bottle.... :), as a 1 liter cooking olive oil bottle (worth 400 rupees) was in offer if you bought an extra-virgin one. I loved the again non-coincidence and put both in my basket regardless of price. Still in the supermarket I commented with Rumela that answer life was giving to me. And it was happening unintentionally and in the day right after an event that I had considered a sad waste.

This was enough to again leave me with a feeling of thankfulness. But when I got home for some reason I noticed the price on the extra-virgin oil bottle. Then I noticed that there was no 720 Rs. registered in my receipt. For mistake, the cashiers at 'Spencer's' had registered 400 Rs., the price of the bottle that was in offer, and not the correct one. They made me pay the cheapest one and ended up offering the most expensive, saving me 320 Rs., precisely the money that I had let slip out of my hands the day before.

......

'Course my good-will made me feel like I should go back and tell them, but who would? And anyway, we're always being overcharged for everything here. So - ethical or not - here I had my little excuse.

.......

Coincidence? Most surely not. It's just life communicating clearly with me, as every day here in the most unexplainable of details.

Plus, my friends are starting to know me so well here that Deepak actually intended to offer me a bottle of olive oil yesterday, as he had seen me sad over that waste the week before (thank you dear!*). So life had already such a nice alternative reserved for me if Rumz hadn't taken longer that day at our grocery shop... :))

sexta-feira, 8 de agosto de 2008

Magic days

- picture at 9.40 pm - local time = 5.10 pm in Portugal, my birth time.

One special day happened 2 weeks ago: I was 25 on the 25th.
It's once in a life time, as well as today's day: 08.08.08.

The day was filled with joy from 23.55 pm on the 24th.
My already big indian family spoiled me so much I felt like a little girl! My heart felt big, and pampered, and privileged, as so many remembered me, and such good surprises happened.
My portuguese FAMILY... the whole day enlightening me too. I feel [healthy] SAUDADES of you all...!

The night came and - 'lucky me'! - I went to do what I like the best, and among my companions - guess who? - my nuclear family in Bangalore: Andre, Camilla, Deepak and Rumela. Have I told you I love you? It's Youll and TRAVELLING... :)

So there we went to a 2 days extension of my birthday celebration in Tusker Valley, in Kalhatti Park, on the Nilgiri Mountains.
We went for relatively challenging trekking journeys twice, reached waterfalls and moutain peaks, saw plantations, and stood in the middle of some bear cages and the all-mighty white clouds. Almost tripped once or twice, climbed many many rocks and listened to the sound of silence and to the wisper of echo. My mates spoted foot-prints of bears, bisonts and other sorts of wild life that didn't dare to come near us.
The nights were coronated with music, bath with hot water served in buckets, eating around bonfire, playing Uno, teeling mind-cracking riddles, finding mouse poop all over your bed sheets and... Night Safari!!, where the most thrilling experiences were the raining outside the open jeep, the bang of the head on the ceiling, and the expectation to see more then one rabbit, one bisont and a couple of dears that in the end were the only ones who let themselves be spoted. (explanation: the rain makes elephants have easy access to water which makes them not need to come close to the road as they were expected to in the TUSKER valley).

Sunday brought us to a hillarious happy jeep journey, dancing our brains off towards a pleasurable chinese dinner in Ooti.
On our way to Bangalore, 1h30 hours after departure, a land-slide: sand and a tree blocking the road. Only six hours later - morning already - did a caterpiller come to remove it. Close to Bangalore, again a truck riot to delay us... Summary: 16 hour bus trip!! (was suppose to be 8 tops) HEHE! With my friends just laughing at me afterwards as I just woke up to check on the overall situation maybe 3 times during all that time. :)) God bless the sleep in these circumstances! (jealous, uh?) :P

Everyone has been telling me about me having experienced the weirdest most uncommon things in Bangalore since I got here. Uncomfortable as they may have been sometimes, again I look at them as life experience.

THANK YOU ALL FOR (close and from afar) MAKING ME FEEL HOME.