Simona, my angel

Like the best adventures in my live, Simona was not something I was searching for, but someone who found me before I even new I needed her.

Hahahaha, I know what you are thinking but... nop, nothing romantic between us. Simply, I have truly learnt to love this girl as the great friend she has become (even when her over hyperactive character drives me mental at times).

For those of you who don't yet know, Simona is my beautiful and sweet italian roommate in India.

She found me on a group of Facebook, while I was searching for houses. She suggested we meet for coffee to discuss if we could move in together, even before she had flew here. How crazy is that? And I thought I had prepared well my trip... Anyhow, she was very nice. Plus, after several weeks of searching for a place to live alone, and miserably fail in countless attempts to find a place I could call decent, I was more than happy to share the pain with somebody else.

When we finally moved together, she was excellent at organising our cleaning activities, that went on for a week, until we were happy that the place was apt for human life. She also insisted that we buy plants, to make it more homy, and found the place where to find the pots and plants (seriously, nothing is easy to find here, so it has a great merit that she found it so quick) And I love that she puts so much energy on everything we do together, even when she keeps overwatering the plants we bought and I'm not sure any will survive our first year lease.

Once the home was done and dusted (never an expression fitted best), she started looking for trips and things to do in town. She found a nice place for us to stay in our visit to Pondichery and has already invited me to a trip to Goa. I'm so much looking forward to that.

I am confident that I might have found a great travel partner on her. Though we should not go everywhere together, until she learns how to marvel at the beauty of the simple things. Like when we wanted to visit a temple with a big bull statue and she could not allow herself (and me!!) to stop for a second and rejoice at the beautiful ceremony that was going on in the temple right beside it (with monks playing instruments, fire being burn, flowers being offered and good few people with beautiful and colourful dresses standing) She absolutely wanted to go quickly see the statue, because that was what we had come to do on our Bank holiday. I really had to explain to her that rocks don't move but ceremonies tend not to last forever. And... what the heck, lets just breathe twice if we might and do something of such beauty, even if it was not part of our initial plan. I almost even asked her to "relax", but I didn't, because I have been there in the past and it used to drive me mental when people will tell me to "just relax!".

As you can see, we complement each other very well. Because she is so active and energetic that she is always having great plans for us on things to do; combating my easy passivity on just staying home to read a book or watch a movie. Come on, did I come all the way to India to keep doing the boring stuff I used to do in Ireland? Nothing bad with catching some resting time, here and there, but I should not do that all of the time, if nothing more, at least for the sake of using wisely my time here. In return, I have a little hope that I might teach her to appreciate the moment we are in, rather than looking at what's next in the plan like a frenetic headless chicken. And I am already working on introducing her to some of the best series ever. Can anyone believe she never watched "Friends" ever before in her live? How can anybody not have seen at least one chapter? So here I am, rewatching 90's series with her and having so much fun.

And all this makes for a great and sweet roommate. However, there is a good reason why I called her my angel here. Let me explain:

   It was actually the day after that bull temple visit. She had to work but I woke up very soon with a terrible belly pain. I had had something similar in the past and it had knocked me down for 2 weeks, until I had a surgery, so I was really not looking forward seeing the same diagnosis or going on for a visit to a hospital in India all alone. I was in so much pain, I couldn't even stand straight. But I had nothing to worry about, she took care of everything.

   She looked immediately in google and found a clinic few meters from our house. Took me there patiently walking as slow as I needed to, only worrying that I was crossing the road safely and if I was ok at every step of the small way. 

   Once there, she talked to the nurses, got me to the doctor and called to her work to say her roommate was sick so she needed the day off sick ("my boss also calls on sick when his kids are sick, so why not me?" she explained, later on) She was sitting there in the waiting room till all the checks were done, as it took only a couple of hours to do several scans, injections, fluid tests, etc. (Let's put it this way, I had never in Ireland be treated so efficiently, with such good standards and almost at no cost) 

   Back home, she put me to bed, took the medicines we had purchased and water to my room, she cooked me lunch, watched a movie with me and, while I was having a nap, managed to go out shopping and came back with flowers for me. She bought me flowers!!! Seriously, some of my longest relationships with men had never managed to do half as much or half as sweet for me, when being sick.

And this is why, Simona, this excellent sweet italian girl, is my angel in town.

There are other sweethearts and angels that are helping: great friends on the distance that keep posting the sweetest things I might be missing (through company visitors), local colleagues always ready to give a hand with work or personal problems, people that I am just learning to know a bit better now and keep sending me the most encouraging and warming words, and even two kids that don't yet know me and safe me from so much pain (their happiness makes me happy). But these all... I'll keep to myself ;)

Simona at the Bull Temple and with the flowers she bought me to cheer up my sickness day.

PS. Best part, she not only takes care of me when I'm sick, Simona also protects me from all the bad things happening around. Two weeks ago, the neighbour next door had the music so loud that he woke us both up at 6am and then wouldn't let us sleep the next night. She didn't doubt it much and went to the streets to shout really nasty things to him, to make him stop. Not only it worked with him, now all of our street knows that this is no joke house and the sign of "Beware of the Italian" should be put up in our door. Hahahahahahahahaha. Don't you love her already too?

Life is a funny place to be in

Life is a funny place to be in.

This is how I was feeling this Sunday, when I was in a rickshaw on my way to meet a good friend. It's a feeling that I've had before. A very funny one on its own: a feeling of total fullness and peacefulness, of being on the right place, at the right time, with the right people. Another funny aspect of it, it tends to come to me when I'm alone and either thinking or on the direction of meeting a good friend.

In order to explain myself, I will talk to you today about my childhood. It's something that I had thought for a while to write about. I hope it might come into place today.

I guess you have all marvelled at how sometimes we can remember some mundane,  unspecial moments of our lives from the past, with such clarity; while, some other more critical moments might have felt into a dark space we can hardly remember. I can think, as an example, how I can remember being a child on the mountain village where my father was born, "stealing" biscuits from my father's aunt, to bring it to my friends and play camping. However, I cannot remember the holidays we took with my grandmother, where she felt sick, so sick that doctors thought she didn't have more than few moths left. Luckily, that tough woman survived another good beautiful 9 years.

So... here it is, that clear simple moment of my childhood I still can remember; and the fact that I do, has make all the difference for me, so many times:

"I am 10 years old and it is the month of May. In order to go to school, I go with my cousin (we went to the same school and the same class until we turned 14) through the same route our parents have taught us. We are now "old" enough to be trusted to go on our own. The walk is only 20 minutes, after all.

As it is May, a month I specially love cause my birthday falls on it, I'm all distracted by the blooming spring and I am stoping every few meters to collect a flower. 

My favourite part, it's when we approach the small spring and the edges are full with poppy flowers: these red, soft flowers that only come for a few weeks in spring, only grow on the wild and are so beautiful, but will almost die instantly if you pick them. I obviously collect a few, till my cousin breaks with my dreamer state by asking a question... What is the second longest river in Europe?

That's when I remember that the same afternoon we are having a Geography exam and I had been studying after lunch all these rivers and mountains and all of this data, so I could pass my exam. Because... who will ever need to know where these long rivers are? or how many countries they pass through their course? I have never come outside my neighbourhood alone and I have never gone farther than my grandma's home (300km south from where we lived, in Spain) So.... "

The point of this story comes a good 13 years later, when I was on my Erasmus year (a EU grant program to go study in other EU countries) It was late February and it was very cold. I was pretty new in town yet, so I was following other Erasmus students through town, without taking much notice of everything we passed by. I was too busy keeping my hands warm.

We were crossing the river to reach a mall, where we were planing to have coffee. That's when it hit me. I turned around, looked at the water and remembered that 10 years old. I laughed and cried all in one go. I experienced that feeling of "life is a funny place to be in". I was looking at the Danube, the second longest river in Europe, and it was no longer in an unreachable sphere of impossible dreams and distances, but just under my feet.

I wished I could have gone back on time and told that little girl how much proud I was of her. I had been felling scared and lonely, in that new place, before we approached the river and it all had passed away in an instant, the moment I realised I had the Danube under my feet, and what a big difference it actually made to me.

So... yes, you all know I haven't had the best of times here when I started (if you didn't know yet, just look at any of my previous posts, you'll see) And I had grown tired of my own constant complains, so you might all have been wondering what was the reason it took me so long to write again. Partially, procrastination and partially getting used to the place still takes most of my energy and time.

India is not an easy place to live in and it can get a bit scary at times, particularly as a single women. However, truth is, I have passed through that and I am loving it here. I know that, because this Sunday I was able to remember my 10 years old me and I was proud of her again. That little girl who thought that the Danube was soooooooo far away, unreachable, impossible, so difficult to get as to catch the moon and who has made it all the way through Europe and into the "Asian sub-continent". And not only that! I am travelling around, I am learning a new culture, I am making new friends and I am having fun!!!!

While getting there has been a tough experience, and I have talked a lot about the frustrations of my early days, there have been a good list of fun things I have been doing. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun doing them, that I didn't get the time to write and come here to tell you all about it. So, here it goes:
  1- I participated in a charity food festival. I cooked "Torrijas" (the spanish version of French Toast). We collected about USD 10k for a charity that helps kids with disabilities (http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/education-for-underprivileged-children-bangalore/) :D It felt wonderful.
  2- I went to visit Pondichery, for a full weekend and ate yummy croissants.
  3- I met friends in a Hotel brunch, where we could swim in the pool and eat great local and international food.
  4- I had my roommate cooking the most tasty italian pizza in all of India for me.
  5- I had many friends for lunch at home, many weekends, specially since we bought the oven.
  6- I participated in some great company events to get to know my colleagues: Family day, Sports day and, soon to come, Dance Competition day.
  7- I bursted crackers for Diwali festival and loved the fireworks we created.

And with that, I will leave you all for today with the beginning of this blog entry: Life, is such a funny place to be in. But I am loving every bit of it (even the dark and frustrating times). I wouldn't change it for anything!