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?