cleaning day

Well, it's the weekend, and I'm still in Chennai. M when to Mamalapuram with a cool Dutch woman who works at an NGO here in Chennai and is staying at Broadlands also. I almost went with them, but decided to stay home and do laundry and clean up our room a little bit. I'm feeling generally sort of scattered and off kilter, so I think spending some time alone doing something meditative like laundry will be beneficial. Also, I'm wearing my last pair of clean underwear. E is also still in Chennai, but he is having some "E time" today, seeing a movie and probably chilling in an air conditioned coffee shop.

As for surveying, the first week seems to have gone reasonably well. We surveyed around 250 people, I think (which in and of itself is a respectable sample size, but the more the better, so we'll keep at it). I'm concerned with both the quality and the randomness of our data, but we're doing the best we can, and again, learning a great deal. We also need to get a bunch of information from IMED's records before we go, but most of it is in Tamil or way-sloppy English, so we will need our enumerators help with that too.

I think one of my enumerators has a crush on me. He's the one that always asks if I ate breakfast, and he gave me a flower on Thursday, and on the rickshaw ride home asked if he could "party" with M, E, and I. I told him maybe after the project is over because I didn't know what else to say. Oh, and totally randomly, this Singaporean guy that we met at Broadlands said the nicest thing to me. I went downstairs to get a beer, and I went over to say hi, and he said, "You look beautiful this evening." I assure you, I have not looked beautiful once while in this country, but I had just showered, I was wearing a pretty skirt and some matching beaded necklaces, and I had my hair down, which is an extreme rarity. Maybe he realized for the first time that I actually have hair. Anyway, when you feel gross all the time, it's nice to get a bit of flattery.

Well, today is cleaning day, not blogging day. More later.