An All Right Monday

Last night I went to Little India to check out the celebrations. Last night I had my first Monday night out since I got here.

First of all, I live in a fairly bland district of Singers – a busy main road, high rise apartment blocks - fairly near ex-pat central. When I get home on a Monday night, I usually stay home, reading and working and such like. I realise that I’m supposed to be explaining what life is like here. Thus far I think I’ve only really managed to explain what life is like in my little bubble. It’s easy to forget that there’s a life outside this bubble.

For such a tiny island (the same size as the Isle of Wight) there are many different cultures co-existing. Considering the fact that a lot of the world seems unable to accept different beliefs (you’ve got Osama saying that he’s killing in the name of his, and George saying that he’s killing in the name of his – both, of course, with extreme interpretations of their respective religions, which most believers would refute, bandying the names of their gods around to justify the deaths of innocent people), I quite like living in a place in which people are happy to accept the fact that different people have different values and beliefs, even if they don’t agree with each other. Everyone seems to talk to each other, too, face to face, which is rather more constructive and less cowardly than flying a plane into a building or missing a “military target” with a bomb, killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people with unknown faces and names.

A tad simplistic, maybe. But it seems to work all right here.

Anyway, we started off with an Indian curry, which was tip top. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to decide whether Indian food beats Chinese food. At the moment, because I ate Indian last night, Indian is winning.

Then we wandered through the busy, illuminated streets before turning into a hectic market that was lighter than day. The smells of incense and food, the rhythms of great beats, the colours, the banter…

Sadly, my photos don’t do it any justice. In fact, the only good one is of a vegetable shop, which is there all the year round. And everyone takes photos of vegetable shops.

Oh well. It was a pleasure to be able to wander around and actually feel like I was a welcome tourist rather than being just a few hours away from teaching my next lesson.

I need to continue getting out more.











None of these pictures worked