Wildlife

I'm in class right now, and the discussion has devolved into a very idiosyncratic, microcosmic analysis of a part of a problem that used to be interesting. So I was looking through my bag to check my schedule for my next class, when a spider jumped out of my bag at me. It was only maybe an inch plus across, but it jumped! It missed me and fell on the floor, where it proceeded to walk a few steps, jump five inches forward, walk a few more steps, jump five more inches. What an amazing little thing. I guess I'm glad I didn't stomp on it immediately. The wildlife in general in this country is continually, and by turns, amazing and vexing. I had so many misconceptions when I first came here. For example, I thought monkeys would be cool little animals that I could give bananas to and semi-play with. They'd be like squirrels but smarter. No. Monkeys are the terrorists of the Indian geopoliticobiosphere. They're crazy. If you look at them wrong, or, god help you, you happen to smile and thus bare your teeth, they totally flip out. They'll jump up and down and scream and get real aggressive. They're constantly on the move and getting into places they shouldn't be, like bathrooms and classrooms and hallways here at St. Stephen's. They steal things like fruit and small bags like purses and then literally laugh at people that run after them trying to get them back. They launch precision strikes on fruit stands, some making an obvious diversion in front of the fruitwalla while others will climb over a wall, unseen, to grab a ton of fruit and then take off. Bastards. In the mountains, they'd constantly be making a ruckus on the way to school. We had to carry rocks to throw at them just in case. I got quite good at monkey pummeling. They hated me even more, I think. They were particularly bad when I was on the phone at the telephone booth. The booth had a thin tin roof and when there were a bunch of people inside they would jump on top of the roof and just jump up and down and pound, making as much noise as possible. Phonewalla would run out and throw stuff at them and they'd leave, but everyday I was left with one thought: war on terror... and monkeys. Just as terrorists manage to find every weakness in the massive endeavor that is the US security structure, monkeys found precision ways to drive humans crazy. I think they're still jealous that we evolved and they didn't. Bastards. In the mountains, I also had lots of interesting interactions with scorpions. The scorpions up in the mountains were small but apparently packed quite a painful punch. There was one in our downstairs bathroom one day, which really freaked out the girls. We've got some very cool pictures, which will be uploaded eventually (damned DSLwalla!). The other two that I had to remove I ran into in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. Both times they were on near the wall in the hallway, rather scurrying about looking for something. They're really stupid animals, actually. They'll just sit there as you place a matchbox over them and box them up. When you throw them outside, when they land they just sit there again, as if to contemplate the metaphysical aspects of them getting kicked out of the house. Then they scurry off to strike fear into the hearts of monkeys, rabbits, and girls from Georgetown everywhere. Also notable for home invasion are the lizards. Cat had an unwanted roommate for a few days last week: a 6 inch, hyper-active lizard. We have no idea how it got in, but it lived just above her curtains, and would creep out to explore every once in a while. Cat did not deal all that well with her roommate, though she stopped yelling after the first two times or so. The lizard was actually really cool looking (Rob was jealous that it came into Cat's room and not ours. I pointed out that it would freeze to death in our gorgeously arctic room). All in all, the wildlife here is a very interesting and very constant part of life. No tigers yet, but they use these huge elephants to do large-scale maintenance in some of the big parks in Delhi: things like clearing out fallen tree branches, moving huge rocks, etc. I'm not sure how well-taken care of they are. Alas. Alright, I'm off. Gotta get back to class. Hope all is well.