Dinner with the Executive Director and a Christmas Eve Mouse

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Last night some of the other interns/volunteers and I were invited to dinner at the Executive Director’s house! It was quite an honor as the founder and director of Gram Vikas, Joe, has been recognized around the world for his achievements in water and sanitation.

Joe and his wife live in a home in the back of campus surrounded by beautiful flowers and gardens. We arrived in the evening around 8:30; dinner here in India is typically very late. Indians apparently like to fall asleep with a full stomach so dinner is the last activity of the day before bed - and this takes some serious getting used to for me!

As we walked up to their home, one flower growing over the awning at the entrance smelled so wonderfully, and we learned from Joe’s wife, Shirley, that it only flowers at night, emitting this fragrance only in the dark. Very cool! Another flower that grows around here has green and purple leaves and when something touches them, they retract and fold up toward the stem as a form of protection. I just love seeing all of these new things!

Anyway, we had decided to “dress up” a little since the occasion seemed to call for that, but when we met with Shirley at the front door, she was wearing a simple Che Guevera t-shirt and jeans! Not what I was expecting, but of course I was happy to see we were in for a relaxed evening with fun people! Joe was still at the office when we arrived so Shirley, two of her nun friends, Misha, and I sat in a circle in the front of the house sipping beers that Shirley insisted we drink - the nuns escaped the insistence that is Indian hospitality with only cokes!

Side note: There is pretty much only one kind of beer here called Kingfisher - it’s the national beer of India as well as a national airline…interesting!? Three other interns arrived so thereafter to join the little pre-dinner drink. We talked about traditions in our respective countries since our little circle represented three states in India, Canada, South Korea, and of course, America.

Joe joined us after a little while and we sat down to a lovely dinner of pea paneer, cauliflower curry, and roti. Joe regaled us with tales of meeting Al Gore and Bill Clinton. It was a really nice evening and Joe has quite the sense of humor and fascination with America. He has named all of his dogs after American presidents and the whole room was practically rolling when he told us the stories about Nixon!

Dessert was a sweet, milky bread almost like pound cake that is traditional Oriya dessert and filter coffee that Joe made for us. It was quite a treat since the best we can find around town is Nescafe - no Starbucks in India! We finished dinner around midnight and returned to our rooms beneath an extraordinarily starry sky as we were in the middle of a power outage. The whole evening was quite a treat!

The next morning, Christmas Eve day, I awoke to some rustling in my bathroom. I have been hearing stories lately of black bears, wild boar, and other wild things that live in these parts and frequent campus so of course, my imagination ran away with it! I heard some crashing noises as bathroom things fall from a shelf inside the little room. Uh oh! I open the door to see if my neighbors are awake and of course and very luckily, they are. It was six in the morning after all! I peak inside and enlist Gloria to help me. She arms herself with a stick and the two of us listen at the door. Cracking the door we are holding our breath as to what is going to be on the other side when, gasp, we see nothing! We open the door all the way to see the fallen shampoos and other goods knocked onto the floor. We’re looking all around confused as to the culprit for the wreckage when we look up to the shelf and see a fat mouse starring at us wide-eyed.

Gloria immediately bursts into laughter joking that I was so afraid of a little mouse when she thought it was going to be an anteater or ferret! An anteater or ferret?! Yes, I might be slightly scared of a mouse or any creature causing a ruckus in my room and I’ve seen huge spiders in other interns’ rooms, but I had no idea there could be an anteater in my bathroom! The whole experience was absolutely hilarious and of course Gloria returned a few minutes later with two sugar roti and a cup of chai, “to calm me after such a rough morning,” but now I’m just concerned that I need to be on the lookout for anteaters!

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