Sept 28 - Good Luck? Bad Luck?

Have you heard of the Asian parable where a farmer has several events happen - like his son breaking his leg, but then is unable to leave to fight in the war - always responds with "Good luck, bad luck - who knows?" Well, I've lived it the past ten days since moving into the flat. Though several people have tried to help me the part of town I'm living in, i.e. BRAND NEW, being constructed as I type, has made internet access very difficult to find or create. AND, since I was waiting at the house for a person to come by to test the next hopeful solution, I wasn't able to taxi down to the American Center to upload blogs, email....So, I'm learning that what my friends told me is true for their neighborhood, "wifi won't be a problem" & the Kolkata wifi-pocket map app I downloaded is accurate, the best choice for a flat for me is in the one zone that was most challenging! Bad luck, huh?

Not exactly....I've missed connecting with everyone, to be sure. Yet, time truly only for writing, walking, braving new adventures - like hailing a rickshaw and settling on a price all on my own - have been important steps for me. There's no way around the fact that I am far from home, living alone for the first time in my life....a true break was hard, but healthy. I climbed into bed last night after walking home from tea at a friends house who lives less than a street away, smiled and owned for the first time - "I live in India". Quite a statement. Just silly, frumpy me...living in India. I am extraordinarily grateful.


(I love, too, the irony of moving 7000 miles from home to link people via the internet with no immediate internet access....it's been quite enlightening to hear from Indians across several disciplines - restaurant servers, policy, education, cable executives, college students- how America is viewed as internet obsessed. Indians view the internet in a different way than we do...not as a panacea to solve all, but as a tool for solving technical issues...less creative, less networking. I'd not have heard their perspective so early in the process had I been able to hop right into the project from day one....it'll be important to listen for that filter as I start to build GlobalConnext from the ground up...plus being disconnected has provided time to read, write, think about the project in a whole new way - at least how to modify it for schools who can't access wifi!)

There are backlogged blogs I'll start to post today & then over the next few days...my first stop today is the second largest Vodafone store in Asia where my tech friends have assured me they have a gizmo that'll form a tidy wifi bubble from my flat...wish me luck!



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Location:Kolkata, West Bengal