tuesday, december 12, 2006 settling in in tirupatipoole/wakingdream/wakingdreampart2.pdf ·...
TRANSCRIPT
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Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Settling in in Tirupati
I was met at the airport in Tirupati by two of the
professors from the Division of Education at Sri
Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalayam (Women’s
University), henceforth to be referred to as SPMVV. Both
professors have the same first name, and that’s how they
like to be addressed, so I’ll refer to them as Professors
Vijayalakshmi.
They couldn’t have been more welcoming. Nor could
they have been more solicitous that I had everything I
needed. We arranged that I’d go with them next day to
the university in
order to meet with the Vice Chancellor (President), Rector
(Provost), and the heads of various schools and
departments who might be interested in using my services
as a lecturer.
I spent my
first night in
Tirupati
(Dec. 7) at
the Bliss
Hotel,
which was as blissful as its name suggests. The
coolest thing was the “musak” in the elevator,
which consisted simply of the repetitive chant of
the soothing, sacred, meditative Sanskrit mantra
“Ommm...”, the “m” sound lingering like the
soft, muted reverberations of a temple bell.
Welcome to India.
Looking out the window of my hotel room, I saw
for the first time what became an accustomed
sight: cows wandering free on the open road. It
was not unusual for a cow to flop down on the asphalt in the middle of the road; and traffic
invariably gave way to such large beasts. The cow is protected in Hindu India, not sacred as
Professor D. Vijayalakshmi
Professor G. Vijayalakshmi
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such, but revered and treated with great respect. Hindus do not eat beef. Most rural Indian
families have at least one dairy cow, a gentle spirit who is often treated as a member of the
family. Dogs, on the other hand, are lucky if they’re not knocked for six if they linger too long in
the road.
I’d decided ahead of time that I’d play safe food-wise and go vegetarian for the duration of my
stay in India. I also quickly discovered that, in more traditional southern India at least, alcohol
was frowned upon and in any case not easily available, so right away I decided to do without it.
So far the food has been, without exception, delicious and, more to the point, free of adverse
gastronomical repercussions. I had already spent two days in Delhi without even a hint of the
dreaded “Delhi Belly,” and the same continues to be the case after almost a week in country.
You’ll recall, perhaps, that before I left the States, at a sendoff dinner with the UPJ Division of
Education faculty, my good colleague Bob Swanson had thoughtfully given me the gift of a
couple of boxes of Pepto Bismol and Immodium-ID. Needless to say, I brought them with me
and carried them everywhere in one of the pockets of my safari jacket. Now that I’m settled
into what I expect to be my permanent residence in Tirupati, the pills are in a cabinet in the
bathroom. I know where they are; I fully expect to have to use them; it’s just a matter of time…
Talking about time, three days’ parked downtown in Hotel Bliss has helped me to more or less
recover from the jet lag resulting from India being 10 ½ hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time
in the States. Interestingly, when India was still ruled by the British, someone or other in the
government decided that it would be convenient if the whole of the sub-continent (along with
Sri Lanka) ran on the same clock, even though the country is, in fact, two time zones wide (what
were called Bombay Time and Calcutta Time). So the decision to set the clock at Greenwich
Mean Time (GMT) + 5 ½ hours, discussed in India and disputed ever since, has stuck.
My accom-
modations in
the university
guest-house
far exceed my
expectations.
Boy, did I luck
out! Prior to
coming to
India, I had prepared for the worst.
I didn’t expect to find a fan in my “digs,” for a start—and I seriously considered bringing a fan
with me. But then I knew there’d be frequent power cuts, so I figured I’d not be able to count
on using even a fan, let alone A/C. I also figured I’d not be able to count on the use of
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technology at home or at school, whether for lesson planning or for in-class use. I expected to
have to fend for myself for food and other necessary supplies. I also assumed I’d be bathing out
of a bucket—if I was lucky. I doubted I’d have the use of a western-style commode; that I’d
have to get used to squatting over a hole in the ground (as some of my fellow Fulbrighters are
having to do!). Above all, I doubted I’d have the luxury of hot and cold water for a shower.
None of these fears has materialized. My 'umble abode
is an upstairs apartment in the university guest house.
The
entrance
hall has a
marble
floor and
a marble
staircase
which curves up to the bedrooms on the second
floor. There’s a dining table and chairs downstairs
and a kitchen. There’s also another three-bed
apartment for university guests.
My apartment has a living
room/bedroom with an ensuite
bathroom and, in between, a
dressing room with a closet
large enough for the modicum
of clothes I brought with me.
The living room/area is
reasonably spacious. Normally
the apartment would
accommodate two or three
other guests, but I’m lucky
enough to have it all to myself.
So it has three single beds in it,
two of which I use for counter
space and shelving and where I spread out stuff like hat and books and so forth that I use on a
regular basis.
There’s an AC unit, which works beautifully (wow!). There are also two ceiling-mounted fans.
It’s a reasonably new house, so it has electrical outlets all over the place. I immediately put
three of them to use—one for my electric razor, another for my cell phone, and a third for my
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laptop. Power cuts, though almost daily, last for only short periods of time—never (yet) for
more than an hour, except one time, more of which anon.
I’ve set up the living area/bedroom with a wicker
chair and a desk and office chair I scavenged from
other rooms in the house. Even though the windows
of the apartment are screened against mosquitoes
and other insects, I’ve rigged up a bed net that I had
brought with me from the States. In the 1970s, I’d
lived in
Nigeria,
West
Africa,
for two years and knew full well the importance of
protection against malaria. Back then, even
though I took anti-malaria pills every day, I still
somehow managed to come down with malaria
three or four times. So I took no chances in India. I
had my mosquito net and a six-month supply of
chloroquine. I escaped unscathed.
The
best news of all was that I have a European style
toilet and clean, hot-and-cold running water! The
hot water is supplied by a “geezer”—an electric-
powered
water
heater—
installed in
the
bathroom.
This took
me back to my childhood in England where the hot water
in our house was similarly generated. Before coming
here, I’d told my wife that I’d be ecstatic if, when I turned
on a faucet, any kind of water came out. But I wouldn’t
have wanted a repeat of what I experienced in Nigeria
the first time I took a bath in a hotel. This in Lagos, the
then capital. When I turned on the faucet to fill the tub,
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the water came out orange, tinted by the rust deposits in the iron pipes. The water in my rooms
in Tirupati was at least crystal clear.
I might just as well have been in a hotel in the US, except that this was a whole lot cheaper. My
rental cost was about $2.50 a day and my meals, which were provided by the staff of four or
five who took care of the guest house, cost me about $1.50 a day. That’s $4 a day for room and
board.
The $4 view is of the surrounding garden, which
is cared for by an entourage of staff. When
there’s a breeze, the fronds of a palm tree softly
caress my window. This is winter in South India,
but I’m only about 13 degrees north of the
Equator, several degrees od latitude further
south than Florida, so the climate is really quite
pleasant just now. Come April and May, things
will start to heat up apparently. But I don’t have
to worry about that since I’ll be preparing to
travel back States-side by then.
There’s also a cleaning lady named Mabjaan who sweeps
out my rooms every day, and a dhobi (laundry man) who
takes care of my washing whenever necessary. I’d give the
dhobi my bundle of clothing at the beginning of the day
and it would be returned to me clean, pressed, and folded
(including socks!),
by the end of the
day. I paid him
cash on delivery.
We always dicker
about that, but for
sure he gets more from me than he could expect from
one of the Indian guests. More about the dhobi anon.
Four bucks a day for a well-appointed room with a
view. Not bad. When I described my living
circumstances to my wife, all she could say was: “Yeesh. You’re living like a maharajah!”
The past couple of days I’ve been reminded of the fact that I’m not here for a vacation. I’m
already lined up to address a class of Education majors at 10:00 am this coming Monday. Then,
immediately following that, I’ll be giving a presentation at a seminar for in-service faculty from
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nearby universities who are new PhDs looking for ways to “update their knowledge on
pedagogy,” especially as it relates to the discipline of Business Management. Not quite my area,
though my background in Information Science will help, and I do have 41 years of teaching
experience to draw on! So “no worries,” as they say in Australia.
On Wednesday I’m scheduled to meet again with the SPMVV
Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of the School of Education to
plan my teaching schedule for the rest of my stay.
Meanwhile, I’m getting to know Dr. D. Jamuna, Professor of
Psychology at Sri Venkateswara University (SVU), also in
Tirupati, just down the road from SPMVV. Dr. Jamuna is my
Fulbright facilitator, charged with helping me get settled in
Tirupati. She’s a former Fulbrighter herself, having spent a
year doing research in the United States at Penn State
University in Pennsylvania. Jamuna took her facilitator role
seriously, watching over me like a guardian angel for the full
six months of my stay in India.
Dr. Jamuna has invited me to accompany her, along with some of her SVU Psychology
department colleagues and students, to a conference on Gerontology, which is to be held at the
Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Bubaneshwar, Orissa State, some 630 miles
from Tirupati. She wants me to give a presentation while we’re there and she’s left it up to me
as to what I want to talk about. I figure I can tell the attendees how it feels to be growing old….
Whoops! Power cut. We have one or two a day; no biggie. My laptop here switched to battery
power without a hitch. I might as well go back to bed.
‘Night all :)
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
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Sunday, December 17, 2006
Tech in India ain’t what it’s cracked up to be
Sorry for the delay in posting to the blog, folks. I've been somewhat inundated with teaching,
socializing, getting things sorted out in my apartment, discovering what I can and can't do
technology-wise, and generally doing a whole lot of low-level problem-solving. But things are
coming together nicely :)
I bought a cell phone the day after arriving in Tirupati. I soon dialed Marilyn’s land line phone
number (including the international code for the United States) and, to both our utter
amazement, got straight through clear as a bell! Then I called our son, Zsolt’s, cell phone (he
lives in Pittsburgh) just to see what would happen. No problem; connected clear as a bell once
again. Unlike in the US, incoming calls are not charged to my cell phone, so Marilyn calls me
every day—and what a lifeline that is proving to be.
In correspondence with my hosts at SPMVV, I’d been assured that I would be able to use
internet-ready computers at the university, and that I’d be able to project from my laptop to a
display in front of a class. But I wasn’t taking any chances, so I brought along my own projector,
just in case. Turns out that was a great move on my part. I’ve used the laptop and projector
constantly in class and for other ad hoc lectures.
It’s made a huge difference in helping me prepare for, and deliver, presentations using
PowerPoint as my tool of choice. I include a minimum of words on my slides and a maximum of
images. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It’s really not difficult at all to engage my
audiences when I can look out at them the whole time and address them without a script. All
the guidance I need is a prompt here and there based on the content of each slide.
I believe in using as
few slides as
possible in my
presentations.
There’s a well-
known rule of
thumb coined by a
psychologist named
George Miller who
wrote a paper
titled: “The Magical
Number Seven, Plus
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or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.”
Miller’s thesis is that we’re well capable of holding 7 ± 2 items in our short term memory
without loss. Then we can hold a lot more in our short term memory if we “chunk” data into
groups. So it’s easy for us to remember, say, 10 digits of a telephone number as long as there’s
chunking of the area code + local code + number. Indeed, that’s how we prefer to list a
telephone number on paper or on a computer screen. If we run the numbers together without
a break we quickly lose track of where we are in the sequence as we dial the number. Most of
us find it necessary to write the number out with spaces or hyphens to “chunk” the data.
Well, it occurred to me that the same could apply to a set of slides prepared for a presentation,
except that I go one step further. I tighten Miller’s Magical Number to 5 ± 2 for the content
slides. I bookend a presentation with a title slide and an acknowledgements slide, and in
between I have no more than 5 content slides, if I can help it. I also limit the content on each
slide to a minimum of words and use images—diagrams, photos, cartoons, even video clips—
whenever appropriate.
I figure an audience can hold in mind most
if not all the content covered in a
presentation if the verbiage is kept to a
minimum and the visual content, including
me, to a maximum. The lecturer has to be
engaging, of course, and I always work
hard on that. I hate being bored and I
equally hate to inflict boredom on anyone
else. Having said that, I must admit I’ve
bored the socks off a few students in my
time. Hopefully that’s been the exception
that proves the rule!
So far I've addressed student groups in Business Management (a group of professors who are
meeting to discuss pedagogy issues), Biotechnology Engineering (environmental engineering
and population studies), Computer Science (I talked about Software Design in Software
Engineering), and Education (Instructional Technology). Everyone wants a piece of me, and
that's OK with me, since that's why I'm here.
The university is preparing an office for me, in which I’ll apparently have an internet-ready
computer. Watch out once I’m established there, folks. I’ll finally be able to be in regular touch.
But once again, I'm not taking any chances.1 The internet connections I've found elsewhere in
1 I never did get my own office
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the university are exceedingly slow, so I've arranged to have “ubiquitous” wireless access on my
laptop with a company called Reliance Web World. This allows me to access the Web anywhere
in India--including during class, which is sure to be a hit with my students.
So no worries. I couldn’t be more blessed. I wish Marilyn were with me, of course, but under
these circumstances I can easily survive until we meet up in February, when I’m entitled to a
vacation outside of India. We’ll be rendezvous-ing in England around the time of my mom’s
98th birthday. What a celebration that will be!
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Thursday, December 21, 2006
Of tamarind trees and butterflies and other wondrous things
This morning (Dec. 18) I was walking towards
one of the buildings on the campus of the
university and noticed some students
reaching up and pulling something off a tree.
I wondered if it might be one of those trees
the twigs of which people in Africa and
China, and maybe India, too, use to clean
their teeth. But it turns out this was a
tamarind tree and the girls were plucking
the fruit.
When I asked what they were doing, I was offered
some of the fruit. I took it (it looked like a pea pod)
and I held it in my hand, wondering what I was
supposed to do with it. I asked, and the girl bit into
it and invited me to do the same, which I did. It had
a sweetly bitter taste and was deliciously refreshing.
Later, I looked up tamarind in the dictionary and
learned that it’s a fruit used to flavor drinks, apart
from other things.
Talking about drinks, I haven’t touched one—alcoholic, that is—since I arrived in India.
According to what I have read prior to coming here, public consumption of alcohol is frowned
on most everywhere. But when the Indian is at home, apparently anything goes. So I’m
awaiting my first invitation to a soiree. Meanwhile, I have absolutely no idea where to buy
alcohol other than in a hotel bar and, quite frankly, that’s just not my scene. But I wouldn’t
mind a G&T right now. It’s nearly 5:00 in the evening; the sun’s soon to set over the yard arm;
it’s about that time….
Six mornings a week, on my way to teach at 10:00 am in
the School of Education, I take a shortcut through the bush.
At a certain point along the way, I daily disturb a posey of
pretty butterflies, which flutter up like a gossamer cloud
from their butterfly garden and show off their finery—light
blues and black and orange and white and cream. I hope
they never go away, though I fear their life cycle may soon
leave me bereft of their company.
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On the other hand, like humans, one
butterfly’s life cycle is independent of
another’s, so there’s no reason why they
should all disappear at once. The only
reason that might happen would be if the
butterflies lost their habitat. Sadly, the
shortcut through the bush already threatens
that as we humans, in our haste to get from
place to place, heedlessly cut swaths
through their territory. It’s not enough that
we’ve carved asphalt roads through the
bush to create the university campus; we
have to carve out shortcuts, too?
In an earlier, pre-industrial age, Shakespeare’s Hamlet exclaims:
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving
how express and admirable!
in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!
the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!
I wonder if he would say the same today.
I mentioned in an earlier blog that
power cuts are not uncommon in this
part of the world. We’ve had fewer
than one a day since I arrived, and
they’re always of short duration. But
today was an exception. It seemed that
the power was popping on and off all
morning and all afternoon long.
The first power cut this morning was
particularly ill-timed. I was in a
computer lab with 50 students. I’d
given them each a blank CD-RW to use
to store their files when they work their way through my tutorials. As Murphy’s Law would have
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it, half way through explaining to them how to save files on a CD, and about 15 minutes before
the end of the session, we had a power cut.
It took a while for the implications to sink into my aging brain. We couldn’t continue with what
we were doing; however, that’s OK since I can always come up with Plan B, even if it means
yammering on about something vaguely intellectual for half an hour or so. But then one of the
students pointed out that they couldn’t retrieve their CDs from the drives…. I never did like CDs
for secondary storage; now I had another reason to hate the wretched things.
One of the students solved the problem by suggesting that each student write her name on her
CD case and leave it on the table next to her computer. Three of the students volunteered to
stay behind till the power came back on, at which point they'd gather up all the CDs and return
them to their fellow students later in the day. The power came back on a few minutes after the
scheduled end of class, so their vigil was not prolonged.
This afternoon, after I
finished guest lecturing to a
group of Electronic
Communications Engineers, I
was invited over for a cup of
tea in the Engineering office.
The man who takes care of
the building—a sort of
general Engineering
Department factotum—was
sent off to get tea. He’s the
gentleman on the left in this
photo. While he was away, I
was told that he had
typhoid…
Yikes!! What on earth was he doing at work, let alone getting me tea, if he’s been diagnosed
with typhoid? When he came back, I noticed for the first time that he did look a bit under the
weather, walking at a snail’s pace and weak at the knees. I wasn’t concerned on my own behalf,
mind, since I’ve recently been inoculated against typhoid, but what about everyone else in the
office, in the building, in the university? Isn’t typhoid contagious? I resolved to find out.
I did, and, well yes, typhoid is contagious, but not by contact with someone who has it. It’s a
water-borne disease, so no worries.
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Friday, December 22, 2006
Getting around in India
In the United States, if I want to travel by land, I have a reasonable choice of public
conveyance—transport that I pay for and that takes me places I want to go. I can take a train, a
taxi or a bus. In India, I have many more options.
So far—and I’ve only been
here a little over two weeks—
I’ve traveled by train, taxi,
auto rickshaw (which uses
calor gas for fuel), scooter
and motorcycle. I’ve also had
a ride on a camel, dreaming
of following in the footsteps
of Lawrence of Arabia. But
that was a jaunt for
amusement at Chandrabhaga
beach, near Konark, on the Bay of Bengal. More about Konark and its magnificent Sun temple in
my next blog.
I have other transportation options should the need arise. I
can take a bus, of course. Alternatively, there is quite a
range of transportation powered, like my camel, by animal
(including human) muscle.
I can ride a cycle
rickshaw, a small,
two-wheeled
covered carriage attached to the front end of a bicycle. I
can hitch a ride on a regular bicycle, too, either sitting on
a metal frame
behind the “driver,”
(ouch!) or
ensconcing myself
on the saddle while the driver peddles standing up.
Then I could hire a flatbed wooden cart, pulled either by a
bicycle or a bullock—or by a man…
Moving day
Not the best ride I’ve seen 5 people on one bike
Note the cow on the left, and the
bus is on the wrong side of the road!
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I have seen all these forms of transportation-for-hire over the past three weeks during my daily
trips from place to place. In some cities, one can go for a ride on an elephant, too, though I
suspect this alternative is offered, like my camel, for the primary purpose of extracting dollars
from tourists.
Muscle power has one decided advantage over automated alternatives: you can count on it to
get you where you want to go, even if it takes a bit longer to get there.
The other day,
I was in an
auto rickshaw
with my
Fulbrighter
colleague, Dr.
Jostnya,
travelling to
the university
here in Bhubaneswar, Orissa state, where our conference was being held. As luck would have it,
the auto rickshaw ran out of gas! The driver made various attempts to start the vehicle. These
attempts mostly consisted of rocking the
rickshaw violently from side to side to
redistribute whatever gas was left in the
tank.
No such luck. So I had the dubious pleasure
of helping the driver push the vehicle to a
nearby gas station! Fortunately, Dr. Jostnya
had her camera with her, so the whole thing
is documented for posterity in a sequence of
high definition color photographs.
My favorite form of transportation over the short haul (a couple of miles, say, which is all I need
in and around Tirupati), is most definitely the motorbike—driven by a competent, careful
driver, of course. While some taxis have air conditioning, you have to pay extra if you want it
turned on, and by the time you reach your destination, it’s barely begun to take effect. An auto
rickshaw can get crowded (my gerontology colleagues at the conference here somehow
managed to squeeze 9 passengers along with the driver into a space not much larger than a
sardine can). Another problem with the auto rickshaw is that it’s a three-wheeler which, like a
3-wheeler ATV, is notoriously unstable--or so I suspect.
Needless to say, they don't have air bags--or sides, for that matter.
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On a motorbike, however, you have all the air conditioning you could desire—and more.
Though it’s not unusual to see as many as five riders on a single bike, I prefer to have the
passenger seat all to myself. Most significant of all, on a motorbike you can much more easily
negotiate the unbelievably chaotic traffic conditions.
Imagine a sidewalk in the most popular shopping precinct of any town or city. Crowds of people
jostle together, weaving in and out and around each other, every now and then clipping a too-
close passerby. Now put all those people in or on a vehicle, and you have some idea of what it’s
like to drive in downtown cities and towns in India.
It’d be scary if it weren’t for the fact that I’m kind of used to it—it wasn’t much different than
when I lived in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, and now in India. The traffic has to be seen to be
believed. If Marilyn were here with me in the passenger seat, she’d be having conniptions.
She’d be “eek-ing” and “shrieking” every few seconds as only Marilyn can. But her eeks and
shrieks would go unheard in India, drowned out by the incessant honking and hooting of horns.
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Thursday, December 28, 2006
Mozzies (aka Mosquitoes)!
Those pesky mozzies may not be females of the anopheles variety (the ones that carry malaria)
but they sure are pesky!
And you don’t need a lot of them to drive you crazy at night. I was right to bring a mosquito bed
net with me, but I learned very quickly that you have to take one with you everywhere you go.
I’m not long back from Bhubaneswar, in Orissa state, immediately north of Andhra Pradesh,
where I’d traveled for a conference. I didn’t take my mosquito net with me because I didn’t
think of it, and anyway it’s all strung up in my room over my bed and would have been a pain to
take down and put back up again.
So… The other night, in Bhubaneswar, at 4:00 in the morning, I wake up to this horrible
whining, like a kamikaze plane might sound when it homes in on its target. I’m very soon
reminded once again of just how unbelievably stupid I am when, as the mozzie lands to suck my
blood, I vainly—and violently—hit myself on various parts of my head, smacking my face and
boxing my ears, thinking that in this way I’ll somehow subdue the beast.
Seconds later the whine returns…
I cover my head with the blanket, but then it soon gets to be too hot under there, so I turn the
blanket back down and hope for the best.
Seconds later the whine returns…
It always seems to hover near one or other of my ears on its way into land, like it knows that
that’s where I’ll direct my attack. I wait till the whine stops and, as my pesky friend has
predicted, I smack myself hard over my left ear. Meanwhile the mozzie is sucking the blood out
of my neck.
I no more than momentarily disturb its meal, and the whine returns…
After half an hour of this ridiculous behavior on my part, I decide to get up, turn on the light,
and use my God-given vision to get the bloody thing. I prop myself up in a sitting position,
pillows stacked behind my back. I pretend to be reading a book to fool the mozzie into a false
sense of security.
There it is; now I welcome the whine. I’m alert, every sense strained in preparation for a
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counter attack.
I see it now, dancing in the air nearby, but only briefly while it’s against a backcloth of white
sheet or pastel-colored wall. It disappears each time I grab for it, cleverly swooping into the
camouflage of some dark backdrop.
Then it lands on the sheet and, like lightning, I swoop down with my hand and gleefully smash
out its life.
I hate to kill anything; but I make an exception for mosquitoes.
I confirm my kill. There it is, squashed flat as a pancake in the palm of my hand. But there’s a
smear of fresh red blood on the sheet, and it’s mine, so the bloody mozzie got what it came for
in the end.