For A Country Full of Computer Programmers, Why Can't I Find a Decent Internet Cafe

First off let me apologize for the long delay in chronicling my life in India. But it has been ages since I have gotten computer access (also sorry to those who have emailed me but I have not been able to reply to as of yet).

So I have been in Kolkata for a bit over a week now. And it has definitely been interesting, wet (is it ever going to stop raining!?), but fun nonetheless.

So after my ordeal getting to the CINI guest house. I learned that someone will be in in the morning (as in Tue. 13/Sep) to talk to me and start the orientation process. She arrived the in the morning and turned out she was really nice. We talked for a while as we waited for the other fellow to arrive, because she was coming in by train from Delhi. At this point is where I learn that this campus is the main HQ of CINI (where they started 30 years ago) and that I was in fact NOT in Calcutta, but in the district south of it (South 24 Parganas to be exact, in a town called Pailan). This was SO not part of the deal!!

After Margarette shows up (she had some drama of her own getting there) we head over to the office of the CINI Adolescent resource Center, where I'll be working. The ARC is IN the city proper, actually in a pretty area called Golpark. The sucky part is that it takes a freaking hour to get from Pailan Golpark! and that's if you hire a call. The cheap ass foundation only pays for an autorickshaw (which if I were to do that it would take 3 rickshaws and 2 hours, so not cute - no worries the appropriate authorities at the foundation have been contacted and they will be covering the extra expense of hiring a car, becuase there was no way in hell I was going to that that commute. Granted it would have been temporary becuase I already requested an apt in the city, more on that later.)

Point of this story (because I got bored of writing it) is that for the past week I've been in orientation for the agency and the projects. Their orientation period last 3 weeks (I finish on 7/Oct) and it includes observing/shadowing all the different department and projects of CINI, which is kinda cool, but very long. It also means that I wont start any real work until the 13/Oct, because 8-12/Oct is Durga Puja (for you non-desi folks, it's like Indian Mardi Gras in West Bengal). Anyway, I've spent most of my time in the villages around Calcutta and running around the city finalizing logistics and getting acclimated. Not having regular computer access sucks, till today i haven't had more than 10 uninterrupted emails at a time since i got here. And for the record internet cafes in this country suck. I haven't found a good convenient one yet :-P

Bottom line - I'm alive, but stilled unsettled.