Friday 4 March 2011

Making a home - 3rd full day


Tom gave me the idea of buying a few plants for the apartment, to make it feel a bit more like home; well it’ll only really feel like home when I've killed them, but hey!

I went out exploring the local area in search of a nursery or garden centre type place to buy plants, but after searching for an hour or so, I couldn't find anywhere. So I decided to walk to the nearby Joggers Park with a book to read in the sun. When I got to the park which is only a short walk away, I found that it was closed. Apparently it didn't open until 4pm which was a bit weird.

Walking back from the park, I noticed a man pulling a large cart down the street filled with plants that he was trying to sell. I went over to look and tried to ask him how much some of the plants were. It was so difficult because he couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand him. Luckily a local lady that was also looking at the plants translated for me, which was good because I was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed and awkward. I bought a small fern type plant and a plant with a long stem and small white flowering buds on the end. I wanted to know what they were called but I wasn’t even going to begin to ask the guy and confuse him some more. I got both plants for 350 rupees. I’m not too sure if that was a good price or not, but I think maybe I could've bartered with him a bit more to get a lower price, but never mind.




On the way back to the apartment, I underestimated how heavy the plants were and how far away I was, it was so tricky carrying them back! When I got to the lift in my building, a nice lady offered to help and carried a plant all the way up to my apartment. It turns out that she is the sister of our landlord and lives across from us. When I opened the door, she followed me in and put the plant down. She then had a good ole nose around the main living room and kitchen saying, ‘hmm clean’. It was a bit strange; I didn’t really know what to do. I had nothing in so I couldn’t offer her a drink or anything. After a long uncomfortable pause, I thanked her, then she left.   

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