Just add water

When we first moved into our house here, Zazie was set up in her very own room. We moved all of her clothes, her special blankets, a few of her important toys and bought her brand new sheets (blue and red, of course, her choice). Up to this point, she has had elaborate play areas, but no real "room" of her own. She said it was the prettiest room in the world. At least for the first three days. Then it rained for two days straight. And little Zazie's room turned to dust. Literally. A half inch of paint fur appeared on two of her walls. So we called the caretaker,who called the painter, who called his three best friends and then they all rode one motorcycle to our house (with a ladder, no less).

In addition to the ladder, the painter brought a little bag of dust (identical to the fur growing on Zazie's walls), a paintbrush and a scraper. He scraped off the dust. He then added some water and some fresh paint dust and made a watery, whitish liquid which he then applied in about forty-eight coats onto the wall (this took him all day to apply, hours and hours and hours). When he was ready to leave, you could still see the water stain through the many, many coats of "paint," though the wall looked smooth enough.

This was one of those moments when Vik and I just looked at each other and decided to let India be India. We kind of couldn't believe that they just painted it again, but they did. Now what? Because we haven't found an Indian assertiveness training seminar yet, we just gave the guy some chai and cookies and sent him home.

Two days passed.

In this time we did what any self-respecting parent would do to take care of this problem: we moved all of Zazie's things into our room, put her mattresses on the floor next to our bed and just waited for the paint to get furry again.

It did.

So we called the caretaker, who called the painter, who called his three friends, who rode the motorcycle, which carried the ladder and reenacted the whole scenario. Except this time the caretaker had a brilliant idea. They would add glue to the paint-ish liquid and then it would not come off. Really? Glue? Okay. Why not? Zazie now thinks our room is the prettiest room in the world and never wants to go back to that old room anyway (after just two days, mind you).

Everything goes exactly the same: the thin, watery goo, the hours and hours of successive coats, the chai, the cookies and the water stain still apparent upon departure. This time we are told that it puffed up because the air conditioner was too cold. We should leave the door to the back patio open and leave the air off for about three days.

Which we do. Though it is four billion degrees. AND though we know that there is a leak in the wall. Still, we leave the door open.

Three more days pass. We are to the present. Guess what? We have furry walls again.

Tonight, the caretaker comes to fix the gas cylinder for our stove again (a story I will not be telling in order to prevent our parents from freeeeeeking out) and I show him the wall. He says he understands. That, no, of course the baby should not sleep in here like this, the dust is so toxic, this must be very hard to live with everyday, so much trouble, yada, yada, yada. Then he says, "I know just what we will do! We will buy real paint and paint it. ASIAN paint. We will buy paint and we will paint it and it will be good. It will be perfect."

I am beginning to wonder if there is even a wall under all that dust.

All the student's arrive to the campus tomorrow. 66 students and their parents. What is going to happen? The problem here is that the university isn't exactly, um, well, built. We are told that all the doors should be on by tomorrow and most of the furniture put together. They have asked all the professors to come early, fresh-faced and ready for anything.

This is too real. I wonder if underneath this whole venture--the move, the job, the little root we are planting--there is nothing but more and more dust, held together by many coats of pure will and lots of labor.

We'll let you know in a few days, after the dust settles.

Does the dust *ever* settle?