Blackouts and "White Beauty"

I feel bad that I haven't posted in a while, but we've had scheduled power outages for the past week that conveniently begin just as I am arriving home from work at night! After the first two or three nights of sitting alone in total darkness, I walked through the pitch black streets to the store and bought myself a candle. I've actually gotten pretty good at cooking dinner in the dark, and my candlelight dinners have been kind of romantic. But I'm really wishing for rain right now, because despite the fact that it is technically the start of monsoon season, we are actually experiencing a drought. And since our electricity is largely hydro-powered, the lack of rain means scheduled blackouts to conserve energy. The whole lack of electricity thing is getting kind of boring.

This past weekend, when I did have plenty of electricity, I watched a little bit of television again. I get 800 channels for three dollars a month, so even though I rarely watch TV, it seems kind of worth it. Ben came over and made me watch the U.S. play Brazil in some big soccer tournament, and I watched a couple of movies on HBO, sadly noting that they cut out all of the nudity and doin' it. They also show a bazillion commercials, most of which are for skin lightening creams! It seems as though every single cosmetic product boasts fairness-enhancing properties, and major brands we have in the U.S., like Ponds and L'Oreal, apparently have lines of skin care products that are marketed directly to Indians, with horribly offensive names like "White Beauty" and "White Perfect." It blows my mind that in a country of people who seem really into being Indian and who have a beautiful variety of skin tones, white is still considered the most beautiful. And while I rarely see people in real life trying to emulate the dress or physique that the media portrays as attractive, EVERYONE is buying lightening products! And putting white powder on their faces for photos! The commercials are unbelievable - you have to watch this. Tell me if my interpretation is wrong, but the gist of the ad is that this chick's boyfriend dumps her for a whiter-looking lady, and the darker chick is sad and realizes that she needs to buy Pond's White Beauty. I am really loving India, but I do not approve of this. At all.

I do approve of goats riding in taxis, though, and I saw one today, but it went past too quickly for me to get a photo. Also, a guy at work told me that he has some baby cows in his yard whose mother was kidnapped, and I kind of want to adopt one as a pet and feed it milk out of a baby bottle.

But this cow beat me up two weeks ago, so it's probably not a good idea. Cows can be total assholes.

I miss Mongo really badly. And you, too. You people need to write me more often. And download Skype, damnit, so that we can video chat!!