My New Digs

Living in the guest room of the NGO office was fine for a few days, but I was eager to set up a space of my own, have a little more privacy, and strive towards that American ideal we call work/life balance.  I moved this week.

It’s difficult to find short-term, furnished housing for a single Western woman in Chennai.  Maybe if you have a lot of free time to search and money to blow on a broker’s fee.  I decided to consider another and more economical option.  I’m now a tenant in a paying guesthouse as they call it here.  My supervisor at the NGO helped with the search and told me he felt “good karma” when we visited.

I now live in a beautiful middle class home in a quiet(er) area near the beach with an older couple, their adult daughter, and her precocious 10-year-old daughter.  They rent out 2 rooms (each with its own bathroom) on the second floor.  It’s not a homestay since they don’t cook for us and we pretty much come and go as we please. 

Though I’m used to the independence of living alone in a studio in New York City, it’s nice to have the security of being with a family in such a foreign culture.  It’s also a nicer part of town than I could afford on my own and is within walking distance of the office.  I can deal with not being allowed to throw any wild and crazy parties.  I take pride in doing my own laundry and cleaning in the States, but had the option to pay an extra 500 rupees per month (~$10 US) for their cleaning woman to do my laundry.  Everything is handwashed here.  I decided to splurge.

My roommate is a dental student and here only a couple nights a week.  I actually still haven’t met her but hear she’s a “gem of a girl”.  I felt a little uncomfortable signing on without meeting the person I’d share a room with… can you imagine what an arranged marriage must be like?!  Good places are hard to find so I took a leap of faith.  Also, she’s moving out in a month and I’ll be renting the room on my own after that… still for less than I was planning to spend on my own apartment.

The other 2 girls are my age and seem nice.  They work for an IT company with American clients, so our schedules rarely overlap but there’s the potential for socialization on weekends.

It’s nice not to live out of a suitcase and put down my roots for the next 5 months.  The best part?  I traded in the crowded subway cars on Manhattan’s 6 line for a morning commute on the shores of the Bay of Bengal.  Sweet.

(Taken on my new commute… I pass through a little fishing village en route to the ocean.)