They whisked me through amazing traffic passing inches from each other to my new home. Off the main road down a bumpy dirt 2 track, through a lot of construction, past little frond huts and large stucco clean gleaming houses we stopped in front of my new house. It is a large yellow and cream stucco, new construction 2 story house. I live on the bottom floor, and no one lives above me. My yard is completely bricked in and there is a fence and wall around it with a gate which a security guard is ever present just waiting for me to come or go. He appears to live here. There is a little storage building that he keeps his gear in and a shower and toilet room in the back. He has a thin straw mat that he lays out to sleep on. He told me yesterday that he was leaving for a half an hour to go eat--although I think that is what he said--he only speaks tamil. This morning we had tea and fruit and bread together.
I headed out immediately for the beach and to check out the neighborhood. My neighbors are called Gypsies, or bird killers. The driver from the airport told me that they kill a lot of birds and eat cats. They are distinguished by their children who are naked except for a g-string and wear a lot of bangles on their ankles. The plot they live on has a hand pump and the woman was doing her laundry. I entered the labyrinth that led to the beach. It is a windy path through very densely populated houses, some substantial and some made of tin or palm fronds. People were washing laundry in pans in the street, a lot of old women and men sat out front of their houses. People stared at me but with no animosity. Children called out to me, "Hello Auntie!"
In front of the humblest of homes people made chalk drawing on the dirt, and decorated their entrance with some kind of chalk like coloring.