water bombs and anarchy

The city is rapidly running out of water, electricity and fuel but expat life carries on almost unscathed. Ladies still lunch and fancy dress functions are still planned. This week I even did my army wifely duty and organised a partners' club trip to a fair trade jewellery workshop. And the most we have to worry about is the escalating cost of diet coke. Meanwhile, the county is descending into chaos. Down in the Terai (on the border with India) there has been a region-wide strike for around two weeks now, and the airport is closed. Its all a bit strange and brings to mind a quote from an aristocrat in pre-revolunionary France I read today, which was something about dancing and laughing to the edge of the precipice. It does feel a bit like that.
This week, as well as putting to the back of my mind thoughts of forthcoming anarchy and deprivation, I've been struggling with feeling unpopular. I organised a class party for the nursery mums after school on Monday, which was spectacularly poorly attended. Afterwards many people claimed not to have received an invitation - hmm, that old chestnut. Then there was the partners' club trip to the fairtrade jewellery workshop, which was also very shoddily attended - not one of the Gurkha wives made an appearance (I suspect they only put their names down for the trip because the QMs wife asked them to, and then just 'forgot' to turn up). I'm trying not to take it personally. But maybe I smell?
I have started reading The God Delusion, which Hubby gave up on a couple of weeks ago because by the end of the first chapter he had cricked his neck and got a nasty bout of food poisoning. This he took to be a sign from God to read no further. I'm up to page 115 and not yet been struck down with muscle strain or botulism, so maybe God doesn't give a monkeys whether or not I believe in him, or maybe his punishment has been the subtle creep of paranoia about my body odour resulting from my two disastrous attempts at social events this week.
What else? We had Holi, where everyone goes round lobbing paint and water balloons at each other. That was a laugh. The gate guard suddenly got in touch with his inner child and was filling up water bombs for Son to lob at passing women. Luckily Son has inherited hand-eye skills from me and missed. Guard also went AWOL for some not inconsiderable amount of time with a water squirter and a cheeky grin. Decided it would be a bit tight to tell his boss he abandoned his post and left me and the kids unguarded and at risk from marauders and thieves. Luckily the marauders and thieves were all busy hurling water bombs as well.
Hubby is off to the UK tomorrow. He is busy packing his life into a little bag to take with him. His life seems to consist mainly of polo shirts and electronic gadgets. I would like to think he'll miss us, but I suspect he will be far too busy finding interesting new functions on his phone and being talked at by other men in neutral-coloured polo shirts. We will miss him though.