I woke up a little later because it was an off day.
I woke up in a hot room with sleeping pads covering the floor. You could squeeze another person in if you tried, but that would mean blocking the bathroom door, as well as the front door. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Our bags, instruments, and bodies cover almost all of the floor space and it doesn’t help with the heat. Our only saving grace is the ceiling fan going full speed above us.
I sat up, my tailbone a little sore from the sitting on the ground all day, yesterday. I looked around to see that a few other people were awake, but no one had left the room yet. It was 9am and very hot. It was going to be a crazy day.
Our goals for the day were to see some of the girls we are living with perform in a Children’s Day dance competition, go to a local market, and eat some ice cream. Not too much to ask, right? Well, it turns out that foreigners were not allowed to attend the competition, so our plans quickly changed.
I decided to spend some time reading and writing in my journal. It was much needed. After a little while, Lydia and Maggie started to do laundry. I had one kurta (Indian traditional shirt) that I wanted to wash, so I joined in on their washing endeavor. We scrubbed our clothes, and got as much of the sweat smell out as possible. We dumped the water off of our 4 story roof into the pigpen, and went downstairs to fetch more water for rinsing. Soon, we were done, and we could hang them up to dry on the roof.
When we were finally done with that, people started to talk about what they wanted to do. “Why sit in a room all day when you can be in INDIA?!” and “I am fine to tuk-tuk or walk there. Either one is fine as long as we get ice cream.” and “I’m good to just walk the strip.” statements started to come up.
We finally decided to get ready and walk to the other side of town. An adventure of sorts. First, we made it to the main road, where locals catch tuk-tuks and ride their motos. We took a turn, telling a slew of tuk-tuk drivers that we were just walking and wouldn’t need their services now. We passed kids on bikes, stray dogs, street food carts, and many small businesses. The 5 of us stopped at our favorite fruit stand and bought an array of fruits, from grapes to oranges to apples. The stand workers diligently looked through the piles of fruit to find the freshest fruit for us. They love us well in that way.
We kept walking and I tore into my half kilo of grapes. They were fantastic, especially because I was getting very dehydrated. It was HOT.
We made it to a large intersection where the traffic goes every direction. We looked around and made sure that traffic was slowing down and confidently crossed a road. Cars, motos, and tuk-tuks honked as they all made their way to their destinations. We made it.
As we got to our destination on the far side of town, we stopped at a food cart called “spicey samosas.” Let me tell you, these things are magical. Flaky, deep-fried dough filled with any variety of things… fried noodles, corn, potato curry, onion, and many more. Each one only cost us 6-10 rupees. (10-15 cents in USD). They were fantastic. We also met two young men that wanted to get selfies with us. We did it, and moved on our way.
Moments later, we decided to look in a sari shop. We had been thinking of buying them, and the shop looked very fancy. It was like walking into David’s Bridal to look for a wedding gown. Brightly colored fabric everywhere, workers ready to help, and everyone trying to sell it to you.
We stayed there for a while, looking through fabric and getting an idea of what it actually looks like to purchase a sari. Turns out, it’s pretty difficult… especially when no one speaks each other’s languages. Also, my American arms are too large to fit into any kind of shirt in this place.
We went on our way, found a bakery, found an ice cream truck, found the same guys who had taken a selfie with us earlier, then found ourselves in an hour long conversation with said men. The ice cream man got involved after a few minutes, too. They showed us pictures of Grace and Lydia’s Indian heroine lookalikes, bought us fruit from the stand next door, and asked us all of the stereotype movie questions. Do you like to dance? Do you like to eat a lot? Where do you live, Hollywood? Do you drink? What kind of marriage do you want? The questions went on for a long time. The photos happened again, as well. It was a good time.
When the questions died down, we went back toward our home and decided to check a few more sari shops.
After miscommunication, confusion, and some walking back and forth, we found ourselves at the original, fancy sari shop. I have never been married, or really even thought about selecting a wedding dress, but I imagine what happened is similar to the “say yes to the dress” moment. They unfolded this insanely long piece of fabric, full of dark blue, gold, and ombre’d orange. It was beautiful. The woman behind the counter did her best to drape the fabric in the way it would be if you wore it, and it was beautiful.
I decided to buy it.
We still had to find a way to get it “stitched” as it is just a huge piece of cloth, so we found a place, got measured, and made our way home… with one final detour.
We found a place that would wash our hair (Grace), do our eyebrows (everyone), wax our nasty armpits (me and Lydia), and give us facials (Maggie). We spent time being treated to all of these things (and a little pain from waxing… first experience with that.) The women treated us to lemon tea while we waited, too.
The trip home included some more samosas, panipuri, fried noodles, and a long walk. Finally we were home. We could eat dinner, watch a movie, and sleep.
Today was crazy long day, but it was SO good.
kristen
