new friends

This is going to be an extremely long post, as much has happened in the past few days while I haven’t had internet access. The wifi has been out since Wednesday morning. Yesterday, Nandani told me that she thinks it has something to do with the digging going on outside on the street. There is a lot of digging and uprooting going on throughout the city. This morning, Abhijeet was kind enough to lend me his modem, because I am still waiting to get the settings on my cell phone for it to act as a modem.

Wednesday evening, Dost, Abhijeet, Sonia (Dost’s mom) and I went to the temples. While we were walking there, Abhijeet asked me if I had heard of “Hanuman ji”. At first I didn’t understand, but remembering that “ji” is added as a suffix demonstrating respect, I realized “Ohh Hanuman? The monkey? Yes, I know who that is.” Abhijeet laughed and said “yes, the monkey.” As we neared the temple, Abhijeet told us that we needed to give him our cell phones, because they aren’t allowed into the temple. He explained that the temple is a target, and has been bombed twice in the past. When we got in, I saw that there were hundreds of monkeys creeping around the temple area. They were so cute! I saw a baby clinging to its mom, and I also saw one slide down a pole, fireman style. Adorable. We took off our shoes, and Abhijeet, Dost, and Sonia proceeded to the Hanuman temple. Unsure of what to do, I waited near the back for them while they offered their respects. Once finished, the four of us proceeded to another temple, thirty feet away, where they told me I was welcome to join them. I did, and Sonia explained that this second temple was dedicated to Ram, Sita, and Lakshmi. We’d stopped to purchase sweets on our way there, and Abhijeet offered me one of his. They basically looked like donut holes (I don’t know how else to explain it…) and were very sugary. I was sad to leave the monkeys, but we left the temple and continued our trek to visit at least four other temples. At the next one we went to, I went up to the shrine with them and got blessed, and followed them to a priest who splashed basil water in our hands, which we were then supposed to drink. I asked Abhijeet, “Will this make me sick?” He smiled and said, “No, it will make you pure.” The next temple we went to, , Sonia told me, had the entire Ramayana written on the walls. The next one we went to, Abhijeet told me, was 2000 years old. My first realization was, “wow, this temple is older than my religion.” While we were walking around, it began to rain. Thank. God. It was so refreshing. After our temple trek, Abhijeet took us back to Nirman on a route, Sonia and I agreed, none of us would have taken if he hadn’t been there. Abhijeet got his Master’s and his Law Degree at BHU (Benares Hindu University) here in Varanasi, so he is very familiar with the city. At one point, we were walking through an area where most of the “houses” were shacks constructed out of crumbling bricks and/or mud, with tapestries for roofs. Abhijeet told me, “this is a lower caste area.” He elaborated, “before 1950, when our constitution was put in place, these people were called untouchables. Now they are called Harijans, because of Gandhi, which means God’s people.” Fascinating. These are the kinds of things I’ve studied, but to hear about it and see it firsthand is remarkable.

We got back to Nirman around 9pm. The four of us had dinner together, as has become custom. Sonia and I were commenting yesterday about how we’ve become a little family, waiting for each other so we can eat our meals together. Similarly, we spend the afternoons together in the coolest room in the guesthouse, the foyer, sitting, chatting, and enjoying one another’s company. Sonia says she’ll be sad when she leaves on Tuesday. She only came for a week to help Dost get settled. After dinner, Sonia continued a conversation we’d been having earlier about the caste system. She told me she is a Brahmin, the highest caste, while her husband is of a lower caste. I didn’t know people still kept track/talked about that. The conversation shifted to marriage, and they told me about how most marriages here are arranged. Sonia told me that she refused to take a dowry when she was married (I didn’t know that still existed!) which made her mother-in-law angry. She explained that, in India, men are often stuck between their mothers and their wives, because their mothers have the capability to make their wives’ lives hell. They told me that, in general, men don’t want their wives to work, because, Sonia said “women who work are considered of bad character.” She told me that fathers view their daughters as liabilities, and that they are a burden until they are able to marry them off. Abhijeet was nodding in agreement throughout the conversation. Sonia explained that men don’t want wives who are independent women, because “they have their own opinions.” This conversation blew my mind.

Thursday morning, I continued working. I’m working with Rupali, whose first language is Bengali, then Hindi, then English (hello language barrier). She is a teacher here. We’ve also been working with two other interns, Harshita and Saloni. The four of us are going through the third grade textbook right now, compiling lesson plans for each chapter. I’ve never been partial to group projects, and the language barrier as well as cultural differences add another layer to the challenge of working collaboratively. So far, it’s been very positive, because when we are successful in working together, it’s extra rewarding. For example, I taught Rupali how to use the Montessori checkerboard for multiplication before Harshita got there. At first, it was very difficult to explain, and I was beginning to worry about whether I’d be able to handle this aspect of being here in India. However, she began to understand, and when Harshita arrived, Rupali demonstrated how to use the checkerboard. It was so exciting for me to watch that, and I began to relax and feel less worried about the communication challenges. Harshita and Saloni speak English almost perfectly, so that has been very nice. On Wednesday, after we finished working and Rupali had left, Saloni, Harshita, and I stayed and chatted for several minutes. We exchanged phone numbers, and I couldn’t help but feel happy about making new friends.

Thursday afternoon, around 2, Avi arrived. I was so excited to see her. I introduced her to my friends here and showed her around Nirman. I’d told my new friends that I had a friend from school coming, and at one point yesterday Abhijeet looked at her and asked, “If you know Pyper, why do you look Indian?” It was funny. Avi explained that she lives here but goes to school in America. It was Dost’s birthday, so at 5, Saloni, Harshita, and Isabel brought a cake. Isabel knew Harshita through a friend of a friend, and only stayed in Varanasi two nights. She has been interning in India for nine months. She is from Germany, and instead of completing her compulsory military service, she opted to do social work instead. The program is relatively new, and they’ve only been accepting women for it for a couple of years. She worked on a peace project working on establishing mutual understanding between people of different religious backgrounds. She told me it involved a lot of diplomatic conversations. Anyway, they brought the cake, and Nawal, Nandani, Irfana, a former student, and Nita ma’am (what they call Prof. Kumar here) joined us. They left, and the rest of us hung out for a while. In the midst of all this, I went outside, and the school’s two dogs were especially playful. However, with these two, the line between playful and aggressive is very thin, and they began pulling on my dress. One even ripped a hole in my dress. They were barking and nipping at me playfully, but one ended up biting the back of my leg. It didn’t bleed, but the skin was broken. Sonia’s husband is a doctor, so she called him, and he recommended that I get vaccinated rather than risk anything, despite the fact that Irfana told us that the dogs had been vaccinated. F’n wonderful. We were all planning on going out to Ganga Aarti on the ghats again, so it was decided that I’d go to the hospital in the morning to get my shot. We rode in rickshaws down to Dasaswamedh ghat, where the aarti took place. It was Dost, Sonia, Abhijeet (he rode his scooter), Avi, Isabel, Saloni, Harshita, and I. When we got to the area, we walked through the marketplace with lots of stands with things to buy and eventually made it down to the ghat. After the aarti ended, we got blessed, and then Harshita, Isabel, and Saloni all left. As we made our way through the crowd, people were trying to get me to buy their goods, and Sonia said “I have to take care of you, everyone wants your attention, you can’t get lost!” Love her. Sonia, Dost, Avi, Abhijeet and I walked toward where Abhijeet left his scooter, but stopped at a small, cramped restaurant to have some water and snacks. The snacks were very good, I’ll have to ask what they were called. The first thing was made of fried bread covered in a sweet, reddish brown sauce, a very spicy green sauce, yogurt, and cilantro. Then we had these fried, rounded out, crispy bread things with potatoes, onions, and cilantro inside. You’re supposed to eat them by pouring a sweet water into them, but I couldn’t chance it with the water so I ate mine plain. Avi, Sonia, Dost and I took rickshaws back.

When we got back to Nirman, we sat and talked for a little bit, and then ate dinner. I wasn’t very hungry, so I only ate two buns, but enjoyed them with the peanut butter Avi brought me J It’s the simple things… Afterwards, I took a shower and then went to Avi’s room, where we sat and gossiped about CMC things for two hours. It was so nice to have some familiarity amidst all of this overwhelming newness. At 12:30, I went back to my room to call my mom and go to sleep. It was the first night that I slept all the way through the night without waking up, personal victory! Because the rain has started a little bit, it has cooled off noticeably, though it is still very hot.

This morning, the five of us (Avi has joined our family) had breakfast. After breakfast, I worked with Harshita for a little bit on the curriculum, but then we went to go see the students performance. They conducted a little play, some yoga, and a dance, as the culmination of their summer term. It was adorable. I took a video of their dance, and it might be one of the best things I have. After the performance, Avi and I went with Tivali (the guard at Nirman, also the man who fetched me from the airport) to the hospital. Wow. Indian hospital. Wow. At one point, I was the only white person in a room full of about 150 people, and about a third of those people were staring at me. Medical attention, especially getting shots, has always made me nervous. Needing shots in a foreign country…stress, stress, stress. The wait for the doctor I was supposed to see was supposed to take an hour, but Avi rocked it and pushed our way to the front. She told them that I was a foreigner and that I’d been bit by a dog and that it was very serious. So not true, but we only waited about ten minutes before the doctor saw me. He was very cordial and friendly, and the consultation only took about 5 minutes. He explained that I’d need five injections (fabulous.) and that the sixth was optional. It cost 650 rupees for the consultation, which was 150 more than was written on the wall. When Avi confronted them about it, they explained that it’s the foreign patient price. Haha. Part of the reason why Avi and Tivali came with me was to avoid getting overcharged. After the consultation, we took the prescription he’d given us downstairs to the pharmacy, where I bought the injection for 370 rupees (under 8 dollars). We then took it to the emergency room, where my shot was administered. Eeeeek. I explained that I’m afraid of needles and can’t see the shot before it’s given to me. The Indian doctors laughed at me, but it went alright. I paid 50 rupees (around a dollar) for the administration fee, and we also had to pay for the gloves the doctor used. Originally, the pharmacists said it was 89 rupees for the gloves, which was absurd. Avi came back and told the doctors that, and they said no, it should be 6 rupees. That’s what we paid. I have to go back there on Monday, next Friday, the Friday after that, July 2nd, and July 18th to get the rest of the injections. At least now I know how much everything costs so they can’t cheat me when I go back.

When we returned to Nirman, I told Dost, Harshita, Saloni, Isabel and Pratishtha (another intern) about my experience at the hospital. I then called Hadley and we chatted for over 20 minutes. Love. At 1, Dost, Avi, Pratishtha, Saloni, Isabel, Sonia, Abhijeet and I got into cars that had been sent for us to go to the army mess at BHU for lunch. Pratishtha had invited us because her father is, my impression is, high ranking in the military. Sonia, Avi, Isabel, and I got to ride in an airconditioned car – such a wonderful treat! (wow…this is what my life is here) When we got to the mess, we sat in a reception room, where we were brought soft drinks and snacks. We sat and chatted for a while – Isabel and I talked about Germany and also, very interestingly, about seeing the swastika as such a common symbol here in India. I really enjoyed talking with her. After a while, Pratishtha’s father and two of his comrades joined us. Something I’ve noticed about the culture here is that when superiors or elders enter the room, everyone stands up. It happened when they walked in, and then I noticed that they only shook hands with and asked the names of Abhijeet and Dost (the only men). They acknowledged the rest of us (“namaste”) and then we all sat down. One of the men went around the room asking all of us to give a brief summary of who we are, what we’re doing, and something we like about Benares. After a bit, we went to eat. Pratishtha said she’d remembered to ask the cooks to make the food more bland since I was with them. I still thought it was a little spicy, but manageable. It was really delicious, and I have to agree with something I’ve heard Indians say before, food really does taste better when you eat it with your hands. It was delicious. We had chole bhature (I’m sitting with Sonia and Abhijeet right now, they told me how to spell it) with raita, which had cilantro and onions…I loved it.

After lunch we came back to Nirman and have just been hanging out in the common room (foyer) since we got back. I’ve been working on this entry in word, and Abhijeet just let me borrow his modem to post this. Afternoon tea just arrived :) Sonia always mixes it for us, but gives me extra sugar because she knows I like sweets. I’ve compared her to Wendy from Peter Pan, mothering us all, while Avi, Dost, Abhijeet and I are the lost boys. I’ll be sad when she leaves.