So, I’ve come to realize that updating my blog every day is
an extremely unrealistic goal… no matter how much I enjoy it. I’ll do it as often as I can, but at least
once a week.
Want to know another unrealistic goal? Learning Hindi.
In assembly on Wednesday and Friday, we practiced singing the
Indian national anthem in preparation for Independence Day on the 15th. On Wednesday, before we sang it through for
the first time, we just worked on basic pronunciation. Basic, my butt. I found it impossible to repeat the lines after
they were read to me. My tongue was
tripping over itself as it tried to tie together the various syllables, skipping
some sounds altogether that just could not be reproduced. Imagine trying to say
“supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” backwards.
Three times. While rubbing your
tummy and patting your head. If you can
do that, then maybe you’re superhuman enough to sing this:
A friend posted this video on Facebook a few days ago, and
it perfectly demonstrates the frustration I feel when trying to say just about
anything in Hindi:
Cracks me up every time, especially his expression at 1:14. Although, I think their time would have been better spent on
another phrase… you can always just point at the menu item :) I bought a veggie burger last night, with
fries and a milkshake. Sabrina, Melanie,
Chris, and I ate dinner at Rokeby… a super-nice restaurant that, surprisingly,
wasn’t super-expensive. We met at the
front gate of the school before getting a taxi up. It’s not a very far walk, but it was really
monsoony.
And, as suggested by myriad scary movies, rain brings the
creepers out of hiding.
When I was walking to the gate (about a 20-minute trip), a
car with four men inside pulled up beside me and offered to give me a
ride. I thought it was a nice gesture,
but also a sketchy one, so I politely declined.
They drove off, only to pull over further down the road and make the
same offer. I gave the same response and
continued to walk up ahead of them. A
few seconds later, the car swerved in front of me and completely cut me off.
They had given up on the ride; now they were offering me a cigarette. This back-and-forth, drive-a-little-then-stop-and-pester
pattern continued for a while.
“It’s okay, we aren’t bad boys!”
That made me laugh.
“You are quick, you are very smart not to ride with us.” (?!)
That made me scared.
Then, one of the guys physically got out of the car and
walked beside me while the car followed us.
At first I was nervous, but then I realized that his head didn’t even
reach my shoulders; my umbrella fit comfortably over his. I could totally push him over the guard rail
if adequately provoked. Plus, I didn’t
know what his ultimate goal was… sleep with the white girl, or just get under her
skin? I tried to remain civilly
distant.
“Where are you from?”
“The U.S.”
“Oh, so Paris? London?”
“No.”
So he was either really dumb, or really drunk.
“What hotel are you staying at?”
“I live here.”
Confused look.
So he wasn’t a local.
When I finally got to the front gate, the car pulled over a
bit further down the road. I told
Sabrina what was happening and she told the school guard. (Apparently, there have been issues on that
main road with female staff members before; when walking home after dark, the
guards will accompany you if they are asked.)
The guard took care of business.
I watched him jump into action and run over to the car in seemingly slow
motion, like an Indian Terminator. The
theme song to Rocky was playing in my head.
(FYI: I have never seen either of
those two movies. The references could
make absolutely no sense.) Point
is: he’s my hero, because they drove
away. He reported back and confirmed both
of my suspicions. They were drinking,
and therefore dumb. The driving here is
insane even for the sober.
I wasn’t until later that I thought about how a similar
scenario would play out in the United States.
We would take down the license plate number and arrest that shit! Things are different here.
Things like ordering food, for example.
On Friday night, I realized I didn’t have any food in my
house. Being unable to just hop in the
car and pick up some ingredients at Wal-Mart, I was forced to order takeout. I
had a few takeout menus from orientation and was going to go with good ol’
pizza, but then I remembered a second problem:
No refrigerator/freezer.
That morning, I had woken up to a soggy peas and spoiled soy
milk. I knew if I ordered a whole pizza,
I was either going to be wasteful or sick to my stomach. So instead, I decided to go the soup/salad
route. Crisp veggies sounded fantastic,
but the place I was ordering from had a 250 rupee minimum requirement for
delivery, unless I wanted an extra 50 rupees tacked on to a lesser order. I figured that a salad, sweet corn soup, and
garlic naan would come to 270 rupees.
Expensive, but perfect for my needs.
Then came the arduous task of calling in the order. Again, for those of you who don’t know me
well, I absolutely hate talking on the phone.
I inevitably can’t hear what the other person is saying, I miss facial
cues, and I just find it to be an all-around awkward experience. The first time I tried calling, I got a
whole lot of static. I got through the
second time, but the static was still there.
I gave him my name, my house name (not an actual address), and my
order. He repeated it back to me and,
though it was really difficult to hear, I heard the names of the three main
items. Then he was gone… no order total,
no estimated delivery time.
Then I played the waiting game.
Food came about an hour later, which was not beyond my
expectations. What was beyond my expectations was the price: 465 rupees! (still only $8-9, but to put it into perspective, this is about what it costs to eat lunch at school for an entire month.) I looked at the receipt and saw that I had
supposedly called in 3 orders of sweet corn soup. At first I figured that I’d just save some
for lunch the next day. But, oh wait, I
didn’t have a refrigerator.
So I ate a lot of soup.
The soup was just okay.
The “salad” was a bowl full of dressing.
The naan tasted stale. Last
night’s dinner was so much better, for so much less.
But why do all of my blog posts inevitably turn to the topic of food? Le sigh…
Here was the real
highlight of my weekend:
Lainey is blowing me a kiss in this picture : ) Later, I got to Skype with mom, dad, Jaclyn,
and Lainey simultaneously! It worked
surprisingly well. Technology is
awesome. I do not think I would have
been able to leave home for two years without the ability to Skype.
Another reason technology is awesome?
I was reviewing the elements of plot on Friday with my 7th
graders, and I introduced the lesson by showing them this YouTube video of my
favorite rollercoaster:
Their reactions were hilarious… they were freaking out as
the car made its first big ascent and there was one big collective gasp when
it finally got to the top. One kid
actually stood up and started jumping and clapping as it went down the hill… he
(and many others) had never been on a rollercoaster! Priceless.
Here is a picture of my 7th grade classroom:
Along with the grading scale for the whole school:
An 80 is an A?! And a
C is actually expected to be the class average?
This is going to take some getting used to…
No comments:
Post a Comment