Day One Continued

So, back to the blog. I just shared a beautiful experience. I feel as if every moment is an entirely new and wonderful opportunity for growth. This ride is like a roller coaster - both figuratively and literally. They don't need roller coasters over here - a cheaper form is just riding on the road. With the animals, people, and vehicles, there is plenty of action to keep you entertained. I had 3 chapatis and 2 bananas this morning before we even left the ICRISAT campus! Oh boy - shoulda run to breakfast if I would have known what time we were gonna end up leaving. We ended up leaving at about 7:30 - so from this time forward I am no longer worrying about the time - I am just along for the ride. That will be much more enjoyable!

To begin my day, I woke up at 4:40 a.m. after a laaaattte night of packing because I had some things to do and I wanted to make a few send-off phone calls before I left. (And we were gonna leave at about 7:00.) I was very worried about sleeping through my alarm b/c I wasn't getting too many hrs. of sleep, but miraculously I shot out of bed at the first sound of it and was bright-eyed and ready to go. I needed to get Claire up in the morning - I had some late night correspondence with Lisa who told me not to bring my visa. However, I had my visa with me so needed to give it to Claire to give to a woman working here to put it in a safe so it would be secure. I tried to get in touch with her last night - to no avail, so I was anxious about that as well! Lots to take care of before I left - hence the 4:40 wake-up!

So I called her phone in the room at about 6:30 and miraculously, she woke right up. (She is a heavy sleeper, so I didn't know how successful I would be!) She gave me some tape (for my mosquito net) and some anti-diarrhea meds to bring also in case of incidents while out. (I brought some more natural ones, but when on a road trip, sometimes you may need the ones that will just mask the symptoms asap! I then headed out to the housing office to be early for our adventure and it was so funny when I saw Andre prancing through the courtyard towards the housing office. I forgot about the whole tardiness thing at this time. . .

Last I knew, he was not supposed to come, but here he was with a bag in tow. Yesterday when hearing there was a possibility he may come, I was skeptical it would actually happen and I was a little concerned about completing my study and collecting my data if there were lots of other objectives needing to be accomplished. (Self-centered, I know!) But upon seeing him and speaking with him, I was so relieved and pleased he would be accompanying us on our trip. This way, I am not the only intern or foreigner along!

We stopped at an ICRISAT employee's house on the way to pick him up and got to go inside. Of course, chai went along with this stop, but I declined the offer. They told me I would need to have chai in the village though to be socially accepted, so I considered myself warned. We will see about that - maybe I will be able to get out of some of those cups! My friend told me when she goes to the village she has like 5 or 6 cups a day! Ugh! Chai here is either caffeinated black tea, or the most common and popular milk-based sickly sweet concoction which looks more like hot chocolate. "Rupsha Mom" as we have termed the woman who is accompanying me on this journey, said the tea is so sweet in Maharashtra, you get a sugar mustouche after finishing a cup. It is nice they are kind and accepting when I don't want to have the same to eat or drink as them. I am being very cautious about safe food.

I taught them about applesauce. Byjesh had never heard of it and didn't know what it was. I was talking about summer at home with the vegetable garden, orchard, and what we do with all of our delicious produce. It was so neat to share these stories. I sat in the back on the ride - bouncing around like a piece of luggage. I get a big window out back though, and a little bit of Leah space - which is nice. These bumps though. . . :/ :)

I am getting stares of course. I love the double-takes. I thought, man I am only white and get this much attention. What if I was white and could juggle? I bet a white juggler would get even more stares - if that is possible! My stomach strongly dislikes Indian driving - we are passing all of these fruit and vegetable stands and these women have a little pot where they roast sweet corn - or kinda burn/charcoal it. I found out that the Indian summer for the children is from April to June (during their summer!). Makes sense, huh?

I went from feeling horribly sick to now feeling wonderful. We stopped for lunch and I did not feel well at all so I planned to refrain from eating anything at the restaurant. "Rupsha Mom" told me I should at least get something to eat, so I asked if I could run back to the vehicle. Our driver went with me and opened it up so I could get some money out. I felt I should not have another banana or chapati! So I wanted fruit from a street vendor. I told him that and he came with me to purchase some. He asked me if I could understand his English ok, and I said, yes, that it was very good. He then told me that I should not go anywhere alone, and as I felt a million eyes on me, I quickly nodded that was ok with me!

There was all sorts of fruit: apples, pears, bananas (heaven knows I had enough of these along!), mangoes, pommegranate and others. I was soooo tempted by those apples and pears - I eat so many of these back home - but I restrained myself for a "safer fruit". I settled on the pommegranate because you eat the berries on the inside - not the shell. In one of my health books I was just reading about pommegranates and thinking, man I never see those, so now I did! This was my golden opportunity. Unfortunately, I would not have a knife to peel any apples or pears.

The fruit sellers, however, kept marking up the prices when Vishnu - our driver - would barter with him. This was b/c I was a white foreigner - quite obviously! So he told me to stay back and he would go ahead to secure the price before I would arrive at the stand. He rushed ahead to set a price before the sellers would see me and I awkwardly "played it cool." That is, as cool as a pukish feeling marshmallow white girl can play it with everyone in a 100 meter radius staring intently. I was just thinking, wait a minute, I thought I was never supposed to go anywhere alone! Come back!!! But I could still see him and everything, I just had to keep a little distance so we would not be seen as a pair.

He settled a deal, about 5 pommegranates for 40 rps. I really didn't want to buy 40 rps. worth of fruit so I said 20 rps. (what a barterer, eh?) and we ended up getting 3 for 20 rps. Success! It was so nice, I then wanted to wash the fruit with my bottled water - boy I was being a safe traveler - and he did that for me. He then opened it for me, using my ICRISAT room keys, and we headed back into the restaurant. He was so kind and took care of me like his own child. I was so grateful and the pomegranate helped with my stomach too. We then got back on the road adn I had another whole pommegranate and then banana I had packed! I felt just great! I got down my vitamins with minimal H20, and decided to treat my happy stomach to a chapati. Bad move. Not feeling so hot then! We soon stopped at a roadside chai place and that rest helped things digest I think.

Note to self: No more chapati in Indian traffic. I will never ever ever again complain about the potholes in Dubuque County again. Oftentimes the roads were actually really nice, but going from 110, 120 k/hr. to brake/swerve/pass vehicle/dodge pothole/ is something to get adjusted to! There are also a lot of speed bumps to keep people going a reasonable rate. Sitting in the back, I smashed suitcases in around me in an effort to keep myself more stabilized.

I am very happy though and have had great discussions with my companions on the ride. One interesting topic was the treatment of Muslims who are minorities. One person was talking about how his son is required to learn the state language of Andhra Pradesh and cannot take English in school because he is Hindu and that is just how the legalities work. (It is like a state pride thing, from what I can tell.) However, if he were Muslim, he could choose what language to learn. There is a lot of affirmative action in the laws in that regard due to the religious conflicts. My friend was saying that if they wanted a riot, put a dead cow in front of a temple or a dead pig in front of a mosque and you would have huge brawls. She said oftentimes the ones doing this would be of the faith that believes the animal is sacred (Hindu and Muslim, respectively) but simply want to start conflict.

Other interesting things we talked about had to do with some of India's history. I didn't know that India was named after the Ingres River or that the British were the ones who changed the spices in the Indian culture. Apparently, the most important spices used to be black pepper, cinnamon and cadmun and the British were the ones to introduce the chili pepper. Of course, to begin the tea frenzy also! It is interesting how that is so ingrained in their culture - it is such an obvious example of their colonial past. . . .