At the school, we were taking a holiday photo for Citta to use on Facebook and in other promotional material. The photo you see below took exactly as long to arrange as you would expect. The students were between 4th grade and preschool, didn't speak English, and were unused to the English alphabet. Having me there as the oddity only complicated matters. It was like herding cats.. While wearing a suit made from mice. After more than an hour and directed wrangling from the roof, we took a bunch of pictures. After the students went back into their classrooms, I snuck in through the windows after the teachers went for a meeting. I spent a little while causing some general mayhem. The students are always so excited to see me and play games when I'm around. They're just like kids everywhere and I love how the cultural barriers present in much of my life here simply don't exist with children.
I rode back to the hospital with many and ate lunch with Bikas, biku, baba G and chinku. It was fried fish and oily vegetables with rice. I'm still not used to eating the heads but struggled through a couple. I walked around inviting the hospital staff to my feast tonight. Most of what I said was missed. But the "tonight" "eat" and "mutton" I think came across well enough.
I waked around the village and ran into Lipu and some of the other guys. They're sad I'm leaving tomorrow and so am I. Biku is going to Niele with some other friends to get things for the picnic they're having in a couple days and he wanted me to come. I feel like I want to spend more time just walking around the village. Now that it's almost time to go, I want to enjoy the simplicity for a few more hours.
At Niele, I bought two things I've been meaning to for a while and Biku got his teeth cleaned at a dentist. The office was a little room off the side of an alleyway and biku called the dentist when we got there. While we were waiting for the dentist to come from his home, I had a long conversation with an Indian man. His brother lives in LA and he's an engineer who's about to go work in Singapore. He wants badly to come to America and asked me to find him a job. He said it doesn't have to be engineering. We also talked about language and the direction India is heading. It's a little hard to understand him but he speaks better than most in Juanga. He said that he's been to the hosptial and schools and that he feels proud for the people of Juanga. He wanted to stress the importance of what Citta's development there has done to their lives and those of the nearby village. It was uplifting to hear about the projects impact from someone who could see the entire change. We exchanged information and I'll contact him when I get back.
The dentists office seemed almost normal to me but I have the nagging feeling that if I hadn't lived in a village hospital for the last two months, I'd feel very .. Very differently about the quality of this office.
While biku was getting his teeth cleaned, they brought chai. It's a little like a dentist handing out cookies. I don't like the milky sugar tea at all, but usually drink it when I'm offered in new places. Even if they understand why I don't want it, my refusal leaves a negative feeling that an acceptance would not. Also no Indian dealing is complete without the concluding shared chai. Except this time, biku told them I don't drink milk, and they insisted on making me a lemon chai. It sounded great. . It wasn't. It took me a while to place the flavor as I was fighting a grimace. It tasted like someone boiled the slime that forms on raw chicken if it's been left out too long and then spiced it. . Never again.
Towards the start of the procedure, the power went out and they switched to manual tools. It came back after about 20 minutes. The dentist refused to charge biku because his cousin had gotten a free operation at the Citta hospital and also because he knows of Govinda. That mans name opens all the doors around here.
Afterwards, we went to buy biku some underwear and pick up some shampoo for the head nurse. We also stopped about 5 times on the ride back for unidentifiable errands and to fill the trunk with giant sacks of potatoes. I had some fun unloading them and carrying them to the kitchen over Chogolah's protests that I shouldn't be doing work.
Hari had just started cooking for the goodbye feast that I had arranged (through Biku) as a thank you to the hospital staff. Mutton is the king of feasts here so of course that's what we were having. I helped cook for a while and then wandered around talking to the staff and some patients. The dinner wasn't ready until after 11pm. Around 9 I found the last of my emergency granola bars from home and I was markedly less grumpy after eating it.
The feast was started before Hari was done cooking and the the three kitchen staff didn't eat with everyone. I was conflicted on trying to have everyone else wait to eat. I don't understand the customs here. I served some of the food, which was I think what was appropriate. We ate in silence like usual but I think people enjoyed the food. Several thanked me afterwards and I told them how much it meant to me to be here. After the first feast, I went downstairs as Hari was finishing up. I served and then sat with him, Chogolah, sambit, and Surgio. There was more conversation here and it was nice to talk with them. I insisted on cleaning up and was successful for a little while but I think I was just slowing things down so Chogolah took over. The other three went home and I hung out chatting for at least another 45 minutes while Chogolah scoured the entire kitchen. I think he was very grateful to have me there. He left around 1am for the 2km ride back to his house and I went to sleep.
-AB
Hari, the top chef
A goodbye feast on the roof
Nothin' beats mutton
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