Okay I can't go on without writing this: My stomach is about to explode. To set the scene, picture nine students taking a Hindi final. We are scattered throughout the program house, taking our exam and eating snacks.
First of all, before the exam, the didis (the two women who cook for our program who are absolutely-tootly wonderful) showed me how to make imli chutney. So I was standing in the kitchen furiously writing down names of foods and vague measurements sweating my proverbial balls off when suddenly Sharda-didi actually shoves a jawbreaker-sized chunk of brown sugar in my mouth. It was delicious...in that way raw sugar is. Mostly it was just absurdly sweet and uncomfortable and did nothing to alleviate my already-persistent nausea.
After that, we started our exam and the didis proceeded to make tasty snacks for us, non-stop, for 2 hours. The snacks were given, in order, as follows:
Bowl of Muesli (oh how foolish the young are when they are hungry)
Chai
Chick Peas in sauce (I gave all mine to Ed)
Potato Samosas (x4 servings for myself)
Imli Chutney
Cilantro and Mint Chutney
Fried Pieces of Deliciousness (AGH I just ate another one because they are so good)
Mango Shakes with Ice-Cream (x one more half-glass)
And then Sanghamitra-Ji asked if we wanted to eat lunch. ARE YOU KIDDING. I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN TURN MY BODY ANYMORE. I MUST LIE DOWN IMMEDIATELY.
Gasp. Okay. I think I can write about other things now. Maybe. Gurgle.
So a week ago I was on my bike going to Madanpura, just going along, doing my thing, when I decided, perhaps also foolishly, to pass a slow-moving cart being pulled by a guy on a bicycle. I hear honking behind me, but I'm always hearing honking behind me, so I remain unworried. I sidle up next to him and give him a nice cordial nod. A mid-sized van then pushes my bike into the cart, pinning my hand between the handlebar and the side panelling, while my left foot gets stuck in the cart while getting pummeled by the spokes of my bike. All three of us go on like that for about 30 really painful seconds, when finally the van disengages, and drives off through the intersection. The cart and I are both going the same speed. We look at each other briefly, he shrugs, and we turn in our respective directions. Ain't no thang. Right.
My hand still hurts, so I glance down at it; other than a strange white spot in the middle, nothing seems to be wrong. Meaning, I am not bleeding, I still have a hand etc. I say to myself, "Whew, dodged that bullet," and keep going. But then my hand really, really goddamn hurts and I look down again. The previously white spot is now dark red and swelling about a quarter of an inch off of my hand. It looks as if I inserted a bullet-sized something into the top of my hand. Things have, obviously, taken a turn for the worse.
I get to my Urdu ustaad's house to teach his kids, but ask for ice and a cloth instead. I ice it, the swelling doesn't decrease at all. Eventually Salman Sahab tells me I need to take the ice off (which is dripping all over his floor since ice melts in one millisecond here) and we both look at it. It seems as if the van stole about 10 percent of the surface area skin on the back of my hand in addition to making the weird red spot. Salman Sahab puts anti-biotic powder on it and wraps it up with gauze. (A note to anyone in the medical profession reading this. Anti-biotic powder: Legitimate or not?) So now I wear my hand wrapped up every day to try to minimalize whatever India could put in my body via an open sore. Here are photos of the wound about two days after it happened. The ones I took the day of are way less impressive, so I'm posting these ones instead.
And this is what my hand looks like on a daily basis now. Hopefully bandages are big in Japan?
Let's see. Other than that, I finally turned in my paper. It ended up being 104 pages and I titled it "Are Ram and Ali Friends?: Hindu-Muslim Friendships in English-Medium Primary Schools in Banaras." And yes, that is the real name. It will be forever known to the University of Wisconsin University system as "Are Ram and Ali Friends?" And no, I'm not ashamed.
The weather has been predictably terrible recently, with absurdly high temperatures like 105 or 111 degrees. At night I lie awake thinking about all the times I joked about the high temperatures here. And then I curse whatever evil fairy planted Junior Year Abroad in my head. Hear that, Scott? I blame you.
In other news, Katie and Michael visited me! Katie is a friend of mine from school whose blog you can find here. From Cairo, she mostly writes about the Muslim Brotherhood (when Egypt doesn't block her IP address). And Michael is her husband on Facebook.
Anyway, it was very fun and we did the ultra-touristy and ultra-beautiful activity of taking a boat ride. I realize I haven't posted photos in a while, and I don't think I have ever posted photos of Banaras. So, here are a few.
The girl is Katie, and the boy is Michael. Which of these photos looks like I photoshop-ed my friends into a stock image of Banaras?
If you picked the last one, you would be correct.
So, I leave Banaras in six days, after which I will spend two days in Delhi and then head off for South Korea and Japan. I keep having these moments of terror/elation when I realize I'm leaving India. Usually I get them once a day and the two feelings always come together. I think about burritos and sidewalks, and then I realize I'll have those things because I decidedly won't be here. Processing things is going very slowly right now, so I probably just won't think about it until the day I leave. I anticipate the rickshaw ride to the train station will be epic. After spending so much of my time hating India, it's bizarre to be given the chance to be somewhere else. Despite my better judgement, I think I might actually miss India.
I hope you all are having a lovely end of April. I will hopefully be able to update as Sara and I travel through Seoul and Japan, and perhaps I will update one final time from India while I'm in Delhi.
-allison
