Objects in the Mirror Are Closser Then They Appear

Disclaimer: I'm sorry, but this post will inevitably be sort of lame. Except the monkey part, which will be awesome. Aren't you already sort of excited to read about it?

Saturday started out with me "waking up" (I say this mostly in jest, because I was awake the whole night PSYCHE!) at seven o'clock, putting on a kameez with a dupatta and jeans, getting on my bike, and going to the S.S.V. School for a field trip. The field trip was sold to me as a day-long (7:30 am departure with a projected return time at 8pm) trip with classes 3-8 to the "nearby" waterfalls.

I arrive there at 7:25, and weirdly enough, everyone actually ends up arriving before me. Everyone, that is, except the bus driver. Psyche.

So I spend an hour standing in the school which is swarming with children with nothing better to do than hit each other and run. I awkwardly stand next to the other teachers, who have obviously formed lifelong friendships with each other and have no interest in talking to me, and watch the children. Me and two students (out of 90) are the only ones in salwar suits, and I feel sort of dorky. Everyone else has ultra trendy (read: sequined) western clothes. Eventually the bus arrives, and boys go in one while girls pile into another. Now, the seats in the bus are not the standard benches, but individual seats. And someone told the principal there were 45 seats on one bus, when in actuality there were only 30. Thus, there is a serious seat crunch. I, again awkwardly, stand otuside the bus for about 20 minutes with people scurrying around me until I am beckoned into the girl's bus. I am seated in the seat right behind the bus driver, aloong with the huge vats of food. Apparently I will always be a dweeb, no matter how many years or miles I get away from 5th grade.

I sit on the bus for an hour or so, sharing my headphones with a disgruntled 12 year-old who would only smile at me when I played Hindi songs on my iPod. Then we reach a river. A big, wide river, with a bridge that looks like it's floating on huge iron pills. It looks stable in that third-world kind of way. Despite this, we all have to get out of the bus and walk across this bridge. While me and 90 children are on this bridge, we hear the bus behind us, and turn around. We all see the bus barreling towards us, honking the whole way. The children start screaming and run to the edge of this one-lane and now bouncing bridge. Now, maybe I'm overreacting, but WHY THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN? If it was due to a weight issue, wait for the children to get off the stupid bridge, and in any case, 90 godamn children are on this one-lane small floating bridge. You can wait for 5 stupid minutes to ensure you don't kill an 8 year-old.

So after the bridge part we drive another hour and a half and arrive at the waterfalls at about 12:15. We have to park a little bit away because there was some walking to do, and every single student asks me at least once, "Is this water? Is there water? Where are the waterfalls? Are there no water in it?"

....

So, anyway, once we walk the 200 feet to the waterfall, the children are appeased and we descend the many steps to get to the water. And, I admit, there isn't a whole lot of water. There is some, thankfully, but not much. (I'm sorry I don't have any photos, but bringing my digital SLR camera to a waterfall with two busfulls of middle schoolers didn't seem like a great idea at the time. I hold the same opinion now.) So, I walk around, or am dragged around, by a bunch of girls. They all want me to swim, and I keep saying that I won't because I don't have a change of clothes. But after an hour of heckling, I am persuaded into swimming. About half a second after getting in waist deep I regret my decision, and continued to regret it until- no, I still regret it. (Jeans + water + 6 hours of bus rides = one of my least favorite activities.)

A student named Shelja comes over to me and swims with me. Swimming, of course, really means sitting on the slime covered rocks at the bottom of a pool of waist-deep murky water and sometimes splashing each other to inject some extra-fun mischief into the experience. It was just really great. After everyone had enough of swimming, we eat lunch and go back in the bus. Some of us are uncomfortably damp and itchy.

On the way I realize that I should to go to the bathroom before we are sequestered on a bus for another several hours. So, I ask a teacher if there is a bathroom in the vicinity, which obviously there isn't. So she says, "Can I stand here as you go behind that building?" I do a double take and figure there is some sort of translation issue. I awkwardly tell her that she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to, which she doesn't understand. I finally tell her she can and go behind the building. I jump a small fence and immediately find that I am in the center of a thorn bush. My dupatta is caught in it, as well as a significant portion of my kurta. I concentrate on freeing them from their pointy attackers, and without looking up I move a few steps away. As soon as I undo my belt, I look up. A man is standing about 100 meters away and when I see him, he yells, "WOOOO!!" I loudly swear at India, and quickly walk back towards the fence. However, the briar bush is in between me and said fence, and it grabs my dupatta and my kurta for the second time. I swear again, seeing the man waving a stick and still screaming. After a few seconds I tear my clothes away from the malicious plant and go back to the front of the building. All of the teachers had decided it was important to wait for me, so 8 Indian professors see me rebuckling my belt, which I think was just really classy.

There is one more stop before we return (Remember: there are 6 hours of unadulterated bus riding involved in this day trip), and it is a natural dam. At least, it was introduced to me as a dam. I don't know how to describe it, but it's not really a dam. It's kind of like a rocky basin. Yeah. Anyway, so we all go there, with most of the teachers and classes 3-5 staying at the top, while the upper classes and some other teachers descend into the basin. I see this as a prime moment to finally use the bathroom (or...the outdoors), seeing as it was almost completely deserted. Almost immediately I realize that though it is deserted of humans, the same is not true of monkeys (This is the beginning of the part I was telling you about).

I climb up a small rock, and cross paths with a completely disinterested monkey. She, it definitely seemed like a she, sees me, but walks right past me. I mean like...right past me. She doesn't pause or even really look at me. I feel sort of like the monkey whisperer. So, I find a quiet secluded corner, use the outdoors, and then decide to walk around for a bit. I walk down this weirdly unfinished pathway, and decide to sit on a big rock overlooking the basin, where everyone can see me, and where I am about 100 yards away from the lower classes.

I see the principal far below me talking to chaiwalla (a man selling tea) and the man climbs up the entire basin, doling out chai as he goes. He finally gets to me last, hands me chai, and then gives me a small bag of snacks that the principal had paid for and had told the man to give to me. I take both, and watch the man walk away. About a minute later, I see a monkey steadily approaching me out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't scared right away, but as he gets closer, I realize that he's headed straight for me. He eventually makes it all the way to me, and sits at my 7 o'clock, about 5 feet away. I sip my chai, and glance warily back at him. He looks completely benign. Trying to recall any wilderness information I have ever heard, I face him, put my arms above my head, and yell "Hut!" (which is what Indians say to animals to make them move). The monkey jumps back, barks, and bares his teeth at me. I declare it a tie and face forward. The monkey then moves to sit right next to me (about 2 feet). Right about now is when I started totally freaking out. I start, in my head, planning where the nearest hospital is, and which one I would trust most to not give me AIDS. I drink the last of my chai, and throw my cup, hoping he will run after it. Instead of running after it, he takes it as a battle cry and jumps up on his hind legs with his teeth once again bared. I stand up, with the snacks hidden in my hand, and he goes into a pounce position. Uh oh. He jumps directly at me, looking right in my eyes. Not at the food, but at me. We hold eye contact during the first leg of his jump, and then I, ninja-like, crinkle the bag of snacks, and as he is coming towards me, step back and deftly throw them to my right. He turns his attention to the snacks, passing the space I was previously occupying, and runs off. I turn towards the group and walk towards them, laughing hysterically (like...crazy-hysterically, not funny-hysterically). I stumble over some boulders and when I reach the group, tons of children come up to me asking, "Where are you from? Monkey!" which I still don't really understand, but I take it to mean as, "Holy shit you took that monkey to SCHOOL!" We spend a few more minutes at the basin, and then we pile back in the bus to go home. I, again, sit behind the bus driver.

One thing I've noticed is that something inside me broke during my second 36-hour train ride. I can gladly spend up to 4 hours with nothing entertaining me besides a window. Seriously. It's ridiculous. So, after doing that for a long time, the principal's brother walks up to my seat and asks the little girl sitting next to me to switch seats with him. She leaves, and he sits down. The following conversation ensues:

Him: Sing me a song.
Me: No.
Him: Oh please? Sing me a song.
Me: Hah. No.
Him: Please? Sing.
Me: No.....No.
Him: Sing just one song.
Me: Fine. (I sing one line from a Bollywood film)
Him: Sing another song.
Me: No.
Him: Sing another song.
Me: No.

That goes on for a bit...And then we start talking about exercise, which spurrs the "Riddles" conversation.

Him: Do you do yoga?
Me: No, but I run in the mornings, usually.
Him: Oh. I have a joke for you, but you will not like it. You'll think me mean. But, I'm not, I just am liking jokes. You'll think it mean. Don't you think?
Me: Well, I don't know the joke yet...So I don't know. But I like jokes.
Him: You like jokes? Tell me an American joke.
Me: Well umm, I know a riddle.
Him: Okay!
Me: Okay, what gets bigger as you take more out of it? (Insert 5 minutes of Hindi and English decription here)
Him: I don't know. I don't....know. Tell me.
Me: A hole!
Him: (slapping knee) Oh! Tell another!
Me: Okay...What gets wetter as it dries?
Him: Hm. Colors?
Me: ...what? No...a towel.
Him: That is what I said! I am right! Colors!
Me: What? But...it's a towel.
Him: Right. Colors.
Me: Right. Nice.
Him: So can I tell you a joke?
Me: Sure.
Him: So there are many ants eating from a sugar pile. They walk up, one by one, and each eat one piece sugar. But one doesn't take. Why?
Me: Because he's diabetic?
Him: Yes! You are smart!
Me: Really? That's the answer?
Him: Yes! Okay next one. Many ants walking in a row, but there is hole. They walk, and each one walk around hole. But one, he doesn't. Why?
Me: Because he's blind.
Him: HOW DID YOU KNOW?
Me: Hah. I told you I was smart!
Him: NO, TELL ME WHO TOLD YOU. TELL ME.
Me: No...I swear. I just guessed.
Him: I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.

Then he starts a conversation about spiritual people in Banaras.

Him: Do you want to be a spiritual leader?
Me: Oh yeah, I was thinking about dabbling a little in that. It sounds fun.

He then goes into a detailed description about what I would be like if I were a spiritual leader. He tells me that all my actions would be responsible for the community and society would think I was perfect, but my life would not be mine. He goes on to offer to be my first disciple, shave his head, and tattoo my name on his hand. He goes into great detail as to how our lives would be.

Him: Do you you want to be a spiritual leader?
Me: No.
Him: Good.

The conversation sort of fizzles and he eventually leaves. I still don't know how I feel about it. I think I feel totally creeped out, but I'm not sure.

About an hour after this, we arrive back at the school. I speed home, still damp, on my bike, anxious to take a shower.

-allison