One day Paulette asked me if I wanted to see a temple. We went via rickshaw (I’m now fine with them) for about 45 minutes. It was my first time seeing slums. I can't wrap my head around the fact that people truly live like that. I can't even imagine what that must be like. Perhaps that's due to my naiveté, or more likely, it's because if I was able to I wouldn't be able to function for a while. To be quite honest, I really am struggling with constantly feeling guilty here, and then feeling even more guilty for having the luxury of feeling guilty.
We went to one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. As we walked through, she explained to me about some of the gods, and then we went over to a gathering in a different building. She was embraced by the organizers, and we were told to sit down. We had little tables placed in front of us, and were given 8 different types of food. It was delightful. I asked what they were celebrating, and was told there was no celebration, they just did this each year to honor the god of the temple. Upon leaving one of the women came over to me and thanked me for coming saying it pleased the god to have them feed as many people as possible.
And down.
After leaving the temple we went to meet our rickshaw driver who was simply a jerk. We had wanted to go to somewhere else right down the road, but he refused and started yelling, despite having agreed to go there early. After Paulette haggled with him, called a few people to negotiate with him in Hindi, (and I stood by useless) we once again took off. After only a bit we had company as he picked up a couple without asking us. I have learned that there is no such thing as personal space here.
And up.
She next took me to the monkey temple, once again despite the monkeys being petrifying little creatures it was beautiful. We had to go up a steep hill and back down to reach the temple. On our way down the hill she stopped outside a little shack to speak to “Baba.” (As I said, she knows everyone.) He invited us in for chai, and as they spoke in Hindi I looked out onto the temple and the surrounding hills, the small crowd of men staring at us (this is just a given so I almost forgot to mention it), drinking chai and wondering how the heck I was there.
Source: PictureNice
We returned home and had 6 people over for dinner. After eating they put on traditional music and just started dancing. Never have I felt like a worse dancer. I tried to get them to let me just sit there, while they tried to teach me Indian dances.
My wrists, neck and hips are simply way too American.
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