Another Day, Another Rupee

Beg Steal or Borrow - Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs

I insist you all listen to this beautiful tune. Thankyouverymuch.

I'm finding that I'm writing on here less and less, which is probably a good thing because it means I'm doing other things with my time than questioning my experiences here. I've also been emailing people individually, and I enjoy that more intimate form of communication more than Facebook by tenfold. I think I've reached the second stage in the acculturation process. The honeymoon phase is over and I'm learning more about day-to-day life here. That is to say, things that were once novel have become the monotony of a routine lifestyle. I'm quite content, but anticipating the next six weeks I have remaining in this country.

This upcoming week I will be choreographing my hoop/poi performance for Seva Sadan. I chose this song, I Can See It In Your Face by Pretty Lights for its swanky swingy hip hop beats. If they have a problem with it, I'm going to be seriously annoyed. I have spent a lot of time choreographing the dance moves down to every transition in this song, and it's going to look really good if we just do it the way I have planned. If they change it at the last minute, then I'm going to have a whole new kabash of work and we'll have to teach an entirely new dance to the girls. We need to have it ready to perform to the principal by July 27th, and our big performance is on August 3rd. I leave for Meghalaya on the very next day.

Next Monday I'm giving a poi performance at some event the school is hosting. Then, my advisor from the UW is coming to visit us on Wednesday and we're going to go out for dinner, and maybe see some stuff around the city. I haven't ventured far from the school for the past couple of weeks, but I'm okay with that because I know my time to tour will come soon. I'm trying to be patient.

I'm genuinely looking forward to my dad, brother, and grandma coming to visit on July 20th. Brandon: I think you're really going to love it here. As a foreigner, living here is like a game of unpredictability. Trying to snatch and haggle a ride places, avoiding getting hit by cars or stepping in yucky things, evading beggars and stray animals, crossing traffic, ignoring catcallers, etc. I've found that the best way to get by is to walk around with zero expectations, ready to take whatever new challenges await you.

A few of the girls from the orphanage have taken a liking to coming to our room to say hi and then snooping through our stuff. They want to look at everything, an they're especially fascinated with my laptop. I show them photos and then they want me to look things up on the internet for them, like pictures of Bollywood stars. I was okay with this the first time but they're making it a habit and they come in and inspect everything in our room. It makes me feel bad because I have all these nice things and I know these girls sleep on a hard concrete floor every night. Then they talk in Tamil amongst themselves and I'm sure they're not saying the nicest things. I'm pretty blunt with them. If they ask me about my favorite TV stars, I use Google Translate to tell them, "I don't like TV. TV makes people feel like they have to buy things to feel happy. TV makes people feel they need to be beautiful on the outside. Real beauty is on the inside." They really don't like this. They also are bored of my music because it's not Indian, it's not something they're familiar with. I didn't expect them to, but it's just funny to see their perplexed reactions to my non-mainstream thought and expression. I think they realize that even for American culture, I'm a little unusual. They ask me about TV stars and I point to my copy of the Bhagavad Gita and yoga mat. They ask me, "Why? Why you do yoga 24 hours of the day? You teach me yoga?" So I show them my art and drawings and all of my other books, and they're not amused with it. It's not exciting to them. Their reaction is cute as much as it is frustrating to me, that media has such a strong hold even on people like this.

I'm losing steam here writing. Maybe I'll go watch some yoganatomy now. Peace, kids. Keep on keeping on.