I guess
now is a good time to describe what we’ve generally been doing here in
Munsiyari as well as describe a little bit about my homestay. Most of us wake
up between 6 and 7 AM so that we can get up to Malika-ji’s house (sort of the
program house for our time here) between 8 and 9 AM to use internet (when it’s
working). At 9 we do our “morning meeting” where we talk about how we’re doing,
something that we enjoyed in the past 24 hours, something that we didn’t enjoy
so much, and something we’re grateful for. We also talk about anything that may
have happened in our homestays that we have questions about. From 10 to 11 we
have a short lesson/discussion on local culture/politics/history/etc. Then
comes a 10-15 min break before we hike up to the pond and eat lunch. From 12 to
2 or 2:30 we do the pond work and then head back down for chai and snacks. From
3 to 5 we have cooking lessons or knitting/weaving lessons. Finally, from 5 to
6 PM we have free time to use the internet again (provided it’s functioning).
After that we head back to our homestays before it gets too dark outside.
Everyone
has their own homestay except me and Chase (and the instructors). Chase and I
are staying with Pushpa-ji and her family. There’s Tasu (6 yrs old), Neha (8
yrs old), Raul (11 yrs old), and then Pushpa’s husband, Situ-ji (40 yrs old) –
Pushpa-ji is 30 yrs old. And I can’t forget the two dogs, Megha and Santu, and
the kitten, Shonina (there was a lot of drama with Shonina, but Chase has an
extremely long blog post she’ll post about that). We play cards with the kids
and help out with dinner. I am currently learning how to make roti. It’s quite
simple really – the dough is literally just flour and water. Next, you make
them into little balls that you roll out into disks to put on an ungreased pan
for a few seconds on each side. Finally, you move the pan and put the slightly
cooked disks right onto the fire so that they poof up into balloony things. My
fingers are going to be so calloused by the end from 1) cooking roti and 2)
eating scalding food with my hands. My mouth has also gotten significantly
hardened to hot food (both in the hot-spicy and the hot-temperature senses).
Ben T and Alex (who apparently has gone by Fager all of high school and thinks
it’s weird that we call him Alex) are currently “training” for a mirchi
(pepper) eating contest to be held in Banaras. They both eat as many spicy
things as possible and are often reduced to tears because the food they get is
so hot.
One of
the hardest things about the homestay has been trying to find time to do
everything you want to do. Every night I want to help cook dinner and clean
dishes, but I also want to review Hindi, read A Fine Balance (Ms. Marsh
if you’re reading this I really think you’d enjoy this book), journal, write
blog posts, and go to sleep at a reasonable hour. As for the 1.5ish hours I
have on the internet every other day, I am always torn between uploading pictures,
posting blogs, chatting with people on facebook, checking email, and then just
looking up things our group has talked about over the past month (ex: Gap Yah
video on YouTube).
This is
a little random, but the village we are staying in near Munsiyari is on a giant
mountain and the trek up to Malika-ji’s house takes about 20 minutes for me and
Chase (the only farther people are Alex at a 25-30 min walk and the instructors
who have a 30-35 minute walk). We all technically live in the next village over
and have a significantly longer climb than the rest of the group. I guess a
good thing is that we have gotten faster at climbing “The Hill” even if we do
show up to the house soaked with sweat.
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