Touch the car, slap the person

So I’m in India, right? That means I can make up totally random slightly inappropriate games to play while driving through the India traffic, right? Well I hope you answered yes to both questions because that’s what I’ve done. All the interns at the school (keep in mind there’s 7 of us now) play this game called touch the car, slap the person. Let me explain before my many mothers out there think I’m going to get my arm chopped off.  Basically when we’re in a rickshaw and we’re close enough to another car, bus, or motorcycle we reach out and touch it really fast. You get 1 point for cars and buses and 2 points for motorcycles because it’s easier to get caught. Now we only play slap the person with each other, that’s when we’re in 2 or 3 separate rickshaws when we pass each other we reach out and slap the crap out of the each other. You may not enjoy our games but they keep us entertained when we think we’re going to die while driving through India.

We went to a night market last night I GOT TO BARGAIN! People in this country think that because I’m a foreigner I don’t know what I’m doing…they’re partially correct. But please note I have haggled with the best of them in Mexico and Jamaica, once I got the hang of it I was solid. I got a lot of stuff and only got cheated out of like 500 rupees (but that was in the beginning when I was young and dumb) by the end of the night I was pretty much a pro.

If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll know that there is a tiny little human boy here with whom I’m in love with…BIG NEWS!!!!!! I walked up to him yesterday and said “Namaste” and gave him my hand (like so he could shake it), well he mumbled “namaste” and eye balled my hand suspiciously, then instead of shaking my hand he rubbed it….I figured this was more than I could ask for, so mission accomplished!

I was taking a nap yesterday and I was rudely and abruptly woken by tiny hands squeezing my forehead…I don’t know why this happened but it did and I was superbly over it. The auntie in the hostel walked up to me and said “headache?” I said “No auntie, not at all. They’re just squeezing my head.” She laughed; I don’t think she knew I was being completely serious.

Also, apparently I am a distraction…whoops…one of the teachers told me on Friday that a couple of the boys (Gelo and another one) haven’t been doing their homework because I come over to the hostel and distract them, ok this may be true BUT I distract them with English! I’m teaching and testing Gelo on the days of the week; so he had a legitimate excuse the other one did not. So the teacher told me to tell the boys that if they didn’t complete their homework I would hit them. Let’s rewind for a second here: they hit in this country, the teachers, the hostel aunties, all of them. It’s totally socially and culturally acceptable to hit children in the school. Well, I’m an American and we don’t hit kids, especially not teachers. Ok fast forward back to the story: well I knew that I would be lying if I told them I would hit them so I stood up and looked very serious and told them if they didn’t start completing their homework I would…be very sad. The teacher looked at me and was so confused…I gathered my stuff and scampered away before she could say anything.

Distractions and all,

Leigh