I went over to my coworker’s house the other night for supper. She always brings food from home for lunch, and everyone always shares what they have brought. So I have sampled a lot her mom’s cooking. I always talk about how good it is because it is sooo nice to eat something for lunch that isn’t from a restaurant. She relayed my praises for a few weeks, and finally her mom offered to make me supper. Woo hoo!While I was there, I also bought a few pieces of material to make shirts out of. Her mom stays at home during the day and started selling this cloth to keep herself occupied. A few weeks ago at the office I had commented on one of the other girl’s shirts, and she was like, oh, I bought the material from her mom. I asked if I could get some too, and then they invited me to come over. So I sat and sifted through the cloth that her mom was selling while her mom made me supper. I felt totally spoiled.
The cloth is funny, there is a collar already printed on the material, the tailor just cuts out the shirt and stitches it. I will have to find someone to make it for me- but I might ask my neighbor if she knows anyone good in the area. I don’t want to just walk up to a tailor, because I don’t know what they will charge or who around here is good. My friend said that it should cost 100-150 rupees to have someone stitch it. The material is so shiny.
The food was really good. Her mom was a very efficient cook too. She whipped out food like a professional. I think that everyone’s mom must cook like a professional here. Everyone talks about their mom’s cooking in this country, and everyone’s favorite restaurant is their mom’s kitchen. People just don’t talk reverentially in the same way about their mom’s cooking in the US.
I felt a little weird though. Apparently having me over to supper meant having me over and making supper for just me. The mom made a special meal for me, and we all hung out while I ate. The rest of the family all ate after I left. I am thinking that they normally just eat a bit later or something. Or, since they were having fish, maybe they didn’t want to eat while I was around.
Their apartment was really small. My coworker commented on it, on how small it must seem to me, but I was like, oh, it is about normal size, right? But she was right, it did seem awfully small to me. I don’t know where they sleep. 2 grown daughters and a mom. There was a couch like bed on one wall, and closets lining another wall, and a small kitchen and bathroom. No privacy. The apartment was probably not much bigger than the room I am living in all alone. It was really interesting to see how someone else lives here. I would be a very different person today if I had lived in a place like that with my mom and dad. Especially if I had lived in a place like thatwith my mom and dad. Especially if I had lived in a place like that with Mom and Dad through my 20s. No wonder people get married early here. (Not that everyone does nowadays.)
We walked over to see her auntie, to see if the auntie would stitch the shirts for me, because the auntie does some stitching, but the auntie’s neck has been hurting, so she said no. The auntie's house was in the next building on the ground floor- the floor was concrete and had lines painted on it like you would see in parking lot. So I don’t know how that building got put up or what the deal was. Her apartment was even smaller, possibly smaller than the space I live in, with a loft for her 2 boys to sleep in. And there was no bathroom. There was a communal bathroom at the end of the building. People live really differently. I mean, it wasn’t bad, it is just what you are used to, but it was really different.
It was funny, my friend’s mom sent me home with the extra daal(lentil stew), because my friend knows I like it a lot. The mom had been going to make something with curdfor me, but my coworker stopped her. This surprised me, because I have to remind my coworkers every time I order something that I don’t eat cheese, otherwise I get something with paneer in it. Mysteriously, sometimes they know that I don’t eat milk . . .? As I was leaving, they told me like 8 times to make sure I put the daal in the fridge when I got home or it would spoil. Don’t forget. It will go bad. You won’t be able to eat it. Put it away. Like I am not hip to the joys of refrigeration. They were really sweet, but I was like, yeah, I know. It will go bad. Got it. Fridge. Solid. I am totally on it.
I think I am going to come home with a bunch of new shirts. I bought 3 pieces of material from the mom, and I got 3 shirts from a store when I went wandering around on my day off a week or two ago, and I bought one the other day. Just a few weeks ago I was feeling sad because I hadn’t found any fun Indian shirts, now I have a bunch. I need a few more though. They are so cheap and are so good for the hot weather. I have become a shirt monster.
I was only going to get one piece of material from the mom, but I ended up with three. The pieces of cloth were only 50 rupees each. I started thinking, I should just get a bunch, they are only $1.25, and then a few more dollars to have them sewn. But then I was like, no, that would be rude. To buy too many pieces would be ostentatious. But there were a few that I liked. I had to figure out where the line was between “c’mon foreigner, you make more money than most people in this country, don’t be all cheap and not get 2 if you really like both” and “geez, why is she buying so many? I guess she must think these are really inexpensive. how much does she make, anyway?” Not that they were expecting me to buy more than one or anything. I think that if I had clearly liked just one, then that would have been fine, but there were a couple I was hovering over, and I didn’t want to be all tightfisted. But, again, I had just said, “oh I will take all of them,” that would have been really obnoxious. I think the line I went to was ok. Three seemed about right.
My friend showed me how to roll the pieces of chappati (bread) into little scoops so that I could stick daal into it and not make a mess eating with my fingers. That was exciting. Her mom said that I could come back and learn how to make daal. Hopefully I will have a chance to.
At work, during lunch, they think I am funny. I am not used to getting my fingers into my food, and when my fingers get greasy it really bugs me. So I think I come off as really fastidious, because I am so careful to keep my fingers clean and to use my silverware to move my food around.
My belly is very fat right now.
5 comments:
This brings to mind an experience I had in Mexico a couple years ago. I made friends with this rug weaving family in Oaxaca...they were a group of indigenous women, all related in one way or another, who rented a space in the city every few months to sell their tapetes. I visited them several times and chatted with them, and bought a rug. Anyway, they invited me to a family member's wedding, which happened to be on my birthday. I had to leave early (and by early I mean that I only stayed 10 hours, rather than the full 24 that the party lasted), but I promised to return a few days later with prints of the photos I had taken. One of the young women made me promise I would come to her house for a birthday gift. And so, 3 days later I went back to the village where they lived with my photos, and this time I was accompanied by Sam, who had just joined me to travel. Anyway, this woman, whose family was clearly very poor, wanted to give me a hand woven purse for my birthday gift, and since sam was there, she gave one to him as well. We felt like this was a pretty hefty gift (and more than she bargained to give, since sam was an unexpected companion), and wanted to support them by buying something in return, but we didn't know what the etiquette was. So we ended up buying 2 more bags and a shirt...it was this huge debate about how much to buy - should we just accept the gift, or buy something, and if so, how much was appropriate to spend? When we got back to the city I asked my Spanish teacher about it, and she seemed to think it was appropriate to buy something in order to show our appreciation for their handiwork, but when I showed her what we bought, she recognized that the shirt and one of the bags was not made by the same family (it seems like a lot of trading happens between vendors). The truth was that we had not liked a lot of their stuff, so we hadn't really noticed this, because we were just trying to find something to buy that we thought we would actually use. I ended up feeling really bad, because after all our debating, I felt like we had missed the point entirely.
Sometimes I think about this and I wonder whether it isn't about something bigger, some sort of global karma. Everywhere I've ever traveled, people seem so much more giving than we are in the U.S. The family who invites a practical stranger to a wedding and treats them like a king. The family who lives in a one room apartment, but insists you take the extra daal. It seems like generosity and sharing are expected, rather than something extraordinary. A few months ago I was walking in my neighborhood with a friend when this Iranian woman called to us to help carry her groceries. She didn't ask, just expected that we would be happy to carry her groceries up a huge hill. Along the way she asked lots of details about our personal lives and wanted our phone number. We were completely taken aback by her audacity until we thought about it in a cultural context, and realized how much more segregated our communities are in the U.S. We are put out when family and friends stay with us, and we don't generally give away money, especially when we have little. Hell, we don't even help our neighbors carry their groceries. But in so many other places, communities really are communal. and as much I like my separation from my family, I recognize how much harder life is when we remove this communal aspect of living.
I suppose this ended up being a bit tangential from your story about how many pieces of fabric to buy. But I think these sorts of cultural exchanges are fascinating.
Shirt monster!
Those light shirts will come in really handy this winter in Seattle. We'll turn the heat up!
I think three was the right number. My indian coworkers had a great time reading your earlier post about pretending that all the clothes you were buying were for other people. I think they think you are crazy.
I was once given wonderful hospitality by some people in a mining village in the Andes. Although I thought I travelled "low", everything I had was materially better than anything they had. In the end, I was at such a loss for what to do, I just gave them practically everything I had...and my pack was much easier to carry.
I am convinced it is much more difficult to be a good guest than a good host.
and Kenneth, it may be time for you to update your own collection of shirts, taking as you do a rather perverse glee in the despair of your loved ones regarding your aged and "ratty" waredrobe.
p.
From the moms. We are at your house right now, and we went to see some raptors at Miller State Park. We have had a nice day. Hope all is well, and we continue to love your posts. C amd J
aw, god, that sucks cara. so frustrating- you try to do the right thing, but nope. oh well, i hope the woman at least could tell that you were trying to reciprocate. you meant well, that is about all you can do.
people really can be incredibly generous. i like that the iranian woman expected your help too. because you know that only means that she would expect to help you as well.
peter- i was reading some travel book in powells, which i ultimately didn't buy, but there was a story of a woman traveling around asia. she sat across from a japanese woman on the train. the j woman started talking, and they became friendly. the j woman then started giving the westerner gifts, so the westerner had to reciprocate. finally the woman writing the book had to pretend to go to sleep, b/c the other woman kept being nice and giving her stuff, and she didn't have anything else she could give away. that is one way to make traveling lighter.
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