The cab driver we had was a guy that I see a lot who always ends up taking us SIP students out to clubs and stuff at night. He speaks very good and clear hindi but no english, so it was nice to hear him conversing with Sowmya, both Becca and I could follow pretty well (before he was on "SIP duty" he used to drive my host family around a lot and they all seems to be on very good terms). He told us a bunch of SIP gossip that gets passed through the drivers, which was really funny. They must find us pretty amusing yet hate us at the same time.
On the way there, we passed through this stretch of forest. I cannot describe how monkey-infested this forest was. On the roads and the sides there were waves and waves of monkeys. From the inside of the cab with the windows rolled all the way up they actually looked really cute. The car in front of us was stopped and throwing bananas out the window to the not-so-patiently awaiting monkeys. I would say all in all, there were about 70 monkeys in different groups as we passed through this stretch. I got a few photos.
We got to the church in about 2 hours. It was absolutely beautiful from the outside with a nice yard surrounding it. And of course, since we're in India, you must remove your shoes before entering the church. Inside we were surrounded by stained glass windows of biblical scenes. Being the only white people there, the head priest welcomed us personally, assumed we were some sort of Christians, and escorted us through the priests quarters up to the main alter. He blessed all three of us then sat and chatted with Sowmya for a while (he only spoke Telugu). The story of the church is that a missionary came to the area and realized all the people were starving so decided to build this church in order to give them work and housing and food. The church took 10 years to be completed and is made entirely of glass and marble and tiles from either Italy or England. Definitely neat. One other thing though was that the candles weren't allowed to be lit inside. There was a small alter outside where people were supposed to light the candles, but it was really windy today so we had to find a little nook to light them.
Before leaving town, we bought a bushel of bananas for the monkeys on the way back. We tried to find a place to pull over to eat our packed lunch before the monkey stretch, because if they'd smelled more food in the car they would have attacked. But alas there were no good stopping points so we risked it and fed the monkeys and managed to avoid attack. We tried to get the bananas to the mothers with babies on their bellies still but the males would always attack them for it and steal it. Evil little things.
Keep with me, I'm just getting to the good part! It was like 2:00 now and we were all really hungry. We tried a couple of side roads to see if they had a good stopping point but they didn't, but then we saw a side road that led not only to a parallel road but also turned into a dirt path that led to an open area with a banyan tree. We parked under the tree, opened up the doors and ate lunch in the car. Let me tell you, the Durgas make a killer lemon rice. Just as I finished my plate, a man on a motorcycle drives up looking all serious. Crap, we were probably on his private property or something. Instead, he claims he's a cop (not in uniform, not on a police vehicle, no identification saying as much) and that we're on Air Force Academy land (which was definitely possible). Even though he can see our plates and lemon rice sitting in the passenger's seat, he doesn't believe us when we tell him we just pulled over for lunch. He thinks Becca and me are spies. Hahahaha. Not so funny, though, when he wants to arrest us and hold us for 36 hours until we can prove otherwise. He asked to see our cameras to make sure we weren't taking pictures of the property or anything, tells our driver to follow him down to the station, the whole act. But, like every fairy-tale ending in India, our driver gave him a 180 rupee bribe and got us on our way. In all honesty though, it was one of the closer calls I've had so far.
It just goes to show that when you wake up in the morning living in India, you never really know what your day has in store for you. It's kind of what I live by here.
Photos of my last month or so (not that many):
No comments:
Post a Comment