Purple Puppet Cow

My mom used to tell me a poem when I was little.

I’ve never seen a purple cow.
I never wish to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather see then be one.

As a kid I always thought it was kind of a silly but cute poem. However, this month it has brought on a different meaning for me.
I’ve spent the month in another town with my host family. This town is somewhat big but doesn’t see foreigners very often. So every time I went out somewhere, wether to the market or to visit someone, people would stare at me as if I’d turned into a purple cow. At first I didn’t notice it much because almost everywhere I go this happens a bit. But one day Karishma and I took a rickshaw by our selves to one of her aunts house and I got SSSSOOOO many stares and some guys even made some crude comments. And ever since that day I’ve noticed how much people really stare at me, and it’s gotten on my nerves quite a bit. I’ve wanted to stare right back at them and shout “Me baingine gai nehi houn!!” Which means, “I’m not a purple cow!!”
I don’t think this will ever change though and I’ll just have to go back to ignoring it.

Something I learned about myself this month is that I do not like being a puppet(I’m pretty sure no one does really). Every house we went to Sitara would tell me to say “Salaam Walicoom” which is a Musl!m greeting. But, she wouldn’t even give me a chance to say it on my own before she would tell me. Then she would instruct me to tell about myself. Each time this happened I felt like such a puppet on a string, and it was really frustrating.

But, despite each of these irritants, I had a really good time. It was fun to meet the Ansari’s extended family. And it was especially fun going to Mumb@i!! I’ll be coming back here in about a month for the wedding of Salim’s younger brother. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again.

New Home

Well, I’ve moved again. I sent an email out last week about it, but for those of you who don’t get email updates(by the way, if you’d like to get them just email me at szellmer@mountainfeet.biz and I’ll add you to my list) I’ll fill you in.

While I’ve completely loved living with a family there are a few difficulties. One of the biggest is that I can’t control my schedule. Language learning has been difficult because my family is always wanting to do something or go somewhere. And this can be good too. I’ve been able to go to many wedding with them, go on picnics, play games and last week we went to R!sh!kesh for the day. But when this takes up the majority of my time it can become something that is not ideal. The other issue I have had is that the family I was living with is Musl!m. I have obsoletely nothing against Musl!ms, so don’t take me wrong here. However, our target people are H!ndu and I’ve found that while living with a
Musl!m family your circle of friends are mostly Musl!m also. I love all my Musl!m friends here, but I want to be able to get to know more H!ndu people. I will not by any means be neglecting the friends I already have, but am hoping to open up more doors into our target people.

So, Suzy and I found a house that is right across the street from the family she has been living with. It only has one bedroom, but it has a big living room with two single beds that will double as couches during the day. It has a kitchen and bathroom and one other kind of hallway/room. The only drawback with it is that it has very tall ceilings(I know, in the State’s I’d love this too!!) which stinks because during the winter all the heat will rise and it will be a bit difficult to keep it warm. But other than that I really love it!

I moved in on the first and Suzy will move in February. It was pretty difficult moving out, especially for my host family. But I live just down the street from them and tomorrow I’ll be going with them to another town to visit their family for a few weeks.