Making friends, मानव (human) and मच्छर (mosquito)

Yesterday I came back from another two-day field visit, this time to try to get access to records of development spending. It is legally required to be made publically available, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get. The meetings themselves were time-consuming and frustrating, but ultimately somewhat successful, and I'll be going back next week to get things straightened out. However, I'm not going to tell you about my meetings. Because this time, we didn't stay in a hotel. We stayed at the home of the cousin of my Project Assistant, Rashmi and wow was that an experience.

Some photos from the trip:

First off, they were incredibly generous. There are twelve extended family members who live together in a generous house by rural Bihar standards, and they offered us one of the beds to share. They also literally crammed me full of food - a good Bhojpuri thali (a plate with a bunch of traditional dishes whose names I don't know but were delicious!). Within minutes of arriving, I was completely full, and I didn't feel hungry until I returned to Patna the following evening. And, at dinner time, I actually helped make roti! By which I mean, I grabbed a chunk of dough, rolled it out, and handed it to Rashmi, who actually baked it (first on a flat skillet, then directly over the flame to puff up). Then, when my lopsided little roti was done, Rashmi set it aside and we split it with dinner. But hey man, I'm learning…

The major source of amusement/frustration was that a.) my Hindi still doesn't extend beyond basic phrases, household objects and food and b.) they speak Bhojpuri, which is closely related to Hindi but definitely a separate language. So I'd have to be virtually fluent in Hindi to understand them anyway. However, I did manage to work out some key phrases that were similar in Bhojpuri, so they were greeted with great hurrah:  आपका खाना बहुत अच्छा है. "Your food is very good" (aapka khana bahut accha hai - literally "your food very good is"). मुझे खीर पसंद है. "I like kheer" (mujhe kheer pasand hai, literally "to me kheer liked is").

However, there were two middle school kids who attend English school, so their parents dragged them in front of me and commanded them to speak English. As anyone who knows a foreign language has experienced, when you are ordered to speak another language on command, it can be a bit intimidating. Now, imagine that you've never met an American before, and you're 13, and all 11 members of your family are staring at you, hoping against hope that you will spout perfect, fluent English and impress the foreigner. The poor kids stammered out a few sentences and then literally ran away. When they got some confidence back a few minutes later, and started hovering again with everyone else, I summoned them and gave them a task: write a paragraph describing their school. They were so cute that I saved them:

I'll send a prize to the first person who figures out what the last word in the second entry is ("contine"), in American English.

They were also incredibly inquisitive, and they had definitely never hosted a foreigner in their home (and probably hadn't met one before), so from the moment I arrived at their home to the moment I left, I was basically surrounded by a quiet, curious crowd of folks I couldn't communicate with. I'm not going to lie, at some point in the evening I got tired of the attention and retreated behind my computer, apparently not realizing that my laptop was equally fascinating, but Rashmi managed to shoo them out a few times so I could send emails back to my professors with updates about our meetings.

In one brief moment of privacy, the completely adorable 2 year old girl waddled into my room and gaped at my laptop. I brought it down onto the floor with her, opened up a word doc, and let her have at it. At first, she wasn't really sure what to do, but I demonstrated how to type a little, and she very enthusiastically pounded on the keys:

 VGVFWFG ZC CC I


Ffhkknvcggdsrhjzzjh km kgffz




N BNBN TYFUHIJJIKBHJL NKM LKLP[,LP[]LP=|SwEEwEC XOO58

Then, after playing "shake the water bottle" and "shake the bag of rice" for a few minutes, she got bored and wandered back to her mom.

In the evening, before dinner, we went up onto the rooftop terrace on top of their house, spread ourselves out on mats and chatted, as much as it was possible. It was incredibly peaceful, even with Rashmi's middle-aged cousin clutching Rashmi and me around the shoulders for a good 20 minutes. She was so excited the whole time we were there that she never stopped smiling.

So yeah, mostly it was an absolute blast. However, evening rolled around and the flurry of mosquitoes gradually increased until there were quite literally swarms of mosquitoes. I've never seen anything like it. In an act of desperation, I slathered 100% DEET all over my body and set out my evening tools next to my head: water bottle, DEET, watch, cell phone, and anti-itch cream. Then I lay down to sleep. Unfortunately, the bed I was sleeping on was just a large wood table with two sheets spread over it, and thus no padding. And while the family generously lent us a mosquito net, it had holes in it, with the unfortunate result that mosquitoes were able to sneak into the net, but then not be able to get out. What's actually a little scary about Indian (Bihari?) mosquitoes is that they don't buzz. In theory, that's great, because you're not living in a constant state of paranoia from the buzzing. However, it means that you don't know when they'll strike, and since mosquitoes here carry malaria, dengue, and a bunch of other things you really don't want, it makes it a bit worrisome. So Rashmi and I tossed and turned for hours on the wooden bed, and I finally collapsed into sleep at 5am. And I woke up looking like the mosquitoes had taken bets on who could suck the most blood out of me.

So it was a wonderful, crazy experience to have, but the next time I visit this district, I'll be staying at a hotel.