Friends -
After much rescheduling, my roommate and I finally completed the B-Adventure yesterday. We put on the full garb and set out on our adventure. A few minutes after walking down the street, my roommate told me she didn't think her head covering was going to stay on and I could see it slipping off! What to do, what to do? I didn't have an extra safety pin on me, but maybe our friend who lived just a few blocks away would have one. Roomie quickly called Friend-who-lives-nearby. At first, Friend-who-lives-nearby couldn't really hear Roomie very well because she was talking to her on the mobile phone through a head-covering, but she finally got it and told us to come over. When we got to Friend's house, she laughed and understood why it was hard to hear Roomie on the phone :) Friend was a huge help to us and secured our outfits and head-coverings for us, prayed for us, and off we went again. After walking awhile, I finally spotted an auto-rickshaw, waved him down, and told him the name of the street we wanted to go to.
"What?" he said. I repeated (this is a pretty common occurance between me and autowalas because they can't understand my accent). "What??! Where?" I looked at Roomie in desperation. She tried telling him this time to which he responded, "What?". Ok, so not only do we have accents which are difficult to understand, but he can't understand us through the head-coverings! After talking as loudly and clearly as possible in our best Hindi accents, one autowala understood and agreed to take us.
I didn’t really know exactly where I wanted the auto to drop us so I had him drop us at a random spot so we could start walking down the main road that runs through our destination town. The plan was to go to a certain section of the city that would otherwise be too dangerous for us to go as foreigners for observation, to pray over that area, and possibly speak with women if the situation presented itself. Both Roomie and I had actually been to this section of town before to visit a mutual friend, but we had stuck out badly, so I guess for some strange reason I expected to stick out again and get a lot of stares. Observation #1 – no one stares at you when you when you’re fully covered. Surprise, surprise. This was a change of pace that I liked a lot. I finally felt comfortable and “normal” without the typical celebrity-curse aka dropped-mouth stares, pointing, serenading, “hello madam”-ing.
When I was thinking about this adventure before we set out, I was thinking that I would have to perfect the way I walk. The way I walk is a dead give away that I’m not from here. This is actually a game that I like to play in this city because there are so many expats. I can usually figure out where a person is from by their walk and their shoes easily. If you’ve ever been around expats or traveled abroad, you know what I mean. I’ve noticed the women here sort of walk in a way that they are leaning back, as opposed to the way in which I walk which is more leaning forward. The women also walk as though they are floating and very, very slowly. In the end, I gave up on the “walk” mostly because I was too busy dodging holes in the ground, mud-puddles, and cow-patties in the road. Observation #2 – much of your peripheral vision is obstructed by the head covering increasing the chances of tripping and decreasing the ability to fully see what’s going on around you. Several times, I didn’t know if Roomie was still behind me because I couldn’t just look out of the corner of my eye anymore. I don’t really understand this part of the garb. You would think you would want to increase a woman’s ability to see what’s going on around her, so she could protect herself and her children as much as possible. It definitely is not the case once you put those things on and try to start walking around town.
We walked a long way that day and were given much respect and honor by men in the path. That was nice, too. Really nice. As far as men go, I was careful to never look them in the eye that day, but I didn’t always move out of their pathway. I even walked right through a group of men at one point. I don’t really know if that was culturally appropriate – haha I guess I’m a liberal covered woman. Sorry dudes.
At one point that day a bus drove by us and after it passed I looked over and saw some red spots of liquid all over Roomie’s outfit. What is that? Then we both realized – someone had spit tobacco juice out the bus window and it went all over Roomie…and me! Gross. Observation #3 – the garb is great for protection. It was raining on and off that day, but it really wasn’t a problem for us under the coverings. They kept us warm, dry, and protected from…tobacco juice!
Some other observations – Had the opportunity to walk through the “meatpacking/slaughtering/tanning” part of town. I think I actually smelled this before I saw it. I looked over at one man’s bike and saw at least 40 goat skins laying over the middle of the bike. At another point in the road we stopped at a shop that had beautiful finches on display outside. I’m tempted to go back there just to buy a bird! They were so beautiful – first time I’ve seen those birds for sale on the street here. I also was surprised to see a few Hindu temples along the way and not as many “other places of worship” that I was expecting to see.
In the end, we didn’t get to talk to anyone, but I’m really thankful we were able to simply walk this section of town to see how people live and work, to better understand their felt needs, and to pray. Some of you reading this may be slightly or very much disturbed that I would even consider wearing this garb. To be honest, I didn’t fully understand the purpose for the garb before I came to South Asia and was upset that so many women had to wear it in public. I now understand the reasoning behind the covering, especially after living here as a foreign woman and experiencing some distasteful responses from men on the street and even, sad to say, national men that I work with. Later that day, we changed out of the garb and were walking home. Some guys drove by and yelled at us. People were staring again. Roomie and I looked at each other and were thinking the same thing – um, can we put those coverings back on now? My hope is that when you see covered-women or pictures of them that you wouldn’t be so consumed and distracted by the “oppression” that you would forget to pray for them and their families.
Making salsa with friends.
Making salsa with friends.
Indian Dinner at one of my favorite restaurants!
