A day in Nimda*...

After some time w/ DAD my day starts with me busting out the door in my kurta and sweat pants where I’m greeted by Ankoo, the 12 yr old next door, sitting on her porch, trying to wake up. I quickly put on my tennis shoes in the cool, crisp morning air, and I run down the hill where I run into an Auntie who asks me to come to her house after my morning walk for a cup of chai. She is the same auntie that helps us at the post office when we get packages from home.
As I get closer to the road, I’m greeted by our goura walla (trash guy) we stand a talk for a while, until he asks me where I was the day before and why he did not see me walking in the morning. He collects everyone’s trash, but he is one of those unimportant people of society who is overlooked because of his occupation and caste.
As I reach the road our uncle is opening up his chai stall. I shoot him a quick “Namaste Uncle” before I break into a brisk walk. Along the way I pass the gurudwara, and the biggest Temple in our town, and watch people doing their morning poojas. As I’m turning the corner I see an auto coming towards me, it’s our friend Mr singh, a believer who we share with as he takes us around town. He salutes me as he drives by. I laugh and continue walking. The same people greet me every morning on the road, most of who are men or uncles, so a nod of recognition is all that’s required. Then there’s the Uncle and Aunti I like to call the smilers. They like to smile at me as I walk by and say the only English they know, like “Breakfast” or “Walking”. Then I greet the two girls, who are some of the most beautiful girls I’ve seen. Who walk around in brightly colored, yet modest attire, and smile and say “Namaste” as I go on by. I pass by the playing ground, and as I do, I hear “Hunji, Taxi”, as I turn I see our friend the taximan, as we call him, whom we always use when we need a taxi. I laugh and tell him it’s a little early.
I’m amazed at how many other people are out at 6am in the morning running, walking, playing cricket or badminton, unloading or loading fruits and vegetables, talking, restocking their stores, delivering newspapers, waiting at the bus stand. As I continue on around, I'm greeted by the smilers again, who say “Namaste.....breakfast” one more time, before I meet the two girls again in pretty clothes.
As I reach my home, I see my Dadi Ji (grand-ma) who’s face lights up when I shout down the steps “Namaste Dadi Ji”- She takes pride in showing me, every morning, her vegetable patch that she works so hard at maintaining. Finally as I open the gate to our porch I hear “HIIIIIIIIII”. It is our Maddou Aunti (Honey, Aunti), sweeping her porch and feeding her family, we talk for a little while before I go inside and take a shower.

After a few hours I venture out again....I travel down the same hill to get to the road, this time I meet a line of Rickshaw drivers all waiting to take me to town, I decline, as it’s still cool enough to walk, not without having a short conversation with them, or a long one about various topics. I yet again pass the temple and the Gurudwara, and the playing ground. I’m stopped this time by Bandoo, who’s husband owns a shop on the way to town. We sit, we talk, she scolds me for not having come for such a long time, and then lets me leave, once I plead with her that I have a lot of things to do in the market.
I enter the underground market and stop to talk to the Durga, shawl seller for a few minutes before arriving at the Amul guy. The owner knows our order by heart, toilet roll, milk, juice, butter and cheese. Next is the subji walla, I ask him names of vegetables I have never seen before, as well as general conversation about America, and vegetables there. He jokes with me, makes fun of my Hindi, and tells me to take him to America.
Next is the Phull walla, who we are convinced rips us off, but continue to go there because he really does have the best fruit in the whole town. Finally with arms loaded, I decide which is the best way to go so not to get assaulted by friends like the sikh cloth man, the wool guy, our stitching Aunti, or Sudesh Aunti trying to give me chai or food. I decide the best option is to Auto....I jump in, and don’t have to say anything because every auto driver in town knows where the two white girls live.
I get out and pay him, start walking up the hill back to our house, and almost reach home before I hear, “Hello....“ from one of our neighbor girls asking me to come in and sit with her for chai and conversation. After a little conversation and a promise that I’ll come back tomorrow, I reach my home, unload my groceries, talk with Maddou Aunti about everything I bought, and sit for a few minutes of rest. It’s only 12pm.
As I have been thinking more and more about leaving this town and these people, I have come to realize how important relationships are, and how saddened I am that I have so many relationships that are not closer. I know it’s not possible to have deep relationships with every single person in our town, but I am still sad to leave the people that I have even a surface level relationship with.
This week has been particularly hard for me in more ways than one. With the realization that our time here is coming to an end, the process of grieving has started and I find myself truly saddened at the thought of leaving so many close friends and family. I told our Uncle the other day that we needed to give him rent money and his response was “no, I will not demand such things from you!” After asking him, why he replied, “When you give me rent it will tell me when you are leaving, and that will be a very bad day for me, we must not talk about such things, do not tell me when you are going, that will be a very sad day.” After some encouragement and persuading we went down stairs and I gave him our rent, and told him we were leaving in June, the first week of June, and he said, “you should not have told me this. Now every time I see you I will think, ‘Oh they only have one month left, oh now only two weeks left, one week left, it is very sad.” Of course when someone says things like this to you, especially an Uncle, it breaks your heart. Luckily he left before I had to run to the bathroom and cry, and although they were tears of sadness at leaving this place that is so close to my heart, deep down I have a peace about what’s next to come.
Not to end on a sad or depressing note, and before I receive massive amounts of emails asking me if I’m fine, I really am doing well, but I would question whether or not I had been successful in my goals if there wasn’t a certain amount of pain in leaving. . In so many ways we have learned from the people here and become more like the people here…and I wouldn’t have changed anything about the time spent here. I wait in anticipation for what’s next to come.