Could I Please Have A Snake Charmer This Evening?

After my hospital visit my mood was in cahoots. It took me at least a week to get back into the swing of things. It’s so hard being so far away from home without a familiar support system. I think that was my weakest point in this crazy journey. I shed a lot of tears out of frustration; confusion and just shear insanity. Even though it was only three days in a hospital, so many other factors came into play. When you are in a third world country’s hospital and you don’t even know why you are there or what they are putting into you is a large problem. HELLO language barrier.

Could I really have anticipated needing to know the Hindi words for; diarrhea, shot, butt, nurse, go away (eh…maybe I should have known this one), vomit, gurney, stomach pains, did I say diarrhea already? You bet your booty I didn’t. However I did know how to say bow and arrow, fire worship and snake charmer. Yes these are the basic words Indian children learn. We are taught the A,B,C’s, a is for apple, b is for ball (you get the point) Hindi children learn “dha se dhanush (bow and arrow), ya se yagya (fire worship), sa se sapera (snake charmer).” So I could have easily asked my nurse, “Chayie sapera (I want a snake charmer)." Which actually might have been a nice change to my boring days, your own personal snake charmer? And maybe that would compel the workers to actually scrub the floor instead of just spray it. I could ask for some evening entertainment, but I was incapable of asking for a clean towel. How wonderful.

Have you ever looked up or for that matter heard someone speak Hindi? Dear lord is it hard. There is gha and ga, tha, tha and ta, bha and ba… the list goes on. I never thought I could connect Lady Gaga with Hindi, but I’ve learned anything is possible (even becoming Facebook friends with your nurse). Lady Gaga’s song Bad Romance is like peas in a pod with the Hindi dialect. One must simply know to chorus line to practice and tweak just a little- “Gha ga, oooo, ta tha, da dha, oooo pa pha…” Thanks Lady Gag’s you’re one in a million.

Things were back to normal when I returned, the bed was the same middle school gym-mat-hardness and my host family was still super crazy and the water still had little white flakes in it after it had been boiled. 

Claire with the chickens

But we did have a new addition to the family- six little neon colored chickens. Ji Singhji brought them home in a little cramped up box. My first question: How in the world did these chickens get colored? My second question: Why are there five baby neon colored chickens in the house? It was nice to play with them...even though they probably had a disease. Apparently Ji Singhji bought them as gifts to give to his nephews. So he would give them to one nephew and whenever the nephew got tired of playing with the chickies he would pawn them off on another nephew. Weird right? I asked what will happen when the chickens grow up, my host sister Bulbul said, "They will just run around in our yard." Alrighty then.

To add to the crazy neon chickens, ‘The Spanish Lady” I had been hearing all about had returned home from Dehli and I was curious to meet her- and boy was she something.