November was a hectic month, mainly because I had the
distinct pleasure of sharing my life in South Asia with four family members,
including an aunt, two cousins, and my mom for the first two weeks. Their time
here deserves multiple blog posts, but you will need to ask them for the
stories. Anything you think South Asia could throw at you was thrown at my
family members during their stay.
One day during her stay, my mom and I needed to separate
from the group, leaving a beautiful mountainous area to drive into rural South
Asia to meet my coworkers for a Family Retreat. The place we left my aunt and
cousins is pictured below:
A basic premise of Sociology is that the “map is not the
territory” meaning that it is ultimately impossible to capture the full reality
of a moment in words or pictures, or by any other means. In our situation, the
Google Maps travel estimate was definitely not
a reflection of reality. We spent almost 10 hours on the road that day. Here
are some of the reasons why:
 |
| Single lane roads in rural India mean that every time you encounter a large track (which is often) your driver is required to play chicken with oncoming traffic in order to pass them. The owner of this particular truck is aware of this phenomenon and has painted the phrase “Blow Horn” on his rear. At least he will have warning. |
This picture was taken
at another chai pit stop for the sake of the driver.
Driving in South Asia requires you to share the road with
multiple kinds of vehicular and ambulatory things (as discussed in my earlier
post on traffic), including the auto rickshaw. It definitely runs faster than
its human and bike-pulled counterparts, but it is another vehicle to avoid on
the road.
If you can discern
through the blurred photo, you will see a cycle rickshaw pulling two people.
Drivers of cycle rickshaws have an amazing ability to wind into the crevices of
traffic, but their human effort is no matched for impatient vehicles at a young
green light. They often set off a lot of impatient honking when the light
changes.
It seems that people
here can ride everything sidesaddle except horses (they really struggle with
horses for some reason). Look at the grace of this man on his friend’s bike.
This picture says a
lot, but I think it is best captured in the following haiku:
Overstuffed autos
drifting in lanes, ignoring
cell phone usage laws.
For some reason, this
guy was the icing for me. He is riding on a cart pulled by a bull, without a
care in the world. The man, not the bull. Or at least that’s what his stance
says to me.
With nine hours of stressful, chai-filled driving under his
belt, our driver was very reluctant to venture out of the towns and into the
real “inside” of South Asian rural countryside in order to get me and my mom
safely to the retreat center, especially since the sun had set. We found
ourselves driving along a narrow road bordered by tall grasses on either side.
Apparently the area where we were driving is famous for bandits, and our driver
was not thrilled about carrying us in his vehicle with so little visibility. We
emerged from the slender road onto a dirt road, cutting through a village. Using
my non-existent sense of direction and vague directional hand gestures from
villagers, my mom, our driver, and I found ourselves on the final road leading
through an orchard to the relief of the retreat. Relief, right?
Wrong. Earlier in the week, the retreat center decided to
begin road “improvements” to their entry road, but they had only gotten so far
as moving dirt to the road, which meant that the road we needed to travel was
covered in large mounds of soil; completely and totally impassable according to
our now-panicked and vehement driver.
With repeated mutterings about “criminals”, our driver
turned on the overhead light, got out of the taxi, and walked into the darkness
of the night with other villagers, leaving me and my mom alone and highlighted,
in the middle of nowhere, rural, “criminal-infested” South Asia. I slid down in
my seat, looking over at my mom with bewilderment. Moments later, she turned to
gaze out into the blackness and I saw her neck freeze. Very slowly, my mom
turned back to me and, with a wide-eyed straight face, muttered, “Alice,
there’s a man standing outside our taxi with a rifle”. We hadn’t realized it,
but our taxi driver had gotten out of his car to consult with villagers and
other retreat center employees, including a plain clothes guard. At this point
the absurdity of our situation hit home and both of us had to stifle a stress
laugh.
Within minutes, our harried driver returned with even more
retreat center staff, including a man on a motor bike. I noticed a patch
bearing the retreat center name on the mismatched front pockets of a few of the
men, so I figured that we were relatively safe. We were directed to leave our
bags (which we instead draped all over ourselves, save one) and take the bike
through the dirt piles, into the retreat center. I carry a basic Nokia cell
phone (which we all know is the ultimate life-saving weapon) which I was using
to contact the retreat staff, so I directed my mom to take the first ride into
the retreat center, assuring her that I was fine because “I have a phone”. My
mom had not noticed the [un]official retreat center patches, so when she was
directed to get on the bike, she tells me that she thought a) that she might
never see her big luggage bag again, and that b) she might never see her
daughter again. In that order.
I watched my mom ride off into the darkness and found myself
alone, with a stressed-out driver, an old man with a big gun, and a crowd of
curious villagers, none of whom I could actually see because it was so dark.
The driver ordered me to call the retreat center and tell them he would borrow
the guard to get him safely back t o a main road, so I attempted to call the
center. After nine uncompleted calls, I told the busy signal (and everyone
within earshot) exactly what I thought about their phone service and hung up.
In the time it took me to pay the driver without revealing my money to the
suspected hordes of on-looking criminals hiding out in the bushes, the retreat
biker was back, minus my mom. I hobbled onto the back of his bike with my
luggage and he drove me along a bumpy road, through an orchard, and into the
bright, warm, safe light of the retreat center, where we met my mom at the
entrance.
After throwing our bags in a cabin, my mom and I followed
the sounds of “Amazing Grace” floating through the air, directly to a campfire
surrounded by my IJM family. The significance of the lyrics, “I once was lost
but now am found” was not at all lost on us.
That night, mom and I retired to our cabin and let our
nervous energy loose with 15 solid minutes of side-splitting laughter after
promising each other that we would not “tell Dad” until my mom got home.
There are many prudent lessons to be learned from this
story. Lessons about preparation and having a map and patience. Those lessons
will continue to sink in, but for now, I marvel in my mom’s ability to take it
all in stride.
