Risen">Risen" border="0" alt="" />Sunday August 12, 2007
When I got back to Sambhavna at about 8am on Sunday there was a new volunteer sitting at the kitchen table reading!! Yay! Fresh blood! He new guy’s name is Derek, and he’ll be here until December, so I’ll never be completely alone at the clinic! And better still, you may have noticed that he’s a guy, so I can make him take me places after dark (athough I think he’s too skinny to be really intimidating)! Anisha, Casey, Masaum and I had planned to go to a small town about an hour outside of Bhopal called Risen that day. It turned out that Anisha had invited Ankeeta (who runs the canteen) and her family to come with us, which was great because she has really sweet little kids. However, Ankeeta’s neice, (who lives in the same housing complex across from Sambhavna along with Ankeet’s three other in-law families), had overheard the conversation and decided that it was an open invitation for EVERYONE! We left about two hours after we had planned to with the following troops in tow:
Ankeeta and Papoo, their three kids: Hersheeta (2), Shilvani (8), and Sumit (5). Ankeeta’s sister in law and her tiny baby (maybe about 6 months old, if that), another sister in law and her kids, Pooja (13), Vishal (11 or 12), Nancie (7), Anjolie (5), as well as myself, Anisha, Casey, Derek and Masaum. In all, there were seventeen of us and we had to take three autos to the bus stand. We actually filled the seats on one of the tiny buses (although by Indian standards it wasn’t even half full, because they crammed another twenty or so people on there). The kids were all excited and full of beans, but of course fell asleep within moments of being on the bus, so they were all the more hyper when we reached Risen an hour later. First we visited a temple that was quite crowded with other visitors. The kids wanted me to take pictures of the dozens of monkeys all over the place, and the moms all wanted their photo pretending to do various religious things. So you will excuse the rather excessive amount of photos of these things. However, once every other child in the place saw that I was taking photos of that family I was followed around by a group no smaller than about twenty-fie kids all begging to have their photo taken. I decided that this would quickly get out of control and said no to all of them, not that that prevented them from all following me anyway. At one point I had Derek pull out his camera and take a few group photos of the crowd to distract them so that I could take photos of other things. The whole “Didi! Photo!” thing has reached the point of extreme annoyance rather than “aww, that’s so cute”.
Anyway, we didn’t stay long because it wasn’t that pretty and there wasn’t that much to do. Instead we started the (what seemed like) twenty-mile hike to and up a hill about the same size as Mont Royal. Keep in mind that we had in tow six kids under the age of ten. Needless to say that it was a slow walk… especially because every time I took out my camera to take a photo of something Pooja would say ‘oh! Didi! One photo! Me!” and look pleadingly at me. So you will notice the vast number of photos of a girl in an orange shirt. About half way up the mountain I was ready to have an Annie-Dad moment and throw her in a snow bank. She was whining worse than any of the little kids and kept pulling this sucky face at me. I think she wanted me to trade shoes with her, but there was NO WAY I was going to wear the frikken’ heels she had worn. Anyway, it made me realize how annoying teenagers are, and dread the day I have any. Annie can take them when they hit twelve, and I’ll keep them when they’re little. But I digress… about half way up the hill I sped ahead and walked with Casey, who carried the two0year old the entire way up the hill without breaking a sweat, making me feel horribly out of shape as I huffed and puffed my way. I was reminded vaguely of my recent trip up Mt. St. Hilaire, although I think I would have died had I been that hung over on this trip. Only myself, Caey and Derek had brought any water, so it was quickly gone, because the kids kept asking for it. Paupoo re-filed our bottles at the top, but we didn’t know where the water was from, so that was it for us.
Anyway, once we got to the top it was quite pretty and breezy. Paupoo and Ankeeta had made a really yummy picnic lunch for everyone, so we sat and had puri (thicker versions of roti), potato subgie (which thank heavens wasn’t too spicy because we were out of water), and pekoras (my favourite). All was going well until two things happened: 1) a group of sleazy-looking guys that had been hanging around started taking photos of Casey and I with their camera phone (which apparently happened to Mel when she was there as well) and 2) we were surrounded by monkeys who wanted our lunch.
Masaum (our ever-brave protector), grabbed the guy’s cell phone and smashed it on the rocks, and told him off. A few smacks were exchanged but nothing serious, and the guys moved off. Then the monkeys moved in, so Vishal and Paupoo took turns chasing them off with sticks while we quickly finished lunch. Paupoo threw all of the leftovers their way once we were done. It was pretty amazing how aggressive they were, so we decided we had better head down. However, at precisely that moment, the group of guys returned with the “registration” guy who was supposed to be keeping order over the whole mountain. Ahem. Yeah right, the guy was like a hundread, but anyway. They had told him that Masaum had broken their phone, so he asked us to leave!!! Can you believe that? He asked the group with all the small kids to leave instead of the pack of wild dogs, er, boys!! I was fuming of course, but a few more smacks were thrown around (this time Paupoo got involved, too), so I moved away. Then the mother of Pooja and co. stepped in and told the whole lot of them off, and broke up the fight. I’ve never seen anyone quiet a crowd so fast. I don’t know what she said, but she kept telling the registration guy off the whole way down the mountain, so it seemed to be effective.
Anyway, it didn’t dampen our spirits too much, as we were leaving anyway. So we made it back down the hill and caught a slightly less crowded bus back to Bhopal. Although Masaum did comment to me that he hated Risen and he was never going back…. Poor Masaum. This time everyone fell asleep except for the kids who ran up and down the aisle screaming and dancing to the Hindi music barring from the speakers. I was relieved to get back to Sambhavna and have a break, and very thankful that Anisha had begged our excuses from Dance lessons that night, because I think I might have actually died of exhaustion if I had to endure two more hours of screaming kids. All I have to say is that Mom, Dad I now know why you decided against long family vacations. I have already vetoed them for when I have kids.
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