how i spent my day off in india.

The night before was spent at the "discoteck" daanding to beats that were cool when i was 12. So much fun... but being out till 2 when i'd been up since 5 am for work made getting up early on my day off extremely painful...

But as painful as it was, i was out fo bed and wondering the streets by 730. Joining me on the adventure were 2 italians (a boy and a girl) and a spanish girl. After eating some local grub we went to the bus station and using really bad bengalli asked for the bus that was going to a certain village that one of the italians had been told was a good time. 2 Hours later we find ourselves in the middle of no where and come to the realization that outside of the major urban centres noone speaks a word of english. After tasting the local food we jump on a rick shaw in a random direction for 3 rubies (10 cents ish) for 30 min and land outside the comercial area of the villiage and along side an amazing view of what we think is the gangi river. When the road gets too bad for the rickshaw to continue we pay our fare and begin walking. The coolest thing is that within 20 min we stumble on a ship yard and pay the security personel a rubee each to wander through. Next thing we know we are playnig with the fishermen and going swimin. we can't figure out why the fishermen keep telling us to stay close to the shore until one man reveals through make shift sign language (and we confirmed this whe we got home) that there are crocodiles near by... o man...

Next we venture into like this village outside the village and withing a few minutes we get adopted by a local family.. we can't understand them and they can't understand us but withint minutes they are feeding us and both sides are laughing trying to communicate. Soon word spreads that there are white people in the village and now the half the village is standing outside the house wanting to see and say hi. The boys are playing with us.. and the girls come with 5 feet but scury off when we come close. That is until we start taknig pictures and showing them the digitals. Even the older people are laughing and playing with us. Everyone is dancing and everyone is happy. One thing i couldn't believe... i pass around Canadian money as well as large indian bills because i'm sure they have never seen either... and maybe because this would never happen in Culcutta, but 20 min later, after being through about 40 strangers hands, everything came back to me without asking.

The love in this village is astounding. though they only eat once a day they offer us food the entire afternoon. I accepted everything that was given and even drank the local water though i knew there wa a chance I could get sick. I felt that it would be rude not to be accepting. Though i'm sure they did not expect it (as could be told by their reaction) after 5 hours of being there we sent someone to the market that we has seen comming in and bought the family 150 rubees worth of food. For us that is only like 5 bux.. but to these people that is almost a weeks wage! The money bought HUGE bages of rice, 30 eggs, 2 bags of patatos, curry, spices, AND a huge bag of treats for the kids.

Everyone was so happy. When the sun was setting and we knew we had to leave we sang one last song with the children and began to leave. To out joy the entire village walked us to the edge of their little sub village, huged us, and waved and watched as we walked into the night.

Dirty, sunburned, tired, and with a sore belly, i finally got home just after 9. After a quick shower and an attempt to mend a blister on my foot, i layed down and was asleep in minutes.