Relatives and Rickshaws!

Cholo, cholo! Hello from Mumbai once again!

Yesterday, Saturday, was one eventful day and by the end of it we were exhausted but I must say it was very enjoyable. We took a day trip to a nearby city to meet Kirsten’s relatives for a family party. Remember, I’ve been adopted. And oh my goodness there is a lot of people in their family. They just kept popping up! We ate dinner which means we ate a TON of food as usual but it was so funny because before they gave us anything they would say “Not spicy” “come come” “eat eat”. They made sure we knew it wasn’t spicy and everyone would tell us that and does tell us that for like everything we eat. Clearly they think we might explode if we eat their spicy traditional food but I am thankful for that because I have learned that I can’t handle spicy stuff. It burns my throat!! Therefore, they gave us these thin chip things and fries and handed us a whole plate full and said “Eat these, nobody else will.” Wimpy Americans (I’ll speak for myself. Kirsten tries all their spicy stuff. I smell it and my nostrils start burning). They have plenty of spicy stuff but plenty of normal stuff too. While Indians eat, everybody gathers in one room and sits on the bed. So you have people sitting all around the room and like 10 people on the bed. The apartments are always small and the biggest place to sit is always the bed so everyone just piles on and it’s totally normal. When I first got here that weirded me out so much. I don’t want to sit on anyone’s nasty bed. But everyone does it all the time and so I’m slowly getting used to it. We eat on the bed, talk on the bed, play UNO on the bed, and sleep on the bed. Yummy yummy.

After eating they celebrated a birthday and some of their birthday traditions are a little different so it was cool to see. Everyone feeds cake to the birthday person. Like at a wedding, when the bride and groom feed the cake to each other…it’s the same thing. And instead of blowing out of the candles they clap by them and it blows them out. I LOVE THIS TRADITION. It avoids all those nasty moments of slobber getting on the cake.

Right before we left the party, Kirsten and I were given gifts! I don’t think I have ever met an entire family this big jammed packed full of amazingly nice people. Everyone is nice. Everyone. I can honestly say that they are all very kind people. I think it has to do with the respect that goes along with the standards in which people live in the Indian culture. I feel like I’m part of the family!! And I feel like that’s so weird because our cultures on extremely different, I’m white, from America, our religions are very different, and our lifestyles are as well and yet somehow, they make you feel like you fit in. I love this family. One of them is a candle maker and she gave us big candles which we sincerely hope we can bring home but they are super heavy. Another one owns a Sauree and Salwar shop and she let us pick our own Salwar! I chose a black one with gold sequins and stuff on it. It’s beautiful. She also gave us 4 pairs on Salvars (the skinny pant things) to go with it. Then we were given a bracelet from one of the older lady’s in the family and it was really sweet.

Once we left we went sightseeing around Mumbai with Carina (she’s our home girl), Grandpa and his brother Manu, the travel agent. Manu is a really funny old man who was making “Mary had a little lamb” jokes all night. Loved that. Even in India I am taunted by that retched nursery rhyme! They do sightseeing right because they know all the ins and outs because they live there and Manu’s a freaking travel agent! It was very enjoyable. We drove across this giant bridge and by a beach on a stretch called “The Queens Necklace” because it’s shaped like a necklace. We rode a horse carriage ride which attracted an awful lot of attention, but it was fun. Funny thing is, when Manu went to barter for a price with the carriage driver, he told us to stay far away so he would be given a fair price. We came over after he negotiated. AKA: “Hide you Americans or they gunna charge us more!” Apparently there were some terrorist attacks like 3 years ago that happened all around the city and I don’t know where I was during that time, but I never heard about it. There were a lot of shootings and stuff but the city is a safe place, it just got targeted for an attack because there were a lot of nice buildings at a good location. It was interesting to see firsthand (Interesting fact-the same building that was attacked was also where they filmed part of Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol). After the carriage ride we went to a country club (that had really weird flushers on their toilets…let me tell ya, the flushers here are always different so it’s like a treasure hunt to find out how to flush toilet…because clearly you wanted to know that) and ate some more food (of course). It was right on the Arabian Sea which is kinda cool. After eating we went street shopping, made some purchases and then called it a night. But then we had to drive home in the crazy Mumbai traffic for like 2 hours.

Sunday was a super chill day. Kirsten, Prekshaa and I got henna done ALL OVER OUR HANDS (I know you’ll love it, mom)!! It’s like a dream come true and it was so cheap! But actually…it smells terrible and it’s really inconvenient to have it all over your fingers BUT it looks cool and it’s all part of the experience. 

What else is part of the experience? Well riding a rickshaw of course. For those of you who don’t know what a rickshaw is, it’s a tiny car thing with 3 wheels that’s open on the sides. It’s really bumpy and slightly scary but it was also so much fun! There are rickshaws everywhere! We never travel in them because they are super uncomfortable but we had to try it. We had a girl’s night with Seema and Prickshaa and ate dinner at their country club and then returned home to eat a Rose flavored Ice Lolli. It’s like a Popsicle and a snow cone combined.

Those are all the updates for now. Every time we go out in public we see tons of beggars and they are definitely not afraid to approach people, and they make sure to if it’s an American. So we have had our fair share of persistent beggars which sometimes gets overwhelming but it’s all part of the experience and we’re learning how to handle it. Though it’s a little uncomfortable, we’ve been trying to capture these moments on camera so I have some amazing photos of the beggars. Probably the most emotional pictures I’ve ever taken so I’m going to dedicate a blog post just to that because it’s super humbling.

Tomorrow we fly to Jaipur! Farewell Mumbai, see you in 4 weeks.