Satuday evening was Berhampur-filled yet again. We went around to the shops that we were shown around the last time to get some standard things, like shampoo and conditioner, toilet paper...and cookies (like you do). It was a lot faster this time around, considering we had a little more understanding of the city's ways and the thrill of being off campus was slightly dulled from our fieldwork during the week.
I was trailblazing the group, getting us here and there in the city. And I remembered then that it was actually one of my favorite parts of traveling to foreign cities; that is, figuring out the city in limited time. It was kind of like I have a compass/map installed instantly into my brain while I look around new cities. I take pictures of specific signs in my head; I make mental notes and signposts about streets; I remember places based on what conversation/thought was going on at the last moment of being there. It makes me happy to know I can find my way around a city, understand how it is mapped out, and not feel totally hopeless there.
Though, I almost got ran into by a cow with a nice set of curved horns pointed directly towards me, because I was paying attention to where we were going...
My group was very surprised at how I could navigate us around the area of Berhampur that we were walking around. I was just glad we didn't have to look as much like lost tourists.
Anyways, we grabbed some goodies, got some fruit and other things....and I got a guy to open up a coconut. The ones with the meat in it, not a green one. It was amazing. For 8 Rs, I got to savor a real live fresh coconut, freshly opened. And I was blissed out for about a few hours because of this amazing and appropriate experience.
We ate some disappointing chinese food this time around before cramming back onto the bus towards GV.
We went back to Cristina (from Romania)'s room and talking about light matters until 4 am. Light matters include: child trafficking, changing the world, women's empowerment, violence, caste difficulties, India, and similar matters.
Sunday is a great day on campus because you can do literally nothing. We slept in late, and woke up for lunch. And read as much of the day as we want.
Another note must be said about our feeding here...about the quantity of food.
So, when Joe first met us while in NYC, he made a point to tell us that we would not be eating much food at all while staying on their campus. Our team had interpreted this as meaning that we'd be only eating rice and lentils for 3 weeks straight during extreme heat, thus becoming very thin in breakneck speed. For me, I was rather excited about the potential of flying to India to live an ascetic monk's lifestyle and coming back super thin to tell the tale. It could have been the most efficient, cost-effective diet ever to hit the fad market!
And then we arrived. Rice, dhal (and often potatoes) are our staple meals, however.....it comes in massive quantities.
I don't know how all of these men and women stay so supremely small. Everytime we eat in the mess hall, I come out feeling overly stuffed and bloated from the large sums of rice they plop onto our metal trays. Granted, having such a basic diet with little seasoning or variety for 3 weeks have made me feel indeed monk-like, but this wasn't what I had in mind. I grieved the first week we were here, realizing that my diet plans had come to a screeching halt. Now I have simply accepted the fact that I will come back the same (if not slightly larger) as I had gone.
Anyways, we went for a walk outside of the compound (because it only took us over 2 weeks to figure out we could actually do this), and it was really great. We first managed to climb over some of the craggy, hilly land that held a GV water tank in the middle of ample briars and sandy terrain. The view never ceases to inspire me. Green hills with puckered tops on one side of our panoramic view roll away into green rice paddy land and tropical trees for the other side.
We stood on our incline to look down on the road and heard very loud Indian music blaring from a rickshaw. And we danced to it, as they stared up at us and smiled. At first I assumed that they had turned it on for only us (since we seemed to be the only ones in sight for quite a long distance), but then shortly after a line of Kanwar pilgrims came walking through the trees, jingling down the road and up the hills to the next Shiva temple. The music was for them and not us, after all.
We walked back towards the campus and some of us went back inside. The rest of us (Cristina, Maulin, and me) walk in the other direction, towards Berhampur proper. It was such a nice day, why not enjoy the walk more? And so we walked past the fields, and trees, and residences, and small villages.
Women walked by us in groups, holding water jugs and field tools on their heads. Some smiled and waved. Some looked at us with a sort of scorn.
The men drove by in usually pairs. They would stare, smile, stare some more, turn around while on their motorbikes or in their cars to keep looking....and more often than not, I wanted to shout "KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD AND STOP SWERVING!" I didn't. When we walked by men, they would gawk some more, and Cristina and I would simply look at each other and smile with a shrug.
We walked for a while and ended up on the campus of the Berhampur University-affiliated College of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In my humble opinion, it is not the best situated campus, but there is it. The campus was strange, and felt more like a ghost town than a university campus. No one was there, and everything was slightly overgrown (though that might have just been that way because most places in this part of Orissa seem to have ruthlessly growing flora). But the buildings were dilapidated and unkempt. Everything was fading. They had a locked up herbal garden that looked overgrown from the outside. They had a college canteen that looked more like a cow shed. And their bioscience department was a blocky square of a building situated in a very obscure field a hundred yards away.
This was the end of our tour of the area outside of campus, and we made it home in time to have a nap before our dinner. Rice, dhal, and potatoes.
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