So, yesterday was one of the longest days of my life. We went with some branch members to a member of the branch's sister's "authentic village wedding". (Don't worry, everyone goes to every wedding. You don't need to know the person.) It was good, but it was long. I don't think I can do it justice, but I'll try:
We (five girls from the team plus Mike Riding from the office) left at 7 am to catch a two-hour train. Everyone on the train kept taking pictures of us, which was funny. Then we took a short bus ride out into the country. The moment we arrived at the wedding hall, we were ushered to the front row to have a close-up view of the bride and groom. Basically, we sat for a few hours, watching them scoop rice onto each others' heads and listening to the nasally singing that accompanied it. After the ceremony, we congratulated the couple and took pictures with them. Then we ate lunch and headed off to see some sights with the 18 branch members who also came to the wedding.
But how do you transport 18 people without a bus? Easy. Pile them into the back of a flatbed truck caked with cow manure! Did I mention that 14 of the members with us were 18 to 26-year-old boys? They were going crazy, climbing all over the truck and yelling songs at the top of their lungs. The ride was hilarious and pretty fun and very long. Everyone stared at us, but that's normal. We went to a lake surrounded by tons of monkeys for about 20 minutes, and then we went to the Thousand Pillar Temple. We only stayed there for about 10 minutes, but it was good to see. It's funny because all the American people were taking pictures of the temple, but all of the Indians were taking pictures of us!
Then we rode another bus to a different train station, where we waited a very long time (again) for the train to come. Once we got on the train, we were pretty exhausted. We finally reached our house again at 11 pm. Like I said, it was long. But that's part of being authentic Indian. Things just take a while.
Maybe I'll become more patient living here.
That wouldn't be a bad thing.
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