Monday, December 26, 2005
Deepak and Rishi are not bad men. They are actually pretty cool. The problem is they are married with children yet they still insist to hang out with us, volunteers. When I say 'insist', I mean, calling the guesthouse every night to see if we (at least Maggie) is available. Their over-the-top friendliness makes me defensive somewhat. I've decided to take a different approach today and leverage them to find out more about the Indian culture such as the dowry and caste system. The caste system still exists, but the government is making appropriations to give equal opportunity to lower caste members as the US has for minorities in schooling. Typical government workers make 75 ruppees a day (That's about $1.50US). Finally, in a marriage, typical dowry given by a women's family is 1 laak (written 10,00,000 or 100,000 ruppees or $2222US.). Depending on the family, there is a 'bargaining' between the families for the dowry amount.
The guys bought us beer in the car tonight. It's significantly cheaper buying your own alcohol from a liquor store than from drinking at an establishment. So, we drank and chatted in the car. I must say, within a month, I have lost ALL my alcohol tolerance. I only had one beer tonight and felt extremely flustered after it. Hopefully Sydney will help my tolerance again although I should watch my savings. Maybe I'll have a bottle at home and take a whiskey shot every night.
Pics at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/livealittle/sets/1669566/
