Day 18: Bad Spirits and Bananas

The word for this day is Exhausting. I almost can’t remember the start of the day—it seems like we did so many things! We got up at 8 and an hour later we went on a spontaneous rickshaw adventure to see this Muslim man who sells amulets to ward off bad spirits. Normal event right? haha Anyways, the cook’s baby has been sick for a few days and they think that he might be plagued by a bad spirit and getting one of these amulets is a way to fix that (interesting because they are Hindu—not Muslim). So of course we were invited to come along (because who doesn’t like to see some bad spirit being scared off?) Anyways, that took about an hour and a half and when we got back I had to leave right away from an interview.
Today I interviewed a man I will call Sri Murthy. Sri Murthy is a nice older gentleman who’s son works and lives abroad in Dubai. His son has only been away for a year though and he is contracted to work there for 3 years. Sri Murthy and I had an awesome discussion (this man talks a million miles a second in the most animated way possible)  and then after this discussion ended he gave me the most delicious banana I’ve ever had in my life. It was this cute little “plantain” that came from the tree in his backyard… it tasted so good because as he said “no chemicals are added”.  It wanted to steal all his bananas… but I guess that isn’t advisable if I want to keep talking to him as one of my informants. He told me that watermelon season is about to start. I'm hoping that's true! Fruit here is to die for. Sri Murthy also gave me a great lead—his son’s mother-in-law is coming into town tomorrow and she has a son living in America. So that’s great for me! Now I have another interview to look forward to for Thursday! (As well as one tomorrow...)

After my interview with Sri Murthy we went to a school in the area with our translators to hold some focus groups with the students. It was a really great place and the children were so polite. Here’s the first group of kids I did a focus group with: Madhu, Yamuna, Nagamani, Bhuvana and Alekhya. All schools in this area require their students to wear uniforms. And all the girls wear their hair braided like this.

Here’s a picture of the boys I did my second focus group with. They were super shy at first but eventually when they saw some of the other boys getting over it they opened up (just a little—boys will be boys)! They even started teaching us some secret handshakes.

So it was a full day! And I realized how draining the life a full-time ethnographer can be. Maybe it wouldn’t get drained so fast if I was less introverted. I find that I can be very extroverted for a few hours but when I get home it really hits me how tiring it is.

And yet, I would do it all over again tomorrow… which I need to anyways haha

Another day in India!

Stéf