June 1 - Home Visit -
On the Temple Road there was this dignified looking musician who often smiled and said good morning to us. Meg had started a conversation with him and gotten an invitation to his home. We had been discussing the date back and forth and asked that it only be for tea (tea being a confusing term for anyone using British English) and so on the 1st we met him at 5:30 and walked through town to his home. On the advice of friends we had brought a carton of milk and another of juice as gifts.
He lived down the hill from the main tourist part of town in a concrete building reached by paths rather than the road. His family had one room for mother, father and four children. Half of the room was taken up with a bed, there was a blocked area around the sole spigot for washing and a shelf against the wall where food and the gas burner was. The rest of the floor had a carpet which we sat upon.
He played music for a bit and a daughter sang a few songs with him. I tried his instrument and made some horrible sounds It had a full octave of steel strings but you played a horsehair string that crossed them with a bow. He had long fingernails on his left hand for touching the string which went across the others and had bells on the bow which could be used for percussion. He was from a musician caste and was proud of his heritage but lamented his financial state. When we passed him in the street he usually only had 50-60 rupees in his basket.
He spoke about the land (he used the word "desert") he owned in Rajastan, where his mother lived in a tent. His daughter was married but her husband had died in a motorcycle accident, leaving her alone with a child.
While we were talking his wife and oldest daughter heated tea and made chapattis from scratch. She served us tea and chapattis with vegetable curry and yoghurt. This was more than we wanted but we finished one and insisted on splitting another. One daughter was eating but everyone else seemed to be waiting for us to finish. We avoided the yoghurt as we knew of only one store in town that kept it cold and they didn't have a fridge, so milk products seemed more of a risk than the food itself.
Meg tried to find alternatives for him but he said hotels never called him back as they wanted modern guitar bands. He also said only tourists bought his CDs and now that was fewer as CDs were no longer a thing. We agreed to buy some CDs when we saw him the next day and made our exit before it got dark.
On the way back the girl who was singing followed us for a few minutes and then tried to beg money off of us. She tried to be cute and said please several times but we weren't biting so she went off.
After this was over we had planned to meet our friend Firoz for a goodbye meal and he invited Roshni, another volunteer at LHA who was quite interesting herself. She had been volunteering with the daycare facility and was spend full days with young kids before coming to the conversation class at LHA and so was justifiably exhausted most days.
We had a good meal and chat about our home visit amongst other things before walking Roshni home and saying goodbye to Firoz.
On the Temple Road there was this dignified looking musician who often smiled and said good morning to us. Meg had started a conversation with him and gotten an invitation to his home. We had been discussing the date back and forth and asked that it only be for tea (tea being a confusing term for anyone using British English) and so on the 1st we met him at 5:30 and walked through town to his home. On the advice of friends we had brought a carton of milk and another of juice as gifts.
He lived down the hill from the main tourist part of town in a concrete building reached by paths rather than the road. His family had one room for mother, father and four children. Half of the room was taken up with a bed, there was a blocked area around the sole spigot for washing and a shelf against the wall where food and the gas burner was. The rest of the floor had a carpet which we sat upon.
He played music for a bit and a daughter sang a few songs with him. I tried his instrument and made some horrible sounds It had a full octave of steel strings but you played a horsehair string that crossed them with a bow. He had long fingernails on his left hand for touching the string which went across the others and had bells on the bow which could be used for percussion. He was from a musician caste and was proud of his heritage but lamented his financial state. When we passed him in the street he usually only had 50-60 rupees in his basket.
He spoke about the land (he used the word "desert") he owned in Rajastan, where his mother lived in a tent. His daughter was married but her husband had died in a motorcycle accident, leaving her alone with a child.
While we were talking his wife and oldest daughter heated tea and made chapattis from scratch. She served us tea and chapattis with vegetable curry and yoghurt. This was more than we wanted but we finished one and insisted on splitting another. One daughter was eating but everyone else seemed to be waiting for us to finish. We avoided the yoghurt as we knew of only one store in town that kept it cold and they didn't have a fridge, so milk products seemed more of a risk than the food itself.
Meg tried to find alternatives for him but he said hotels never called him back as they wanted modern guitar bands. He also said only tourists bought his CDs and now that was fewer as CDs were no longer a thing. We agreed to buy some CDs when we saw him the next day and made our exit before it got dark.
On the way back the girl who was singing followed us for a few minutes and then tried to beg money off of us. She tried to be cute and said please several times but we weren't biting so she went off.
After this was over we had planned to meet our friend Firoz for a goodbye meal and he invited Roshni, another volunteer at LHA who was quite interesting herself. She had been volunteering with the daycare facility and was spend full days with young kids before coming to the conversation class at LHA and so was justifiably exhausted most days.
We had a good meal and chat about our home visit amongst other things before walking Roshni home and saying goodbye to Firoz.
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| Performing with his precocious daughter. |
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| Me looking good but sounding bad. |
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| The musician at home. |
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