Friends are difficult to make here. I don’t know if I
understand it fully but men and women just aren’t usually friends and I’ve
tried to make friends with local women and it is a major challenge due to the
fact that they don’t have disposable time, income or the ability to go do
anything without permission. I’ve never had such a hard time making friends in
my life. But I think I have found one and even if it breaks a little bit of the
cultural norm, I’m grateful that he wants to hang out with me every once in
awhile. My new friend is a co-worker from one of the campus locations that I
travel to and he’s the head of English department there. His English is great
and we are able to communicate well, therefore naturally it is easy to be friends
with him. A couple weeks ago, he took a bus to Calicut and we went to see the
new Avengers movie…now mind you, I haven’t seen any of the superhero movies
except I think I saw Ironman (judge me all you want!) so I wasn’t like super
psyched to see The Age of Ultron. But any form of entertainment in English
coupled with someone that wants to hang out with me…I pretty much would have
seen anything! The movie was actually pretty decent and I have now stolen all
the previous Avenger-esque movies from my friend to borrow. I’m working on it. J
After the movie, we went to my apartment to have lunch and
visit with my neighbors (who he had met at Easter) and then headed to the beach.
It was a perfect way to end the day. The sun was starting to go down, he joined
a pickup soccer (futbol) game and I just enjoyed watching the waves roll in.
There’s always plenty of trash around so I easily found a bottle and decided I
would do my best to write a message and send it out to some lucky soul haha.
Except my throwing arm was not strong enough and it kept coming right back. You
know the movies make it look so easy…you try it sometime! It’s not J As we were getting
ready to leave, we could see a storm making its way in and it was awesome! The
dark clouds and lightning over the ocean was such a beautiful sight…plus the
weather cooled down. I love the ocean for so many reasons; I always find
something new to marvel at. God always gives me such a peace when I’m watching
his beautiful creation at the beach.
The next weekend, my friend invited me to Wayanad, a place a
couple hours from Calicut that is in the mountains. He had a wedding function
he needed to go to and said that we could explore the area after the function.
I agreed just for the chance to get out of the city, hopefully get some cool
breezes and again just to have some company. We met halfway there and the bus
ride was really pleasant riding up towards the mountains. It was barely cooler
but every little bit helps. We first stopped at this lake and walked around a
bit, rented paddle boats and ate popcorn. Then we headed to his friend’s
wedding reception. It was the usual gig, people asking me where I was from,
what I was doing here, if I was married etc. while he caught up with his
friends. We had biriyani and left shortly after. Then we went to this dam, one
of India’s largest, which also had a park and a pretty lake. We walked around a
bunch and then saw a crowd of people in this wooded area and went to check out
these awesome swings. There were giant wooden swings hanging everywhere from
these trees so people young and old could enjoy. I hadn’t been on a swing in
quite awhile and there was something fun about it being in the trees. We took
turns pushing each other and of course drew quite a crowd. I think he’s getting
a taste of what it’s like being a foreigner here because we constantly have to
move on when there’s too much of crowd for my liking. I had a little group at the
bottom of my swing taking photos and just generally watching me act like a kid.
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