Third day in the village and it has come to my attention than roughly every other day the people of the village have to go to a tap and collect water in vessels to bring back to their own homes. This water is then the only water they will have for the two days in order to wash with, flush toilets, clean food and cook with. So this morning I get a wakeup call at around 5am to help out with such a task. This was not what I was expecting but I was more than happy to jump up and do my part. Especially seeing as I wasn’t paying any rent whatsoever and they were just allowing me to stay there out of the goodness of their hearts. So, I went outside and walked over to where the tap was and started filling up my bucket. After it was full I flung it onto my hip and walked back to the simple accommodation in which I was staying. Along with the others I filled up multiple buckets, baths and vessels. We then continued this process for about 30-40 minutes till they were all nearly overflowing and then proudly flopped back onto my bed floor to try catch up on some sleep before my day were to truly begin. Though after this ‘hard village labour’, sleep wasn’t the easiest thing to achieve.
It made me feel great to be able to do something so small to help out such a small community. It gave me a sense to achievement and pride. It also helped me to feel more welcome and included into the village which was a beautiful sensation.
Being welcomed into a village to stay for a short period of time was something that I had dreamed of being able to do in India, but not something that I thought I would actually be able to have the chance to do. It’s not as if I hadn’t been previously invited, because I had. But it was the fact that the people who did invite me, would tend to be mysterious and random men who had decided to strike bizarre conversation with me in the street. And although I like to be impulsive and jump and almost anything, jumping at strange Indian men’s invitations happens to be very high on my ‘Come on Luana, let’s not be stupid now’ list. And so grateful of being meeting these great Americans, I truly am.
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