You Know, I'd Update More Often If People Would Comment More Often. . . Aside From My Mom, That Is

Hiya! OK, so since I've been writing up emails like crazy because I've made a vow to answer everybody who emails me to encourage their good bahaviour (*winks* *nudges* *hands out pamphlets explaining the concept in point form and small words*) I haven't spent much time on this blog. This is because the only person who ever comments on them is my mom, and much as I love you, mom, it does feel rather pathetic and sad.

Thus I'm not going to put too much effort into this blog update, but rather just give you an excerpt from an email I sent to uncle Dale, because I think it sums up a lot of things you might want to know about India and also might drain some of the hot air that is making Canada's ego swell. To give you the context, uncle Dale is a really curious, inquiring-minded sort of guy and he was asking me all of these (much appreciated) questions about India, and I was answering his questions about:

a) how do they treat women here?
#2 - what do they think of the US here?
iii - what do they think of Canada here?

These are my answers:

If You Ask, I Will Answer

(excert begins here)

Anyhoo, as you already guessed, I am definitely not suntanning in a bikini. They don't have bikinis here. They rarely even have swimsuits . Women go swimming in what they're wearing. They look like drowned rats when they come out, and I can see why they don't do it that often. :S

If this doesn't already give you an idea about the inequality between the sexes I'll give you some more examples.

Inequality #1 - women usually only go to university because it's a good selling point for when they're trying to get married. I don't see why, though, because after they get married they almost inevitably stop going to work so that they can cook, clean, and have babies. You don't need a degree to do that.

Inequality #2 - when at home, women have to wait before their husband's finished before they can start eating the food they cooked. If the husband, after his long day's work at the office or whatever, wants to visit with his friends before he comes home, the wife has to wait until he returns.

Inequality #3 - When I ask men what they do in their spare time, they tell me they go out and have fun with their buddies, maybe play a game of cricket (they really love cricket) or something. When I ask a woman what she does in her spare time, they say
"'Spare time'?".
I say "You know. What do you do with your friends?".
They say "'Friends'?"
I say worriedly "You don't have any friends?"
They say, "My husband is my friend."
I splutter something about their husband having friends, and that they should be allowed to have friends too, and they laugh and bobble their head and say "You're really good at grating coconuts (which I am). You'll be a great housewife someday. (which I won't)"
I splutter, choke on my indignation about how stoic they are about their treatment, cough, demand water, and they give me "ayurvedic" water, which is basically water, pepper, and ginger, and it burns a hole through my throat and I die slowly and painfully.

As for Americans, they don't seem to much care about them really. I have to say, it's practically like India is even more wrapped up in itself than the US (or Canada for that matter). Except they do have a good reason. They do have over a billion people in their country, they're their own subcontinent, and they have enough different cultures in their country to be treated as diverse as Europe, if not more so. Canada they haven't even heard of. In fact, I remember (quite painfully) how much they don't really know anything about Canada, when, after about two weeks of being at this school, my paint teacher comes up to me and says in an excited voice,

"Hey Zeo? Is Canada where Eskimos come from?"

I think I laughed so hard some of my brain came out my nose.

I then had to try and explain that I'd never actually seen an Eskimo before, that they preferred to be called Inuits, and that I had seen Indians before. He looked at me, confused, and I said,

"Oh yeah. You're an Indian. . . er. . . I mean First Nation. . . oh yeah, you don't know politically correct English. . . er. . . you know, Indian, raindances, totem poles. . ." It took me awhile, but he eventually understood when I did my depiction of a raindance for him. Damn. . . if they didn't already think I was crazy. . .

So yeah, they don't really think much about Canada, or even know it existed. I can see why, though. I've been here for awhile, and while they're are a lot of British and French here, and a few Americans, I have yet to have even heard of another Canadian having been in the area before. I guess India's not a popular tourist destination for Canadians. . . it's too hot for us and there's not enough beaches that don't have evil parasites out to get you.

Well, I suppose I've written enough,
Hope you're having a blast in Canada,
Bisous,
Namaste,

Lentil,

The Girl Who's Randomly Taken To Referring To Herself As Lentil. She Doesn't Know Why. It Just seemed To Be The Right Thing To Do At The Time. . .