Here in India, it's hard to get change. About 99 times out of 100, the cashier will ask you for change before they are able to give you any. Some days it's like 2 rupees or 10, but a common thread I've found is that most days they would rather just give you a piece of candy than change.
Take for instance, one of the sweet shops in the main city area. A coke costs 24 rupees, and if I give them a 100 rupee note, I'll either be asked for 4 rupees change or given change that resembles mostly gross 10 rupee notes (because they have changed so many hands/been handled in the nearby fish market) and a coin or a piece of candy.
Now, I'm pretty happy to walk away with my piece of candy that cost me an unknown rupee or two (2-4 cents), but when no one wants to give change, it can be a bit frustrating. Last week, I may have yelled at a guy at a train station for refusing to give me 5 rupees and instead wanted to sell me a pack of gum. Granted, I had been worked up from some random guy who was being nice, but chatting me up a little too much (culturally, guys and girls have a distinct separation & Indian men are just plain creepy), and from a friend who had crossed the line in a joke by making fun of one of my volunteers. So I was a little worked up.
Here's how the whole scene went:
We arrive 3 hours early for our train because we weren't sure how long it would take us by bus to get to the train station due to traffic during the festival this week. When we arrived (6 volunteers + 1 national pastor + me), we parked our bags and some of the girls went to check out the train station while I watched the bags.
After about 20 minutes of waiting time elapsed, I see a young guy out of the corner of my eye with what looks to be a 100lb suitcase eyeing our group. Yes, we are a group of young white girls all dressed in cultural wear, so we do look a bit odd. Then he decides to come sit next to me and starts asking me questions. I answer him vaguely, but truthfully and he keeps on chatting. There's really no way to be polite and say, I just don't want to talk to you. haha. No matter how cool my answers are nor how much I try to ignore him, he continues to befriend me. Nothing against the guy, but it's a hard place to be when someone is asking you 100 questions and you want to be truthful but vague and not have him stalk you (which will be evident at the end of the story).
So I get up to go buy a drink. It's the only solution I can think of to get away from this chatty Cathy to make it not look like I'm trying to avoid the dude. So I walk with a friend over to the juice counter and ask for a mango drink. Mmmmmmm Mango. The guy ahead of me in line pays his exact 25 rupees for whatever drink he bought and I go to pay for mine. All I had was a 50 rupee note, so I hand it over. The guy then says, "Five rupees change, madam?" I politely say, "no, sorry. No change." To which he gives me two 10 rupee notes that have been through the ringer and a pack of gum. Then proceeded a 5 minute intense discussion about how I didn't want the gum, I wanted my 5 rupees. They had to ask around to all 5 men working in the shop for who had change. And it finally ended with one of the men handing over some coins and saying, "Peace, Peace."
My question was, what happened to the 5 rupees I just saw the guy before me hand over to them? I know it's only what, a dime back home, but it was the principle that they didn't want to give me change.
As I walked away with my friend, I looked over at her shocked face. I laughed, yeah I know it's only 5 rupees, but if every time I paid for food or a drink and someone wanted to keep my 5 rupees, I wouldn't be able to eat.
It's just like that with everything here, haggling for anything you buy. It's a stressful place to be.
Now, back to the train. So I return to the group of girls and (thank God) some random guy is sitting where I was before. We have to wait another hour or so before the train arrives, but I'm conveniently avoiding the chatty guy who was sitting beside me beforehand. He finally gets up and goes to talk to the national pastor (Hank) who was traveling with us and then the train came.
As we look for our coach and say "Happy Journey" to the chatty guy, we make our way onto the train for the 14+ hour ride. About an hour into the ride, look who comes walking through: Mr. Chatty. Now, it was mainly strange that he would come down about 15 cars (he was at the front of the train and we were at the back) to sit and talk. So I conveniently avoided talking to him by engaging in an intense conversation with one of my volunteers, and he sits down. Wait, is invited to sit down by Hank. Sitting next to Hank, he starts talking to the only other girl who is awake with us, then moves from sitting across from her to sitting next to her and just makes her uncomfortable.
Now, I just need to stress again, that it's weird to make friends like that between the sexes. It just doesn't work that way. Oh yeah, and pretty much all Indian men are creepers. haha. Maybe it's that their moms never taught them that staring was rude, I'm not sure. But they tend to creep me out more than make me comfortable.
Finally, we had to tell Hank (via text message) that he needed to ask the guy to leave. I couldn't bring myself to do it with any amount of finesse (as evidenced by my reaction to the 5 rupees earlier), so I am glad that Hank took care of it. Otherwise, we would've had a 9th traveler hanging out too long with us.
Oh the intensity of India.
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