Community

The professional lady sat behind her large desk, the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. She had been sitting like that for about half an hour. Papers were strewn across her desk, the mouse lay motionless in her hand. Her mouth was moving but her colleague across the hall could not hear what she was saying. As she was packing up her things to go home for the weekend, the other lady noticed her wipe her eyes as she put down the phone.
As in the inner city, there isn't much real privacy on the hillside. Often three or four families call one building home. There's not much to keep secret when you share the same balcony, and the same bathroom out back. Conversations, and arguments are seldom between only two people.
In the afternoon, on our way home from work, 10-year-old Pinky* plays in the sun on the packed dirt patio stolen from the steep hillside with her two younger brothers, the neighbor's two kids and the puppy. She has the new baby strapped to her back. Two of the missus of the house sit in the sun as they clean the beans for the evening meal.
Pinky's bare legs stick out of her too-short dress. Soon she will be responsible to cover them up in public. She is already responsible for whatever her brothers need and much of what the baby needs. If there's going to be rice for supper, it will be Pinyk's job to cook it.
The children's father won't be home from work for at least a couple more hours. The sisters-in-law tell me their mother hasn't cleaned her house since the baby came. She sits in the windowless main room--kitchen, living room and master bedroom combined--and has hardly bathed in a month and a half. In the early mornings before her husband goes to work we can hear their voices carry across the amphitheater hills. The baby cries. The children, when they're not in school, spend a lot of time outside even on the cold days.
My husband is a mental health counselor. He speaks a different language than they do. Are we responsible? If we report it, Pinky's dad might lose his job. Would that help? Then what would they do? Where would they live? Maybe Pinky's mother could go back to her mother in the village. Is it better for the children to be without a mother at all?
*name changed for protection

Hot

The oscillating fan in my office noisily blows around hot air, while sweat accumulates--very unladylike, but what can you do?--in the armpits of my professional dress and under my chin. The small gathering of homeless guys outside have gotten punchy, not dealing with conflict very well (even worse than usual), waiting for the lunch line to open up. The rest of the usual crowd has moved somewhere cooler. In this advanced country, there are people in the inner city that still have to make do with a fan instead of air conditioning.

' Reminds me of the border crossing at the end of spring term, Sunauli waiting for monsoon. I found the picture on Facebook. 30 years later we came through the same border post and I could swear it was the same government officials there on the Indian side. We even took the same picture, sitting around the table, under the fan slowly circling above our heads, filling out endless forms for everybody in the travelling party. I vividly remember sweet talking the grumpy, overheated border guard into stamping our exit visas, legally, without a bribe, just to hear a white girl speaking Hindi. I wonder how many times our parents did have to bribe them to get across on schedule.

I remember one trip that Ko Man Singh brought us right onto the train during a general strike so my mom could get me to school on time. A few rupees must have changed hands that time: bringing the Land Rover across the border without the proper permissions, so we wouldn't have to ride the public bus. Ko Man Singh met every train two days later until he could escort my mother safely into Nepal again.

Diplomacy in Hindi really only worked because it usually impressed them enough. It gave them something to talk about for a couple of months, until we came back through the crossing for the start of next term. Not because my Hindi was any good. It's kind of the same way the homeless guys look at me, now with silver speckling my hair, when I say, "Good morning!"

Hair, Properly Fixed

The other day I had to make a choice whether to leave the house in time to make my bus, or to fix my hair for work. I decided to catch the bus, and I would deal with my hair later. But the question is where? You can't do it on the bus--it's too private. I knew I wouldn't' have time at my bus stop--besides we all know how public the bus stop is: right where the traffic light stops all the drivers on their way to work, a favorite stop for Jehovah's drive-by Witnesses... On the other end  I get off under the tree at the top of the hill, the best view in the city, and white girls don't stop around there. I usually don't have time once I get to the office--besides, somebody might see me with the fly-away hair.

I learned how to do my hair on the bus. I wrote about it at the time; the bus stopped for some undisclosed reason for what seemed like hours. Women in bright, flowing pahardi skirts got out their lunches to feed their families, traveling by bus to visit family in some distant village. They might have to walk a couple of days, like I had. I watched the barbers take entrepreneurial advantage of the delay to earn a few extra rupees with their quick hair cuts for gentlemen and vigorous head massages. The lady-in-front-of-me's bun fell down, and she deftly twisted and tied it back into a simple knot that would hold it near the nape of her neck for a couple more hours. My hair was just starting to grow out from my tenth grade winter holiday bravery: my first drastic hair cut since third grade.
I've perfected my own slick style for hair since then. But the basis of all hair styles I learned on the bus, in India.