Welcome to the Family

About last night…

We’re walking out of the restaurant after he showed me this beautiful garden, taking me on his motorbike, showing me around. I need an ATM, it pops up right there. “Anything you wish for is coming right to you right? It’s amazing. Like the sweater yesterday.”  He looks at me smiling, buys me my favorite ice cream as we walk down the lake bank to find a boat for me to go back. I feel comfortable with him. It’s so easy to be around him, spend time with him. “Miss, miss you’re staying at ‘New Export’”. Everyone on the bee busy street is looking at me in curiosity. “You’re famous. Everyone knows you” he says. Yes I’m the only white person here. The only foreigner, an alien. That was to expect. Since I set foot in this country I’ve not seen a white skinned person on the street. 

“See you tomorrow” I say when I hop on the small wooden boat and laugh. Yeah that’s what it feels like. So natural. My new life saver since we met for the first time last night which was also the cause for my authentic Kashmiri cultural experience - as promised in the booking. 

I’m sitting on the  carpet floor with the family, the kids playing, yelling, laughing drinking Kashmiri chai, eating cookies. It’s still holiday. More people join the circle. Today it feels right, welcoming. I’m not sitting in the circle eating alone. I’m included, no cultural project. Natural hospitality. Welcoming family. 

After staying two days on the houseboat trying to integrate into my new family home, running across town on the busy Kashmiri market, passing by all kinds of stands, colored chickens, meeting my new friend later to become my lifesaver while my new host sister is pulling me away from him, telling him not to take my number in a harsh manner, taking different local buses back, picking a Sim card and headphones for me, buying half the delicious treats of the bakery, finally arriving back at the boat - exhausted doing my yoga, having dinner I visualize to go to bed early. Drinking a cup of tea, watching the evening sky over lake Dal, an Indian tourist couple starts talking to me. In their typical traditional and conservative manner they ask me all kinds of questions about my traveling and being away from home, their eyes widening in curiosity and disbelief about my answers. Different worlds clash, cross, entangle the more they listen to my journey. Still they seem in astonishment about such a far away planet. Freedom that’s the topic, traditions, culture, earning money, how to achieve happiness, how to live in this world. I can see the admiration in their eyes. “you’re so wise for your age. I can’t believe you’re so knowledgeable about society and all kinds of cultures, so reflected.” they say to me This is why I travel. To learn. Grow, expand, open my world view, become more accepting to different ways of life, opinions or choices. To define my own, my values, my ever changing definition of who I am, who I want to be(come). My values the same will teach me my boundaries to shield my worth, my identity. This is what was yet to come. About next night. Finally I move to my room tired from all my new impressions when minutes later they knock on my door wanting to take a picture with me as a memory “whenever you come to Delhi let us know we will help you with everything and hopefully will meet again”. They smile at me. They’ve seen another world tonight and so have I. When I go to bed, I cannot sleep. I read my horoscope for May this is my month. Many old memories will come up randomly in conversations or dreams out of nowhere. Rebirth. I will have to return to things. I will have to relive things. I will have to recover and remember maybe to bring them up again. Interesting enough this is all that night will bring me. In a wild Cluster cloud of thoughts from last year traveling or many years ago. My closest relationships and lovers, broken friendships, broken hearts, tears cried, missed ones, love ones, failures, pain and undiscovered shadows returned trying to be seen again. As the horoscope suggested. Same tired, maybe even more than the day before I wake up in the morning, finally spending a relaxing day on the lake, reading writing talking to my friends.  laying on the couch on a rainy afternoon, doing yoga, taking a late sun bath on deck. 

When I finish my dinner it all begins. This is about last night. When my newly won local friend offers to go on an evening walk around the lake with me I approach the family asking how to even get to the other side, their eyes widen. I had this feeling. I have no information. I don’t even know where I am or how to go anywhere. Apparently that was never anything to be considered. The different family members start muttering. I know what’s going on. They don’t want me to go for whatever reason. Before I get on the boat Hamid tells me to go to talk to the father before I leave. The father looks at me and asks me all kinds of questions. “why do you go? Who do you want to see? How do you know him? You know there’s many dangerous people here. there’s cases where they give young girls like you drugs and then they abduct you that’s very dangerous. Don’t go to a restaurant, don’t do this don’t do that. You cannot go. Bad people out there.”

I understand they want to protect me. I tell them I’m a grown woman, I’m a long-term traveler, I’m careful, I have to listen to my instinct and intuition, I’m not trying to be careless but I need to get to know people, I need to get to know my surrounding, the culture that’s what I came for, I will not spend two weeks on the boat. They don’t trust me. In their eyes I’m a dumb blind white girl traveling in a place that she knows nothing about. They try to stop me from going, telling me I can go the next day exploring with Hamid. I say no I want to meet that guy. They ask me for his and my number not to stay out longer than two hours. Overwhelmed by all these discussions and misunderstandings, I finally go on the boat. I talk to the one who brought me here. All this will go and break spirals back-and-forth for more than 24 hours as I wouldn’t know yet. He’s calling the family, he’s trying to solve the issues while I meet my new friend. He’s so nice, easy going, happy. He walks me around, down the lake in this holiday crisscross of Indians and food stands. We’re having fun. We go shopping, he shows me a park, we have a fresh orange juice from the street, he puts a coat on me. “You look so amazing in this. You look like a Russian woman.” He’s taking pictures of me. I get the first call. It’s not even been an hour that I’ve left. He tells me to come back there going to be no more boats. I’m annoyed and hang up. Half an hour later he calls my new friend. I can’t believe it. At this point I’ve already made my decision. I can’t take it. When I listen to the voice message from my travel agent he’s promised he’s solved it all; that I can stay out as long as I want to, just have fun and not worry anymore; that they understood and everything will be ok. I already know that’s not true because they’ve called again. I know this will be a huge wave. I know I will have to go somewhere else. I know I will have to stick to my values and defend my identity. Freedom I can’t let them take this from me. With my new lifesaver friend by my side I feel like I made the right decision. Returning to my boat I pack my backpack the same night to be prepared the next morning. All the family is extremely nice to me. I’m tired again I couldn’t sleep. She’s making my breakfast. She comes to my room. She never did this before. We understand we live in different worlds, it’s sad but it’s necessary. “You’re my daughter. Please come back one day.”

Having both of my Kashmir contacts involved already one hour after waking up my head is exploding of all the different conversations all the same spirals twisting and turning, going in circles. I hear myself repeating the same things over and over again. Misunderstood communication, taking over, no communication on eye level. Everyone trying to tell me what to do, where to go, what not to do, whom to trust whom not to trust. I feel like nobody understands me. Nobody giving me the information I’m asking for to let me decide but everybody taking over my decision making in my best interest. It’s too much. 

Only one encouraging voice that I haven’t heard before through my phone while I eat my fried egg. “I’m sure you’re here in India at the right time; it’s to learn to set boundaries to say no. To learn to grow and to position yourself; it’s a good time to do this and it’s necessary here. It’s the words I needed to hear exactly. It’s the topic of the last days returning to me.