Today all I wanted was some distance from my mother-in-law. So of course the exact opposite happened.
We went to the gym and walked home together. We cooked and ate breakfast together. We cooked lunch together. Then she asked if I wanted to go with her to buy fruits and vegetables. Indian markets are awesome so of course I said yes. I assumed she shopped at one of the many wallas lining the street close to home (I really don't know the best way to explain "walla"...someone who sells stuff, usually not in an official shop). But no, we piled into the car and drove for about 30 minutes, at which point she finally mentioned that she had a blouse at the tailor's in the city she needed to pick up.
We technically stay in Pune, but it's kinda like the metro DC area: spread out and encompassing a lot of different areas. So we had to drive into the heart of the city to go to the tailor. There was a lot of traffic which slowed us down, and along the way we stopped at several different roadside wallas to buy random stuff like jackfruit. We finally get to the tailor and I recognize it as the same shop we went to with my mom and sisters to have blouses and underskirts made for their saris. I went in to make the pickup and spent a few wondrous minutes gazing at the floor to ceiling shelves of fabric. Now I'm trying to figure out how to convince her to give me money and drop me off at the tailor's so I can shop alone...
After leaving the tailor we went to the vegetable stand, where everyone was very fascinated with me and attempting to talk to me. Man I need to learn Marathi.
Shopping in India is a vastly different experience from shopping in the U.S. At home, you wander through the store on your own, finding whatever you need, and not interacting with any store employees until checkout time. Here, you do nothing. The shopkeeper brings everything to show you. Looking for fabric? They'll pull down 47 bolts whether you asked for them or not. You just sit and point and give orders. Veggie shopping is a lot like that too. The shopkeeper gets the veggies for you, lets you inspect them, gets others if you think they aren't good enough, weighs all of it, bags it up, and puts it in your car for you. And then, once they've done all that for you, they bring you a cup of tea. Really friggin good tea. I have GOT to figure out how to get back to that neighborhood on my own.
After all this, we drove home and ate lunch together at 3 in the afternoon. Giving me roughly 3 hours before I'll be expected back in the kitchen to help her cook dinner.
Now I would expect that spending all this time with my mother-in-law when she is the last person I want to see would lead to getting more annoyed with her and possibly saying something I'll regret later. But wouldn't you know that woman wiggled her way back into my good graces! She's just so smiley and laughing and happy acting (even when she's delivering insults) that it's almost impossible to stay upset with her for long. Not to say I haven't done it, I pretty much despised her with a passion for the entire three weeks of my first visit. But now that I know her better and can talk with her more, it's very difficult to stay mad.
Of course it's not like I wanted to stay mad at her, that would really defeat the entire purpose of my stay here. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that this woman can blatantly insult me and make me want to hit her one minute, and the next we're laughing and chatting over tea like we've never had a disagreement in our lives.
This reinforces something I realized while talking to the kids at the shelter. They were trying to learn all about me within the confines of their limited English, and a lot of questions centered around my family. Of course I referred to my blood relatives as my family, and my husband's family as my in-laws. Well the kids didn't understand "in-laws" and I couldn't come up with another word to use. So I started calling them my family too. I tried a bit of "my husband's mother" and things like that, but after a little while that got dropped too. So I was speaking of everyone, my parents, my sisters, my husband, my brother-in-law, my mother- and father-in-law, as my family.
And then I realized...it's true. I don't just mean they're my family by marriage either. I am finally starting to see these people as a part of my family. For better or worse, insults or happy moments, these guys are my family and I love them. And being able to have an argument and make up feels like proof of that.
We went to the gym and walked home together. We cooked and ate breakfast together. We cooked lunch together. Then she asked if I wanted to go with her to buy fruits and vegetables. Indian markets are awesome so of course I said yes. I assumed she shopped at one of the many wallas lining the street close to home (I really don't know the best way to explain "walla"...someone who sells stuff, usually not in an official shop). But no, we piled into the car and drove for about 30 minutes, at which point she finally mentioned that she had a blouse at the tailor's in the city she needed to pick up.
We technically stay in Pune, but it's kinda like the metro DC area: spread out and encompassing a lot of different areas. So we had to drive into the heart of the city to go to the tailor. There was a lot of traffic which slowed us down, and along the way we stopped at several different roadside wallas to buy random stuff like jackfruit. We finally get to the tailor and I recognize it as the same shop we went to with my mom and sisters to have blouses and underskirts made for their saris. I went in to make the pickup and spent a few wondrous minutes gazing at the floor to ceiling shelves of fabric. Now I'm trying to figure out how to convince her to give me money and drop me off at the tailor's so I can shop alone...
After leaving the tailor we went to the vegetable stand, where everyone was very fascinated with me and attempting to talk to me. Man I need to learn Marathi.
Shopping in India is a vastly different experience from shopping in the U.S. At home, you wander through the store on your own, finding whatever you need, and not interacting with any store employees until checkout time. Here, you do nothing. The shopkeeper brings everything to show you. Looking for fabric? They'll pull down 47 bolts whether you asked for them or not. You just sit and point and give orders. Veggie shopping is a lot like that too. The shopkeeper gets the veggies for you, lets you inspect them, gets others if you think they aren't good enough, weighs all of it, bags it up, and puts it in your car for you. And then, once they've done all that for you, they bring you a cup of tea. Really friggin good tea. I have GOT to figure out how to get back to that neighborhood on my own.
After all this, we drove home and ate lunch together at 3 in the afternoon. Giving me roughly 3 hours before I'll be expected back in the kitchen to help her cook dinner.
Now I would expect that spending all this time with my mother-in-law when she is the last person I want to see would lead to getting more annoyed with her and possibly saying something I'll regret later. But wouldn't you know that woman wiggled her way back into my good graces! She's just so smiley and laughing and happy acting (even when she's delivering insults) that it's almost impossible to stay upset with her for long. Not to say I haven't done it, I pretty much despised her with a passion for the entire three weeks of my first visit. But now that I know her better and can talk with her more, it's very difficult to stay mad.
Of course it's not like I wanted to stay mad at her, that would really defeat the entire purpose of my stay here. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that this woman can blatantly insult me and make me want to hit her one minute, and the next we're laughing and chatting over tea like we've never had a disagreement in our lives.
This reinforces something I realized while talking to the kids at the shelter. They were trying to learn all about me within the confines of their limited English, and a lot of questions centered around my family. Of course I referred to my blood relatives as my family, and my husband's family as my in-laws. Well the kids didn't understand "in-laws" and I couldn't come up with another word to use. So I started calling them my family too. I tried a bit of "my husband's mother" and things like that, but after a little while that got dropped too. So I was speaking of everyone, my parents, my sisters, my husband, my brother-in-law, my mother- and father-in-law, as my family.
And then I realized...it's true. I don't just mean they're my family by marriage either. I am finally starting to see these people as a part of my family. For better or worse, insults or happy moments, these guys are my family and I love them. And being able to have an argument and make up feels like proof of that.
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