Monday, September 14, 2009

An ebglisch paper

(no, I didn't mean to spell English that way on purpose, but I left it.)

When I was eleven, I got the chance to go live in Bangalore, India over the summer with my Aunt Sara, Uncle Bruce, and my three cousins. My cousins and I went shopping frequently. The market area was at least ten minutes drive away from our apartment, and we went there plenty of times. Sometimes getting home was a bit of a challenge, because we didn’t actually know our address. We just knew that we lived by Ulsoor Lake.
Usually, just Helaman, Jessica, and I would go shopping, but one day, Ammon decided to come with us. We left our house around nine in the morning. We went outside and flagged down a rickshaw. We discovered that rickshaw drivers charge more for four people than for three, but the four of us clambered inside of the rickshaw. The driver dropped us off at the market, and we paid the overcharged price of 250 rupees, which is about three dollars.
We went around to the different shops, buying a whole bunch of useless but cool stuff. Then, we stopped off at a restaurant, where we ate from dark green banana leaves. The food was steaming as it was set down on our leaves. After we ate our food, we went shopping some more, but this time we were off to haggle with the street merchants. They always tried to rip us off because we were ‘tourists,’ but we had been there for awhile, and knew what a fair price was.
Around two o’clock we were done, and ready to go home. Each of us had two bags of merchandise in our hands. Helaman said we should walk home, since we didn’t want to waste any money on a rickshaw. He said he knew the way. So, we followed him, trudging through the mud and who knows what else. We would walk through little villages, where hordes of children and adults would run to see us. Every once in a while a rickshaw would drive by. We would stop them and ask them if they could take us to Ulsoor Lake for 150 rupees. They would say no. So we were back on our trek, through mud and unstable sidewalks, in 110 degree weather, with each of us toting four bags.
After two hours, we finally found some stairs. We went up them to see if we could figure out where we were. As we got to the top, we saw a fence we recognized. Finally we were at Ulsoor Lake. But we were on the complete opposite side of the lake from our apartment building. Jessica had finally gotten fed up with the boys, so we ran ahead a bit, then started walking again. We had been walking for thirty minutes when we saw Helaman and Ammon laughing at us from a rickshaw. Jessica and I finally got home around five, where we found Ammon and Helaman sitting in their room watching TV. From this experience I learned that four teenagers thinking they know the way home in Bangalore without any communication and not enough money to get all four of them home is not a good idea!

5 Comments:

Blogger Nancy said...

:) But it made for a good story!

10:59 PM  
Blogger Bruce Conrad said...

Thanks for the story, Josie.

2:45 AM  
Blogger Josie said...

Haha I exaggerated a bit. I think we go home around 2 and left a little later.

2:44 PM  
Blogger Aquaspce said...

hahaha! Nice to hear about your India trip do you have anymore stories?

9:36 AM  
Blogger Josie said...

Of course I do!

7:02 PM  

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