Snot and Stories

I have a snot flinger for a host grandma.  We sit on the balcony together while I read and she flings visible amounts of mucus off of the second story of our complex with one swift motion with the back of her hand.  The leftovers she wipes underneath the chair without shame.  She is an eighty something year traditional Tibetan woman with unusually large pupils, long wire-like hair, and has facial features oriented not unlike a Picasso portrait.  I speak no Tibetan.  She speaks no English.  The barrier is so blatant it feels physical sometimes, reminding me that India, like all of us really, seem to be both defined and divided by religion and language.  

Our language setback does not discourage her from trying to communicate in some way or another.  The first week I was here she came walking into my room with a pair of woolen mittens.  She tossed them on the chair, looked up and appeared in shock that I was actually in the room, and backed out.  That was all.  The next week my host sister removed the mysterious mittens from my room.  

The next morning she stuck a bracelet on my arm, her wrinkly hands shaking as she tried to tie it securely on my wrist.  I did not know what to say.  I didn’t even know if it was actually for me or not.  I tried to show my appreciation with an awkward side hug, and that was probably the beginning of our relationship, because later that afternoon she felt free to tell me to move to a seat farther away from her because she was expecting a family friend within the hour.  

This woman walked across the Himalayas to escape Tibet, but now she cannot walk down the congested street without waving her cane at oncoming traffic in a futile effort to get them to stop.  I want to talk to her, but no one translates.  She is a walking coffin of untold stories.  Probably a bit senile too, but there is still something about her that makes me want to sit near her and soak in her narrative.

For now, we are just balcony friends.  Me with my books and half formed thoughts.  Her with her snot and silent stories. 

Virginia