While volunteering in India, everyday to get home from our placement we had to wait at a bus stand. As there aren't specific bus times, we just had to walk out at whatever time we finished and hope a bus would turn up soon. Almost every day we had to wait at least 45 minutes to an hour an half, which naturally gets really boring, sooo...
Embarrassment of the day: We’d been waiting at the bus stand for 45 minutes and I was determined to get us home. What I thought was a taxi stopped in front of us, and I kept asking the driver who had got out and bought some food, to take us to Tiruvallur. He just looked at me blankly for a while and eventually we climbed in the back of the car.
I soon realized there was something very wrong, as not only did the people in the 'taxi' seem to know each other and were chatting away, but the eldest woman who was sat in front of us then went on to feed us large plates of sweet rice as we jolted up and down in the back.
I thought, surely this can't be the worlds best taxi service? Instead I realised we’d got into a family car (mother, aunt and son), who had actually stopped to buy some food - which they then fed to us!
I’d basically guilt-tripped a family into giving us a ride and I have no idea if they were even going our way - they wouldn’t even take our money.
Ooops....
Yet greater embarrassment, however, was that we saw the same family around 2 weeks later, waving and beeping their horn happily as they drove past us in the street - seeing as we were the only white people seemingly living in Thiruvalangadu we were quite easy to spot.
I hate language barriers...
Image courtesy of taoty / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Embarrassment of the day: We’d been waiting at the bus stand for 45 minutes and I was determined to get us home. What I thought was a taxi stopped in front of us, and I kept asking the driver who had got out and bought some food, to take us to Tiruvallur. He just looked at me blankly for a while and eventually we climbed in the back of the car.
I soon realized there was something very wrong, as not only did the people in the 'taxi' seem to know each other and were chatting away, but the eldest woman who was sat in front of us then went on to feed us large plates of sweet rice as we jolted up and down in the back.
I thought, surely this can't be the worlds best taxi service? Instead I realised we’d got into a family car (mother, aunt and son), who had actually stopped to buy some food - which they then fed to us!
I’d basically guilt-tripped a family into giving us a ride and I have no idea if they were even going our way - they wouldn’t even take our money.
Ooops....
Yet greater embarrassment, however, was that we saw the same family around 2 weeks later, waving and beeping their horn happily as they drove past us in the street - seeing as we were the only white people seemingly living in Thiruvalangadu we were quite easy to spot.
I hate language barriers...
Image courtesy of taoty / FreeDigitalPhotos.net