incognito

Do you know the crazy ladies in this picture? There are many benefits to covering one's head in India. My two favorites are: A) Minimization of bad/strange smells, dust, and dirt and B) Minimization of awkward staring (well sometimes). M and I tested benefit B out a few weeks ago. We took the bus from our neighborhood to another part of town - a 45 minute ride wearing our scarfs. We had our fellow riders completely perplexed. We actually received more stares as they tried to discern what exactly we were - Americans or light-skinned Indians? The confused stares are much better than the "You are American!" stares so we kept our heads covered. 45 minutes later, and feeling quite proud of our "disguises", we reached our destination. We began walking down a busy dirt road toward the center when a little boy ran right in front of us, took one look and yelled, "Agrez!!", translation: "English/American person!!" After not being discovered by all those people on the bus, we were ousted by a little boy! Because of benefit A, we still wore our head coverings on the ride back. I still like benefit B - I just think we might need to get sleeves to cover our arms!