LGBT Home Stay

So this weekend has been the infamous home-stay weekend. I requested to stay with an LGBT family because I thought it would be really interesting after hearing 4 LGBT community members talk on Panel. So Anu dropped Alex and Jean-Paul off at their home-stay (Also LGBT) and then after driving for less than ten minutes I was dropped off at mine. A female to male transgender picked me up at the end of the street. His name is Christi and we walked another block to the house. I walked in and met 4 others. Kanan (who was on panel and is a female to male) Sonu (female to male) Sonya (lesbian) and one girl whose name I can’t remember whose either lesbian or bisexual. They had all just woken up and were running around getting ready to go to Sangama the LGBT NGO. I went to Sangama with the three boys Christi, Kanan and Sonu – we took a Rickshaw and it was really fun. At one point a woman cunningly walked past our rickshaw and Kanan turned around and made the funniest face, like what just happened haha. They were talking and laughing the whole time and then we reached Sangama. I walked in and just kind of sat down and of course I am white so everyone stared at me. It was awkward for about 10 minutes, aside from the fact that one guy burst out in an Alanis Moriset song which I later found out he started singing because he thought I resembled her. But basically I just kept exchanging glances with everyone until two familiar faces walked in the door. JP and Alex! They were staying with Siddarth who is a big Activist and important name at Sangama. After the initial awkwardness of just exchanging glances everyone was really nice. It was still awkward at times because the people I am staying with don’t speak English so all they knew how to say was “come” and “sit”  But with JP and Alex there it made me more comfortable to go and talk to other people. So the reason everyone was at Sangama on a Saturday was because they are making a documentary for their Pride event in November and this was a film introduction and they were learning about how to use the camera and all about the do’s and don’ts of film. We were all standing outside observing the trial runs of their filming process and the house across the alley was celebrating Puja So they had their driveway and cars and bikes and cow all decorated (the cow even had incense fuming from his head!) It was really fun and the weather could not have been more beautiful! Standing outside I met a bunch of people including a girl named Tenvi who was 20 and a senior at a small school in Maine. She was born in Mumbai but she was back in Bangalore working on her thesis which related to identity and sexuality. She was really nice and wasn’t really there to take the intro course so she talked to me a lot and made me feel comfortable and not so awkward. At one point we went out to get more tea and snacks for everyone at a nearby shop. And right next to the shop they had this hot sugary AMAZING treat! So Tenvi got two and I am pretty sure I fell in love with her then. Just kidding but that treat was soo good! I love Indian candies! When we got back I helped her serve the tea to everyone and they were practicing more with their camera and I became a movie star while serving tea  There was one point after lunch (which was amazing btw) that everyone was just kind of sitting around and the English speaking people were all sitting together so it was really nice for a change to have coffee with people that I could understand!! When it was finally dark out and everyone said their goodbyes we went back to Sonya’s. Then the party started. There were probably 13 people over and there was lots of me just smiling and nodding because I had no clue what any of them were saying. It was really fun though even with the language barrier because they pulled me up to dance and there were lots of smiles and laughs. After a long night of dancing and feeling super tall and super white I hit the hay. It was really fun for the night just to hang out and kind of be the minority without knowledge of the language and being white and about 2 feet taller than everyone else! I am really going to miss them and their liveliness. It has overall been a very good, uncomfortable, fun, and awkward weekend.