(Sunday morning)
Boy was Friday night nuts. I broke my rule and decided to go 'out' with the group. I broken my other rule and tried a glass of 'rakshi' which is the local distilled drink. Definitely not my favorite but a surprisingly mild taste. Nothing mild about how it feels going down, though. I think a combination of the alcohol and some pent up energy made my aggressive side come out to play that night.
Earlier in the day, I reflected to Meagan that my feminism was wounded because of the meekness I portray to avoid unwanted attention. I will explain; at home if I see a group of guys doing something stupid I look at them and laugh to myself. If a guy passes me and checks me out I may ignore him or I may wink at him for fun. At home if there is a guy in my way who isn't moving on purpose ill just shove him aside. Here I just look down and step aside. Though certainly doable personifying even a mild level of submission gets to me eventually. I'm guessing that explains my attitude Friday night.
We went to a small dance club where I was dragged (continually) onto the dance floor. As it was "early" at 8:30 or something our group had the run of the place for a while. As the night wore on, of course, more and more local guys showed up to scope out the white chicks. I will give it the these guys, they are clever. They are exceedingly patient, waiting and mostly hang out at the bar for a white girl to walk over and try to order a drink. One can speculate on whether or not the bartender can't understand what the girls wants because of the noise, the language, or purposefully but the local will jump to the girls aid, ordering and probably paying for her drink. Hopefully the girl will feel grateful or guilty enough to agree to a dance. These steps get repeated until the guy finds a suitably willing girl who will keep drinking what he buys her and it goes downhill from there. Luckily for the guys at the club none of them tried this on me. Or rather, the ones who did didn't get far.
One of the times I left the dance floor I hid by the wall to watch everyone. I say hid because when I stayed in plain view Meagan would drag me back. After a few minutes I heard someone talking next to me and turned to find the cook saying something through his window which I hadn't noticed before. I just shook my head and turned away. When I felt the tap on my elbow I faced him, gave him a smile and mouthed "don't even think about it" before walking away. The stretch couch against one wall was mostly deserted so I headed in that direction through the guys 'accidentally' rubbing against me. Sitting, I resumed my people watching. I got three minutes of peace before the guy on the other side of the couch scooted over to sit next to me. After the customary "where are you from"s I leaned over and shouted in his ear that he best try his luck with someone else because I wasn't interested. He looked at me and said "no, no. My girl friends are out dancing. I'm just waiting for them."
To my utter astonishment I had a perfectly pleasant conversation with the gentleman, during which I learned he did animation for a Nepali company but wanted to get another degree from a university in Vancouver BC because Disney often hires people from there. After around ten minutes his friend came and dragged him off to dance with her. Go figure. From there, of course, the evening went downhill slightly.
When I looked back at the dance floor I saw Meagan held very tightly by a local so I decided to investigate, just to be safe. When she saw me Meagan smiled and broke away from her partner to stumble in my direction. She was way more drunk than she had been when we walked in together. Confused, I shouted at her that I wanted to go home so please come with me. She shook her head at me and stumbled slightly so I grabbed her and held on. Okay, officially time for us to leave. Unwisely her former partner chose that moment to come over and give me the 'what's the problem' smile. No matter what continent, you don't need to speak the language to understand young men. They all have the same facial expressions.
I helped Meagan off the floor with the guy hovering over my shoulder. Even more unwisely, Tom (a friend from the hostel) came over and motioned for Meagan to get back on the dance floor. Since this is exactly what she wanted to do and exactly what I didn't I glared at Tom and hoisted her further away. He tried to grab her arm to lead her away from me whereupon I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and told him we needed to leave. Meagan fell as I tried to get her further away from the floor when a guy in a plaid shirt appeared at my side and helped me get her up. I prepared a dirty look for him too before he walked away and returned a moment later with a bottle of water. He, instead, received a relieved smile, a question as to which direction the Kathmandu Guest House was from here and a shouted thank you. We sat down for a few minutes while Meagan drank. After a bit I pulled her up again and we made our way to the door. I pushed my way through the guys standing in the doorway and all but carried her down the stairs. When we got to the the landing I looked up and saw Tom standing at the top beaconing to Meagan. Grabbing her wrist to keep her with me I drew my finger across my throat at Tom. Another guy with dreadlocks appeared behind Tom and motioned for me to keep going. At last we made it outside and to my profound relief Esther and Leigh were sitting on the curb.
Depositing her next to them I straightened up and sighed. Naturally, the story doesn't end there. I heard footsteps and turned to see three local guys coming toward us down the street. Oh great. As they passed one of them turned to me with the 'hey, hey' look and said something I didn't understand. I simply put up my hands and motioned strongly for them to keep walking. Stupidly the three then walking toward me. In my role as the crazy white bitch of the evening I took my que and shoved the guy closest to me hard and marched the three of them backwards ten feet down the street before letting them go. Before I could turn away i saw one of them start toward me with the 'what's your problem bitch' look on his face. I was saved dealing with him by the appearance of the guy with dreadlocks in the doorway who told them to get out of here.
After that it was only the getting Meagan to our hotel room, holding her hair, etc. All in all a good if exhausting night. At the very least my pride feels much better now for beating up a few annoying guys.
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