I’m leaving my peaceful, love all beings state for a minute to rant.
The Americans have arrived.
How do I know they are American, you ask? First, I will explain our usual afternoon yoga practice. It starts off more like Hot Yoga. This sauna like situation happens by the studio being baked all day by the sun and the temperatures being about 90 degrees with humidity seeming to be about the same. When the Yoga teacher comes in, he turns on the AC.
The Lululemon clad "Americans" enter the studio, completely disregarding the few that are meditating and loudly claim their spots on the floor. They drop their bags and make way more noise than I thought you could make with a yoga mat and a bottle of water. What appears to be the head "American" starts opening windows announcing that it is just too hot in here. When British Lucy quietly tells her that the Yoga teacher will turn on the AC, she doesn’t acknowledge. In walks the teacher a minute after she opens ALL the windows and he proceeds to close them all right behind her. I ask her with a smile if she is from the US…"Yes, from San Diego. I teach yoga there and ‘my girls’ are here to check out India. I’ve been here so many times, but it is their first time and they just arrived, so they are a bit in shock”. They do have that terrified look like I did when I got off the plane. I think to myself, “Sure, because clearly you have adjusted…" yet I manage to say that this is a great place and I’m sure they will love it at the ashram. I also see the first set of fake breasts I’ve seen in a while, which are hard to miss with one of the "girls" wearing a very revealing tight tank top that leaves little to the imagination, and is totally inappropriate for an ashram.
Have I self-appointed myself the American representative of the ashram? I guess so. Given my embarrassment to this gaggle of loud Americans, I want to shout “We are not ALL like that!”
It gets worse..they begin snapping photos at dinner. The first flashes I have seen go off at the ashram (very few pictures are taken, especially during meals)
They disregard the silence from 9:30pm until 9:00am rule. Totally zapping our morning post yoga-bliss breakfast by blabbering away and yes, more pictures! I may go blind during meals. Maybe I will start eating out.
One more note about the four girls that I share a country with . Ms. Head American stops me and British Lucy on the road one morning and asks me how to get down to town, as her "girls want to check it out." I proceed to give them directions and notice that she is standing a bit too far in the road to avoid being run over and doesn’t seem to hear the blasting toodle-oo horn from the bus and at the last minute I have to yank her off the road. She laughs, thanks me, and clearly doesn’t realize that pedestrians are at the bottom rung of who yields to who…
Maybe this is why everyone thinks all Americans are self-entitled brats?
No comments:
Post a Comment