A girl named Erin from Colorado reached out to me to arrange a meeting in Varanasi. She was a friend of Krista, with whom I had previously worked. Erin came with her friend Katerina, who was from Czechoslovakia. Erin was a social activist working with an NGO focused on homelessness, while Katerina was a student. They wanted to stay at my place as paying guests, but I couldn’t accommodate them due to ongoing renovation work. Instead, they stayed at a guest house near Shivala Ghat.
The owner of the guest house brought them to my place to introduce them. Erin and Katerina were interested in taking a boat ride on the Ganges, and the guest house owner quoted them a very high price. I managed to arrange a boat ride for them at a fraction of that cost—five times less, in fact. Erin had brought a bottle of whiskey as a gift for the guest house owner, but he was upset that they had asked me for help instead of him. He refused to accept the whiskey, telling Erin to give it to me because he considered me a better friend. It was clear he was very displeased with me, and I decided it was best not to meet him again.
Eventually, Erin moved to a different guest house closer to my home. We explored Varanasi together, enjoyed my friend’s wedding, and used the whiskey that Erin had bought to gift the previous guest house owner. Roli did henna work on their hands, and Bunti helped them dress in sarees. They looked beautiful and embraced the local culture, dancing a lot at Babalu’s wedding party. I advised them to return to their hotel before it got too late for their safety. However, when we returned around midnight, the hotel gate was locked, and no one responded to our knocks.
With no other options, I invited them to stay at my house. Although my house wasn’t ideally set up for guests at the time, it was the only solution. They stayed at my place for the night, and we continued to explore Varanasi together. Erin later left for Amritsar alone, while Katerina stayed behind but never reached out to me again. I’m not sure where she went after that.