For dinner we decided to pay for a meal on the train. The food was terrible and I barely ate. We asked where to dump our trash and we were shown out the train door. There was no trash can or trash collection like the Chinese trains. Linda decided she would do that for both of us. I stayed on my bunk. Then I heard a scream from Linda and thought she screamed because of the wind coming at her with the speed of the train. When she screamed all the men in our cart turned to look at her. Everyone was very protective. I later found out that another man from another cart came over to ours and cornered her after she chucked out the trash and assaulted her with his hands. When she screamed and all the men turned their eyes onto him he ran and disappeared. What she was warned earlier by the medical student came true. What I heard from others previously happened. Linda was very distraught by all of this but managed to maintain her grace and didn’t talk about it.
The captain who had been drinking decided he was going to sit in my top bunk and squeeze with me. I did not make room for him. I did not enjoy his stinky breath and I did not appreciate his drunkness. I refused to make room for him as he kept squeezing over.
Linda bursted out into tears and I started crying too. She said it was about a man on the cart who was just like his father physically and also behavior wise. That her father drank himself numb because he had trouble relating to people because he was raised terribly rough physically. At this point everyone was looking at us and Linda stopped crying but I was still crying. She was upset that I cried with her. Or maybe she was really crying about what happened earlier when she got pinned and cornered.
Everyone was alarmed and didn’t understand what was going on but told us to be happy. We were damsels in distress. From that moment on, people really did their best to keep us happy. No one smoked near us only by the door because we told them we had lung allergies and makes us sick. To keep us from being cold they were instructed to keep watch of the door and keep it shut. The drunk captain left my bunk and I mediated instead while Linda rolled over to rest. After awhile I rolled over to rest too.
I woke up late evening when all our soldiers left the cart at a particular station. Linda woke up too and we discovered we were scared with their departure. We thought they would watch the night for us that we would be safe with their protection but they all departed. A new batch of people boarded the train and played cards and stayed up all night. We couldn’t quite sleep because of the noise. I was just too cold anyways. All the doors and windows on the train were wide open. When the soldiers were still around one was assigned to keep watch of the door to keep it closed to keep us warm but with all of them gone, there was no one doing that as a kind service to keep us comfortable and happy.
