I did not have a honeymoon period for India the way I did for England. England is beautiful and amazing and it has its quiet problems that you need to be there a while to see. India’s problems are blatant. But I can already tell I’m going to have an absolutely amazing experience. The last 48 hours alone have been pretty much earth shattering, and I’m so excited to be here, but I definitely didn’t get that same first great impression. But as usual, I’m going to start with a few delightful tales of stupid stuff I did before getting into the depressing, abject poverty, I-am-never-going-to-complain-about-anything-ever-again part of the post.
A few contextual details leading up to the moment at 4 AM yesterday when I was pounding on the inside of my room door in delirious sleep deprived terror, convinced that I had been padlocked in (also let me preface with the knowledge that I have now, in day 2, that I am actually much safer than I felt/seemed to be during day. I had no context for anything during day 1 because the CIEE people didn't meet with us):
1. I did not sleep before I got on my plane, thinking this would help me sleep on the plane. It did not. Thus, two nights ago I found myself semi delirious on a 3 AM shuttle in the Mumbai airport passing miles of barbed wire fencing, shanty towns with tents composed mostly of garbage bags and plywood, and airport guards armed with what I believe were machine guns. This directly after reading MAUS, a book about the Holocaust and let me just reiterate: really really sleep deprived.
2. Now let’s jump forward. Upon arriving to the homestay on campus at 10 AM, I was given no instructions except “meet at breakfast tomorrow.” The “no instructions” part is the focus here. And I was hellbent on staying up until dark so I could adjust to the time change (ironic that I have been complaining about the sun setting at 4PM in England every day, and today I had to wait until 8PM), so after a trip to town via taxi (we’ll get to traffic in India soon), I decided to explore campus with a few other people. Campus is huge… miles long, and we walked the wrong direction so we passed another colony of garbage bag / plywood tents because apparently there are shanty towns on campus, too.
3. Several creatures followed us in our explorations. One was a large stray dog with a giant gash in the middle of its head. There are stray dogs all over campus. (They leave you alone if you ignore them).
4. Several men also followed us for a short stint before I shot them my stank face. And I just read several books that talked about “misogynistic Indian culture.” I’m not ready to make any conclusions or judgments about gender here yet, but I will not be walking anywhere alone. Ever. Or after dark. Ever.
5. Let’s add this to the fact that I have not slept for more than 2 hours at a time in 72 hours now, I have just jumped time zones, that I have still received no guidance from anyone to put all of these things into perspective, and that travelers often experience digestive troubles from the intense change in food, water, climate, etc.
Anyway, after feeling really unsafe and mildly delirious the entire day, I awakened at 4 AM in an unfamiliar room, with a confused biological clock and a very urgent need to use the bathroom. Having no idea where the lights or the lock were yet, I was convinced that someone had padlocked the door from the outside (our doors have padlocks on the outside) and that the entire CIEE program was actually a front for an evil organization that does not let you pee at night. Then I woke up all the way and found the lock. Hooray!
A litter of stray puppies lives outside the homestay and greets us excitedly every time we enter or exit the building, which actually presents a huge dilemma. College Jesse says “OH MY GOD, the adorable dorm puppies that I always wanted and never had!” Hypochondriac, fresh-out-of-travel-clinic-that-makes-you-paranoid-about-every-imaginable-disease Jesse says “Rabies.” We have started naming them, so they can’t possibly give us rabies now. The universe wouldn’t be that mean.
I felt a huge improvement and learning curve between day 1 and day 2. The CIEE people actually met with us, and started orienting us, so I don’t feel like my personal safety is in jeopardy anymore. They showed us the actual campus (yesterday I thought the entire campus was going to be as rough as the part that I saw with the tents). Campus is absolutely beautiful, but pretty far away. There’s a shuttle but it’s really unreliable, so I’ll probably be biking t oclass every day. All the buildings have open courtyards with gardens in the middle. When we walked past, literally all of the construction works at one of the buildings dropped everything and stared at us until we were out of sight. It’s something to get used to. I’ve been pretty privileged being white in predominantly white schools for most of my life (don’t get me started on private school racial inequality), so having my race be a major issue is going to be an interesting dynamic this semester. I’m hoping to turn it into something positive, like a stronger consideration for racial stigma.
The amount of poverty is really difficult to handle. There are tent communities set up everywhere, and it’s so crowded that they’re often set up right alongside western stores and shops aimed toward the upper middle class. We pass beggars missing limbs and the program director warned us that the children that beg are usually professional. If we give money to anyone it means we’ll be swarmed. I’m doing alright at the moment, but like the race thing and the gender thing, I think it’s going to require a lot of intellectual work for to handle without getting depressed. We have some really amazing volunteer work opportunities, so at least I’ll make me feel like I have some agency. It’s just very difficult to ignore people without feeling spoiled and ignorant.
Funny story. The next word in this post is "gender" but every time I try to write the word gender, I get a message that say "an error has occurred." Blogspot does not want me to write about it. So I've had to rewrite the entire thing in a disjointed summary.
There is no sense of time, structure, or definite answers to anything (or laws as far as I can tell). This is irritating for things like getting my visa, trying to figure out my course schedule, and flights, but it's actually pretty sweet because I never have to be punctual anymore. Our coordinator could not give us a definite answer as to whether or not the snakes on campus are poisonous. That's pretty yes or no. We received a map, but apparently the map is wrong. Finals might be May 1 but we also might have to leave the country by May 1 and no one in charge seems to see a problem or be the least bit concerned about it. When we finally get to sign up for classes (there is no definite course list) teachers will not answer emails, may be absent without notice, may change the dates for tests without informing us, there are no traffic laws, there are people everywhere. But a more intense version of everywhere that I have never experienced.
(I have no idea why this has gone to double space. India hates my computer). Our coordinator gave us the following advice for interacting on the street: “Do not make eye contact with any men. And do not under any circumstances smile. I will know what you mean with the smiling but an Indian man will see you and he will go ‘Ooooooh. She is so gracious. She is loving me! Can you please give me your phone number and email address so I can torture you later?!” No, eye contact. No smiling. I’m screwed (although most of the people I spoke to at the market have been understanding because I'm white and obviously unfamiliar with the customs). Apparently if you're assertive local women will be really supportive and men will get super embarrassed (hooray for the sisterhood.) But I can't go anywhere alone safely. Like, I know I'm "not supposed to walk alone after dark" on Dickinson campus but honestly its not a big deal. I just came from a place where after dark is 4PM and its normal to travel alone. It's legitimately dangerous for me to leave the home stay by myself after dark. It's freaking me out a little. But it's a lot more complicated than the books I've read put it. Not everything is necessarily sexist. Just homosocial.
A few notes on driving: My first image of India was a group of women in saris and full burkas speeding down the highway on motorcycles (yesss). There are literally no traffic laws, which I thougth would be terrifying but is actaully awesome (and just like the lack of time, scheduling and direct answers to questions). There are crazy informal rules, and everyone knows where everyone else is on the road at all times (like bat sonar). There are no traffic lights, people merge 10 at a time and I think most people measure their driving skills based on how often they use their horn. So people basically lean on it with great pride in their strong driving skills. The horn on our bus sounds suspiciously like La Cucaracha. Also, people climb under the railroad crossing with their motorcycles and cross right in front of the train. And when we stop the taxi/bus/rickshaw/whatever you're in, insane things happen. Beggars bang on your windows. People try to sell you things. A man on a pickup truck yesterday was walking around in bare feet on glass bottles. A giant yak sidled up to me in the parking lot so I took a picture of it, and then it tried to pee on me.
When we returned to the home stay for dinner the other night, we were eating dinner and all the sudden the boy next to me started throwing up (a lot of us have been various degrees of nauseous from the sudden change in food and bacteria), so I tried to be helpful and ran to grab him a bucket, but all I could find was a soup bowl. He was fine when I came back so I made a joke about that part in Wayne’s World when Garth whips out a little Dixie cup and says “If you’re gonna spew, spew into this,” and then the girl sitting across from me laughed and said that Dana Carvey is her uncle. My childhood hero, Garth. Oh hallowed ground.
Sorry, these last few blogs have been completely disjointed and probably not that entertaining. I'm litearlly just writing whatever comes into my head. I have never tried to process so many changes at one time. I'm really worried that I'm portraying things unethically because I'm telling these whimsical stories in between talking about horrible abject poverty and how I have to ignore starving children who hang on your arm because they are professional beggars and they'll swarm you if you give them money. Plus I'm still horribly jet lagged so I can't process information properly. So hopefully in a few days I will sound less insane and be able to explain things in a coherent manner. For now I'm just trying to get down as much as I can so I don't forget stuff. I know some of this sounds like a long complaint, but I'm actually loving India. It's just that my head is exploding.
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