Chai for Christmas

Morning thoughts:

I am not happy this morning. I’m really really trying to be - I’m trying to remind myself that I’m in India having a once in a lifetime experience, and something little like living arrangements shouldn’t upset me so much. I think it’s the fatigue showing through. Everything annoys me: the pidgeons that woke us up at 7am, the lack of refrigerator and therefore lack of breakfast, the lack of coffee, the fact that NONE of the outlets will keep a connection and so I can’t charge any of my electronics OR curl my hair, the sad attempt at water pressure and minimal heat in the shower, AND the fact that I can’t talk to my parents or best friend OR update the blog like I promised I would. Yeah, I’m a little unhappy this morning.

The one ray of sunshine - the sweet little makeshift vase (i.e. water pitcher) of daisies sitting on our table. They’re happy and bright and maybe if I stare at them long enough and remember how good yesterday was, the rest of the ickiness will fade. I really don’t wanna be in a bad mood. We’re going to the village today and I want to enjoy that. I’m sure though, that once we get there, all of this won’t matter. New day, new attitude, right? Let’s hope…I’ll let you know.


Afternoon thoughts:

So…today was awesome.

After we got dressed this morning, we stopped by the boys’ for breakfast (since we’d left our cold items there), then headed over to get on the bus. IT was about an hour drive to the Ashram (where we picked up the lady that started it) then an additional hour drive to the village.

When we arrived, there were two lines of little girls waiting outside of the school to greet us. As we walked past them, they showered us with marigold petals (remember the lei from the first day? Marigolds are a sign of welcome). Upon reaching the gate of the school, a small group of boys began playing the drums to welcome us in. They were all so happy and energetic, and the teachers were all smiles.

We were ushered into a small conference room and asked to sit down. We then went through some introductions (all the teachers, ourselves, a few others) before getting a quick tour of the school. All of the kids attend class in a collection of four small rooms, where they are split up according to their “standard” (the equivalent of US “grades”). All of the kids were very well behaved, and each classroom had prepared a song or poem for us - it was soooo sweet.

After our school tour, we were able to go on a village tour. According to Dr. Anand, this sleepy little village is home to about 72,000 (guys…that’s the size of FAYETTEVILLE! And this is a VILLAGE…geez). We didn’t see the entire thing, just the portion that was closest to the school (and housed a little over a thousand residents).

I simply can’t describe the village in words, so here, have a few pictures…jk, stupid internet. There will be pictures later.

As intense as the setting was, the people were all incredibly warm. They didn’t mind one bit that a bunch of foreigners (the first ones to visit their village…ever) were wandering around taking pictures of their houses and chickens. I mean, imagine trying do walk into Orange Mound and snap a few photos of people or houses or pets…you’d get shot. These people welcomed us into their homes warmly, let us look around, take pictures, talk to their children, hold their baby livestock - it was incredible.

I was in shock for a majority of the tour - it was just so much to take in. We returned to the school after the tour and watched the kids participate in races and games - we even got to play a round of musical chairs (once for the boys, once for the girls). They seemed to love watching US play their games. Then, they presented each of us with flowers (I’m liking this tradition), performed several dances and songs for us, let us hand out the awards to the winners of the races, and thanked us (multiple times) for visiting their village and experiencing their culture. That felt backwards to me - we should have been thanking THEM for letting us be a part of their lives. The experience was incredible.

Before leaving, we spent several minutes taking a million photos with the kids (they loved having their picture taken), letting them take pics of us (which they liked MORE than having their picture taken, even if it was with our cameras and they couldn’t keep the pics), and shaking hundreds of teeny hands. They all ask the same question “What is your name?” - I loved feeling like my name was special.

Right as we left, there was one little girl standing off to the side all by herself, just watching us. I couldn’t decide if she was scared or just overwhelmed. I pulled my flower out of my bag and handed it to her. The look on her face was priceless and heart-melting. It was confusion and shock at first, kind of a “me? That’s for me?” look, but then it transformed in to the biggest, happiest, most ecstatic smile I’ve ever seen. She clutched that tiny flower to her chest, ran over to who I assume was her brother, and waved it back and forth, jumping up and down the whole time. I wish I could have caught that moment on tape, not that I’ll ever forget it, but so that other people can see how incredibly happy something so small can make someone. It made my whole day.

After the village, we drove back to the apartments for a brief break before heading out to explore the city and grab dinner. We took the bus to MG Road (the shopping district), and wandered through one of the shops there called Cauvery. It’s a government run store - meaning we didn’t have to haggle (YAY!) and they had good prices. Pree, Mary, and I bought sarees and most of the others got souvenirs and gifts to take back home. The issue we then faced was: where on EARTH do we get these fitted? So began the epic tailor-hunt.

The Cauvery people had told the tailor was up the street…not a good description for India. Up the street could mean ANYWHERE. So, hoping we were smart enough to find this tailor (bad plan, I’m aware), we just started walking. A few minutes passed and we realized we had no hope of finding this place alone, so we stopped in one of the stores that looked like they might know. The guy there told us to go to the utility building “that way.” Well, at least we had a direction. We walked “that way” hoping that maybe we would just somehow know what a utility building was supposed to look like. We didn’t. We stopped in ANOTHER store and asked for a tailor and/or the utility building. The guy had no idea where a tailor was, but “utility building” he understood. “Oh, utility building, yes yes, tailor is there. About one and a half minute walk there. Big, taaaaall, building. That way.” Good…I think…we were at least still headed “that way” and now we knew to look for a “taaaall” building. Turns out, ALL of the buildings are tall. Also, “one and a half minutes” is really really vaugue in Indian time…

Just as we were wondering if we’d ever find this place, the buildings parted and this skyscraper appeared. Aha! “Taaaall” building! So, now at least we had a building, just need the tailor. We walked in and, after asking about three more people, a kind lady took pity on us and walked us to the tailor. We would have NEVER found that place on our own like we thought.

The tailoring experience was…interesting. He took our sarees, then took our measurements (very quickly, might I add), wrote a few figures down on a piece of paper, and told us to come back “day after tomorrow.” What he’ll do is take some of the fabric from the saree, cut it to our measurements, line it, and sew it all up to make a blouse. Then, the saree just wraps around. Sounds simple enough, right? Maybe I’ll have magical saree wrapping talent…

After that adventure (which I’m pretty proud of - we just got sarees tailored in INDIA), we went to find the others for dinner. We ended up at a very Dickson Street-esque bar and stayed for a while - it felt so much like home. I think a lot of us have been missing home, so that touch was nice. The ride home was an entirely new adventure.

We had been told to take auto-rickshaws back to the apartments. We had also been told not to wait too late to get them because no one would be willing to take us. Well, we apparently waited too late. The first six or so people we talked to told us no. Then, a man appears out of nowhere and offers to drive us…for 800 rupees. Heck no! That ride is supposed to cost like 60 to 90 rupees…you’ve GOT to be kidding us! Well, no one else would take us, and that guy kept talking, so once Seth got him down to 350, we agreed. Thing is, there were four of us. The auto rickshaws fit two, maybe three. The next twenty minutes was both terrifying and hilarious.

Seth, Kevin, and I squeezed into the back of the rickshaw and had Amanda lay across our laps. We sped through traffic, dodging busses and cars and motorcycles, praying that we wouldn’t crash or flip or fall out. Kevin got the whole experience on video…I’ll see what I can do to add that later. We made it, finally, all in one piece. We paid the guy and thanked him, then headed upstairs to tell everyone of our adventure. All in all, it was a good night. I feel like I’ve had a well rounded India experience now. Almost dying via auto rickshaw will do that…

Evening thoughts:

I’m quite annoyed again. Honey, Kevin and I went to pick up our laundry - which we ended up paying way more than expected for - and not only were things crazy mixed up, they were WET! What are we supposed to do with wet clothes?!? Ugh…we’ll survive. This country is an emotional roller coaster. It’s probably a good thing I’m only here for three weeks. I might lose my mind otherwise. I thought I understood the concept of culture shock…no. THIS is culture shock. THIS is what ethnocentrism feels like. Nothing before has come close - that was just me adjusting. This is screwing with my emotional stability…I’m going to bed.

I'm skipping the days we spent at Kabini for now. I'll add them later, promise. Anyway, here's another update:


Today started off with our first laundry experience in India - we folded our clothes and dropped them off with the office to be washed, ironed, and returned to us. It was a little scary to leave such a large chunk of my clothes with a stranger, but I’m trusting the system. After dropping off laundry and having a fantastic breakfast (yogurt and cereal - I love having a kitchen and groceries - I got to Skype with Mom and Dad for an hour or so. I’m so excited to have internet! The whole morning was pretty relaxing, just getting ready, eating breakfast, and a brief meeting with the leaders, then we left for our company visit.

We traveled to Electronic City and visited the WIPRO campus. WIPRO (formerly Western India Products, Ltd), is the second largest outsourcing company in the world. To me, that conjured images of several call centers stocked with people answering tech support and product inquiry calls. Wrong. They do so much more than that.

When we first got there, we were greeted with bouquets of gerbera daises (so sweet), and ushered upstairs to a really nice conference room. After brief introductions, we walked to a dining room full of tables set with WIPRO china (a really nice touch) and a lovely smelling buffet lunch. Turns out it wasn’t just lovely smelling, the lunch was FANTASTIC - they had chicken parmigian! We all really enjoyed it. I normally don’t crave familiar American food this much when I’m abroad, but something about this trip has really made me miss it. I think it’s cause we’re starting to feel like Indian cuisine is a bit repetitive and homogeneous. I’m sure if you’ve grown up here, the dishes probably seem quite different, but being from the States where we have so many different genres of food (Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Thai), we’re all feeling a bit “food bored.”

Following lunch, we returned to the conference room and started our series of meetings. We learned a lot about who WIPRO is and what they do - they have four main divisions: IT, Personal & Home Care, etc. Then we had a tour of the training facility (THAT was IMPRESSIVE) and a few more meetings. Everyone seemed fairly engaged, asking questions and making comments. I think we all really enjoyed it. Up next was dinner and free time.

So, remember how I mentioned earlier that we were all kinda craving American food? Well, that was reflected in our dinner choice tonight - Pizza Hut. We walked from the apartments to the restaurant down the street. Honestly, walking was about as stressful as driving feels. I was sure I was going to trip on one of the holes or steps or random rocks or tree roots or broken patches. I’m not the most graceful person, so it’s bound to happen at some point, I’d just prefer it NOT happen on a concrete sidewalk near a super busy street full of Indian traffic. We made it safely, despite one of the access covers nearly flipping over underneath my feet, and the second we walked into the restaurant, stress vanished. It smelled like home.

Now, it’s important to note that Indian Pizza Hut is NOT like American Pizza Hut. First, a majority of the menu is vegetarian (which one would expect given that one of the main religions here doesn’t eat beef and the other doesn’t eat pork), and so a good number of the entrees are much more interesting than our standard American fare. We’ve noticed this at several of the “American” chains we’ve visited. Remember my paneer wrap from McDonald’s? It makes sense once you’re here, but I never would have considered the implications of opening a traditionally American restaurant in a culture that has such restricted diets. I

If you’ve ever cooked for a vegetarian, you understand. It’s not that you just don’t use meat, you don’t use ANY animal products - oils, lards, certain extracts, occasionally eggs, milk, and cheese. It’s tricky. You can’t just change a recipe to remove the obvious meat, sometimes you have to completely redesign it. For example, apple pie sounds safe and vegetarian, right? Nope. Quite often crust has lard in it, so you have to find a new recipe. And with companies that sell food, a redesign of a recipe is not a simple undertaking. You have to do through a whole new gambit of testing, approvals, measurements, more testing, etc. Entering this market given that so much of the menu would have to be recreated is not as simple as I would have thought.

A bonus to the challenge? It resulted in a much more creative, very interesting menu. We ended up choosing from the Tuscany offerings - I had a pizza with gouda cheese, basil, mushrooms, bell pepper, baby corn and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It was fantastic.

After dinner, we headed back to the apartments. We had found out earlier that we would have to move apartments - apparently they have to do some work on the one that we were in, so they were moving us to another building. Originally, they had said that we had until 11 to move (which was good seeing as we weren’t packed and wanted to get dinner). When we got back, however, we were being rushed to get out as quickly as possible - frustrating. So, we quickly grabbed our stuff and shuffled out. Then came what we were sure was either a practical joke or a nightmare.

The new apartment is on the seventh floor of the building. Sounds nice, but consider the fact that it’s really hot here and heat does what? That’s right, rises. So, the lower apartments are the more desirable. It’s okay, we were gonna give the apartment the benefit of the doubt - perhaps it was more like a penthouse. NOPE! It’s awful. We moved from a lovely apartment with a nice living room, two nice bedrooms, a great kitchen and internet, so a tiny, hot, three bedroom apartment with scary couches, minimal lighting, no refrigerator/coffee maker/supplies, and NO INTERNET. We didn’t even have a modem. Oh and the phone didn’t work. AND he forgot to give us a key. I wanted to cry. I almost did. Is this real life? Surely not.

We all kinda stared around, dazed. I couldn’t stay. I picked up our leftovers, yogurt, juice and milk and walked over to Kevin’s to see if we could store our stuff there. Then I stayed put for a little while, trying to get on the internet to let people know what was going on (and cancel all of my Skype dates), but that didn’t go well. Thanks for understanding, people at home. I stayed for a little bit longer to collect myself then headed back to our place.

Once there, it turns out that they had found us a “refrigerator” (i.e. a small coldish 1.5 x 1.5 box), so at least we can store provisions. Still no internet, but we’ll survive, right? They’ll supposedly bring us a modem in the morning, but I’m not crossing my fingers. I’m trying to stay positive. I am in India, after all. I need to focus on the big picture. I think it’s just that I’m missing home and I was so excited to talk to them and now I feel like that opportunity has been ripped away from me. Add to that the fact that as we were moving out, we were rushed cause someone needed to move in. Turns out that “’working on the apartment” was a lame cover for “we have someone we like better that want the room.” *sigh* This will be okay, right? I’m going to bed. I can’t think about this anymore.