I love roller coasters, truly love them. I've even found a picture of me on one in Taiwan to help illustrate this point.
My Indian life is best likened to a roller coaster for people who feel less passionately about them. (Like the guy on the far left of this picture.) The nerves before, the up, down, up, down with the occasional loop with the subsequent excitement, headache and occasional nausea.
Down.
My first night in India I had the following conversation via text message with my mom:
Me: Mom, can we talk?
Mom: I’ve been waiting. Are you safe?
Me: Yes. I’m safe. Just overwhelmed.
Mom: Ok. Not happy?
Me: It’s just like… INDIA
Mom: Poverty
Me: exactly. There’s trash on the streets. There’s people staring, there’s rats. Luckily there’s cows too which is kinda cool.
Mom: Omg.
That morning I had arrived in Jaipur. Paulette, my French housemate, gave me the number of a rickshaw driver to contact once I got there. As soon as I left the singular room (terminal?) I saw a mass of people outside. I could barely see out of the front window because there were so many people. I knew that India had population problem, but this was insane. I later learned that all those people had showed up (at 8 am) to welcome a tv star to their city. “Don’t these people have work?” is something I say to myself probably 10 times a day.
A rickshaw can best be described as a metal box attached to a motorbike. Riding in one for the first time was petrifying despite the friendliness of my driver. We were going over bridges and under bridges, beside elephants, and around camels pulling massive carts of vegetables. I’ve never seen so much dust, trash or people in my life. It’s chaos. By the time I got to the house, I too was questioning my judgment.
My first night in India I had the following conversation via text message with my mom:
Me: Mom, can we talk?
Mom: I’ve been waiting. Are you safe?
Me: Yes. I’m safe. Just overwhelmed.
Mom: Ok. Not happy?
Me: It’s just like… INDIA
Mom: Poverty
Me: exactly. There’s trash on the streets. There’s people staring, there’s rats. Luckily there’s cows too which is kinda cool.
Mom: Omg.
That morning I had arrived in Jaipur. Paulette, my French housemate, gave me the number of a rickshaw driver to contact once I got there. As soon as I left the singular room (terminal?) I saw a mass of people outside. I could barely see out of the front window because there were so many people. I knew that India had population problem, but this was insane. I later learned that all those people had showed up (at 8 am) to welcome a tv star to their city. “Don’t these people have work?” is something I say to myself probably 10 times a day.
A rickshaw can best be described as a metal box attached to a motorbike. Riding in one for the first time was petrifying despite the friendliness of my driver. We were going over bridges and under bridges, beside elephants, and around camels pulling massive carts of vegetables. I’ve never seen so much dust, trash or people in my life. It’s chaos. By the time I got to the house, I too was questioning my judgment.
Source: TravelPod
That evening Paulette and I went to go see some of her friends (this girl knows everyone) and on the way back I’ll admit I almost cried I was so scared for my life. That night I had the above conversation with my mother... before the internet shut off for a few days… like me, it’s frequently overwhelmed.
And back up.
The next morning I awoke to a lovely little breakfast and chai. I began to feel a bit better as long as I didn’t need to leave the house. (The life of a hermit sounds rather appealing here.) I tried contacting the NGO and began trying to get situated. One of my biggest tasks was learning how to explain where I now lived despite there being no major landmarks nearby with a language barrier. I can’t just write it down as illiteracy is a factor and we don’t technically have an address. (Oh India.) After meeting some other people, we had a dinner party at our house. I started to feel at least a bit better. An amazing cook, Paulette is teaching me the ropes. The best part of dinner preparations was the feeding of the cows. There's probably over 30 cows that live in our little neighborhood. Occasionally one will stop by our gate and moo. They're adorable traveling compost machines, eating the scraps outside of people's gates.
"How" the brown cow. Pictured next to my home in the abandoned lot that had been "cleaned" that morning.
The next week or two have passed in a similar fashion. I wake up, try my email, clean (myself using a bucket, my clothes in a bucket, or the house with a bucket), go buy vegetables (the stands closes from 12-5), drink chai, have tons of people stare at me, cook, dodge a cow, clean, wonder why the music is so loud all the time, try to email my NGO, give up, find other ways to do my project, and have Paulette take me on little adventures around the city.
I've started to get my footing, but each time I think I've gotten it, something throws me. I don't think I'll ever find life here "comfortable" but it will probably always be "surprising."
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