"Under Observation"

Over the past few days my body decided to become strictly hydrophobic and try to rid itself of every drop of liquid it could. Paulette, my housemate, told me we were going to the hospital. One of our friends, Vijay, left work to take me. The first hospital didn’t have a doctor but we quickly found another.

We walked into an empty, dimly lit hallway containing only a podium with the sign “reception.” A man walking past speaking hindi ushered all of us into an adjoining tiny room. It was full of people. I sat on a little stool next to the doctor, two female nurses, three male nursing students, three random middle aged men (I’m guessing the doctor’s friends), Paulette and Vijay. We didn’t actually fit. The doctor asked me (well asked Vijay) what was happening and I announced it to the room. After a quick examination on a small stained table I was taken upstairs to a room of beds with my small parade of random people. I was put in a small “room” made of little barriers in the corner. While everyone watched I got my IV through my hand, and started the process of feeling human again.

Paulette and Vijay stayed for over an hour, and then went to get lunch. While they were gone a male nurse sat about a foot away from my bed…just staring at me. He spoke no English so I couldn’t talk to him. We just sort of looked at each other, and then I’d look at the ceiling then back at him between trips to the bathroom and him checking my IV. Soon, I got two more nurses staring at me to keep him company. They just looked at me. I got annoyed at one of them when I thought he took a picture of me on his phone, but due to the language barrier and me feeling simply awful I wasn’t in full fighting spirits. Camera phones are quickly becoming my least favorite thing.

Occasionally I would have a random additional man or two just stand in the doorway and stare at me. I’m still not used to people continuing to stare once I look at them. By the time I got a shot (luckily given by a female nurse) I wasn’t even phased by the crowd once I learned the location of the injection. My little army of two visitors was trumped by the man behind me who had 9 all sitting on bed.

After six hours of this I just wanted to go home, but was told I needed to stay overnight due to an infection and severe dehydration. The worst part was thinking of a hilarious joke and having no native English speakers to appreciate it (see the title of this post.)

At about 9 pm the nursing staff changed and I got three new men staring at me. These nurses talked in English, yet not good enough English to understand my joke. (I tried.) Things got creepy fast. I was asked if I was married. I told them no, I wasn’t. Then after a while I was asked repeatedly if I thought indian men were beautiful. Over and over again while one of them lay on the other bed next to mine. For the next twenty minutes one of the guys kept rambling that he “wanted an American girl” and would “look after me all night.” Then he’d say something to his friend in Hindi and laugh. There was lots of sort of handholding with my IV...

Paulette and Vijay came back a half hour later and when I told them what had happened they swooped into action. The doctor was called back to the hospital, I told him what had happened and that I wanted to go home. He brought his staff in. Then he took Vijay and his staff away for about 45 minutes to “discuss it” and “discuss me.” Vijay finally came back and told me what was wrong with me (because lord knows I couldn’t be told!) and that the staff would be fired. I honestly doubt they will be. But, in my mind, they are. I’m so incredibly thankful to have had the support of my friends here.

The whole experience cost me $56… and from now on, if anyone asks, I’m married.

Indian Time and Other Confusions

A Baffled And Confused Indian Child

There are many things here that baffle and confuse me, but none more than the different concept of time. I’m a little obsessive about time. In my high school marching band there was a saying, “If you’re 15 minutes early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.” This is one of my mottos in life. Basically, I really “found my people” in Taiwan. In fact this post could be titled “things that I’ve found that annoy me and are the opposite of how they do it in Taiwan.”

I’ve noticed here that “15 minutes” generally means “1 hour, maybe 2, or perhaps in a few days or not at all.” Having a very specific plan to do something is the Indian equivalent of “let’s do lunch” or “how are you?” for Americans. You’re not going to actually be meeting for lunch, and you probably don’t really care about how the person truly is feeling. You really don’t have the time for either of those things.

When someone says “when can we do this big thing that will take planning and work on your part?” regardless of the details you just planned, pretend that never happened. There’s a 95% chance that they’ll be working, or at a 15 day funeral or at the 3 day wedding of their “cousin” who they aren’t actually related to and have probably never met. (Cousins are called brothers or sisters so the word “cousin” seems to be a sort of catch-all for anything from close friend to complete stranger.)

When I had 10 Indians over for Thanksgiving, the one person who showed up within an hour of when they were supposed to, went home and came back before 7 other people came… almost two hours late. I’m not really one to lose my temper, but if you want to see me lose it, come to the vegetarian Thanksgiving I cooked (with the help of two delightful girls) with a two burner stovetop and no grocery store then complain that despite making 7 dishes I hadn’t bought enough water.

It also didn’t help that I was seriously hangry from not eating all day for an 8 pm dinner. (My camera took pity on me and deleted all my pictures from this night… probably in hopes that I would just forget about it. I like to think my camera was looking out for me...)

But I did make a cute sign.

Saying Thank You

As far as I can gather if you consider someone a friend, you don’t thank him or her. Either that or I’ve just come across a certain segment of the population who firmly believes this.

Smiling

I smile, quite a bit. Now that I’ve had multiple random girls stop me to warn me to stop it, I’m going to firm my resolve to look miserable every time I leave the house. A fellow American I met recently wrote a delightful post, “Why India Turns Me Into An A**h****.” http://www.thebigfatworld.com/asia/india/india-turns-ah/ It’s exactly how I feel. I just hope it’s reversible.

 Smiling in The Acceptable Space of My Living Room

Light Switches

I live in a house with 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom yet there are over 40 light switches. We also have multiple choices of loud indian women singing as our doorbell.

I wish my internet was strong enough to record them all for you…

Light Switches in My Bedroom

Lying

“Hello, how are you?” “Where you from?” “Are you married?”

This is the normal progression of questions here. First of all, I’m not a great liar. I can get the lie out if I plan it first, but if I’m questioned I break, fast. I never know if there’s a potential friendship or if I’m going to see them in the future. Let’s be frank, how awkward would the subsequent conversation be:

“So, you said your husband is coming next week, right?”

“Oh yeah, about that… I thought you were a creepy man I couldn’t trust. So, I made up a bizarre story about being married. By the way, I’m new to this country and in order to do my work I need to make contacts. I’m now going to ask for your help.”

One of the only times I said I was married was in Kathmandu. I ended up seeing that guy everywhere and he was very friendly. We sat together multiple times. My spur-of-the-moment husband was a weird amalgamation of my guy friends and two days later I couldn’t remember if my imaginary husband lived in Colorado or Connecticut (love you both) but my companion could.

There goes my life as a career criminal.

Interesting, I’ve had multiple cases of the opposite happen… after knowing a guy for weeks (he came to multiple dinner parties at our house) the fact that he was married, with kids, never came up.

Much love to you all and Happy Holidays!

Teacher Turnover, A Vow of Silence & A Wedding

I had an eyeopening talk with a teacher earlier this week. She was telling me how lack of resources is a big problem. For instance in "computer class" not only do they not have computers, but almost none of the students have ever seen one. I asked her if that was the biggest problem. She said, no, the biggest problem was teacher turnover. Only women teach and their parents marry them a year or two after they finish school.  Therefore, teacher turnover is astoundingly high.

Arranged marriages account for a vast majority (90%) of marriages here. Many of the other marriages are partly arranged. I've heard multiple stories of couples "running away" to marry because they weren't of the "right" caste, background, or family. Once a woman marries she is moved to her husband's house and her life is dictated by her in-laws. As my opinion on this subject is very skewed, I've decided to not talk about "women's lives in India" on this blog. I think it's too public, and fear I would end up bordering on being culturally insensitive. Despite being a "woman in India" I am not an "Indian woman." Plus that's not what my project is about. That being said, art in schools is not what India is about. But, I knew that, and that's part of the reason I'm here.
Speaking of marriages... (look at that transition.)
My house is on a "marriage yard" which is basically a large field where women in gorgeous saris and men in jeans eat, and then stand there, before a few of them (about 10 of the few hundred) have a mosh pit to the incredibly loud music playing. The bad news is this means my housemate and I generally have to forgo conversation on nights where there's a wedding (I'd say 2-4 times a week.)
Also, I can now sing this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XclnbDlKYM0
The good news is that there's free entertainment on our roof. We act like fashion magazine editors: commenting on the outfits while really wishing we could eat all the food.
The wedding I mentioned in a previous post ended in a very interesting display and I got to be right in the thick of it. Just call me the international entertainment.
The procession to the wedding yard on the third day starts from the house of the groom. He rode a horse, which in this case, had splendidly painted pink hooves.

The sweetest moment of the night was when his grandmother was lifted up to say goodbye to him. My housemate captured this beautiful picture:

To the incredibly loud beating of drums the profession went through the neighborhood. The entire way women were dancing and spinning. The large group in attendance was lined by a series of large lanterns carried by hired hands.

I think we were invited to go to the actual wedding but declined... I was about to come down with stomach flu so I'm glad we did!

I wasn't properly up for dancing.

A Sample of A Day In My Life

One day Paulette asked me if I wanted to see a temple. We went via rickshaw (I’m now fine with them) for about 45 minutes. It was my first time seeing slums. I can't wrap my head around the fact that people truly live like that. I can't even imagine what that must be like. Perhaps that's due to my naiveté, or more likely, it's because if I was able to I wouldn't be able to function for a while. To be quite honest, I really am struggling with constantly feeling guilty here, and then feeling even more guilty for having the luxury of feeling guilty.

We went to one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. As we walked through, she explained to me about some of the gods, and then we went over to a gathering in a different building. She was embraced by the organizers, and we were told to sit down. We had little tables placed in front of us, and were given 8 different types of food. It was delightful. I asked what they were celebrating, and was told there was no celebration, they just did this each year to honor the god of the temple. Upon leaving one of the women came over to me and thanked me for coming saying it pleased the god to have them feed as many people as possible.

And down.

After leaving the temple we went to meet our rickshaw driver who was simply a jerk. We had wanted to go to somewhere else right down the road, but he refused and started yelling, despite having agreed to go there early. After Paulette haggled with him, called a few people to negotiate with him in Hindi, (and I stood by useless) we once again took off. After only a bit we had company as he picked up a couple without asking us. I have learned that there is no such thing as personal space here.

And up.

She next took me to the monkey temple, once again despite the monkeys being petrifying little creatures it was beautiful. We had to go up a steep hill and back down to reach the temple. On our way down the hill she stopped outside a little shack to speak to “Baba.” (As I said, she knows everyone.) He invited us in for chai, and as they spoke in Hindi I looked out onto the temple and the surrounding hills, the small crowd of men staring at us (this is just a given so I almost forgot to mention it), drinking chai and wondering how the heck I was there.

Source: PictureNice

We returned home and had 6 people over for dinner. After eating they put on traditional music and just started dancing. Never have I felt like a worse dancer. I tried to get them to let me just sit there, while they tried to teach me Indian dances. 

My wrists, neck and hips are simply way too American.

Enjoy Your Ride on the Indian Express Coaster

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. 

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."

Incredible (poverty, sites, transportation, trash, cows) India

I’m in India now.
I’ve been waiting to write this for a few reasons. The main reason is that I don’t really have Internet, and when I do my blog doesn’t want to load. In a way that’s okay (I can hear my mom saying, “how is that okay?”)

I wanted to get a bit more settled, and be in the right state of mind before trying to attempt to explain India. Whenever I told people about my trip they would nod and smile until I told them I was going to India… then they would tell me to be safe while questioning my sanity.
India's tourism slogan is "Incredible India." I would like to propose they change that to "Overwhelming India." I realize they lose the benefit of alliteration, but I think it's more accurate. As I sit here there is music that is so loud that I have a hard time thinking. Standing outside my house, there are probably 60 women in saris as part of the second day of a wedding ceremony. In a nearby neighborhood trash heap there’s two cows enjoying the leftovers while dogs try to steal some scraps. I’ve seen all the things people told me about—the poverty, the trash, the rats, the stares, the cheats, and of course the incredible sexism. Yet, there's a beauty to this country I can't quite quantify. I can give so many reasons for why I should hate it here or be miserable-- but I don't and I'm not. As one of my friends here told me, “India can be beautiful, you just have to give it a chance.” I just hope it gives me a chance too.

Might as well set up a celebration near our gate... 

Things to Do in Kathmandu

Nepal was uneventful-- one of my favorite words now! I spent my days writing in cafes, writing on rooftops and wandering around. I have to say, I highly recommend Kathmandu. The people were great-- I was only bothered a bit (once by men holding hands, which is just a thing friends do here but threw me off.) English is surprisingly well spoken and it's insanely cheap. For a complete breakfast with tea I would pay on average $3.
One of my favorite experiences was visiting a monetary-- I even got to sit in on a class. When the teacher, a monk, came in everyone stood and bowed. There were a few things going on, more kneeling, then standing then some thing with the hands. I tried to follow and hoped I wasn't insulting someone in some way. Then there was chanting. I sort of felt like I was at foreign language catholic mass for the first time never knowing when to stand, sit or kneel. However, other than that I don't really have many stories... unless you want to read about my harrowing experience filling out the same form for five hours because my internet kept dropping off. (A thrilling read to be sure.)

I do, however, have pictures:




















The street outside my guest house.