Culture Shock

After over a week of being here, the honeymoon period has finally worn off and the reality of actually living here is beginning to set in. One of the classes I am taking is “Connecting Your Abroad Experience to Your Future”, entirely cheesy, but nonetheless kind of cool. It’s online and not all of the students here opted to take it. It consists of weekly readings about culture shock, adjusting, so in essence of bunch of articles pertaining to how we are ‘feeling’. There are then about four assignments that force us to do some introspection and internalizing of our experience. Moral of the story is it’s an easy credit hour. But I digress… one of the readings for this week chronicled the stages of culture shock and since reading the article it’s interesting to evaluate where each of the students is on the culture shock scale and see how different people deal with the culture shock phenomenon. Some people are very ready to disassociate themselves with everything ‘American’ and almost equate being ‘American’ with negativity. Other people find themselves in a sort of stasis, a feeling a paralysis because they just don’t really know what to do with themselves or how to associate with this new place. And even others can’t help but fixating on what we don’t have here and how ‘great’ it is at home. All of these, according to the article, I would classify in stage one or stage two of culture shock, which is simply put the time between initial excitement and a reality check. And let me tell you, being in the stage of realizing that this is my life for the next four months going to live isn’t just a walk in the park. It’s a constant emotional rollercoaster. I’m trying to appreciate everything, but not romanticize it, but also not compare it to what I know and what I have at home, so in essence I am trying to do the impossible, which is clearly draining.

Aside from the adjustment issues I have now finally moved in to the host family that I will be staying with for the next six weeks during the classroom phase. I’m living in a large house with that has been passed down through a family; it has about twenty bedrooms. The house has been split up in to three sections, one side of the house is for the younger brother, one side for the older brother, and the back area is for tenants. I’m on the older brother’s side of the house with Jocelyn. Two other girls from our program, Lydia and Dede, are on the younger brother’s side of the house. Each brother has two children, a boy and a girl, and beyond those four children there are the tenants or relatives, or whoever else milling around the house. The family is a very traditional Hindi family with the whole arranged marriage bit, which I’m interested to learn more about from my host sister.

The best part of living with a host family is being treated like a small child again, in the best way. The mother home-cooks all of our meals, and even packs lunch boxes for us to take to school. And let me tell you, home cooked Rajasthani dishes are to die for. Breakfast, thus far, has been this delicious breakfast bread with onions and seasonings, that I forgot the name of, or seasoned corn, and a side of chai. Lunch and dinners consist generally of a chapatti, which is a circular unleavened bread, a vegetable in some delicious Indian seasonings, and either a lentil soup or a curd yogurt dish. The food has been spicy, but not too spicy. The nice thing about spicy food is that you don’t really have the ambition to over eat because it takes so long to eat. I think I’ve probably already lost five pounds. Thus far there has been no meat in my diet since I have arrived. I got lucky and my host family is ‘non-veg’, aka they eat meat, a rarity in these parts. Apparently those who do eat meat only do so once in a blue moon. So hopefully I’ll get lucky and be served some delicious carnivorous fare one these days.

As for my accommodations, I have my own room that is attached to Jocelyn’s room and a bathroom. So it’s quite nice that we have all of this space to ourselves to get away and have some solitude in this bustling place. We were blessed with a western toilet, a genuine cause for celebration. However, we were not blessed with a shower, and instead will be taking bucket showers. Initially I was pretty apprehensive about this, it sounded like quite a task. But after taking a few I almost kind of like it. For those of you who are a still a little confused about what a bucket shower actually is, let me explain. We have a larger bucket that we fill maybe about a quarter full. There is a little bucket inside of that that we then use to pour the water on ourselves. There is then a drain on the floor for all the water to drain our. So it’s basically like a shower but you have much more control of how much water is actually used. It’s shocking how little water it actually takes to get clean. My first real shower after I have after moving out of here I feel like is going to freak me out of how much water I am wasting.

For the most part, even with the continual culture shock and longing for American amenities, we are starting to feel at home here. Our classes have all officially begun and our lives are starting to get an Indian rhythm. It should be noted that the Indian life style is much more laid back than American life-styles, so therefore our newly adopted tempo is much more wishy washy and informal than that of being at school at the good ol’ U of I. We expect our 4 time a day chai, we expect delays, and we expect the unexpected. Yet, I’m trying not to get too comfortable, because I’m sure India has a lot more to throw at me.