Soo I decided to switch my blog site since the travelblog site was sub par. So I'm first pasting my initial posting here..
July is quickly coming to a close. This July signified the end of my teenage years, something that I was not exactly looking forward to, thus we attempted to play it under the radar. Within my group of friends over the past year when any of us reaches the milestone of entering their twenties we like to point out what that actually means. The twenties are traditionally the decade in which we graduate from our undergrad college years, pick up some graduate degrees, start a career, fall in love, get married, perhaps even pop out a few children. From where I am standing even the mere thought of such things makes my stomach hurt and my anxiety grow. But alas, it can't really be as horrible as I make it out to be?
While July did offer excitement in that regard in addition to the general self-created drama and dwellings, and trips out west, I'd put money on August blowing July's mind. I've been planning this trip since February, but due to my lack of planning skills and my lack of taking in to account the fact that after plans are made action does indeed follow, I haven't really yet contended with the fact that this is actually happening. So now to be more direct. On August 29th I will be flying out of the O'Hare airport and landing in the lovely land of spices in New Delhi, India. I will be remaining in that foreign land until Christmas Eve and then flying back to the states for a very cold welcome home. Whilst in India I will be participating in a study abroad program that is sponsored by the University of Minnesota. For this semester I essentially will be a student at University of Minnesota. To the best of my knowledge we will first be spending a week in New Delhi for an orientation and then we will be shipped over to our new home Jaipur. There each the students, about 23, will be placed with their homestay and move in to their new homes. While in Jaipur all the students will be taking classes together that pertain to globalization and developing nations. Of course, the cool aspect of these courses is we will be drop dead in the middle of a developing country that is feeling that word 'globalization' daily. Having already taken an experiential learning class earlier this summer Yellowstone , I am very excited to be able to use my cultural immersion as an extension of class learning to fully understand these concepts and their impact. After the first half of the semester classes come to a close, the second half of the semester each student will be placed in an internship relating to development in a field that highlights their interests. As I am an environmental studies minor I plan on finding an internship that deals with the environmental impact side. At the end of the program it is my understanding that we all come together one last time and write a paper about our experiences and such. All and all the structure and the goals of the program seem to be the makings for a life changing experience, and one that I am very excited and open to having.
When telling people about my study abroad program and what not I generally get to about this point and with a kind of confused look on their face they ask apprehensively, "So, why would you ever choose India? Why not Europe? I would never want to go spend a semester in India." I suppose I understand that to an extent. In most people's minds the idea of going abroad is going to a place like Europe where they can party and eat cheese and just consequentially learn about another culture. That is all honorable in itself, it is a great experience and while Europe is westernized, the various countries still maintain their own definable traits, and therefore the students that choose to go there do see a lot and learn a lot. What I wanted was something a little bit more. I wanted my culture and the way I view to world to be thrown on its head. I wanted to go to a country where maybe women aren't equal I suppose the same thing could be argued in America, but that is clearly for a differently motivated blog , where things that I find to be casual are formal, where values are completely different. I wanted this because this life, no matter how old we are or where we are, the overarching question is, "How do we get along?", a question that humanity has been struggling with since day one. A contributing factor to this is our inability to understand others values or even more difficultly to respect one each others’ values. My hope is that by going to a place that is so different from my own country that I will be able to learn about their values and cultures and respect them and perhaps even realize that they aren't so different from our own. In this global economy I believe that this cultural understanding will become a marketable skill in my future. Furthermore, the components of the program itself are pretty awesome. As I already said I have taken an experiential learning class and it was awesome, so I am really excited to really hands on learn about developing nations.
So now as August sneaks closer it is finally the time the wrap together all of the loose ends and mentally prepare as much as possible for what I am getting myself in to. There will be lots of doctors appointments, hair appointments, shopping sprees, and the dreaded packing. I haven't ever moved farther than 10 minutes away, so moving half way around the world is rather daunting. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited. I never really know how to answer that question. It's not that I'm not excited, it just that I have no mental image in my head of what my life will be like for the next four months or what really any of it will be like. So I don't really feel excited in the hyperactive sense. I am excited to go have an awesome experience and finally leave Champaign for an extended period of time. All I know is that this is going to be a great adventure.
And now what you've all been waiting for, my new post...
It’s finally Saturday and I have now been in this new and fantastical place since Monday night. It really is a whole new world. Nowhere in the states can you look out your window and see a camel, an elephant, a Mercedes, a huge corporate building, and a naked man all at the same time. There is no central air conditioning; just certain rooms are certain buildings have air conditioning. With that being said I’m attempting to teach myself to enjoy sweating, convince myself it’s a good thing and focus on the toxins that my body is constantly releasing. It’s also dirty. We just left a stay at beautiful brand new hotel and even though this is a stunning place on the inside, when you walk outside there are still piles of trash; there are piles of trash everywhere. And the traffic, the traffic makes Chicago’s rush hour look like child’s play. No one drives in the lanes or even pretends to. On the high way one of my favorite signs read, “lane driving is sane driving”, a suggestion that is in no way heeded. On top of that the traffic consists of cars, rickshaws, elephants, camels, horses, and motorcycles. Our first attempt at crossing the street was definitely an embarrassing adventure of white girls running across the street for dear life. Yet, with all of those things, this place is amazing. Chai, which directly translates to “tea”, is served breakfast, lunch, and dinner, during class, after class, and all the time. It’s a beautiful way to just stop and take a minute to regroup. The people are so friendly and so interested in us and so ready to tell us about their lives and their experiences. And amongst all of the chaos these people seem to be genuinely happy. While all of these perceptions have been developed only over a short week’s time this place thus far has only made me want to learn more about it and really understand the way of life.
On Sunday my parents drove me to O’Hare and said goodbye for four whole months. This felt slightly strange, as I have never left home for that long of duration before. At the airport I met the majority of the students that will be studying with me for the semester. This program did a great job of attracting really interesting people that have a deep passion for helping the world. Their knowledge and conviction for this is almost intimidating, but I’m sure that they will be able to teach me a lot. We are all already becoming great friends and it’s been amazing to hear about the adventures these people have been on doing things such as teaching in Guatemala for a year, or studying in South Africa for a semester, even to making hilarious “vlogs”, which are video blogs (yes Ellen I plan on linking to your videos once I find them).
So on to what you all are most interested in hearing about, yes I am alive and well in India, and no it doesn’t smell terrible, per se. On our lovely fourteen-hour flight between the sleeping and the arbitrary conversations the question of what to expect was brought up. I personally had negligible expectations. I hadn’t really done much of any research on India and tried not to help keep my expectations to a minimum. The two things that stuck with me was a girl on my trip telling me that the first thing I was going to notice getting off the plane was the smell, the other being what my friend Brie had been joking about since I got accepted to the program. She was convinced that as soon as I stepped off the plane and the Indians laid their eyes on me their first reaction would be, “Holy Shit!”, said of course in her best Indian-English accent. Stepping off the plane in to the airport there was a scent, not a super harsh scent, but an unfamiliar one. I then braced myself for the out of doors, thinking that perhaps that’s where this fabled odor was waiting for me. So after we got through customs (which was surprisingly easy and very quick) we found our group and got our first whiff of fresh Indian air. My roommate for the semester, Jocelyn, and I both found that this scent was actually kind of pleasing, like a sweetly flavored cigar. I will be honest and say that this sweet scent has not been uniform throughout Delhi and Jaipur; there are lots of very strong fragrances, some are rather abrasive while others are just new and different. That aforementioned garbage definitely adds a nice pungent odor from time to time.
Classes have not yet officially started. Yesterday was the culmination of our orientation to India and today we will finally moved in to our host families. We spent the first two nights in Delhi at a YWCA hostel, and spent three nights in the lovely Saneer Hotel. This hotel is brand new and immaculate. The wait staff has been nothing but friendly and the food is delicious. We attempted to really enjoy our last western showers before our to our host families where the majority of us, myself included, will get the privilege of enjoying bucket showers for the duration of our stay there. That thought is both intimidating and exciting at the same time. I say exciting because I did come here to experience all the nuances of this culture and this place and if a bucket shower is part of this then so be it.
Speaking of culture, my new favorite aspect of the Indian culture is how blunt the people are. They are not afraid to tell you that you are fat, skinny, tall, short, black, white, you name it. These observations are not perceived as rude in their culture, rather they are merely what they should be, observations. My roommate Jocelyn was signing for her cell phone, and along with the cell phone we had to provide a passport photo. The man looked from her to the photo, from her to the photo, with confusion, and stated, “you look different in picture”. She obligingly shook her head and noted that her hair was pulled back in the photo and that now it was down. The man starred at her and proclaimed, “No! That not it! You skinny in picture, now you very, very fat!”. Being the good sport she is, she laughed and questioned if that was a good thing, and the man contended that indeed it was “very, very good!”.
My personal experience with this observatory trait was not quite as ridiculous, but I found amusing nonetheless. A man had to take me to the photo shop to get more passport pictures as I had not sent in enough. So in true Indian fashion he asked me all about my life, what my major was, what year in school I was, where I was from, what my parents do for a living. He concluded the interrogation by saying, “You sixteen or seventeen?”, I smiled and shook my head and told him that no, I was twenty. He responded utterly shocked, “TWENTY? You look like you sixteen! You have the figure of sixteen!”. I laughed, which of course is the only reaction one can have. I have no idea if that’s a good thing, but now we have a house of a girl that is too young and one that is too fat.
We finally man-ed up an went for our first shopping trip. Our first venture out in the nearby marketplace, basically a couple streets of shops called “Rajapark”, was quite intimidating and we didn’t even consider purchasing any thing and were too overwhelmed by the number of shops and people and chaos. Yesterday we went back with a vengeance, and motivation as we are all running out of clothes and ready to say peace-out to our far too hot jeans. A group of about five girls took on the shops, but of course it would be an utter lie to say that we did this with confidence. It’s confusing to know when to barter and when the prices that they are offering you are fair. My friend Olivia and I finally entered a shop that had quite a few cute cortas, tunic-y tops that are generally accompanied by some color of leggings. We went in to the shop and saw some that we liked, and not having a clue what kind of price to pay for one attempted to barter. This just pissed off the owners because apparently it was set pricing. How one is supposed to know if something is set priced or not I haven’t a clue. After that epic fail we decided to just go to the place that the girls that have been here for a month have been going and decided that the owner offered legit prices. We all know how much I hate to shop but I’m a little nervous that this is going to become an addiction. The shopkeeper treats each customer like a goddess and takes out everything and measures you and etc, etc. I made it out of that shop with a sweet pink and orange tie dye skirt, a scarf, two cortas and leggings. Speaking of leggings, from what we have so far found we are not the biggest fan on the leggings that are sold here. The leggings that both Jocelyn and I bought, and from different locations, seemed to have the issue of front butt. As in they are not spandex-y enough to actually be form fitting. SOOOO if anyone wants to send me some good ol’ fashioned American leggings I would be so much more inclined to send you something back… (hint, hint).
So with all of this excitement, today is the day that I finally move in to my homestay. Hopefully that will go over smoothly…
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