The Eye-Opener March 18, 2010

Another post has arrived and this time it’s from INDIA! Wow, what an experience this country was. The whole stay was exceedingly eye opening, curious, educational, bustling, and astonishing; there was so much to take in every where you looked and the culture was very different from ours back in the states. I’m not really even sure where to start because there’s so much to say!! Lets start at some cultural differences from the US: men and women hold hands with the same gender as a sign of friendly affection, Indian’s move their heads side to side to say “yes” or agree with something, there are many arranged marriages still (although, love marriages are becoming more popular), Indian women wear sarees (gorgeous pieces of cloth that they strategically wrap around their body with a little belly shirt underneath, this makes India really vibrant and colorful because there are so many colors and patterns to choose from) and matching outfits (shirt dresses, pants, and scarves), and the traffic is ridiculously crazy (it’s essentially bumper cars and the traffic lines on the street are utterly pointless). You need to continuously watch your back so you don’t get whammed with a car mirror, rickshaw, or motorcycle. The food was SCRUMPTOUS!! Curry, naan, rice, dosas, samosas, little swirly sweet pies, yogurt, and so much more, ahhh DELICIOUS, I couldn’t get enough of it!! The second day we were in Cennai (ON MY 18^th BIRTHDAY!!!!!), I ordered dragon chicken…I had no idea what it was (chicken of course, but I don’t know what it was spiced with) other than heaven in my mouth along with a lot of saliva and spice! :-p One common thing people in India do is eat their food with their hands…all SASers LOVED this; I’m pretty sure we all felt like two year olds again J  The shopping was really great…this was the first country that I actually wanted to buy native clothes in…and I did! I bought six pairs of Aladdin pants (that’s what all us SASers call them) and a few silk shirts!!

India wasn’t all magnificent and happy though, there’s a lot of poverty and homelessness. I saw many communities of shanties and shacks on the side of the road, along with many families rolling out mats on the sidewalks during the night to sleep on. Many people, especially children, come up and ask you for money, food, and miscellaneous items such as toiletries. The first day, I was on a field directed practicum and one of my teachers (who was born and raised in Mumbai, India) handed out toiletries that Semester at Sea students had collected from the hotels they’ve stayed at throughout the trip so far. Near the end of the field trip before we got back on the bus, I, along with two other students and our tour guide, approached three girls that were walking home from school. We asked them if they’d like some of the toiletries we brought along and they were so incredibly grateful and happy when we handed them over; it was a pretty eye opening experience. Just the dynamic was fascinating, us approaching these girls asking if they wanted the gifts, rather then them coming to us and asking for them. This country is the worst poverty-stricken country we’ve seen and are going to see on this voyage, but I feel that everyone on this ship (unless they’ve experienced it before and even then, it’s beneficial to encounter again) needs to see how a large population of our world lives.

Lets get down to the juicy stuff though, a.k.a. our home stay!! The second day we were in Chennai (again, my 18^th BIRTHDAY, which I celebrated at a hookah bar with ten other people the night before, then was serenaded by three of the boys outside the ship, a girls dream! :-p ) we left for Erode on a sleeper train at 8 pm. This was an adventure in its self. When we were waiting around for the train, there was this little girl who was holding a teeny tiny baby without any pants on, asking for money. I had never seen a baby that small in my life an apparently families will sedate their babies to make them look like their sick or sleeping so they get more money…absolutely terrible. How could you possibly do that to your child? This is when the saddening aspects of India first hit me… When the train arrived I had a mental picture of what the train was going to be like (we had taken a sleeper train to Florida when I was younger) and this train car was NOTHING like my mental picture. The train car had about eight different sections to it, on one side there were four beds (two on bottom, two on top) and across the walkway were two more beds (one top, one bottom)…the bedding was provided for us; who knows how well it was washed! Right at that second when I realized that I was going to have to make do with the things I was given, I made a pact that I wasn’t going to shower for 3 days!! I wanted to be grimy! Just the fact of telling people that you didn’t shower for 3 days in India, makes your story so much better! I didn’t get too much sleep that night, but enough that I was rested for the next day.

We got off the bus around 6 am and were greeted by a tour guide who brought us to our vans. We were transported to our home stay house where Uma’s mother and father lived. (Uma and her daughter Sanjan, were already with us because they met us at the train station in Chennai). This house was gorgeous, actually it was considered an estate, which has been in their family for 200 years. They live on a really large piece of property with farmland around them where they grow guava, papaya, coconut, watermelon, nutmeg, bananas, and silk pods. Once we settled in, drank dust tea and coffee, and ate our first home cooked meal in a month and a half, we went to their farm, took a short walk, and drank fresh coconut milk! Then we went to a local sugar making factory, a rope-making factory (they shred up the coconut husks and fluff them before making them into the rope), a local temple, and market (sensory OVERLOAD).

The second day, we woke up early and were transported to the B.V.B boarding school where they have 5,500 kids, co-ed. We went to the campus though, that housed the middle and high school students 11-18 years old. When we got there, only the boys were out playing in recess…we came to find out that they separate the boys and girls and the girls don’t have recess because they don’t play sports. That’s COMPLETELY different from the USA. After meeting some of the boys and eating breakfast, we went to a few more temples (one of which was 2,000 years old where we were blessed by an elephant!!), a local weaving place, and clothing store. We went back to the boarding for lunch, then a group of students performed a cultural dance for us! They had practiced it for half a month just for us!! It was so spectacular! In return, the group of us SASers had to do a performance which we were NOT prepared for whatsoever… we ended up singing the national anthem and the hokie pokie. Then the students came back on the stage and we tried doing their dance with them, utter failure, but such a fantastic time!!!

Then came one of the most moving parts of the voyage so far…we went to a disabled children’s school where they greeted Dad and I with a ceremony before we were all allowed into the building. Two girls put huge pink garlands of flowers around Dad’s and my neck, put water between our eyebrows that’s supposed to ward off evil, then broke a coconut. When we got upstairs, I heard this clapping and when I walked into the room, there were about 80 kids sitting on the floor greeting us with claps and huge smiles! Most of these kids have polio in one form or another, but a few are orphans. Dad and I sat in the front row of seats and were able to light two of the candles in the front of the room before two groups of students (one group was girls, one boys) performed dances for us. Once again, the group of us had to perform something in return so we did the hokie pokie and Hey Now You’re a Rock Star by Smash Mouth. After the performances Dad presented a check to three of the kids and a faculty member…I teared up at this point. It was so moving watching Dad hand the check over and seeing him be so gentle and loving with these three kids. I think it was also a mixture of that plus the fact that these children were all so euphoric and happy, it made me think of everything I’ve ever complained about and now I regret all of it. These kids don’t have much and they all suffer from one of the worst viruses out there, yet they were all so content, strong, brave. We were given about 30 minutes to hang out with all of the kids…all they wanted to do was take pictures of each other and us and have us take pictures of them. I really can’t explain what this all meant to me, being with these kids, in that moment, hearing their laughs, seeing their gigantic smiles, and being able to make them so happy! It was extraordinary.

After we visited with the students we meditated a little (we all needed to unwind from that experience; I’m pretty sure we all grew as individuals by it) then went back to the boarding school for dinner and our departure to the train station. What another adventure this was!! The sleeper train this time had a million and one mini cockroaches on it…no sleeping for me!!!! I was on cock watch for the night :-p So, from 11 pm till 2:45 am I stayed up reading and watching a movie on my ipod, all the while smacking bugs that rushed by me; when all was said and done, I probably had killed a dozen or so. GROSS! Once we got off we went to a hotel where I took a MUCH needed, glorious, refreshing shower then passed out.

The next few days in Cochin, I shopped and ate more amazing food I’m so happy I did the home stay instead of the Taj Mahal trips, which more than half of the student body went on. I feel like I experienced the real India and I was able to learn so much from the host family we stayed with; they were such sweethearts and so accommodating. Uma’s mom has been doing these SAS home stays for 20 years now I believe…LONG time. Uma was extremely helpful and had great insight to a lot of topics..her daughter Sanjan was so cool!! She’s fourteen and spoke perfect English (she goes to an American run school where they speak English)..she was reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which was really interesting to me. I didn’t even consider that other parts of the world (other than the US) read that book!! We’re now on our way to Mauritius, which should be a crazy good time The end of the voyage is beginning to hit people…we know we have another month and a half, but when anyone brings up anything having to do with time, where we are, how many more stops we have, etc. the usual response is “shut up” cause no one wants to be reminded. It’s pretty depressing thinking that in a month and a half this dream semester will be finished Okay, enough talk of this! Keep coming back for more posts