Last day at Manovikas :(

"Can you adopt someone older than you?"

When I came to India I expected to make some amazing connections. I expected that I would have emotional attachments to my teachers, my kids, and the exceptional 10 other students that were on my program with me. I expected all of these connections to make it hard to leave but, as I have learned over and over in India, it was the friendship connection that I did not expect to make that is going to be one of the hardest to leave behind. I did not expect Sanjeeb.

My first memory of Sanjeeb is on the day that we moved in way back in June. Stacey and I were absolutely dripping with sweat as we hauled our suitcases up onto our beds and began to unpack the vast array of clothes, toiletries, and (especially in Stacey’s case) medications. As we were doing this we heard a knock on our door and in entered a young Indian man. Sanjeeb is about 5’6’’, has the slight build that so many Indian men in the working class have, and has a misti (sweet) face adorned with wispy, black facial hair. After entering, Sanjeeb proceeded to speak in broken English to Stacey and I, all the while smiling and making grand arm gestures to emphasize his points. We had no idea what he was saying, and I mean no idea. I looked to Stacey for help as I had drawn to short straw of being closer to him but one look at the blank expression on her face told me that I was on my own. After about 5 minutes (filled with excessive smiling and nodding on mine and Stacey’s part) Sanjeeb left the room to putter around the guesthouse making final arrangements for our arrival. It wasn’t really a meeting to write home about and if you asked me back then what I thought about Sanjeeb I would honestly say that I felt about as much connection to him as I did to the lizard that had taken up residence in my bathroom. As I put the finishing touches on my toiletry arrangement in the bathroom and settled into my home for the next 8 weeks I had no idea what this young man would come to mean to our group and me in just a few short weeks. 

Sanjeeb’s job in the guesthouse is an all encompassing one. One minute he is bringing water into our rooms, the next he is knocking on our door telling us breakfast is ready, several hours later he is taking a nap on the floor by the terrace, sometimes, I swear he must have a body double or a time-turner in order to do everything that he does during the day. Every night when Sanjeeb asks us what we want for breakfast I am always astonished by his superhuman memory. Shikha will rattle on a list of foods and times at him in Hindi and he will stand there doing the quintessential “Indian head nod” (a sort of bobble from side to side that essentially means ok) and then remember everything PERFECTLY the next day. This brings me to the first lovable quirk of Sanjeeb. He is on a mission to make us all fat. Actually, scratch that. He is on a mission to make us all morbidly obese and he is damn good at it.

Every morning we get the same array of food: cornflakes, toast, cheese, boiled eggs, omelets, bananas, apples, mangos, plums, sometimes papaya, and black tea. Now, back in the US, I would usually just have a bowl of cereal and maybe an apple so I figured that I could pick and choose what I wanted. False. We are expected to eat ALL of it. Also, when I say ALL I mean approximately one bowls of cereal, an omelet, three boiled eggs, three pieces of toast and a cornucopia of fruit. I learned this the hard way when Sanjeeb came knocking on my door with a morose expression and said, “breakfast finished ma’am?”. I wanted to say yes but he looked at me with those sad eyes and I felt like I would be killing a puppy if I said yes. Three minutes later I found myself sitting on the floor dutifully eating another boiled egg while Sanjeeb jubilantly cut up fruit and deposited it onto my plate. It has gotten to the point where we are all afraid of asking for something for breakfast because we know that if we ask for one, four are sure to appear the next morning. This bizarre reversal of the Hunger Games (more like the Breakfast Games) always makes me chuckle as I spoon down different varieties of food under the watchful eyes of Sanjeeb.

Besides the breakfast face stuffing encounters that I had with Sanjeeb, I didn’t really have much contact with him until one fateful night when a travesty occurred: the couch in the boys room surreptitiously ate my phone as I sat on it eating dinner. I tore the room apart, knowing that the phone had made it into Transit House but not knowing where exactly it was and, unaware of what I was getting myself into, I asked Sanjeeb if he had seen the phone. Rewind about 1 hour and it was fourth of July and we were doing as any good Americans would do: watching Sanjeeb do sparklers on the terrace in honor of America’s birthday. I was 100% positive that my phone hadn’t made it onto the terrace since I had noticed its absence from my pocket before we departed for the roof but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. After I told Sanjeeb that I was missing my phone he made a beeline for the roof with a flashlight and proceeded to look for 10 minutes all while Bethany and Kristen yelled at him to come down. “Sanjeeb! Thick Achee! (It’s ok)” while Sanjeeb yelled down “No Tika! Must find phone”. Of course this turned an already stressful situation into one which was unbearably so. Eventually, after perseverating for hours at school the next day, I came to the conclusion that the phone had to be in the couch and Kristen (bless her soul) dove into the couch (which contained who knows what…) with her arm up to the elbow and found it. For some strange reason this situation created an uncanny bond between Sanjeeb and I, somehow we were bonded by the shared experience of stress.

As the weeks went on, we found ourselves having more and more conversations with Sanjeeb about, well, about everything. Half in English and half being translated by Shikha in Hindi we talked about India, America, Food, prices of clothes, and even relationships. Only a week ago we were talking to him when he admitted more about his life than he ever has before. Sanjeeb lives in Sunderbans, which is about 3 hours away from Kolkata, and he works in Transit House under the advisement of his “Uncle” Ajit who manages the guesthouse (Uncle is in quotations because the term is used extremely loosely in India. Your uncle might be related to you or just a family friend. We aren’t exactly sure how Sanjeeb is related to Ajit but regardless, he got the job through connections). We talked about his dreams and where he would most want to visit. After he responded that he would want the see the Taj Mahal, we asked him where he would like to see outside India and he responded with “Ma’am, can’t even imagine…”. We were all shocked, though we knew that we shouldn’t be, that this bright young man (we found out he was 24 after our 2^nd Bengali class when we learned how to ask “how old are you”) has such close limits on the world. Sanjeeb went on to say how he had only been in his hometown and in Kolkata and even in Kolkata he had never visited many of the historical sights. “Not even the Victoria Memorial?” we asked. “No, ma’am, only home and guesthouse”. We settled it right then and there: Sanjeeb had to come with us to the Victoria the following day. We asked and he agreed with his usually beaming smile.

The next day we went to the Victoria and Sanjeeb came in his best looking polo shirt and gelled over hair. One image that I will never forget is that of Sean and Sanjeeb leaning against the railing looking at the Victoria. Sean’s large muscular and pale frame next to Sanjeeb’s small dark one presented them as an unlikely pair but these two have actually developed an unbelievably tight (if improbable) friendship. Around week five Sean turned around in the car on our way to Manovikas one morning and asked Kristen and I, only half kidding, “Can you adopt someone who is older than you? I would adopt Sanjeeb in a second…”. This attitude seems to be the one that our whole group had adopted (excuse the pun). Tonight marks night one of eight that we have left at Transit House and as Sanjeeb stood in the back of the room after dinner as we watched Olympic badminton on the TV in the boy’s room I looked over at him and felt a pang of sadness at the idea that our days were numbered. A few days ago he mentioned to a small group of us that “In ten day, you leave. No come back…”. He almost sounded as if he were about to cry and Shikah said in return, “We are going to miss you Sanjeeb. Are you going to be sad? Are you going to miss us too?” “Of course ma’am, I will miss very much”. A lump formed in the back of my throat as I watched this and I don’t quite think that it has gone away since.

So, as I looked over at Sanjeeb tonight, I began to engage in what was going to be one of my favorite conversations with him yet. Bethany, Shikha, Amber, Michelle, the boys and I lounged in various positions in the boys room as we began to talk about relationships and marriage. We had learned, much to our dismay/sadness, that Sanjeeb believed that he would never marry. He said that he was “too old” and that he should have found someone after he had finished school because now he had a 24-hour job and didn’t have time to meet anyone. He also said that he had someone read his palm and they said that he would never marry (Even though palm reading is somewhat revered in India, let’s hope it is not true, especially for Charles’ sake because the boys read his at Future Hope and assured him beyond a shadow of a doubt that his first wife would die). As we went around the room tonight we cracked up laughing as Sanjeeb scolded Bethany for not having a boyfriend since college “2009??? Very bad ma’am!” and went through his own timeline of how relationships should go. This was in essence the same as the Manovikas teachers (see yesterdays blog post for clarification) except it ended with “and then 28/29 babies, and then 20 years later, probably dead”. “DEAD?” we all exclaimed with laughter and Sanjeeb went on to explain while laughing that you have to get married by 30 because “really what time do you have left after that (translated from Hindi by a giggling Shikha). This appears to be a macabre conversation but it was done in the way that every conversation with Sanjeeb is: multiple cultural faux pas’, Sanjeeb’s classic giggle, and smiles on the faces of everyone in the room.

Today was Raksha Bandhan, a celebration in India between brothers and sisters. Traditionally this celebrated a sister’s lover for her brother and the appreciation of the protection he gave her and in honor of this, the girl would tie a Rakhi (a small bracelet) around her brother’s arm. In this age, girls tie the bracelets around men in their lives who they see as being their brothers and for the last 4 weeks the streets have been full of vendors selling the various types of bracelets. Last night I went with Amber, Sean, and Kristen to buy some Rakhi’s for my male students and, as per usually with my shopping in India, I went a little crazy and bought quite a few extra. I sent the Rakhi’s to school this morning with Kristen since I was staying at home due to events back at home and told her to simply bring me back the extras in the afternoon. As we sat around the table talking tonight Bethany asked Sanjeeb, “No Rakhi Sanjeeb?” he responded that his sister was far away and that he did not have anyone else here in Kolkata to give him one. Wrong. There was no way that I was going to let Sanjeeb think that he had no one here. When he left the room to clear the teacups from the table I ran upstairs and grabbed one of my extra Rakhi’s and headed back to the boy’s room. When he came back into the room I simply called his name and showed him the bracelet. Without saying anything he looked at me and held out his wrist. When he said “Thank you ma’am” after I finished tying my clumsy knot, I felt a connection with him that I know will never go away no matter where I am.

Sanjeeb promised to send me a Rakhi next year on August 2^nd as long as I leave him with my address and I believe he will. When I get on the plane next Friday I am going to be leaving behind India, Manovikas, Transit House, the crowded streets, the overwhelming smells, the heat, the calls of the vendors in the early morning, the cold showers, and Sanjeeb. I will leave him and go on with my life as he goes on with his. I know, however, that I will never forget him. I meant it when I tied that Rakhi onto his arm tonight. Sanjeeb has become the most unorthodox brother that I could have ever imagined and you never forget your brothers.

(sorry that this post is so long but I had to do proper justice to this person who has become so important to us all)

"And then, MARRIAGE!"

Here are Kristen and I with some of the teachers from Manovikas at a fancy dinner. They all laughed at our sari's and then descended on us to fix what we had done wrong (Thank you youtube for getting us as far as we got...). Moumita is standing next to Kristen (girl in red) and Sukanya (my teacher) is in the middle with her daughter. 

It is 8:30 in the morning in Kolkata and I don’t know what to wear to Manovikas. I’m standing in front of my closet scouring the bundled up clothes trying to find an outfit that at least moderately goes together. This effort in dressing is one that I rarely even go through when I am at home or school and it is definitely one that I never thought I was going to have to go through in India (seeing as I only packed frumpy t-shirts, mom-pants, and long skirts that make me look like I just stepped out of Amish Pennsylvania). The reason that I am going through this frantic search, and why I do so on a daily basis, is because of the fashion show that my life has become for both the most loving and the most blunt women I have ever met: the Manovikas teachers. This compilation of women is one that encompasses different socioeconomic, age, and even religious groups but they have a few things in common and the first of those things is that they LOVE to comment on whatever Kristen or I wear to school.

Each day the three of us that work at Manovikas step out of the car to the sound of the security guard’s usual “Morning! Morning! Morning!”, walk up the small staircase and in the front door, and then part for the morning shift to our different classrooms (since Kristin and I have the same afternoon class we are together again later in the day). As soon as I step into and then nestle myself on the floor of my crowded classroom I can always expect a beaming smile from my teacher, Sukanya, followed by some sort of comment. The following are several that I have received over the past 6 weeks:

•              “Bangles on one wrist is not looking good. Two wrists is good. Very good”

•              “Your hair today is not looking good. Too much back. You need to have your   bangs down” Guess that headband was a no-no…

•              “Blue is a good color for you. Why do you not wear more? You wear too much white…”

•              “Your blouse is khub bhalo (very good). Where did you buy? Oh, America? I think made in India. Too much expensive in America”

•              “Your eyes look tired today” Guess I can’t get away with skipping putting on makeup for a day…

•              “Your hair is too long. Why so long?”

This barrage of comments is never meant in a hurtful way, it is just a cultural

difference and one that just usually makes me laugh (though I was bummed when I realized that I had to put on makeup everyday since I feel like it just melts off my face in the heat). The other cultural difference is the acceptability of asking how much something cost. After every compliment on a piece of clothing or jewelry there is the inevitable follow up of “How much?”. If we did good in buying the item (assuming it is from India) then we get a “Very good!”, if they think that we were slightly ripped off but not too bad they will say, “It’s ok…”, and if we really messed up then they will say, “They cheat!”. As our time in India has gone on and our haggling has gotten better we are usually proud of the prices we get for our items and the teachers like to laugh as Kristen mimics her extreme haggling skills, “200 rupees??? NO! The highest I can go is 30!”.

            After clothes, the teacher’s next favorite thing to talk about is finding me a boyfriend/husband. When they found out that I was single you would have thought that I said I had three heads, “But you are 19! And have such fair skin! How this possible?!”. When I try to explain that it is not unusual to be still single at 19 I am immediately shot down. The teachers will often sit together at our breaks and talk in Bangla and whenever I hear the word “boyfriend” or see eyes flicking to me I always know what is coming next: the timeline of my life. The teachers at this school have decided that since I am clearly slacking in the management of my own love life that they are going to have to step in and help me out. Below is the timeline that they have thus set out for my life

19 yr (find boyfriend)------------->22/23 yr (marriage)------------->25/26 yr (children)

Every time after the exclamation of “And then, marriage!” I try to explain the whole problem of finding a boyfriend/husband but I am just brushed off. Sukanya had a love marriage but the other two married teachers both had arranged marriages so they REALLY don’t understand my problem. These discussions are always filled with laughter and descriptions of what I want to find in a man.

One particularly hilarious/awkward conversation took place on the floor of my classroom which is right next to Kristen’s classroom and they are only divided by 5 ½ foot tall walls with no ceilings. Sukanya was yelling back and forth with Moumita (Kristen’s teacher in the morning) about what my boyfriend should be like.

Jessie: “And tell her I want him to be tall!”

Sukanya: (yelling in Bangla to Moumita)

Moumita: Silence then yells back something in Bangla

Sukanya: “Moumita asks why he has to me tall? There is nothing wrong with short men” then she whispered, “She says that her husband is the same height as he but he is actually shorter…”

It only took one look between us before Sukanya and I were basically rolling on the floor with laughter. It is moments like these that I am really going to miss about India. The teachers at Manovikas are some of the most genuine people that I have ever met and, even though they may not like my clothing sometimes, I am truly going to miss this gaggle of women who never fail to brighten my day. 

Inside a Rally

I stared out the front windshield of our car at the bumper of the bus in front of us and read, for perhaps the 15^th time in the last 10 minutes, the red block letters that proclaimed, “Sealda”. What that means I couldn’t tell you. I then looked around the car as Ashok, our driver, paced outside the window as Shikha talked to Bethany out the window while Stacey proceeded to have a full conversation with the rest of the car with her eyes closed because it “made her headache feel better”. The other half of the group that was in the car next to us stood outside their car and shifted their weight from foot to foot as they scanned the cars around us. Oh, and all of this was happening in the middle of the road, and by road, I mean something more akin to a parking lot. We were on a bridge in beyond bumper-to-bumper traffic and if we knew one thing and one thing only it was that we were stuck. This was at about 12:00pm so let’s rewind to how all of this started.

We started out this weekend by planning a trip to go to see the Marble Palace and the Tagore family house. After a long week, we were al ready to get out and explore the city and then got back to Transit House at a reasonable time so that we could take naps and work on our projects. It had been awhile since something had gone terribly awry so I think all of us were lulled into a sense of security that centered around the mindset that we were finally “able to predict India”. India chose today to remind us all that predicting it is about as easy as predicting Lady Gaga’s next outfit, you never know WHAT is going to show up.

As we set out on the road we noticed more traffic than usual but thought nothing of it since it was a weekend and a pretty nice day out at the time. It wasn’t until we had gotten about 10 minutes away from Transit House that we started to ask questions to each other about the increased flow of foot traffic, louder than usual speakers, and the springing up of new Indian flags all over the city. Luckily, I had Shikha in my car who proved yet again to be an invaluable resource as she asked Ashok what was going on. It was at this point that he told us that a political rally was going on for the lady in charge of West Bengal. Fine, I thought, I’ve been through rally traffic before, living near to the mess of a city known as Los Angeles, this will delay us a bit but it shouldn’t be TOO bad. When Shikha asked Ashok what he thought this would do to our time schedule for the day he responded with an all too knowing laugh. As uneasy silence then filled the car and we looked around at each other, Ashok said (translated by Shikha) “Slowly, slowly the city of Calcutta will become completely blocked”. Uh-oh we though, but at this point it seemed a waste to turn back because we already had permission to go to Marble Palace this day and we were already half way there.

We continued on to the Marble Palace and made it there with minimal issues and had an awe-inspiring walk around this amazing house. The house itself was built in 1835 and, for a lack of a better term, is a building in which anything you could ever want built in marble is. Bust of George Washington? Check. Greek gods? Check. Entire flooring built of Italian marble? Check. Not only was there all that marble but there was also tons and tons of assorted finery. There were gold statues, chandeliers, beautiful paintings, floor to ceiling mirrors, and even a cage with parrots. All of this was thrown with out any apparent rhyme or reason into this mansion in which the owners still live. After we saw the inside of the house we decided to go see the menagerie. After trotting past the peacocks we saw a giant squirrel, a pheasant, and finally came to an open enclosure with a large, light pink bird. Sean and Charles immediately ran over to “photo-bomb” the pictures of the bird with bunny ears but as soon as they got within 5 feet of the bird it swung it s enormous head around to face them and let out a sound that was unlike anything I have ever heard before. If I had to make a comparison I would say it was a mix between a lighthouse foghorn and an air horn. I don’t think I have ever seen two people run as fast as I saw Charles and Sean do after that noise. After seeing the animals we all piled back into the cars to head over to the Tagore house.  The house was kept up very well and it was amazing to be able to walk through an area of such historical significance.

Once we left the Tagore house, Ashok said that it would be a good idea to take the metro home but the traffic seemed fine so we decided that it should be ok to stay in the car. Well… We may not have gotten the car ride that we expected but I learned a lot of things on out 2 ½ hour ride home.

1.     Never get sick during a political rally. When I say the cars were at a standstill I mean ALL the cars. That includes fire engines and ambulances. We all watched as some poor person tried to get to the hospital in an ambulance only to get stuck on our same bridge for 30 minutes.

2.     When people stare at you, don’t stare back. You know when you look out the window of a car and make eye contact with a person for a brief second and then they (or you) speed away? Well, here, if you made eye contact with someone you had better hope that you like them because chances are you will be stuck next to them for the next 20 minutes. I made awkward eye contact with a man in a dark green shirt in the bus next to us and instead of looking directly away I accidentally continued to look it his extravagant mustache. Bad choice. I was stuck next to mustache man for the next 15 minutes, feeling his eyes bore into the side of my face as he continued to look at me.

3.     Things are what you make of them. Yes, we were stuck in a car for 2 and ½ hours on a day that was supposed to be our break day. This fact, however, was not going to change so Shikha, Michelle, Stacey, Tierney, Amber and I (the whole group in Ashok’s car) decided to make the best of this. We had some amazing conversations that ranged from musicals to body image to Duke in general and it made the time go by faster than I could have imagined.

4.     Ashok is hilarious. As we were driving, Ashok was telling Shikha in Hindi that going out during a political rally was “very bad” and that our “program” (schedule) for the day was unbelievable. He said all of this with his usual smile and then went so far as to wave the piece of paper out the window at Bethany (our current site coordinator not that Baishakhi is gone) and shout “Bad!”. Our car burst out giggling and shook our heads.

5.     Political rallies in India are CHAOTIC. The streets were filled with men (it was mostly men that were out, not women) who were shouting, waving sticks as they tried to direct traffic, cramming themselves 10 at a time into 4 person cars, sweating, arguing, and waving Indian flags. This site was one that I am so glad that I got to see because we have been removed so far from the political scene. The best part was that I felt safe sitting in the car but I got to see the literal inside of a rally.

6.     There probably isn’t a group of people that I would rather get stuck in traffic with. The five other girls I was in the car with and I had a great time and even when I felt a little frustrated at the situation they helped bring me up and made me appreciate the amazing opportunity that this “accident” had thrown us into.

After we finally got back to Transit House after the ride (ok, after we finally got back to Transit House after the ride and a trip to get us all chicken rolls to eat…) we still were able to have a relaxing afternoon. It’s opportunities/accidents like these that make India the place that it is. A place of chaos mixed with beauty, fervor mixed with ancient culture, and inefficiency mixed with generosity. Most of all, it make it a place that I am so glad to be spending 8 weeks of my summer. 

My Kids

I FINALLY got permission from my teacher and some of the kid's parents to take pictures of them. The following are four boys who I work with in my morning class from 10-11 Monday through Friday. There are also two girls and another boy who are in the class but one of the girls was sick while the other boy was out of town and the second girl was taking a nap in class so I figured I would wait till I could get a better picture. 

I really look forward to my morning class. It is the same kids every day (unlike my afternoon class) and even though they usually hate me when I am making them do puzzles or color, there are times when we are together that they show me in small ways that I am making a difference. The class is set up in a cubicle with blue faded mats on the floor. Everyday I walk up, take off my sandals and worm my way onto the floor of the small room. There are usually 5-7 kids and their mothers along with me and the teacher in a room the size of a large bathroom. As I sweat it out on the floor (there is no AC and the fans go on and off with the power outages) I spend time working individually with the different kids and helping them to learn how to take turns without killing each other. 

I am going to have to write a different blog post about the mothers and teachers that I interact with because they are an absolute hoot. Lets just say that half of them are trying to find me a husband while the other half seem intent on feeding me so many sweets that I feel like I am turning into a Gulab Jamun (some sort of fried, sweet, delicious ball of wonder). Anyways, that is for another night so without further adieu I present my boys:

Shom

 This little boy is the most high functioning boy in my class. He is usually content just sitting by himself bouncing up and down in his little desk. He is one of the kids, however, who gets really antsy when he is away from his mother. Last week we had computer class and since the room is so small that mothers do not go with the kids so it was just me, the teacher Shukanya, and three of the little boys including Shom. When we got into the room, Shom became visibly upset and kept trying to climb out the door. Then, as I sat in to corner in a small chair, Shom came over and climbed into my lap, grabbing my hand to hold along the way. This was the first time that any of the kids showed my physical affection and to say it made my day would be the understatement of the century. As I bounced him on my lap and sang twinkle twinkle little softly in his ear he began to quiet and was calm for the rest of the class. Another thing I love about this little munchkin is when he does his puzzles. After putting in each piece he looks at me with a small smile to get some affirmation. After having to physically drag some kid's hands to and from each puzzle piece it is nice to go over to him.

Ashmit

This picture might look a little strange but in reality it is Ashmit's favorite activity: spinning a plate. This guy would be as happy as could be if everyone let him just sit by himself and spin that little metal plate until the end of time. His second favorite thing is when we go in the sensory room. This is a air conditioned room that is an Autistic child's dream. There are music toys, yoga balls, and in the very back, an infinite mirror. This is a mirror with flashing lights that when you look into it appears to go back forever. Ashmit will spend the full thirty minutes in from of this mirror giggling and flapping his arms as if he just won the lottery. No matter what kind of morning I have had so far watching his happy dance never fails to put a smile on my face. The other funny thing about this kid is that every time we go to dance class or yoga class or music class the phrase that it heard at least 3 times is "Someone grab Ashmit!" He likes to escape, and by escape I mean run like a little gumbie out of the room on wobbly legs. 

Shyak

This picture of Shyak was taken as he peeked around me to watch Ashmit spin his plate. This kid cracks me up. Every time that we do the animal puzzle he insists on meowing like the cat and barking like a dog and "walking" the pieces into their spots. He has also gotten into the habit of holding my hand every time we walk to dance or yoga class and even though I have to stoop over a bit since he is so small I always have a grin on my face when we walk into the room hand in hand. One of my favorite memories from Manovikas so far was one day when I said "ta-ta" (how they say goodbye here)  to Shyak and he unexpectedly said it back to me. This is from a kid that is almost completely nonverbal. I was speechless as I watched his skinny frame walk out the room and Shukanya just patten my shoulder, knowing that words couldn't express what I was feeling. 

 Mrinmoy

This is Mrinmoy during his "tiffin time"eating sweet biscuit cookies. Unfortunately, like many Autistic kids, he has a few bad habits. The most prominent of these is throwing. At any given time during the class it is not unusual to see a puzzle piece go flying by one's face (of if you are more unlucky, feel it whack your face). Anything and everything that this kid can get his hands on will go hurdling across the room. He also really likes to "stimm" by looking up at the ceiling while shaking his head and singing. During music class he usually sits in my lap so that he won't get up and try to throw the instruments and he loves it when I help him clap his hands to the beat.


I'm not going to lie, there are definitely day when I come home from Manovikas and wonder why I am here. I sit all day with kids that for the most part hardly seem to know that I am there or cry every time I make them do their work. They are all almost totally nonverbal and are more apt to throw a puzzle at your face than give you a smile but I can't help but love them. One small littel gesture of kindness or recognition can make up for hours of frustration and I am already starting to feel sad knowing that I am going to leave them in less than four weeks.

Family Dinner

When I found out that I had been chosen to participate in this program in early December I did what any college kid would: I immediately looked at the other names that the email was sent to and stalked each and every one of them on Facebook. As I looked through everyone’s pictures I quickly realized that while I knew of many of the people and would consider several of them acquaintances, I was definitely not friends with any of them. After a few group meetings in Baishakhi’s room laughing over sandwiches or pizza I found myself really looking forward to getting to know these 10 strangers. It was obvious that we were all different, there were 4 different sororities represented, one fraternity, three selective living groups, different dance groups, club sports, and multiple different friend groups but that no matter what background we came from there was one link between us, the desire to serve the community of Kolkata. Sitting with Michelle and Celina in the LAX before we got onto our flight to Dubai we discussed how it was amazing that we were about to spend more time with people we hardly knew than we had with some of our closest friends. The thought both excited and frightened me.

Flash forward almost four weeks, three more plane flights, hours sitting in a car on bumpy roads, one taxi ride, hundreds of stares from strangers, several gallons of sweat, and hours of furious typing later it is 8:30pm and we are getting ready to have dinner. The boy’s room became the designated dinner room from day one and after a few weeks we have finally moved the furniture around into the optimal position to eat food. There are three large armchairs, one couch that seats 3, an end table that is used as another seat and those left without seats perch on arm rests or sprawl out on the floor. We all huddle around the brown coffee table that is always overflowing with bowl after bowl of home cooked food. The Manovikas and Tulipdale kids get home before the Future Hope kids but we always wait till they get home so as to make sure that no one feels left out. The second we hear their voices drift up the stairs from the first floor we all reach for plates and silverware, ready to dig in.

Dinner is one of my favorite parts of this trip and it is not only because of the amazing (and spicy!) dishes that the Transit house cooks us. It is the company. We came into this life-changing trip being complete strangers but if anyone watched us as we sat around in a circle sharing food and passing napkins they would never guess that only 6 weeks before we would often pass each other at school and not even say hi. Over the exclamations of what foods we think are the best on a particular night there is always the overtone of someone laughing. I don’t know if I have ever smiled as much as I have on this trip. I can honestly say that each and every person on this trip has surprised me in some amazing way and it is only the fourth week.

I have begun to call dinner “family dinner” because that is actually how I feel. I grew up in a family with a severely Autistic brother so I never really got to exerience normal family dinners since mine were usually filled with screaming or nonexistent since 5-7pm are usually filled with my brother’s in-home therapists. This doesn’t mean that I have never had a dinner with my family but it was honestly never really anything I would look forward to. Here, we go around every night and tell some of the things that happened to us at “work”. Every time Michelle does her impression of the teacher’s at Tulipdale scolding a child or Sean describes the daily dose of antics that a particularly naughty child named Animesh did that day I can’t help but laugh. We are a group of people who could literally sit in a room and talk about anything and not get bored, and we do. It is an amazing feeling to be able to have conversations with people my age about politics, religion, pop culture, gender roles, and even Harry Potter without ever feeling attacked or bored. As we share experiences and opinions over pieces of chicken tika and bowls of sliced mango we are creating a bond that I know will stay with us for life.

When Baishakhi said to us in January “Do not expect this to be easy. After all, you are going to India in the middle of the summer” I don’t think I really understood what that meant. Now that I truly understand the weight of her words I couldn’t be more grateful to have this spectacular group of young men and women to go through these experiences. 6 weeks ago we were basically strangers but now as I joke with Lindsay over our massive consumption of mango and watch as Stacey demonstrates one of the songs that they learned at Tulipdale while simultaneously teasing Sean about his fear of “non-domesticated animals” it becomes obvious to me that not only are we now friends, we are a family. A quirky family it may be but a family nonetheless and I can’t wait to see what the next four weeks bring us. 

How Many Teachers Does it Take…

I never thought I could hate a puzzle, let alone a simple one that only required sorting colored rings onto poles. I never thought that someone could truly hate an inanimate object so much that they honestly wished it into oblivion. I never though these things but there I sat, shifting back and forth on the brown mat, filled with impatience as I stared down a little boy named Junid over a rainbow ring puzzle. Rewinding a bit, it is around 12:15 in the afternoon on Tuesday and I am working at Manovikas Kendra Rehabilitation Institute with my 11am class which today only consisted of two kids.

When I first entered the room I was met by the smile of a small Down Syndrome boy who bashful waved back at my enthusiastic “Hello!” I immediately loved this little boy even though my teacher Sukanya proclaimed him “a very naughty boy”. Naughty? Ha, I had no IDEA what naughty even was until it walked in the door a minute later. Naughty looked demure at first, just a 5-year-old slender boy in an orange sleeveless t-shirt. Naughty then proceeded to beam at me with his small pearly baby teeth in perfect array. I should have known that the end of my sanity was near as he wiggled when we put him in his desk but I was in the thrusts of denial. It couldn’t be that bad right? He was just one little autistic boy and there was a whopping four teacher and two parents for only the two little boys. In terms of underestimates mine was on par with the guy who said “Oh yeah, 20 life boats? That’s definitely all the Titanic needs!”  Since that day there was a woman doing her internship for the special education teacher credential program Sukanya gave the Down Syndrome boy to her and instructed Kristen and I to work with the little boy in the orange shirt whose name we learned was Junid.

The first task of the day was putting plastic bottle caps into a box that had a hole cut out of it. As if to make what was to come even worse by comparison, Junid performed this task with flying colors. His fingers flew as he grabbed the caps to prodding’s of “Tolo! (pick)” and “Roko (put)” from Kristen and I. After that task was done Kristen pulled over another task that consisted of putting round wooden balls onto sticks. This was where the first signs of trouble appeared. Every other piece that Junid picked up somehow seemed to end up in his mouth. Frantic shouts of “No Junid! Put Down! Not There!” rang throughout the humid room in between tense moments of silence where we would watch him pick up the piece and observe it. We would stare at him, listening to the buzzing of the ceiling fans, all the while nudging him to put the ball on the stick. More oft than not he would make as if to put the ball on the stick then fake us out and pop it into his waiting mouth. Luckily, this particular task was not that long and soon it was off to matching and coloring.

The next activities were done in his workbook and they consisted of one page of connecting the dots to practice straight lines, one page of matching shapes, and one last page of coloring in a picture. The second that Junid’s mom handed him the pencil, he did as most autistic children will do when handed with their object of choice. He stimmed. This is layman’s term for sensory stimulation, which for Junid consisted of him pinching the small pencil and shaking it back and forth in his mouth hitting his teeth. Every attempt to get him to do the workbook was met with grunts and shrieks of distaste until finally Sukanya stepped in and forcibly held his hand and made him do the task.  After this particular lesson was over we moved on to what was going to be the most difficult 10 minutes of my Tuesday: the color ring puzzle.

The color ring puzzle consisted of six stakes upon which colored ring of blue, red, orange, yellow, green, and white were to be placed. I don’t know what it was about this particular task, maybe the rings looked like candy, maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, maybe it just hit that time of day when he decided he turned into a pumpkin but Junid was NOT having it. Every piece went onto the wrong ring or straight into the mouth. When he was prompted to “Dako (look)” he would tip his head back and pretend to sleep. I hated that puzzle. It got to the point where there were literally four of us (Kristen, Sukanya, Junid’s mother, and I) all holding down one 60lb five year old trying to make him do the puzzle. Based on his screams you would have thought that we were asking him to grasp hot coals. I looked over wistfully as the Down Syndrome boy dutifully traced his letters in his workbook, looking up every once in awhile for praise from the intern. Junid did not care if we pleaded, scolded, or demanded. He just wasn’t going to do it. So, how many teachers did it take to get a five year old to do a puzzle? 4. And we barely won. Barely.

After the hurricane had passed and Junid sat happily hitting a spoon against his teeth as the kids had “Tiffin” (what they call lunch here) I sat crosslegged with Kristen and wiped sweat from my brow. I felt like I just ran a marathon, without the satisfaction. Something I am starting to learn here is that not every encounter that I have with the kids is going to be rewarding. I have kids cry when they see me coming over because they know that I am going to make them do work and one girl even peed on me in an attempt to get out of doing a puzzle while she sat on my lap. Not every experience is enjoyable but I come away knowing something new from every one. Junid taught me that even when I want to give up and let the kid have their way, I have to persevere to teach them that acting out does not accomplish anything.

Within a week I plan on having a post about my morning class and hopefully some pictures to show of their smiling (maybe) faces!

India in the Early Morning

I am sitting in my bed right now at 7:30 in the morning trying to stretch out the kinks in my legs that I can already feel forming after an early morning trip to the gym. Those of us who decided to buy a gym membership have been getting up early in the morning and making the five or so minute walk to “Karma”, an air conditioned fitness paradise that is brimming with trainers who are eager to help correct a faulty exercise. Unfortunately, the day after I got my membership I came down with a cough that has made it hard to breathe so I did have not been to the gym the last few times so after a trip to the doctor last night to stock up on cough syrup and antibiotics I was really looking forward to going this morning. At 6am sharp Stacey, Celina, and I tiptoed down the stairs of the guest house, past several sleeping housekeepers who apparently just roll out mats and sleep on the ground floor, and filed out the door onto the road.

 There is something peaceful about getting up early in the morning and walking the streets of Kolkata. The usual symphony of honks is reduced to a few lone beeps and the usually teaming streets are dotted with a few early-morning shoppers and those shop keepers who are sweeping the outside of their stores. As we walked along in the morning light we passed by men and women sleeping by the side of the road, the men folded in half and the women on their side with sleep-tumbled hair falling around their saris. Even the dogs walk around lazily in the morning, seemingly eyeing us as we passed by and wondering why we would ever got up this early of our own volition. Today, or the first time yet in India, I saw a man feeding a stray dog. With a big smile on his face the dirty looking man bent over and offered a cracker to a small, brown and white mutt and even though it was obvious that the dog was distrusting of the gesture of kindness, he daintily picked the morsel from the man’s hands and trotted away with the prize. The air was filled with the smells of cooking food as the food vendors began to chop up their ingredients for the day and cook them over the roadside burners. It appeared to have rained at some point in the night because puddles could be found by the side of the road, though no one was yet bathing in them as people in India are like to do. It is not unusual to see men stripped down to their underwear lathering up with soap right in the gutter and I distinctly remember on our first walking tour watching a boy splash around in the water and I actually felt envious of him as sweat rolled down the small of my back and down my legs; sure, the water is dirty but at least it would cool me off in the heat of the day.

It is easy to go about India in the morning and forget what it is like during the bustle of the day. Thoughts of frantic drivers and shouting street vendors are forgotten, as is the heat of the sun. The humidity still hangs around the air like a thick, wet blanket but at least we did not feel the burn of the sun. As we walked in our gym clothes, I could still feel wondering eyes on my face but I chose not to look back because I was too focused on absorbing the scene that I was walking through. In the back of my mind I knew that this was just the start of another hectic day here in India. In just a few hours I knew I would find myself sitting in the back of a car, wearing a hole in the ground where my food constantly presses the imaginary brake as I watch the driver squeeze through impossibly small spots at frighteningly fast speeds. Then I would be off to school At Manovikas coaxing crying Autistic children to pleasepleaseplease put the peg in the peg board or sit up straight or stop spitting or be quiet and stop shrieking. By eleven I knew I would have already been bombarded by 15 new Bengali words that the teachers around me would teasingly expect me to learn (they think it is hilarious when Kristen and I try to speak Bengali and never seem to tire of teaching us new words and laugh good-naturedly as we try to stumble our way through the foreign pronunciation). I knew that all of these things were going to happen later in the day but as I made my way down the winding roads of Kolkata this morning, none of it seemed to be real. Sometimes I still have moments where it becomes real: I am in India. This whole experience has already been the most eye-opening thing that I have ever done and It is nice every once in awhile to be able to stroll down the streets in the morning and simply take the time to drink it all in. 

First Days of School!

Sooo the internet hasn’t been great here but I really wont use that as an excuse for not posting because to tell the truth I have just been so busy that I haven’t wanted to take the time to post. I am writing this blog in my bed before I go to sleep again so I am planning on it being shorter than the other ones but we will see how that works out…

     After we came back from New Delhi (the most exciting part of the airplane ride was the pizza that we got in the airport because it was the first completely American food that we had had since arriving) we all went to sleep early because Thursday of last week was our first day of work! Thursday morning Sean, Kristen, and I got up at 8 so that we could head out to work at 9:30 with Baishakhi. All three of us were both excited and nervous and before we left we got a “first day of school” picture complete with Sean wearing his backpack. Even though Manovikas is only a few miles away from where we live the insane traffic makes it so that what should take 5 minutes ends up taking 25. Once we finally got to Manovikas we went straight to the office of the woman who is in charge of our work at the school. My first impression of the building was that it was much bigger than I expected. The white and blue outer walls sprawled back away from the street and were encircled my a large lawn that was dotted with toys and a few pieces of jungle gym equipment. For our first day all they had us do was take a tour of the building, which was extremely eye-opening. The first floor was mainly younger kids and the first room that we walked into was a sensory room and it was filled with tools for children suffering from various disabilities. Then we visited a room where a woman who has Cerebral Palsey was sitting on the floor and the woman who was giving us the tour explained that the woman had CP but here parents married her off anyways and when she had a child, he was born with even more severe CP. The last room on that floor was the “Early Intervention” Autism for kids 5-7 class. The second we walked in all I could think was that the sounds in that room reminded me of my childhood. Some of the children were screaming, others were banging the walls, and one was even singing to himself. The second floor of the building was mostly for older and higher functioning kinds. These children were being trained to do simple jobs, such as cooking, baking, or working a loom, and all of them were more than happy to show us the products of our labor. The last floor of the building was both a school to train special education teachers and a laboratory that focuses on searching for a cause and eventually a cure for autism and other diseases. After this tour we headed back to the manager’s off ice and she explained how she wanted our “project” for the next seven weeks to be to create a manual explaining the major types of disabilities, describing their symptoms, and coming up with management plans for all of them. So after we headed back home, eager for the next day to come so that we could start our first real day of work.

     Friday rolled around and we headed out at 9:30 so that we could get to work right on time at 10 (it was decided that we would work with the kids form 10-1 and then go back to where we are staying and work on the manual). When we first arrived we were led around and placed into different rooms. Mine happened to be the screaming room from the day before, which didn’t bother me too much because I am used to the noise and honestly after living with my brother, very little that children do surprises me anymore. The teacher of that classroom was very welcoming and we chatted while the speech therapist was talking to the mothers and she asked me about where I was from while I grilled her on the classroom logistics. Soon after, the therapist left and I got to work with two of the children. The task was simple: have the children take turns pulling pegs out of a board and putting them into a basket. Sounds easy right? Wrong. You would think that I asked these kids to kill their beloved pet rather than do a simple task. There were tears shed, walls banged, arms scratched, and hands pushed away. The little girl on my right was given a cookie by her mother and when she set it down I tried to give it back to her (thinking it would stem the tears) and after about a2 second pause, the shrieking increased and I saw the cookie come hurling toward my face. Approximately 3 minutes later, the same girl decided to bite my hand while I was trying to prompt her to take the stupid peg off of the board. Even though it was a tough day (the rest of it went on in a fashion very similar to this) I really enjoyed working with the teachers and every time a child would react to doing a task correctly (which was a limited number of times but that just made it more special when they did) I felt like just maybe I am making a bit of an impact. I can tell that the job is going to be trying but I also know that our main purpose here is to create a manual that Manovikas can use as a reference for parents and new teachers who are presented with symptoms but do not necessarily know what disability they fit.

     I am going to try to post again either tomorrow morning or afternoon but I am just getting too tired right now… Tomorrow is going to be another day at work and I am excited to see what comes 

The Taj

The Taj      By day five in India I thought I had gotten used to the unusual amount  of attention that our group received due to our foreign appearance. I was wrong, and not just by a little bit. At five am Stacey's alarm went off in the dark hotel room and we both lugged ourselves out of bed to get ready for a big day. We both showered in the bathroom, which was slightly more of an ordeal than one would expect. To give some background on the layout of our bathroom i have to go back to our first day at the transit house. When we all arrived we started claiming rooms, starting with the girls giving the two boys what we thought to be the largest room because we figured that its prime location would make for a good gathering area. This was all fine and dandy until about an hour later when the girls who had arrived in the first room were sitting on the second floor tying to fight off the inevitable jet lag nap. Shikha mentioned in passing that Charles believed that his bathroom did not have a shower. We all kind of chuckled and wrote it of as Charles probably not noticing another bathroom door since all of ours had been locked at first and appeared to be closets. Minutes later Charles wandered into the room and his first words were, "guys, the shower is the bathroom. The bathroom is the shower." since he was met with blank stares he went on to say "no seriously, I could take a shower while sitting on the toilet because there is just a removable shower head and a drain in the corner of the tiny room". Of course we ha to see this for ourselves so when we later had dinner in that room we all flocked to the bathroom and all we could stammer out after looking at the postage stamp sized tiled room was"the bathroom is the shower! The shower is the bathroom!". My second thought was: thank god this is the boys room...Going back to New Delhi, our shower and bathroom were one and the same, though larger than Charles and Sean's so a simple shower drenched the entire room and made later bathroom preparation a swampy one.        At six am we all piled onto the bus and set off for the 4 hour drive to Agra. We were told that we were driving to a McDonald's that was close to the edge of the city so we all settled in for the first leg of the trip. After passing a McDonald's in hour one and then slipping on to hour two we started becoming desperate. Lindsay's earlier joke of rationing out her walnuts started to seem increasingly plausible and an undertone of grumbling filled the bus. Thankfully, by hour three  we pulled in to the McDonalds and the incredible amount of ecstasy that filled the bus would have made an outsider think that we were marooned sailors who found water instead of college kids who reached a generic fast food chain. I have literally never been more excited to see those golden arches. The restaurant served some regular fare such as chi ken sandwiches but there were no beef products and you could get "shake fries" which were normal fries that the purchaser could put in a bag with a packet of spicy seasoning and shake till they were coated.       We were all much happier after the food break and the closer we got to Agra, the more palpable the excitement became in the bus. One of the amazing things that I saw out of my bus window was the menagerie of animals that the streets housed. There were the normal stray dogs but along with them there were oxen lazily strolling in an out of traffic, peacocks perched on some chosen roofs, a lone camel hanging out on the side walk, and at one of our stops we saw a boy with a snake in a basket, to Sean's great dismay. Since the taj is sensitive to car pollution we had to buy our tickets and then take an electric car/bus over to the site itself.       When we finally rounded the corner and saw the taj for the first time the only thing that could be heard among our group were the clicking of the camera shutters. The building was absolutely breath-taking. Gleaming white marble was artfully designed into curving domes and rising minarets while parts of the building were delicately inlaid with black marble embellishments and surrounding the door there were black marble passages from the Quran. Needless to say, the picture taking festivities that followed took about as long as it took to build the taj. Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but not by much. Sean insightfully compared it to prom and as the clicks and poses went on I was also reminded of night filled with floor length dresses and girls screaming out suggestions for the next "pic". Of course, this time I looked a little different. Sweat has become the clutch  look for all of us on this trip so as the shots went on so did the habitual wiping of my dripping row and fanning of my ballooning Indian style pants.     Now we get to my fixation on the unusual attention we received at these monuments. While this was all going on, we started to realizing a slightly perturbing trend: people seemed to be shifting their cameras from the taj to our group. A man in a dark green polo continually waited until we had a new pose (every one with white shirts! Girls! Roommates! Jumping pic!) and would surreptitiously snap his own picture. After being told off several times it took a full blown confrontation by Sean (for those who don't know him he is 6' tall and not a guy who I would ever want to mess with) for him to slink away, glaring over his shoulder at Sean who watched his retreat. Everywhere we went people whipped out cameras for a quick picture, sneakily filmed us, asked for pictures with us, and pushed their children toward us for a picture with our group. As the day wore on our patience with such antics wore thin and the amount of men turning their home video cameras toward our predominantly female group started to actually become alarming. I felt like a part of a walking circus. An unwilling and sweaty circus. I never thought I would say this but I actually feel for brittney spears after her dramatic spiral down in the media world. Everywhere I turned I was met with a probing camera lens and felt violated and constantly reminded that I don't belong here.      After the taj we visited the Agra Fort which has been around since 1080. I was both impressed with the opulence that still exists and saddened that I would never see this place how it looked before the British looted it for precious stones and tourists graffitied their names into this historically priceless place (for clarification; tourist does not exclusively mean foreigners, much of the graffiti was in Indian script). To add to our "tour de Agra animals" we ran into some bats who were not pleased by our camera flashes that were invading their homes.      After these two visits we headed back to the bus, exhausted and sweaty. After another quick stop by McDonalds we pulled back onto the main road back to our hotel. I am writing this blog post on the bus now as the girls around me dose off and the sound of horns go off in the background. Hopefully I will get this blog up tonight! Tomorrow it is off to more New Delhi historical sites and to the Delhi Haat, a giant open-air market :)

Expecting the Unexpected

Hello from New Delhi!
     Four days after arriving in Kolkata our group set off to New Delhi and, as we are learning to expect, things did not go quite as we expected. At nine in the morning our group set off to the Foreign Registry Office in Kolkata to make our presence officially known. Of course today of all days the ugly beast called traffic decided to remind us of its existence. As we sat in the car our bodies lurched back and forth as the driver attempted to weave through the masses of taxis, cars, motorcycles and pedestrians we did our best to keep from getting motion sickness. This was done with varying degrees of success but in the end we made it to the embassy with no issues. At the embassy we crammed ourselves in the "Visitor Room" and attempted to make 11 American-sized bodies fit into the miniscule room so that we could all enjoy the rare treat of air conditioning.
     After leaving the embassy the plan was to head to a restaurant for lunch and then get to the airport with enough time to check in and get to our gate. The funny thing about making plans in India is that they always seem to have a mind of their own. The group was divided into two cars with 6 people in each and our luggage for New Delhi and early on in the trip the van that I was in got stuck behind some slow cars and lost the other car. It wasnt until about 20 minutes later that we saw them again as we passed their car pulled over by the side of the highway. When our driver pulled over, everyone in our car craned our necks to try to see what was going on but all we could determine was that Sean and the drivers were trying to assess some sort of damage. When the car set out again those of us in my car could see a visible tremor to the car's gate and they didn't make it far before they pulled over again and everyone piled out. Soon after, our car was joined by Tierney and Michelle and, in a well intentioned but poorly thought out attempt to make more room for them, Charles vaulted himself over the back row to join Kristen and I in the back seat. As he sat upside down in the fetal position with his rear in Kristen's face and his head almost in my lap he said dejectedly, "This didn't go like I thought it would...". No it didn't. Neither, however, do a lot of things in India so instead of complaining or giving up, you wiggle around until you find another way to make them work out. Charles quickly righted himself and we were off again, with four of our party trailing behind in a cab.
     The airport was just as chaotic as I remembered it to be and after a breif panic over Charles' lost ticket we finally made it into the airport with just enough time to fly through check in and security and make it to our gate in time. Well, at least we could have done those things if it didn't take 15 minutes for them to print out our boarding passes and if they didn't have to individually pat us down in security with a metal detector and if security didn't confuse Michelle's tongue-scraper for a weapon. After several flustered moments we set off at double pace to our gate expecting to board the plane immediately and set off. Well, that would have happened if our plane hadn't been delayed by almost 30 minutes. Finally, however, we got on the plane and spent 2 pleasant hours either sleeping or playing cards among ourselves and making use of a bathroom that was relatively clean (I don't think that I can justly convey the ammount of happiness that this small pleasure brings us).
     Even after all of the set-backs of today we finally made it to New Delhi and even though we didn't have time to see the Bahai Temple because of the delay we still had the chance to see some of India's capitol. Straight out of the airport we filed onto our tour bus that is going to be taking us around for the next few days. The bus seats 14 people and has fans and air-conditioning within its shabby exterior so there were no complaints to be heard as we set off. Looking around the city as we drove, the first thing that I noticed was the difference in the terrain. In Kolkata everything that isn't built up with houses or shops is a lush green and palm trees adorn many streets while in New Delhi the ground is arid and the stray dogs that we have been so used to seeing have now been accompanied by monkeys who pick through the trash by the said of the road.         The government offices in New Delhi are surrounded by pristine streets and guards, which is a drastic difference from the streets of Kolkata. After seeing the President's House, the Parlimentary house, and the India Gate we headed to a nice dinner and then off to our hotel. The street that the hotel is on is similar to the ones that we have been seeing in Kolkata, serving as a reminder that no matter how clean the streets were around the governmental offices, New Delhi has its fair share of poverty.
     Right now we are all separating into our seperate rooms and preparing for a long day tomorrow. At 6am we are going to get on a bus and by this time tomorrow we will all have seen one of the 7 wonders of the world!

A Study in Contrasts

I am forcing myself to write this post before I go to bed because I do not want to forget any of today but since I am so tired I am not making any promises of grammatical correction.

Day 3

     Today was our third day in Kolkata and by far the most overstimulating to the senses. First thing in the morning we all woke up and had a “light” breakfast (the quotes are there because light apparently constitutes cereal, toast, omelets, boiled eggs, coffee, tea, and fruit. I am actually slightly frightened to think of what a heavy breakfast is. Side note #1, the milk is served hot here with cereal) and then headed out for our first walking tour of Kolkata. The day was surprisingly cool, probably only in the mid 80s or early 90s and there was a slight breeze. This does not mean, however, that the humidity had let up. Last night there was a violent monsoon (which I slept through but Stacey assures me that it was impressive) which had left the ground wet and the air thick. A quick word about Indian humidity: Imagine that you are in a sauna, then imagine that there are 15 humidifiers in the sauna with you, and just for good measure imagine that there is a hose misting you off. That is India. The air hangs heavy and immediately when I step out of my air conditioned room my body is covered in a layer of water. There is no concept of “being dry” in India.

     Moving on to the walking tour itself. The guide met us on the side of a street that was an off-branch of a main road and as we piled out of the car and looked around it became apparent that this tour was going to give us a real view of the city, not a disenchanted one. The guide was dressed in a red American printed T-shirt, dark wash jeans, and bright red Crocks and he teased us for our sleepy demeanors. As we talked with him, two girls with no shoes on and too small clothing slowly circled our group: the first of many people who were both intrigued by us and hoping to make some money off of our naiveté.  We set off in what appeared to be no particular direction and made it no further than a block away before we stopped by a water spigot that had two men by it. One man was filling up a gallon of water while the other was waiting nearby with a large black bag. Our guide explained to us that the bag was made of goat skin and, as the man kneeled and began to scoop water in the bag from the provided bucket in order to increase the filling rate from that of the hose alone, he continued to say that he delivered water to families who did not live by a water source. Water in India only flows from certain areas at designated times, one of the many things that I am learning I take for granted in America. Following along the theme of getting fresh goods delivered to ones house, about five minutes later a man with three goats passed by us on the way to houses that receive fresh (about as fresh as you can get) morning goat milk. We passed through a Buddhist temple and several other landmarks but the next event that really sticks out in my mind was when we went to the Chinese market.

     The market is on a street that used to be owned by Chinese businesses and still today there is a Chinese influence. The street was the picture of organized chaos; vendors shouted their wares while buyers passed by with an appraising eye. There were flower vendors, people making fresh food, fish being skinned, chickens being slaughtered, motorcycles passing through; my head felt like it was going to fly off from looking back and forth so many times. As much as I was looking at the people around me, it was nothing like how we were being looked at.

     Side Note #2, staring. Not only is it painfully obvious that I am foreign, I am also 5’10’’, blonde, blue-eyed and was traveling with 8 other women on a street that was predominantly male in a country where the average height for women is 5’ tall. As we passed by, all heads jerked in our direction and gazes that should have been passing glances locked onto us. I can now say that the sight of my group and I has literally stopped people in their tracks. This is not, however, the staring of adoration as I am sure celebrities are used to. No. This is the kind of staring that people in America would do if a group of aliens walked down the street. Their faces pass so quickly from intrigue, to curiosity, to amazement, and even to disgust on some; I cannot help but feel like some sort of strange animal in a zoo. I have never noticed how anonymous I am in America, but I am beginning to long for the days when my every action doesn’t feel so scrutinized.

     The tour continued on and we went through a staggering number of different houses of worship. This is one of the many amazing things of India: even through there is such apparent wealth disparity and social issues, it is truly a secular country. There is no discrimination based on religion, which was demonstrated by the fact that the caretakers of one of the cities oldest synagogues are all Muslim. Along the way we sampled several different types of traditional food with mixed reviews and continually wiped our dripping foreheads. The streets of India are, like most things here, unlike anything I have ever seen. There is trash on every corner and in every gutter and rotting fruit peels line the sidewalks, which have a noticeable absence of trashcans. Maybe it is the humidity or the heat but for some reason I felt like the smells were amplified in India to a level that I had never experienced before. The smell of the rain storm that had recently happened with mixed in with that of smoke, pollution, cooking food, unwashed bodies, spices, and wet dirt all hung heavy in the air. Thankfully, the slight breeze in the air kept it from being completely stagnant and we walked along in relative comfort. After 5 hours we bid our tour guide goodbye and took a several hour rest period in the house.

     Later on in the evening we decided to go grocery shopping for some items and many of the girls needed to buy some heat appropriate pants and shirts. First we headed to the Ganga (Ganges) river to see what it looked like right before sunset. As we strolled down the path (accompanied by the usual amount of staring) I couldn’t help but notice the difference between this place and that of the streets we were walking just hours before in the same city. The area by the river was free of trash and there were even (surprisingly) trashcans. It is obvious that the reconstruction has been recent especially because when Tierney tried to use the restroom she was told that it would be “finished in 2-4 days”. The people who were taking an evening stroll were also obviously of a totally different class than those we saw earlier. The contrast between the half naked men who were literally bathing in street water and these elegantly clothed women who walked arm in arm with their tailored husbands was astonishing.

     Our last stop of the day was a mall in South Kolkata and if I thought the contrast between the Ganga and our tour was vast, I was in for a surprise. The mall was immaculate and the florescent lighting made everything look new and appealing, just as any mall that I would visit in a nice area of the US. Five floors boasted a plethora of shops, some with traditional American wears such as Nike and some with traditional Indian garb. The girls combed through the pants and tunics while the boys aimlessly wandered and, I am sure, cursed us silently. After picking out several outlandish looking pairs of pants that I can only describe as and have officially dubbed “Printed and Colorful (Disney) Princess Jasmine Pants” we headed to the basement to pick up some food. In “Spencers” we raked the shelves for necessary toiletries and food but the line (crowd really) at the checkout/exit was beyond shocking.

     Sidenote #3. Personal space. It doesn’t exist in India. At all. People will stand directly behind you in line, in elevators, in escalators, at the counter, when walking, and all without a second thought. Cutting in line is appropriate and it is every man for himself when it comes to getting from place to place as fast as you can. I couldn’t help but think that walking in the Indian mall was incredibly similar to the drivers on the Indian streets except for the fact that the people lacked horns.

After the mall we went back to the house, ate dinner, and crashed. It is now past midnight and I am so ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow we fly to New Delhi and I can’t wait to see the famous Taj Mahal! Hopefully I will get around to pictures soon...

Until Next Time!

Duke Takes on International Travel – Hilarity Ensues…

35 and ½ hours after I first stepped into LAX I am finally settled into my room in Kolkata. My feet hurt a bit, I may still be sweating even after I showered, and it has become obvious that I packed a serious surplus of ziplock bags but I, like all the others of us who are still fighting jetlag and awake at this point, can’t seem to stop smiling. Flying is a weird experience. I walked into the Tom Bradley International Terminal in Los Angles and sat in a metal box with wings for a relatively short period of time and before I knew it I was walking out of the Kolkata Airport; literally around the world from where I started. These last few hours hove been a study in the contrast of emotions: fear to excitement to frustration to exhaustion to awe and hopefully this post will do all of them a little bit of justice.

            By the time I boarded the Emriates flight from LAX to Dubai, (the first leg of my two-flight journey, others on the trip had various different routes with all but one meeting up in Dubai to head to Kolkata) I could tell that this flight was going to be a unlike any that I had taken before. This plane made my mediocre domestic flights that I take to get back and forth to Durham look like rides on a dirty public bus. I had to remind myself several times to stop looking so awestruck as my eyes ran over the personal TV, flight crew with makeup perfected to a T, and the “anti-jetlag” lighting. I even caught a glimpse of flowerpots that were hung on the wall of the business class cabin before they shut off economy with the curtain to maintain “privacy”, which is of course, a total sham. Airplanes can try as hard as they can to try to make the passengers feel as though they have their own personal space, from putting individual covers on the headrests, to handing out eye-masks to be used while sleeping, to the arm rests that are lowered between to seats , but this is all in vain. If you looked up the word antithesis in the dictionary I am quite sure the two words: “airplane” and “privacy” would be the main entry. No matter how nice a flight and how much a person tries to mind their own business you always somehow become entangled with those who are seated next to you, so inevitably, the story of my flight is wound around the stories of two different groups of people who just so happened to be surrounding me.

These two particular stories were those of the two middle school aged sisters who sat next to me and that of the honeymooners who were directly in front of me. Going back to the aspect of privacy on a plane, there is really no privacy in any sense. In the middle of the night when I woke up to find one of the girls sleeping square in the middle of my lap I learned that physical privacy was a sham. She awoke to my sudden exclamation of “Oh!” as I peeled off my eye-mask and looked down and when she opened her eyes to find mine to be directly looking down at her as she lay like a baby in my lap she responded with a similar “Oh!!!”. She quickly flung herself back into her seat with many apologies on both our parts being said (I am not completely sure why I felt the need to apologize but it was better than breaking into nervous laughter which is my usually habit in situations like this). Our seats on this plane brought us into such intimate physical contact that all premise of privacy that was provided by the meager armrest that was in-between us was quickly dissolved. The honeymooners in front of me shattered the premise of verbal privacy approximately 3 hours into the flight. This third hour just so happened to also correspond with their 6^th drink of the flight. I learned things about Bethany and Miles that I never wanted to know. Until I was finally bored enough of hearing about their beautiful wedding “Just two days past in wine country with hundreds of guests!” to put on an episode of CSI on my TV I learned more about a pair of complete strangers than I ever have before.

After the 15 hours that I spent in my assigned seat thousands of feet up in the air I finally arrived at the Dubai International airport. I have heard many rumors about the glitz and wealth of Dubai and to say that the airport itself didn’t disappoint would be an egregious understatement. Somehow those of us who were flying through the airport at the same time managed to find each other, the most amazing find being Stacy casually walking in the same bathroom off of her flight from JFK as those of us from LAX were just finishing up. After about 20 frustrating minutes spent battling with the WiFi we decided to walk over to the shopping part of the airport, with tales of amazing sites to be seen going through our minds. Shiny Bentleys adorned the artificially lit walkways in the airport that seemed to be more of a mall than a place of international transit. Like any good American tourists, the four girls I was with and myself grabbed the provided shopping carts to put our luggage in and set off down the aisles with cameras at the ready. We ran into several obstacles along the way, such as the cramped elevators that strangely only had buttons of floors one and three, apparently two didn’t make the cut, and the maneuvering of the carts in the crowded aisles as we purchased the largest bottles of water that we could find, but we trucked along determined to absorb as much as possible. Somewhere along the way we ran into “camel chocolate” which claims to be the “first and finest camel milk chocolate”. Being the reasonable people that we are we decided to wait till our trip back through Dubai before buying excessive amounts of this newfound delicacy.

About 90 minutes before our flight we headed over to our gate only to find that we were not allowed into the waiting area until an hour before departure. As our feet began to get tired we looked around and decided to sit in the waiting area for the empty gate next to us. Soon after that we found ourselves surrounded by men and women returning from the Hajj (the holy pilgrimage to Mecca). Men bedecked in white floor length garb protectively led the way for their wives who were covered head to toe in their black burkas and in a matter of minutes our small touristy group was surrounded in a chatter of Arabic. Only a few moments after they had all settled down an airy voice with an unmistakable British accent wafted through the air with one request: “All passengers must vacate the waiting room”. At this point I started to think that this was almost as bad a paradox as privacy on airplanes, (I mean honestly, a waiting room where you cant wait?) when they finally opened up the gate for our flight.

Unlike the previous flight, this one required that we all pile on a bus that drove for about 5 minutes to take us to our plane. As soon as we stepped outside it finally hit me that I was really abroad. You see, all airports have basically the same feel: artificial lights, perfectly heated and cooled, and the incessant chatter of travelers. It took stepping out into the 90-degree weather at 2am in Dubai to give me the slap I needed to make me realize that I was finally on the journey that I have been waiting for for so long. After some initial seat confusion that ended in me sitting in the totally wrong seat so that a husband and wife duo returning from the Hajj could remain together, I was finally onto the last leg of my trip. I fell asleep during take-off around 2:30 and then at 3:30am Dubai time (I had really lost all track of time at that point though) I was woken up for my meal. I opened my eyes to a rather flustered looking stewardess speaking to me in very heavily accented English. Coming out of a nap and being confronted with broken English was a combination that ended with me absently smiling and nodding and subsequently receiving a plate of food that I had absolutely no idea of what it was. I could make out the word “eggs” so I believe that they were present in the mush of potatoes and red paste but I was still unsure after several bites. At this point I abandoned the main dish and stuck to the fruit and roll. A few hours later we began our descent into Kolkata and I looked out the window at my new home for 8 months. The lush greenery was spotted with colorful but dilapidated houses and intertwined with glistening rivers and lakes.

The airport, in contrast with this beautiful scenery, was a study in chaos. Finally we all made it through customs and I headed straight for the baggage claim (Having lost my bag a few times I am always paranoid that it won’t come through). My bags ended up coming fairly early in the process but we had to wait as poor Michelle was put through the nerve-wracking experience of being the owner of the last bag off the plane. After that there was a brief stop in the public bathroom (let it suffice to be known that it was an …experience) and then off into a car headed to our new home. I am pretty sure that I could spend 15 pages writing about the traffic system of India but I will try to break it down into a few sentences. There are no lanes. There are no side mirrors (they get clipped off in particularly tight squeezes). There is no road rage but there is a cacophony of horns that are always going off to let the cars with no side mirrors know that they are being passed. To top this all off: there are no rules. Baishakhi (our fearless leader on this program who grew up in Kolkata) told us in an almost motherly tone that it would be best if at the beginning we simply didn’t look out the windows and trusted our drivers as the weaved through impossibly tight spaces.

Physically intact, though perhaps mentally scarred by the number of times I slammed on the brakes of the car in my head, I finally made the treck up the two flights of unairconditioned stairs into my new room. I am sharing the room with Stacy, a rising sophomore at Duke, because of our unlikely common traits. These common traits basically boil down to the fact that both of us have the immune systems (and perhaps luck) of a dying salmon. Asthma, sinus infections, and overall poor stomach health are a strange series of characteristics to bond over but we did just that. Unpacking was a whirlwind of colorful clothes and Clorox wipes as Stacy and I settled into the place where we would be spending the next 8 weeks. The room itself has air-conditioning and is extremely spacious with two beds, a table, chairs, and a wardrobe. The bathroom is constantly muggy due to the fact that the window doesn’t close all the way but all in all I was impressed with the accommodations. I was also impressed with the 8 inch lizard that appeared on the wall. Due to the fact that my roommate and I fled the room and the caretaker’s broken English explanation of where the lizard went when he went after it with a boom I would say that the is a 50-50 chance that the lizard has now taken up residence under our sink.

Currently, I am sitting in another room on the second floor (not to be confused with what Americans would call the third floor since the numbering starts with “ground” and goes up) writing this post as the other people in my group watch a Hindi movie (which is very gripping and suspenseful based on the music and their gasps) or tinker around on their computers. It is very easy to feel at home here in this foreign place. Maybe it is the hospitality or the homey rooms but whatever it is I am finally able to relax since that first moment that I stepped on a plane. 

This was an unusually long post, they won’t always be like this, but I had a lot of ground to cover! More to come soon on our exploration of Kolkata and battles with a 12 and ½ hour time and 30-degree heat difference...