Note: I will get back to the wedding posts. Things started getting quite chaotic immediately after I announced I'd finally get to that, and I've hardly had time to check email much less write a blog. And today I have something way more personal and important to write about so you'll just have to wait a little while longer on the wedding posts.
Do you ever look back at moments in your life, things that seemed insignificant at the time, and realize they really had a huge impact?
I've been doing a lot of that lately.
For instance, I never thought that a summer job at a park would lead to the adorable cat I've spoiled for 10 years this summer. Or that moving into one particular dorm in college (one primarily chosen for having A/C) would lead me to my husband, who came to the U.S. and to that dorm 10 years ago this summer. (Yeah it was a big summer.)
I also never thought that one person I met in high school 15 years ago would have perhaps the biggest influence on the path my life has taken.
She was one of my best friends in high school. The kind you just can't let out of your life after graduation.
She'd always been a traveler, growing up in Hawaii, moving to NC in middle school, traveling to Europe and moving to California after graduation. I'd never traveled farther away than Disney World, and had never been on an airplane.
After she'd lived in California for a year and I'd completed my first year of college, she decided to move back to NC and wanted to bring her car. Since driving any long distance is zero fun by yourself, we concocted a plan for me to fly to California and drive back across the country with her, sightseeing along the way. That trip would prove to be a pivotal point in my life (10 years ago strangely enough...I told you it was a big summer).
I was bit by the travel bug. I realized there was SO MUCH beyond the borders of my life. And I wanted to discover it all.
I moved into that dorm where my husband lived, a dorm filled with students studying abroad at my university.
I made fast and lifelong friends in that dorm. Friends so close they traveled across the world to be at my wedding two years ago. One friend so close she comes to visit me in the U.S. every few years (I'm now poor and haven't been able to convince my moneymaking husband to take a trip to England...yet.) A friend so close I traveled around England and Scotland with her six months after she left the U.S.
My first international flight. A flight that was so craptastic it was delayed by 12 hours and I spent the night on an airport lobby floor. And yet it didn't stop me from taking a ton more international flights, including to England to visit that friend another six months later en route to my summer studying abroad in Madrid.
I went on to travel to (and consider a life in) New York, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, Aruba, Hawaii, India (three times, once for two months), Turkey and Sri Lanka.
I moved away to Washington DC, a city I now love with all of my heart and that feels like home.
Without that friend I met 15 years ago, I probably never would have done any of these things. She introduced me to the world outside. She inspired and encouraged me. Heck, without her I probably still wouldn't be eating vegetables! She broadened my life in so many ways.
This weekend, she's picking up and moving back to Hawaii. In just a few weeks she has sorted through all the things from her life and decided what is important enough to keep and what is just extraneous. She is leaving behind the life she's built for herself and starting over.
She continues to inspire me.
If I ever find the strength to do something like that (which is in my plans...for "someday"), it will be because of her influence in my life.
She has helped make me who I am. And for that I am forever grateful.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Why I never talk about the wedding
I know I've referenced my Indian wedding, but have never actually written about it. Which may be (probably not) frustrating for those readers I didn't inundate with details and photos immediately after the fact.
The truth is, it's not a happy story for me. It was insanity, I wasn't ready for it, I just wanted it over with. There was no reveling in the cultural experience. I merely tried to keep breathing until it was over. So, other than some initial venting when I first got home, I never talk about it. When I shared the obligatory Facebook photos of my trip to India, I didn't post a single one from my wedding. I didn't want questions, I didn't even want everyone to know about it. I just wanted to forget about it.
But I realize now that it's an integral part of who I am, my relationship with my husband and my relationship with his family. And as such, it shouldn't just be hidden in a box and shoved under the bed. And beyond my stress and complete freakout, there really are some fascinating stories.
So I want to share that part.
But first, you have to endure the bad. And the setup.
Hubby and I moved in together in the summer of 2009. Hubby's parents flipped out to levels I did not even begin to realize at the time (perhaps because no one bothered to tell me...). Their son was living with a girl. A girl they'd never met. A girl who was not Indian.
And marriage in the U.S. is apparently just not legal. Or some other faulty logic like that. Whatever. I'm over it. Except when they tell me happy anniversary in October. Then I'm under it again. Not a legal wedding people! NOT a legal wedding!
But as I was saying. I'm over it.
We were traveling to India for a friend's wedding in October anyway, so my in-laws decided to just throw in an extra one. And my husband, being the oldest child and feeling indebted to his parents for that whole putting-him-through-school-and-paying-to-send-him-to-the-U.S. thing, wanted to do this for them. And so I wanted to do it for him. (He also wanted to do it for his brother, in hopes that it would satisfy their parents and they wouldn't put him through the ringer when he gets married. And for this reason, if they try to make him have a wedding he doesn't want, or he decides that after all that he actually wants an Indian wedding, I WILL cut someone.)
I agreed to the wedding despite the fact that I didn't want it. Despite the fact that my dad had died just a few months earlier. Despite the fact that I had been very clear since that time that there could be no big wedding until I had dealt with it, until I was ready. And despite the fact that both my husband and his parents pretended to understand that, then one month later sprung (sprang?) the Indian wedding plan on me. Despite all that, my desire to make my husband happy (a happiness based on making his parents happy) won out. I agreed to the wedding.
The trip was doomed from the start. We'd already purchased our plane tickets when this plan came about (less than two months before we were set to depart), and we had to change our flights to add an extra week to our stay.
Changing flights is not cheap. It cost us the price of a third ticket to change our dates.
Then, due to a series of disasters including not properly researching how to get to this magical place where we could park our car for three weeks for free, we ended up parking at the airport (which would have cost us nearly $200) and then being late for our flight anyway. Getting dropped at the curb, I would have made it in with our luggage just under the wire. But once they realized there was another person coming, they couldn't wait that long and closed the flight. No amount of stressful tears or begging would change their minds. Something about delaying the flight being unfair to the hundreds of other people already on board. Nonsense.
We were switched to the next night's flight and told there was no fee. When we returned the next night (after finding the free spot to park the car and arriving an hour earlier than necessary), we learned that there was, in fact, a fee for missing your flight and being put on a later one. A hefty fee. In fact, the cost of yet another ticket.
For the amount we paid in fees, we could have paid for two other people to travel to India.
This would have made the trip infinitely better in that a) I could have saved my mom a lot of money, or b) I could have had two more people I'd actually met before (making it a grand total of...five) at this fiasco.
This also would have made my in-laws slightly less annoying, as they kept expressing extreme disappointment that all of my family and friends couldn't come...and not like an "aw that's too bad" kind of disappointment but a "your family is horrible people and we're stuck with them thanks to the voodoo you worked on our son" kind of disappointment.
I could not make them understand that the trip is crazy expensive and I don't know a single person who has that kind of money. Not to mention they all have jobs with a limited amount of paid vacation days, which would make it even more difficult.
It's not that people didn't WANT to be there. It's that no one has that kind of money. That's not like refraining from buying takeout one night so you can go get a haircut later. That's more like not buying anything, even groceries, ever for the next decade so you can go watch your friend be miserable for a few days.
I felt horrible even asking my mother and sisters to do it! Though if they had not been there, I very surely would have died. That is sadly not an exaggeration. It is a very real possibility that my body would have just given out under all the pressure. There were more than a few moments when I actually would have preferred that than to endure one more minute of what felt, and to be honest still feels even in memory, like torture. But my family was there and they held my hand while I screamed and they calmed me when I cried and I have rarely felt so miserable as when I put them back on that plane knowing I had another two weeks to go.
Whoa that got a little morbid there. I know, you want all happy-go-lucky stories about the extravagant events. Unfortunately, that wasn't what it was for me. Probably if it had happened later, when I was ready, I would have enjoyed it. Loved it, even. But going down the way it did, it is actually a painful memory for me and a barrier between me and my in-laws.
So there you have the background. The way it came about and why you never hear about it. So now I'm ready to tell you all about the whirlwind of activity between arriving in India for the first time and finally being allowed to sleep when the festivities were done more than a week later. And pictures, there will be pictures.
The truth is, it's not a happy story for me. It was insanity, I wasn't ready for it, I just wanted it over with. There was no reveling in the cultural experience. I merely tried to keep breathing until it was over. So, other than some initial venting when I first got home, I never talk about it. When I shared the obligatory Facebook photos of my trip to India, I didn't post a single one from my wedding. I didn't want questions, I didn't even want everyone to know about it. I just wanted to forget about it.
But I realize now that it's an integral part of who I am, my relationship with my husband and my relationship with his family. And as such, it shouldn't just be hidden in a box and shoved under the bed. And beyond my stress and complete freakout, there really are some fascinating stories.
So I want to share that part.
But first, you have to endure the bad. And the setup.
Hubby and I moved in together in the summer of 2009. Hubby's parents flipped out to levels I did not even begin to realize at the time (perhaps because no one bothered to tell me...). Their son was living with a girl. A girl they'd never met. A girl who was not Indian.
And marriage in the U.S. is apparently just not legal. Or some other faulty logic like that. Whatever. I'm over it. Except when they tell me happy anniversary in October. Then I'm under it again. Not a legal wedding people! NOT a legal wedding!
But as I was saying. I'm over it.
We were traveling to India for a friend's wedding in October anyway, so my in-laws decided to just throw in an extra one. And my husband, being the oldest child and feeling indebted to his parents for that whole putting-him-through-school-and-paying-to-send-him-to-the-U.S. thing, wanted to do this for them. And so I wanted to do it for him. (He also wanted to do it for his brother, in hopes that it would satisfy their parents and they wouldn't put him through the ringer when he gets married. And for this reason, if they try to make him have a wedding he doesn't want, or he decides that after all that he actually wants an Indian wedding, I WILL cut someone.)
I agreed to the wedding despite the fact that I didn't want it. Despite the fact that my dad had died just a few months earlier. Despite the fact that I had been very clear since that time that there could be no big wedding until I had dealt with it, until I was ready. And despite the fact that both my husband and his parents pretended to understand that, then one month later sprung (sprang?) the Indian wedding plan on me. Despite all that, my desire to make my husband happy (a happiness based on making his parents happy) won out. I agreed to the wedding.
The trip was doomed from the start. We'd already purchased our plane tickets when this plan came about (less than two months before we were set to depart), and we had to change our flights to add an extra week to our stay.
Changing flights is not cheap. It cost us the price of a third ticket to change our dates.
Then, due to a series of disasters including not properly researching how to get to this magical place where we could park our car for three weeks for free, we ended up parking at the airport (which would have cost us nearly $200) and then being late for our flight anyway. Getting dropped at the curb, I would have made it in with our luggage just under the wire. But once they realized there was another person coming, they couldn't wait that long and closed the flight. No amount of stressful tears or begging would change their minds. Something about delaying the flight being unfair to the hundreds of other people already on board. Nonsense.
We were switched to the next night's flight and told there was no fee. When we returned the next night (after finding the free spot to park the car and arriving an hour earlier than necessary), we learned that there was, in fact, a fee for missing your flight and being put on a later one. A hefty fee. In fact, the cost of yet another ticket.
For the amount we paid in fees, we could have paid for two other people to travel to India.
This would have made the trip infinitely better in that a) I could have saved my mom a lot of money, or b) I could have had two more people I'd actually met before (making it a grand total of...five) at this fiasco.
This also would have made my in-laws slightly less annoying, as they kept expressing extreme disappointment that all of my family and friends couldn't come...and not like an "aw that's too bad" kind of disappointment but a "your family is horrible people and we're stuck with them thanks to the voodoo you worked on our son" kind of disappointment.
I could not make them understand that the trip is crazy expensive and I don't know a single person who has that kind of money. Not to mention they all have jobs with a limited amount of paid vacation days, which would make it even more difficult.
It's not that people didn't WANT to be there. It's that no one has that kind of money. That's not like refraining from buying takeout one night so you can go get a haircut later. That's more like not buying anything, even groceries, ever for the next decade so you can go watch your friend be miserable for a few days.
I felt horrible even asking my mother and sisters to do it! Though if they had not been there, I very surely would have died. That is sadly not an exaggeration. It is a very real possibility that my body would have just given out under all the pressure. There were more than a few moments when I actually would have preferred that than to endure one more minute of what felt, and to be honest still feels even in memory, like torture. But my family was there and they held my hand while I screamed and they calmed me when I cried and I have rarely felt so miserable as when I put them back on that plane knowing I had another two weeks to go.
Whoa that got a little morbid there. I know, you want all happy-go-lucky stories about the extravagant events. Unfortunately, that wasn't what it was for me. Probably if it had happened later, when I was ready, I would have enjoyed it. Loved it, even. But going down the way it did, it is actually a painful memory for me and a barrier between me and my in-laws.
So there you have the background. The way it came about and why you never hear about it. So now I'm ready to tell you all about the whirlwind of activity between arriving in India for the first time and finally being allowed to sleep when the festivities were done more than a week later. And pictures, there will be pictures.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
I always thought I was a logical person...clearly I am not
I usually avoid using photos of actual people on my blog because of that whole privacy issue of having a public blog read by random people in places like South Korea (Hi, would that one reader please introduce yourself? Yes, you. You fascinate me. Also, the reader from Luxembourg. I don't even know where that is. I so badly want to know you!).
Same reason I don't use names. I mean, if someone put their mind to it, I'm sure they could piece together who I am, but names and photos just seems like asking for trouble. This is where I live! Here's my family's names along with what each person looks like! This is the password my mother taught me when I'd refuse to join her in the grocery store so that I'd know if she were really in there having a heart attack or someone were just trying to kidnap me from the car!
I also like to pretend the absence of names and photos gives me some sort of plausible deniability should my in-laws ever find my blog. I mean, I'm sure there's some other American named Caroline from DC married to an Indian from Pune who spent the months of June and July there last year living with her in-laws and working at the very same non-profits I worked at and visited the very same places I visited at the exact same time. It is a small world after all.
Wow, I knew my reasons behind the photo/name thing were probably pretty ridiculous but now that it's written out...if you want to stop being friends with me, now is probably a perfectly logical time.
Anyway, all this to say that I have decided to do away with this whole photo nonsense. Well, maybe I still won't show photos of my unsuspecting friends, but I think I at least am fair game. This is particularly important for my next post (or series of posts, I haven't decided yet).
I plan to tackle the topic of the literal big top circus that was my Indian wedding. And words just cannot do it justice.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Down the Crapper
The BBC had an article recently revealing that, according to the latest census, nearly half of India's population do not have a toilet at home.
Yes, this is a horrible and disgusting fact.
But my first reaction was "Who didn't already know this!?"
In fact, this article led to a second article that kicked off with "Is anybody really surprised?"
No, we're not really surprised. If anything, we're surprised this is just now becoming news.
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of toilets in India. Sure, there are all kinds of studies saying that defecating in the squat position is actually better for your body (something about cleaning you out faster and more thoroughly...don't actually read any of these studies if you want to sleep tonight), but I see no studies that say standing in other people's feces is good for the soul. Toilets in India are generally so filthy and rank that you're likely to catch something just being in the vicinity.
But it can get worse. And does.
Nearly half the population has no toilet of their own. Some use public toilets (which I just covered the perils of), but the majority (49.8%) "defecate in the open."
Now anyone that's watched Slumdog Millionaire has seen the outhouse-style buildings suspended above a river. Because why crap into a deep hole in the ground when you can crap into the water supply? (In Pune, I have seen a slum just downstream from the water treatment plant. Think on that for a minute.)
Not all of this goes on in a semi-private little outhouse, though. No, I have seen people pull down their pants by the side of a busy road and have at it. When walking down the road, you not only have to worry about dodging paan stains (red spit caused by something similar to chewing tobacco) and animal feces (buffalo, cow, dog, horse, goat...the list goes on), you also have to worry about stepping in human feces.
This article (the one not at all shocked by the statistics) posed the issue in a way I found very interesting:
I can't help but notice that Hindus follow a strict caste system, while Sikhs have a much less severe caste system (and many don't believe in one at all) and Christians lack one altogether. India is made up of approximately 80% Hindus.
Is this sanitation issue one of many ways of reinforcing the caste system? While I seriously doubt it is a thought-out intentional plan for the government to oppress lower castes by not extending sanitation systems, it is entirely believable that it may be the subconscious reason behind the failure.
In a country so eager to move up in the world, one would think basic sanitation would be an issue they'd eagerly tackle. It is difficult, after all, to be taken seriously while baring your butt on the side of the road.
Yes, this is a horrible and disgusting fact.
But my first reaction was "Who didn't already know this!?"
In fact, this article led to a second article that kicked off with "Is anybody really surprised?"
No, we're not really surprised. If anything, we're surprised this is just now becoming news.
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of toilets in India. Sure, there are all kinds of studies saying that defecating in the squat position is actually better for your body (something about cleaning you out faster and more thoroughly...don't actually read any of these studies if you want to sleep tonight), but I see no studies that say standing in other people's feces is good for the soul. Toilets in India are generally so filthy and rank that you're likely to catch something just being in the vicinity.
But it can get worse. And does.
Nearly half the population has no toilet of their own. Some use public toilets (which I just covered the perils of), but the majority (49.8%) "defecate in the open."
Now anyone that's watched Slumdog Millionaire has seen the outhouse-style buildings suspended above a river. Because why crap into a deep hole in the ground when you can crap into the water supply? (In Pune, I have seen a slum just downstream from the water treatment plant. Think on that for a minute.)
Not all of this goes on in a semi-private little outhouse, though. No, I have seen people pull down their pants by the side of a busy road and have at it. When walking down the road, you not only have to worry about dodging paan stains (red spit caused by something similar to chewing tobacco) and animal feces (buffalo, cow, dog, horse, goat...the list goes on), you also have to worry about stepping in human feces.
This article (the one not at all shocked by the statistics) posed the issue in a way I found very interesting:
Is the lack of toilets and preference for open defecation a cultural issue in a society where the habit actually perpetuates social oppression, as proved by the reduced but continued existence of low caste human scavengers and sweepers?Another interesting finding: Sikh and Christian households had the highest access to improved sanitation, at over 70%, while Hindus had the least access at 45%.
I can't help but notice that Hindus follow a strict caste system, while Sikhs have a much less severe caste system (and many don't believe in one at all) and Christians lack one altogether. India is made up of approximately 80% Hindus.
Is this sanitation issue one of many ways of reinforcing the caste system? While I seriously doubt it is a thought-out intentional plan for the government to oppress lower castes by not extending sanitation systems, it is entirely believable that it may be the subconscious reason behind the failure.
In a country so eager to move up in the world, one would think basic sanitation would be an issue they'd eagerly tackle. It is difficult, after all, to be taken seriously while baring your butt on the side of the road.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
I'm Still Here!
I realize it's been over a month since my last post.
That was not intentional.
As it turns out, my day-to-day life is B-O-R-I-N-G, leaving me without much to write about.
And also, I'm a slacker. So there's that.
Right now I'm in the midst of Spring Cleaning, which, for those of you unfamiliar, is the process of systematically ripping apart your home in order to clean each and every inch of it thoroughly.
Imagine emptying closets and scrubbing everything down. Pulling stationary appliances like refrigerators and stoves away from the wall to clean the unreachable sides and the floor underneath. Washing things you try to avoid thinking about the rest of the year, like windows and vertical blinds. Washing walls. I'm tired just making this list.
So expect a little more silence from me until I get through this task (or just give up...) but then I promise to be back with some actual interesting material.
In the meantime, I leave you in a era when ad jingles were catchy:
That was not intentional.
As it turns out, my day-to-day life is B-O-R-I-N-G, leaving me without much to write about.
And also, I'm a slacker. So there's that.
Right now I'm in the midst of Spring Cleaning, which, for those of you unfamiliar, is the process of systematically ripping apart your home in order to clean each and every inch of it thoroughly.
Imagine emptying closets and scrubbing everything down. Pulling stationary appliances like refrigerators and stoves away from the wall to clean the unreachable sides and the floor underneath. Washing things you try to avoid thinking about the rest of the year, like windows and vertical blinds. Washing walls. I'm tired just making this list.
So expect a little more silence from me until I get through this task (or just give up...) but then I promise to be back with some actual interesting material.
In the meantime, I leave you in a era when ad jingles were catchy:
Thursday, March 1, 2012
I Wish I'd Known
A friend asked me what she should tell someone going to India for the first time. As I thought over what kind of information I should give her, I realized there are so many things I wish I'd been told before my first trip to India. Make or break kinds of things. I now understand that hubby did the best he could; viewing your home through a foreigner's eyes for the first time is difficult. Even after three visits he still struggles to foresee the impact something might have on me. But he's getting better.
Anyway, without further ado, and in no particular order (meaning read the whole thing), I present to you a list of "the shit I wish I'd known."
1) Whatever you think the weather will be, it won't. If you think it will be cold, it will be 90 degrees. If you think it will be hot, it will be in the 50s. India thrives on defying your expectations. Weather is just one of many ways.
2) The clothing you would take to travel pretty much anywhere else is completely useless in India. I wear jeans all of the time, so I took them to India. They became stretched out in a matter of minutes and never returned to normal size. I took long shorts, thinking surely knee length would be conservative enough in hot weather. Wrong. I even had a few sleeveless shirts, though not tank tops. Good enough, right? Nuh uh. The less white skin on display, the better. Now when I go there, if I could get my hands on a burqa I would wear it. Though young women are beginning to wear more and more western clothes (and more and more revealing clothes), a good rule of thumb is to dress two or three times more conservatively than they are. It just makes life easier. Nothing that shows any amount of leg, short sleeves are mostly ok, and never ever anything that showcases your chest or butt even just a little.
3) Your shoes will be destroyed; don't wear anything you actually like. See next point:
4) India is hella dusty. Unlike anything I've ever seen before. I've been behind trucks carrying a load of dirt that's just blowing right off the back and still never seen as much dust and dirt as there is in India. And there is trash all over the ground and people spit, pee and poop right where you're walking. Your feet will be permanently dirty. Black dirty. You won't even recognize your feet at the end of the day. And whatever shoes you were wearing will be the same way. You have to leave your shoes at the door anyway, so who cares how cheap and ugly they are? I have twice now thrown shoes in the trash after wearing them in India. It's just easier.
5) Poverty is in your face. This isn't a Sally Struthers infomercial. This is walking down the street outside an expensive American chain store and passing a family living beside the road in a tent constructed of tattered cloth collected from the garbage with their clearly malnourished naked two year old playing in the dirt and the wife washing clothes in the gutter. It will break your heart into a million little pieces. And it will break your heart even more when you realize you have become accustomed to seeing them and hardly react anymore.
6) Indians are kinda racist. And extremely classist. All that caste stuff you learn about in school and think surely they don't think like that anymore? Yeah they still think like that. And are very open about it. And many of them (that I've been exposed to at least) see nothing wrong with it. The common reaction is shock, followed by disbelief, culminating in a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Though like with the stages of grief, each individual is different.
7) They will stare. A lot. Some in such a creepy way your skin will crawl. No, there's nothing you can do about it. They don't seem to notice if you shoot them dirty looks (even though they're staring and can't possibly have missed it). Yelling at them just makes you look like more of a freak. Walking away doesn't matter because there will only be others to stare at you. The quicker you get used to it, the less frustrating your day to day life will be.
8) They are incredibly pushy and impatient...but also incredibly slow. The best recent example I can give of this is when we arrived at the Cochin airport from Sri Lanka. Once through immigration, we had to go through one more metal detector. Everyone ran to be first, pushing and shoving, elbows flying. It's the crush of Times Square on New Year's Eve, but in this case everyone really is willing to take you out if it means getting even one spot ahead. But once each person fought their way to the front of the line, they stopped. Putting their bags on the belt took eons. They would pause in front of the detector and gaze around. Walk through at a snail's pace. But once through, it was back to the frantic pushing and shoving because they needed to get their bag off the belt before you for no particular reason. Everything is like that.
9) Showers are rare. A proper physical shower is even more rare. Showering over the toilet or taking a bucket bath are the most common options. I can clearly remember my first bucket bath...walking into the room to find a giant bucket with what resembled a two cup plastic measuring cup inside. (Rough guide: fill the big bucket with water, use the small one to pour it over you. I have no tips for you, as I still really suck at doing this.) If you're lucky enough to have a shower head, don't forget to use the weird rubber thing hopefully found in the corner of the bathroom to sweep the water toward the drain when you're done.
10) Do NOT, under any circumstances, drink the water. This is possibly the most important thing I can tell you. It's also something most people probably already know, but here's the dirty secret you probably don't know: don't drink the bottled water, either. People collect the plastic bottles from the trash, refill them with tap water, and sell them again. They're even so crafty as to glue the seal back together, making it nearly impossible to tell if its been broken. This is most likely how I spent two weeks sick as a dog on my first visit. Boil your water. I don't care if you have to use one of those things people have in dorms for making Ramen. I don't care if you have to bring that thing with you from the U.S. Just find a way. Keep it at a full boil for at least one minute. I boil a big pot of water in the evening, let it cool overnight, and fill bottles in the morning.
11) You are not going to hear all the formal niceties you do in the U.S. One of my first questions for hubby was how to say "please" and "thank you" in Hindi. He told me there are no words for that. I've learned there actually are words for that, but I've only seen foreigners use them. To me, those words are a huge part of respectful interaction. In India, they're irrelevant. If you use them and the person doesn't react in any way, don't worry. They did hear you, they just don't know what to do with it. My father-in-law finally explained to me that there is no need to say these things because they are happy to give you everything you need and expect nothing in return.
12) Touch the feet. I knew people touched the feet of their elders. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it happened. I didn't realize how much you have to do it, even to people you don't know. It's a show of respect meaning, essentially, you are like the dirt on their feet. Sexy right? I'd seen my husband touch his grandfather's feet but he never touched his aunt's. Apparently, that's just him being childish. You touch everyone's feet, unless they're younger than you or inferior to you in some way (see the previous statement about class). The foot-touching also has a more casual aspect that may actually be more important (especially if you're just traveling and not in the midst of Indian family). When you bump into someone, "oh sorry" or "excuse me" is not gonna roll. You don't have to actually touch their feet. But reach in that general direction with your right hand and then touch it to your chest. I see this most often on trains, when someone sitting inside trips over the other person on their way to get up. Touch the person's knee, touch your chest. This is so ingrained in people that they do it without even realizing they've done it. And what's funny to me is that they don't actually appear to care that they've just run over someone, they just do it out of habit.
13) Indians seem incredibly rude. But they're not. They may push and trample you and blatantly stare and leer at you and talk shit about you to your face (they have the equivalent of a southern woman throwing in "bless her heart"...apologies to my non-southern readers), but they will also welcome you into their home with no notice or introduction and feed you and clothe you and give you their bed.
Anyway, without further ado, and in no particular order (meaning read the whole thing), I present to you a list of "the shit I wish I'd known."
1) Whatever you think the weather will be, it won't. If you think it will be cold, it will be 90 degrees. If you think it will be hot, it will be in the 50s. India thrives on defying your expectations. Weather is just one of many ways.
2) The clothing you would take to travel pretty much anywhere else is completely useless in India. I wear jeans all of the time, so I took them to India. They became stretched out in a matter of minutes and never returned to normal size. I took long shorts, thinking surely knee length would be conservative enough in hot weather. Wrong. I even had a few sleeveless shirts, though not tank tops. Good enough, right? Nuh uh. The less white skin on display, the better. Now when I go there, if I could get my hands on a burqa I would wear it. Though young women are beginning to wear more and more western clothes (and more and more revealing clothes), a good rule of thumb is to dress two or three times more conservatively than they are. It just makes life easier. Nothing that shows any amount of leg, short sleeves are mostly ok, and never ever anything that showcases your chest or butt even just a little.
3) Your shoes will be destroyed; don't wear anything you actually like. See next point:
4) India is hella dusty. Unlike anything I've ever seen before. I've been behind trucks carrying a load of dirt that's just blowing right off the back and still never seen as much dust and dirt as there is in India. And there is trash all over the ground and people spit, pee and poop right where you're walking. Your feet will be permanently dirty. Black dirty. You won't even recognize your feet at the end of the day. And whatever shoes you were wearing will be the same way. You have to leave your shoes at the door anyway, so who cares how cheap and ugly they are? I have twice now thrown shoes in the trash after wearing them in India. It's just easier.
5) Poverty is in your face. This isn't a Sally Struthers infomercial. This is walking down the street outside an expensive American chain store and passing a family living beside the road in a tent constructed of tattered cloth collected from the garbage with their clearly malnourished naked two year old playing in the dirt and the wife washing clothes in the gutter. It will break your heart into a million little pieces. And it will break your heart even more when you realize you have become accustomed to seeing them and hardly react anymore.
6) Indians are kinda racist. And extremely classist. All that caste stuff you learn about in school and think surely they don't think like that anymore? Yeah they still think like that. And are very open about it. And many of them (that I've been exposed to at least) see nothing wrong with it. The common reaction is shock, followed by disbelief, culminating in a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Though like with the stages of grief, each individual is different.
7) They will stare. A lot. Some in such a creepy way your skin will crawl. No, there's nothing you can do about it. They don't seem to notice if you shoot them dirty looks (even though they're staring and can't possibly have missed it). Yelling at them just makes you look like more of a freak. Walking away doesn't matter because there will only be others to stare at you. The quicker you get used to it, the less frustrating your day to day life will be.
8) They are incredibly pushy and impatient...but also incredibly slow. The best recent example I can give of this is when we arrived at the Cochin airport from Sri Lanka. Once through immigration, we had to go through one more metal detector. Everyone ran to be first, pushing and shoving, elbows flying. It's the crush of Times Square on New Year's Eve, but in this case everyone really is willing to take you out if it means getting even one spot ahead. But once each person fought their way to the front of the line, they stopped. Putting their bags on the belt took eons. They would pause in front of the detector and gaze around. Walk through at a snail's pace. But once through, it was back to the frantic pushing and shoving because they needed to get their bag off the belt before you for no particular reason. Everything is like that.
9) Showers are rare. A proper physical shower is even more rare. Showering over the toilet or taking a bucket bath are the most common options. I can clearly remember my first bucket bath...walking into the room to find a giant bucket with what resembled a two cup plastic measuring cup inside. (Rough guide: fill the big bucket with water, use the small one to pour it over you. I have no tips for you, as I still really suck at doing this.) If you're lucky enough to have a shower head, don't forget to use the weird rubber thing hopefully found in the corner of the bathroom to sweep the water toward the drain when you're done.
10) Do NOT, under any circumstances, drink the water. This is possibly the most important thing I can tell you. It's also something most people probably already know, but here's the dirty secret you probably don't know: don't drink the bottled water, either. People collect the plastic bottles from the trash, refill them with tap water, and sell them again. They're even so crafty as to glue the seal back together, making it nearly impossible to tell if its been broken. This is most likely how I spent two weeks sick as a dog on my first visit. Boil your water. I don't care if you have to use one of those things people have in dorms for making Ramen. I don't care if you have to bring that thing with you from the U.S. Just find a way. Keep it at a full boil for at least one minute. I boil a big pot of water in the evening, let it cool overnight, and fill bottles in the morning.
11) You are not going to hear all the formal niceties you do in the U.S. One of my first questions for hubby was how to say "please" and "thank you" in Hindi. He told me there are no words for that. I've learned there actually are words for that, but I've only seen foreigners use them. To me, those words are a huge part of respectful interaction. In India, they're irrelevant. If you use them and the person doesn't react in any way, don't worry. They did hear you, they just don't know what to do with it. My father-in-law finally explained to me that there is no need to say these things because they are happy to give you everything you need and expect nothing in return.
12) Touch the feet. I knew people touched the feet of their elders. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it happened. I didn't realize how much you have to do it, even to people you don't know. It's a show of respect meaning, essentially, you are like the dirt on their feet. Sexy right? I'd seen my husband touch his grandfather's feet but he never touched his aunt's. Apparently, that's just him being childish. You touch everyone's feet, unless they're younger than you or inferior to you in some way (see the previous statement about class). The foot-touching also has a more casual aspect that may actually be more important (especially if you're just traveling and not in the midst of Indian family). When you bump into someone, "oh sorry" or "excuse me" is not gonna roll. You don't have to actually touch their feet. But reach in that general direction with your right hand and then touch it to your chest. I see this most often on trains, when someone sitting inside trips over the other person on their way to get up. Touch the person's knee, touch your chest. This is so ingrained in people that they do it without even realizing they've done it. And what's funny to me is that they don't actually appear to care that they've just run over someone, they just do it out of habit.
13) Indians seem incredibly rude. But they're not. They may push and trample you and blatantly stare and leer at you and talk shit about you to your face (they have the equivalent of a southern woman throwing in "bless her heart"...apologies to my non-southern readers), but they will also welcome you into their home with no notice or introduction and feed you and clothe you and give you their bed.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Gujaratis Go To Gujarat
I did not realize I never finished writing about my most recent trip to India.
My bad.
The last few days of our trip were spent in Gujarat, specifically the village of Khambhat where my mother-in-law grew up.
Her family gathers there every January for the kite festival.
My understanding is that this festival marks the days in the Hindu calendar that winter begins turning into summer, known as Makar Sankranti or Uttarayan. At least, this is what Google tells me. As usual, none of the family could actually tell me what it was all about.
I do realize that there are plenty of American/southern/Christian things that I can't even begin to explain why we do them or how they started or what they mean. I'm just saying being on the other side of that is freakin' annoying.
What I found the most interesting about the whole "winter turning into summer" thing is that it takes place every year...on January 14. When the east coast is really sinking into the coldest weather, India is celebrating the turn to summer. Wonderful. Not at all jealous.
Everything is closed on that day, everyone is off work, and everyone is outside flying a kite. It is an incredible sight to behold.
Photos really don't do it justice. Kites way way way up in the sky are really hard to photograph!
The string used on the kites is sharp, and the goal is to cut down other kites without yours getting cut. When one of the little cousins asked if I wanted to go with them to chase the falling kites, my response of "Heelllll no! I've read The Kite Runner!" was received with confusion and blank stares. So I'm guessing they haven't read The Kite Runner...
At night, there's fireworks. Unlike in the U.S., where only certain people can set off fireworks in certain places, in India anyone can set off fireworks anywhere they choose, even if that place is in the middle of a busy road. On this night, fireworks were being set off on rooftops all around us. It was both beautiful and overwhelming, as you never knew from which direction the next display was going to come. When they exploded from the roof right next door it was just plain scary.
The days were spent wandering around Khambhat, which I have decided is the dustiest city ever in the whole entire world. Not a single patch of anything but dust anywhere. Not even dirt, just dust. And it blew all over the place. Even with a scarf tied over my mouth and nose, I'm not sure it did any good. If it did, I shudder to think how much dust I would've inhaled without it.
My favorite photo from Khambhat, and possibly the entire trip:
Even though both sides of hubby's family is from Gujarat, this was my first trip to the state and my first real exposure to many things.
For example, my mother-in-law makes Gujarati food, but she also makes food from many other parts of the country. While in Gujarat, we ate only foods from Gujarat. All the foods there seem to be sweet. Or deep fried. Or sweet and deep fried. Nothing should ever be sweet and deep fried. Except fried ice cream. And churros. And doughnuts. Or funnel cake. Mmmm...funnel cake...
Wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, my now completely irrelevant complaint about the fried sweet stuff. Whatever, after eating nothing but doughnuts for three days you'd be tired of it too.
All in all I survived the family reunion with very few scrapes and bruises. My mother-in-law's family is mostly very loud, but that was fine because they weren't concerned with giving me a hard time about not knowing the language yet. A few of her siblings or in-laws are quiet and chill. I really got along with those few. None of them spoke English.
In spite of ten people using one little shower (which couldn't really be called a shower since we had to take bucket baths), and everyone sleeping on mattresses piled haphazardly on the floor, they made it work. And in spite of my reservations about this portion of the trip, I had a lot of fun.
When we left for the airport, there was no drama. No crying or inappropriate grabbing from my mother-in-law (in fact, she didn't even come to the airport, and she was completely calm when we left her). No feet dragging from my husband, sad to be leaving again. Everyone seemed completely satisfied. My husband was relieved to "finally be heading home," as he said, and I was relieved to hear him refer to DC as home instead of India.
My bad.
The last few days of our trip were spent in Gujarat, specifically the village of Khambhat where my mother-in-law grew up.
Her family gathers there every January for the kite festival.
My understanding is that this festival marks the days in the Hindu calendar that winter begins turning into summer, known as Makar Sankranti or Uttarayan. At least, this is what Google tells me. As usual, none of the family could actually tell me what it was all about.
I do realize that there are plenty of American/southern/Christian things that I can't even begin to explain why we do them or how they started or what they mean. I'm just saying being on the other side of that is freakin' annoying.
What I found the most interesting about the whole "winter turning into summer" thing is that it takes place every year...on January 14. When the east coast is really sinking into the coldest weather, India is celebrating the turn to summer. Wonderful. Not at all jealous.
Everything is closed on that day, everyone is off work, and everyone is outside flying a kite. It is an incredible sight to behold.
 |
| Lookit all those kites! |
 |
| See all the people! |
The string used on the kites is sharp, and the goal is to cut down other kites without yours getting cut. When one of the little cousins asked if I wanted to go with them to chase the falling kites, my response of "Heelllll no! I've read The Kite Runner!" was received with confusion and blank stares. So I'm guessing they haven't read The Kite Runner...
At night, there's fireworks. Unlike in the U.S., where only certain people can set off fireworks in certain places, in India anyone can set off fireworks anywhere they choose, even if that place is in the middle of a busy road. On this night, fireworks were being set off on rooftops all around us. It was both beautiful and overwhelming, as you never knew from which direction the next display was going to come. When they exploded from the roof right next door it was just plain scary.
The days were spent wandering around Khambhat, which I have decided is the dustiest city ever in the whole entire world. Not a single patch of anything but dust anywhere. Not even dirt, just dust. And it blew all over the place. Even with a scarf tied over my mouth and nose, I'm not sure it did any good. If it did, I shudder to think how much dust I would've inhaled without it.
My favorite photo from Khambhat, and possibly the entire trip:
 |
| It's a goat. Wearing a sweater. Eating a kite. |
For example, my mother-in-law makes Gujarati food, but she also makes food from many other parts of the country. While in Gujarat, we ate only foods from Gujarat. All the foods there seem to be sweet. Or deep fried. Or sweet and deep fried. Nothing should ever be sweet and deep fried. Except fried ice cream. And churros. And doughnuts. Or funnel cake. Mmmm...funnel cake...
Wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, my now completely irrelevant complaint about the fried sweet stuff. Whatever, after eating nothing but doughnuts for three days you'd be tired of it too.
All in all I survived the family reunion with very few scrapes and bruises. My mother-in-law's family is mostly very loud, but that was fine because they weren't concerned with giving me a hard time about not knowing the language yet. A few of her siblings or in-laws are quiet and chill. I really got along with those few. None of them spoke English.
In spite of ten people using one little shower (which couldn't really be called a shower since we had to take bucket baths), and everyone sleeping on mattresses piled haphazardly on the floor, they made it work. And in spite of my reservations about this portion of the trip, I had a lot of fun.
When we left for the airport, there was no drama. No crying or inappropriate grabbing from my mother-in-law (in fact, she didn't even come to the airport, and she was completely calm when we left her). No feet dragging from my husband, sad to be leaving again. Everyone seemed completely satisfied. My husband was relieved to "finally be heading home," as he said, and I was relieved to hear him refer to DC as home instead of India.
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