the best day yet

Today was heaven. Well, heaven if you're a weirdo like me.

Today I traveled to a village just outside Pune (my first village! woot!) to visit an organization called Manavya. The in-laws were in tow, as this was just not something I could do on my own. For one, because no way in hell can I drive a car here, and two, they seriously would never let me handle something like this by myself. Anyway, having them with me added its own dynamic of entertainment.

Manavya was created as a shelter for children with HIV/AIDS. There is very little awareness about HIV, and even fewer opportunities for treatment, so children contract the virus from their mothers. Because of the stigma attached to the disease, those who are afflicted are shunned by their communities and often cast from their homes. When children are orphaned by AIDS, relatives do not want to care for a sick child. They are afraid they will get sick too. That is how children come to live at Manavya Gokul.

In the beginning, there was no money for treatment, so the shelter was simply a place where children could get food, shelter, education, and enjoy the few years they had to live. Now the shelter has a guardian angel, so to speak, who sees to it that antiretroviral drugs are available to the children for life. Manavya still provides food, shelter and education, but now they also provide job training and prepare the children to re-enter society once they reach adulthood.

For someone like me, who dreams of working with populations that have no voice of their own and giving them opportunities they would not traditionally have, visiting Manavya was like letting a 5 year old loose in a candy store.

For my in-laws, who secretly wish I were an engineer or lawyer, it was more like being stabbed in the eye.

Not only do I want to give my time for free when I could be earning money or relaxing around the house all day, but I want to schlep out to a village full of poor people and spend my time with children who are sick? Clearly, something is wrong with me.

On the way home, my mother-in-law asked what type of job I think this experience will help me get when I return home. When I explained that this is exactly the kind of work I want to do (ok, not specifically HIV, but I think you can get the gist), she just looked at me blankly. You would think I had just said I wanted to join the circus. Of course, she also asked what HIV is, at which point I lost complete control over my facial expressions, so I guess the whole concept is still very very new to her. My father-in-law at least seems to have resigned himself to the situation, although he does think that if I want to work at an NGO here I should work for a friend of his at the equivalent of a Hospice. So there is still a ways to go there as well. 

Gori Girls

On the front page of today's Pune Times (a newspaper that, unless pieces of it go missing before I get ahold of it, is concerned solely with the entertainment industry) was an article about Bollywood's obsession with goris (white girls). The article talked about how directors are casting white women from other countries in their movies, often in the role of an Indian character. The tone of the article was generally that this practice should be ended because there are plenty of talented Indian actresses who can actually speak Hindi and for the most part are better actors than some of the white women too.

But the part that caught my attention was the photos of the so called gori girls who are suddenly stealing all the film roles. I would not have known they were white if the article had not told me so. So...Bollywood is obsessed with white women who have long black hair and darker skin than the average white girl? They're importing Indian lookalikes basically.

In India, the lighter the skin the better. Skin whitening creams (even skin whitening deodorant) are advertised on tv here like anti-aging products in the U.S. The cream of the Bollywood crop are all fair skinned (see Aishwarya Rai). I have yet to see a fair skinned Indian doing any manual labor or looking in any way impoverished (though bear in mind that my experience is extremely limited). So it makes sense that directors would look for actresses with extremely fair skin, even if it means casting non-Indians. If they really want to see fair skin they should just hire me, but whatever.

This article on its own is only mildly fascinating. But I have recently (ok, yesterday) discovered that there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of blogs written by white women married to Indian men. They're women from many different countries, some live with their husbands in India, some couples live in the woman's home country, some live together in a third country, and some live apart while dealing with the visa process. But they are all white women with Indian  men. I have not found a single blog, article, shred of internet proof of a white man married to an Indian woman, except in the case of Indian women born and raised in the U.S. or other countries, and in that situation the woman is just as much a foreigner in India as the man.

I know there could be many reasons for this. Perhaps women are more prone to blog than men, or white people more likely to blog than Indians. Maybe these Indian men just happen to be drawn to women who feel the need to share their lives and relationships via cyberspace. Or maybe finding themselves in a multi-cultural relationship inspired these women to share their stories in case others are going through the same thing and looking for guidance or commiseration (I have proven that this happens, how else would I know about all these blogs?).

Regardless of the reasons behind the blog phenomenon, the emphasis on fair skin being more beautiful and the increase in intercultural relationships among Indians begs the question: why did my in-laws not think their son hit the jackpot? No, I'm kidding. Is the Indian man/white woman dynamic just a part of greater globalization and Indians are marrying all kinds of people from all countries that they never would have had the opportunity to meet not so long ago? Or is it a result of seeing all their lives that fair skin is preferred and so they are attracted to the fairest skin they can find (i.e. white people)?

Because the majority of India is still so poor and it is only a very small percentage who have any opportunity to travel abroad (and of those only an even smaller percentage ends up in an intercultural marriage I'm sure), I suppose there is no real risk to the culture at this point. But it would be interesting to know how the situation has evolved many generations down the line. Will India become like the U.S., where distinct cultures used to exist but now it's all just a big ol' muddled mess? 

Looks like the honeymoon period is over...

I was going along just fine, starting to get into a routine, and BAM! Sick as a dog. Being sick is no fun ever. But when you're far from home (and far from your hubby) it sucks big time. Luckily I brought antibiotics from home and it seems to have done the trick.

I was a little confused, though, as to why I fell sick. I was being so careful, eating all home cooked foods, boiling my water, etc. etc. I eat Indian food all the time so that shouldn't be the problem right? Well, as hubby pointed out last night, while I may eat Indian food very frequently, it is largely made with ingredients from the U.S. The rice and lentils we use come from India, but we don't eat that every day. And our veggies are all American grown. So eating Indian food at home in DC and eating Indian food in India are two drastically different things. This had somehow never occurred to me.

So even though I'm being a good girl and eating all my mother-in-law's cooking, I'm still taking in an insane amount of bacteria and things that my body is just not accustomed to. I have no idea how long it takes to adjust to this. Everyone I know of that has actually moved to India has been lucky enough to never have any problems. I guess the lesson being if your stomach can't handle a visit, don't consider living there.

But I have to consider one day living here because it's my husbands home and he thinks it's the greatest place on earth for children. It's his Disney World. So I guess the only thing to do is give it my best shot and pray I don't have to be medivaced out of here. And assume that if the only way I can be in India is on a constant stream of antibiotics, living here permanently will be taken off the table. It will probably take a lot more visits and a lot more illness to reach that point though.

Dinner guests

There's one thing I learned on my first visit to India and I just had a refresher course:

People will come by your house on a moments notice. Or sometimes without notice at all, they'll just show up.

And everyone (and I mean every single person you encounter) will invite you to come to their house, wherever it may be. There were 700 people at our Indian wedding and I promise you about 90% of them invited us to their house for dinner. They will never follow up with you and make a plan as to when. They will just say "you must come to our house" and then you will never see or hear from these people again.

I've been here 5 days and already I've been invited to Khambhat, Manipal, and Jaipur. While all would be fun adventures, none are likely to happen.

Even though Khambhat is Mama's hometown (homevillage?) and one of her sisters still lives there, it would require God only knows what methods of transportation and how long a journey. And it would require planning. Not this family's strong suit. At all. Not even close. I'm not even sure they know what it means.

Manipal is where two of hubby's cousins are at university. Except one is already done and back in Mumbai. And the other is taking exams and immediately heading back to the U.S. to take her oath as a new U.S. citizen (which I'm missing and completely bummed about). So I would travel to Manipal...why? Just for kicks? I'm not against that, I'm just checking.

Tonight's dinner guests are from Jaipur. I use the term "guests" lightly, as they only called to invite themselves one hour before showing up at the house. My father-in-law's school friend's brother-in-law and his family. You follow that? I only know one of my dad's childhood friends and none of my mom's. I sure as hell don't know their in-laws and have them over for dinner. This is how 700 people ended up at our wedding. But I digress.

So here in Pune, you apparently have to be prepared at any given time for guests to show up unexpectedly. The door is always open to visitors. Literally. It's like a contest to see who can keep the screen door open the longest and/or let in the most bugs. If you get above 100 mosquitoes or get a lizard, you win the prize.

A typical day?

Up at 5:30am and off to the gym with my mother-in-law. With no breakfast. And it's summer. And the gym of course has no A/C (nowhere does). Fun times. I do believe I'll trade running for swimming while I'm here. 

Oddly enough, in a country where people literally trip over themselves because they're so busy staring at me, no one in the gym gave me a second look. In the U.S., the gym is the place where you're most likely to be stared at, and here it seems to be the opposite. Go figure. 

After the gym, it was back home (at the terribly late hour of...7:20) to cook breakfast and lunch for my father-in-law to take with him to work. Although we cook all this food so early, no one sits down to eat until well after 10am. I've been up for 5 hours. I should be on my second meal of the day, not the first. And yet they complain if I look too skinny. Well how about not starving me then?

I quick Hindi lesson with my father-in-law: मैं हिंदी सीख रही हूँ ...that's I'm learning Hindi, bitches (ok without the bitches part), and today is सोमवार, somvar, Monday.

Then it's time to clean, because the maid is not here today (darn her! just when I was getting used to it too). Cleaning takes literally five seconds. I thought the maid was just cutting corners when I'd see her literally just smack the furniture with a rag. Apparently that is dusting. I understand now why there's a shelf in the bathroom that looks like it hasn't been dusted since the house was built. It probably hasn't. And wouldn't you know that's where someone stuck my toothpaste on the first day. It is now being squeezed in the most ridiculous way because I'm afraid to touch the side that lies on the shelf. But moving on. Brooms in India are fun. Someone somewhere along the way said "how can I take a broom and make it appealing to lazy people?" and thus the object I've always known as a broom was born. Now take that broom, remove the pole, and squat to swing the bristles sideways across the floor. Voila, you have sweeping in India. No wonder yoga is such a big deal, you have to be flexible just to clean your house!

Once the cleaning is done it's time for...nothing!? Papa goes off to work and Mama goes to take a nap. There is nothing more to do until time to prepare dinner, which generally happens at around 8pm. Hey, here's an idea! Why don't we do something wild and sleep in until 8, do all the cooking and cleaning and then go to the gym. I betcha we wouldn't need naps! Of course once the maid comes back there will be no cleaning to do. And the tiny old man that does odd jobs around the house also runs to the market for whatever food we need, so there doesn't seem to be any errands to run either. Friggin A! 

In order to fill the time and stave off the mental rot such boredom brings, I contacted a bunch of NGOs about volunteering. Most of those who bothered to respond (i.e. are organized) have a formal volunteering process that takes place months before you actually want to begin work. I had only a matter of days between deciding to come to India and actually getting on the plane. I'm pretty sure if I just turned up at a soup kitchen in DC and offered to help out, no one would say "nah we're good." They would take all the help they could get. So why does it seem to be so hard to find someone to accept free labor here? 

I had one organization that I was supposed to call once I was settled in Pune. My father-in-law wanted to know about them so I had all the information laying out on the table. I go in to clean the dishes and before I know it, he comes into the kitchen saying he has called them and arranged everything. 

Umm say what? 

Oh yes. He took it upon himself to talk to people about me volunteering with their organization. I could understand if no one at the organization spoke English (although somewhere like that I'm guessing would not take on someone who only speaks English anyway...) or if he knew the people personally, but he did not know these people and I had already emailed back and forth with them. I had already spoken to them directly and now all of the sudden I need a mediator? 

In the U.S. I would be written off immediately if someone else, especially a parent, contacted a job prospect on my behalf. Clearly (hopefully) things don't work that way here. I guess we will see on Thursday when I (and Papa) go to meet with them. It's those differences that are the biggest adjustment. Yeah the food is different, I have to carry water with me everywhere I go, I can't communicate with most people, it's hot and dirty, yeah whatever. No biggie. But here I'm treated like I can't or shouldn't do anything for myself and growing up I was treated like no one else would ever do anything for me. My tongue may fall off from biting back all my feminine pride.

One gripe

I will say this: the water in India sucks. Now, I live on top of a swamp and I don’t even make my cat drink water out of the tap without filtering it first. But this…this is a whole new level.

I thought I’d be more eco-friendly this time around and just boil lots of water at home rather than buying bottled water every day. It takes care of all the bacteria and whatnot but man, that is still some nasty tasting stuff. My husband used to talk about how great the water was at home, how it had a kind of sweet taste to it. I know now either he must be delusional or the water does not come from the same source it used to.

Back to the point of boiling the water: a heads up for those of you less traveled, the water in developing countries is not safe to drink. If you’re hanging out in Paris, yeah you’re probably good. Sleeping in a hut in a village in the middle of nowhere and the only source of water is a mile away? You will definitely regret taking a sip of that. If you survive.

So on the last visit, I “played it safe” and drank only bottled water. Which isn’t always safe because lots of people just refill empty bottles, glue the lid back on so you think the seal hasn’t been broken, and sell it to unsuspecting tourists who will then be glued to their toilet for the remainder of their visit. At some point I must have messed up, because I became one of those tourists after the first week or so. Now I clearly remember that being the most miserable experience of my life. It also was apparently no fun for my in-laws. At least, that’s the feeling I get on this visit when every day, one at a time, each family member asks me how my stomach is. Gee I’m glad I made such an impression.

I have arrived.

I expected being in India to be just as overwhelming as it was the first time. That is not the case. As I looked out the window of the plane as we circled over Mumbai, I felt the nerves dissipate to be replaced by excitement. When I stepped off the plane into the airport, the sights and smells seemed more familiar than frightening. I found myself smiling as I walked the corridors.

I fell easily into the pattern of getting stared at mercilessly while at the same time getting crazy perks. What could a white woman traveling alone possibly be bringing into the country? Go right past the long line at customs without so much as a glance at my passport much less my luggage. Nevermind the customs officer staring at me like he could eat me for dinner.

The only moment of butterflies I experienced was stepping out of the airport into a sea of unfamiliar faces. But my in-laws spotted me immediately and all was calm again. I was met with just as much happiness and smiles as the first time, even though I’d left their son at home.

One of my few fears going into this was that, depending on how well I handle being here, this could either be wonderful for my relationship with my in-laws…or it could destroy it. You see, I get quite a bit of performance anxiety, for lack of a better term. Expect me to keep a conversation going with someone I don’t know well (or even sometimes with someone I do) and there will inevitably be very long awkward silences. Expect me to say something in a language I am learning (or even one I know fairly well) and I will do my best impression of a deer caught in headlights. Take me out of my comfort zone and I will fight like hell to get back in it. So you see, I figured a lot could go wrong here.

What I didn’t take into account was how easy it is to please my mother-in-law. Just the fact that I came on my own seems to have made her very happy. She offered to speak only in English and Hindi while I am here, and to write things down in both languages so I would have something to refer back to. I asked her to teach me to speak in Gujarati also and I thought she was going to bust a gut she was smiling so big and giggling so much.

Thursday brought the first rain of the season. It poured terribly for about 30 minutes, and now it is down to a nice steady rain. The rain brought with it a noticeable drop in temperature. And by “noticeable drop” I mean that it went from being so hot I could only lie as still as possible in a dark room because anything more than that would possibly give me heat stroke, to I’m dripping with sweat but can move around the house without fear of passing out.

This is good since after today I will be expected to actually do something. I reached home at about 4am here (that’s 6:30pm on Wednesday for you east coasters). I’d been traveling for 29 hours, so I slept the day away. Now, though, the real adventure begins.