Homesick

I miss my Tamils. I miss waking up to their screechy voices in the morning mixed with the din of laundry as it’s beaten against a rock. I miss my face (and bum for that matter) being slapped, pinched, and generally handled. I miss people looking in disbelief between my currently rice fattened cheeks and short hair to my college pictures in western clothes and curly locks, then generally making some comment on how this decision was a catastrophe of epic proportions that may affect my eligibility. I miss food being shoved into my mouth my some mother’s hand without my permission. I miss the intrusive (and innocent) questions about how much my father makes, when I will be married, and what my class rank was. I miss the same old conversation and the triumvirate of questions:

Stranger: “Hello. How are you?”

Me: “I am fine” (this is the only acceptable answer to that question. If you say “good”, they won’t understand. I have no idea what English teacher decided this would be the standard response, but it sure caught on.

Stranger: “Where are you from?”

Me: USA

Stranger: “Where are you going?”

Me: I am going to –fill in the blank-

Stranger: Ok. Bye. (or sometimes tata…. Don’t ask)

Note: “What is your name?” is sometimes added to these questions, but generally people know who we are before we know them.  This isn’t really as creepy as it sounds.

The tamil version of this conversation (gosh I wish I could have it recorded for you) goes something like this:

Friend (or stranger): Nallarkingala? (Are you doing well?)

Me: Nallarku. Neenga Nallarkingala? (I am well. Are you well?)

Friend: Ooooh. Nallarkarome. (

Me: awkward silence while I give high fives to their kids.

Friend: Sapetingala?* (Have you eaten?)

Me: Ippathan sapetaan or illai (I just ate or nothing)

* Side Note: This is just a question you ask. People care deeply about one another. Questions like this are good manners.

As limited as our conversation was at times, I absolutely loved it. Tamilians, especially when you are friends, can be extremely affectionate and loving. A culture book that I have been devouring recently commented on the cultural differences in Indian relationship. It said something to the effect of Indians make friendships that they expect to last a lifetime. Let’s just say that really illuminated a lot of things for Laura and I. We were sometimes confused at the expectations that seemed to come along with our friendships as well as the offers (ranging from constant dinner invitations to the memorable offer to live in their home while they arrange marriages for Laura and I).

I already know I’ll return, but in the meantime I just have to make do with phone calls to my Indian friends that follow the basic outline above and study up on Tamil.

food glorious food

Anyone close to me will understand how much I love food, so it is no surprise that I have dedicated this entire post to the subject. I can now say with very few reservations that I love Indian food. It has certainly taken some getting used to, but at long last I find myself looking forward to meals and relishing in the stinging lips that inevitably accompany our feasting.

I was initially surprised at the lack of variety in South Indian food. The different dishes can be counted on one hand. The food culture is just different. It seems like Indians do not necessarily eat for enjoyment. The minute the food comes out, it is quickly and without ceremony devoured. The idea of social eating or lingering over a meal for hours is a foreign one. Whether this is due to the scarcity that millions experience here, or something else entirely, I cannot say.

The table manners too are entirely foreign to me. Food will be served on a banana leaf. When you first sit down, you are expected to sprinkle your leaf with water and rub it all over the leaf. Is this to clean it you ask? Or maybe the purpose is to moisten the leaf for the hot food? Or could it just be habit? I’m sorry to say, I really am not sure. But when Indians do something, you do it too.

Once the food is served, you dig in. No utensils necessary, just put your fingers (right hand only please- left hand is reserved for bathroom duties) together, pick up a handful, and shovel the food into your mouth using your thumb as a kind of caterpillar tractor. The breads are eaten in pieces. Grasp a chunk with your thumb and pointer finger, and using your remaining three fingers, pull off a piece. Resist the temptation to, in a fit of frustration, use your left hand. We have standards here.

Warning. If you, like me, decide to ignore all good medical advice and drink the water, know that the cups are communal. The cups here are small and heavy steel things with a large lip, perfect for pouring. Just tilt your head ever so slightly back and pour it in. Touching your lips to a drink, even a water bottle is repulsive in the extreme. The king of faux pas, not to mention a scream to germs everywhere “infect me, I’m just dying to be ill!”

Don’t even think about licking your fingers. Instead, fold the banana leaf towards you (that means you liked the meal), pick it up and dump it in a bucket outside, next to which will be a bucket of water where you can pour some water over your hand (hand mind you, never rub your left and right hand together) and wash up.

I will now proceed to describe the cuisine…. For the full effect I will include cost.

TIFFIN (breakfast/dinner)

The day begins and ends with a meal deemed “tiffin”. This is a small meal with little variety.  Early on, our group discovered a small tiffin stand a couple blocks away with cheap delicious food. We quickly made friends with the husband and wife who run the stand and joined the crowd that normally frequent the fly-ridden place. There is no need for menus, any stall will be sure to sell these items only. (Excuse my pathetic attempt at humor. Indians love to add the word “only” most unsuitably at the end of sentences).

Dosai………………………………………………………………..............………… 5 Rs. ($ .10)

(pronounced dosa) A thin and oily legume pancake. It essentially tastes like a lightly crunchy, sour crepe. It comes in many varieties: onion, ghee (clarified butter), tomato, and egg. It is then served alongside a sampling of coconut chutney and sanbar. If you are lucky they might throw mint or tomato chutney to the mix.

Expect to eat 2 to 3

Idly………………..………………………………………….............…… 4 Rs. per piece ($ .08)

A kind of rice cake made of dal that is soaked, ground and then steamed in a circular mold. These, like dosai have a faintly sour taste that is both parts addicting and disconcerting. It is best eaten (in my less than humble opinion) with chutney.

Expect to eat 4 to 5

Chapati………………..………………………………………….........…. don’t know don’t care

Unless you like bland, whole wheat, dry and cold tortilla like bread without even a hint of salt, stay far away. I beg of you. Chapati is unleavened horridness. I occasionally feel the urge to generously give chapati another chance, but it never fails to disappoint.

Do yourself a favor, try it once, then stop.

SAPPADU (lunch)

Lunch or sappadu…………………………………………………...…… 30-40 Rs. ($ .60- .80)

Lunch is always some form of rice- in tamil it is referred to as “sappadu”. This is similar to the oft inquired question “sapetingala?” or “have you eaten?”  It is generally the free white government rice. (Let me just take a small moment to explain- just know this is dreadfully simplified. India’s caste system has been illegal for a good half a century, but the government still distributes welfare through a kind of affirmative action system based on caste. I will devote an entire post to the sheer idiocy of this kind of policy later, but for now I will leave it at that. Each family is given a card based on their caste and then receive free rice (this is available to pretty much everyone) and then other commodities like sugar, salt, and kerosene for the lower castes). It’s dry, not well-salted, and very much in need of some moisture and flavor. It is topped with rasam or sanbar.

As brief warning, rice, especially white government rice is really not one of those things you should eat every day. Your bowels will thank me later.

Rasam

Chili broth. That’s really all it is. The transparent liquid is unfortunately devoid of any salt. It graces the top. And yes, it is as disgusting as it sounds. It’s really not my favorite.

Sambar

The wealthy cousin of rasam. Take the same spices you use for rasam, thicken it up a bit, add a few paltry vegetables-tomato, fibrous okra, maybe a few cubes of potato (which will probably consist of your entire vegetable intake) and cook the heck out of them. Its definitely not fine dining, but it does the job just fine.

Curd

Curd is my personal favorite, and entirely too scarce for my liking. Curd (you know what I mean right? Yogurt/sour cream/buttermilk) can seriously be put on anything. It is generally served with more onion than curd. It is a true testament to just how spicy the food is when I say that these onions doused in curd are more cooling than the balm of Gilead.

Parotta…………………………………………………………………………… 8 Rs. ($16)

This is a little ritzier than the normal fare. Just hie on over to any hotel (don’t ask me why India decided to adopt this English word to denote ‘restaurant’) and ask for parotta. You will not be disappointed. Like most Indian breads, this is made with the complicated mixture of flour, salt, and water. It is teased into a gluteny dough, then rolled into small balls. The small round of dough is then taken and beat against an oily surface until it resembles a long play dough snake. This is then placed in a swirl and rolled out into a thin circle. This circle is fried then (by the questionable looking hands of the cook) and when complete, beaten. It loosens up into the original spiral shape, perfect for tearing off flaky and oily pieces.

Poori…………………………………………………………………. 25-30 Rs. ($.50- .60)

(pronounced booty) This name is entirely too apt. Eaten often and you will develop your very own set of ‘booty’. Poori is served in a “set” of two. It is a dough rolled out into an impossibly thin circle, then deep fried at lightning speed. It turns into this huge puff ball of goodness. Served with goorma, a glorified sanbar filled with onions and potatoes and infinitely better. Save one poori to eat with sugar. You’ll have to request it (it’s called sacare in tamil).  The poori tastes similar to thin Indian (ahem… native American) fry bread. I’m pretty sure that poori sprinkled with the flavorful and large grained sugar favored here is the closest I’ll ever get to nirvana.

Expect to eat  As our Indian friend put it when we ate poori at her house, “we don’t count here”.

Laura and I have adopted this motto as our own. We recently ate dinner with two Brits we befriended in the forsaken town of Kanakumarai. At the close of the meal, we looked up into their faces to see something I hope was awe, but was probably closer to disgust. The redhead in her adorable posh accent asked “how do you eat so much and stay thin?” We countered, “we don’t eat that much…”. The empty plates spoke for themselves however. The smiley brunette chimed in, “You eat more than the boys”. Well, deprivation is not something we neither enjoy nor condone. Just don’t expect any hollow cheeks when I return.

How do you like India?

I can’t really think of a good way to start this post. Today (well Sunday- when I started this post) I went to the Coimbatore branch (a 45 minute bus ride from our village). The trip was worth the effort. The meetings were wonderful, the branch members welcoming. The toilets, A/C and cold filtered water were an added bonus. I talked to a new senior missionary couple assigned there.  I think the poor woman approached me for some good venting. Her loaded question “How do you like India?” resulted in my appraisal thus far (usually consists of something to the effect “It’s really hot, but I’m used to the heat, well not to the humidity, I’ll be fine though.  The traffic is a little scary, but everyone is so welcoming here. The branch is wonderful”… PS this is all sincere). Her response? Well maybe it’s easier for young people to adjust. She then proceeded to tell me how difficult it is and how unprepared her and her husband were. Their area convers four languages- none of which they have the slightest knowledge of). The poor husband looked positively shell shocked.

The adjustment has been different, to be sure, but not overwhelmingly so. Sometimes I’ve had to just think about the next day to avoid panicking entirely. My introduction to India was probably the most overwhelming. After two days of travel, we arrived in Chennai. The past few days spent solely in pristine airports (with the exception of the roaches that would occasionally scurry across the spotless floors of the New Delhi airport only to be swept up by one of the many members of the “Team Housekeeping”).  The cleanliness in no way prepared me for the city.

 The few days in Chennai filled my head with false expectations for the remainder of the trip. Once we arrived in Coimbatore and Chavadi Pudur these misperceptions were quickly corrected. The record now stands as follows.

Most Indians- at least around Coimbatore- do not speak English. In fact very few do. This is not to say that there are not quite a number of people that know a handful of useful English words. It turns out that these words in order to be understood must be pronounced in an Indian accent. This usually results in what would be a comical scene if we didn’t feel so completely ridiculous. Laura and I usually start in our normal English, add an Indian accent somewhere along the way, toss in a Tamil word or two, then finally resort to ridiculous charades. 

Indian food is spicy. Not just spicy, but burn my eyes, make my nose run, permanently damage my taste buds spicy. I am not sure how easy it will be to adjust.  I’m trying, but in the meantime, I will relish in the nutella we dearly purchase and daily ration.

Despite every instinct to the contrary, buses coming full speed towards you actually do see you and are not going to hit you (probably). The drivers seem to instinctively know exactly how many times to honk and exactly how fast they can go to get you to speed up and avoid hitting you. 

And other impressions proved completely accurate:

Laura recently read me this statement from her travel book “The only real rule in traffic? Fill every possible space”. This usually means buses coming full speed at each other waiting for the other to back down while motorcycles weave in and out through nonexistent space. During my first bus ride, I stuck my hand out of the window only to have it viciously pulled back in by the woman sitting next to me who then scolded me in rapid Tamil.

The sleeping has been another matter. The power generally turns off around nine in the evening at which point Laura and I will stumble around in the dark trying to move the sundry items that have collected on our bed (I use the term bed loosely- it consists of a grass mat covered with a thin throw on the cement floor). We blunder around with trepidation, weighing the benefits of sleeping on a clean mat with the fear of our fingers touching one of our resident roaches. Once we finally fall asleep (that intermittent purgatory between waking and sleeping can range anywhere from 10 seconds to four long hours) we often wake up, sticky and covered with a plethora of new mosquito bites. It’s hard to feel like the sleeping beauty I am when I am awakened not by a prince’s lips, but a mosquito’s bloody kiss of death. The children at the Ashram are growing increasing concerned by the scabs that cover my arms and feet. I’m kind of an idiot and often refuse to put bug repellant. The smell can’t be worse than my sweat, but I can’t bring myself to do it. In the dead of the night I often regret this obviously idiotic stubbornness when I am constantly accosted by the buzzing of tiny wings in my ears. I first shoo them with my hands, then finally, my temper long lost resort to slapping my own face with the hope of killing just one of the pests. It’s only a matter of time before I show up to Ashram with a fat black eye of my own making.

Laura realized to her bitter disappointment, that most people think she’s Indian. People often turn to her in frustration and ask her to translate when they fail to understand my broken Tamil. This means that I’m often the sole recipient of blatant staring (it’s not rude at all here to stare) unless we are in the company of the three very white boys in our group. The fact that I recently cut my hair in a pixie probably doesn’t help. I too late realized that many little girls and a few adults sport a similar hairstyle to my own because of a wicked bout with lice. I have however grown rather accustomed to the stares and it rarely perturbs me.

P.S. To the family and friends that are reading this, my post was not intended to evoke feelings of pity. I love every (well almost every) minute in this place. My confessions are meant to be honest and amusing (humor is a must to maintain my daily sanity). 

Welcome to India

I have been in India for nearly three weeks (yes this is my first blog post). I am staying in a small village called Chavadi Purdur. It is located in the state of Tamil Nadu an hour outside of the city of Coimbatore (nearly bordering the state of Kerala.... I'll post a map later). Just to give some context, I am interning at Shanti Ashram, a Gandhian organization and researching prenatal healthcare. I am thankfully not alone. Four BYU students are with me, Laura (I say hallelujah everyday that I am not the only girl), Steve, Josh, and Nate. To make the scattered post that will follow somewhat intelligible I will give a brief overview of my journey thus far. I arrived in New Delhi at the end of April. I then flew to Chennai (or Madras- the capital of Tamil Nadu) where I met up with my group. We stayed there for two days. We were taken care of by the most amazing Indian family (also Mormon), Joshua (the father), Mercy (the mother), Zibiah and Solomon. We then took a ten hour train ride to the city of Coimbatore. We stayed there for a day or so then continued on the final destination of Chavadi Purdur where I will be living until August. 

Annotated Source

Narayan, Pushpa. 2011. Birth rate is on upward swing in Tamil Nadu. Times of India. February 23. <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-02-23/chennai/28626425_1_fertility-rate-contraceptive-pills-tamil-nadu>


Tamil Nadu, one of the richer states in India with one of the lowest birthrates has recently taken a reverse trend. Sterilization procedures have dropped 19.3% since 2003. Public healthcare experts are concerned. 

Less than a month

As class wind down, papers abound, and finals approach I find myself more and more just thinking about India. I have been looking forward to May for so long, but now that the end is in sight I feel like it is entirely too soon. It's been a year of big changes for me, my first year of going to college and being away from my family has been difficult. I was hesitant at first to go to India because I was certain I would not be able to handle being away from my family for that long. However, with reassurance from my parents and buddies from field studies, I decided to go ahead. I am so glad that I did. I was devastated to hear that the field studies program is being eliminated. I am so grateful I was able to participate their last year. It is an amazing program. The loss will be sorely felt.

I prepare for yet another huge change, but this time more prepared. I may be in a foreign country that speaks a language I can barely understand, but I have learned so much from Venkat. I may not be able to speak to my family very often, but I can always pray to my Heavenly Father. I will not have many people I know, but I am so grateful for our great little India group. I am nervous to go, but I know I am prepared and will face my challenges with optimism and faith.

Hinduism