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.
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).
