Well, the time has arrived to leave my volunteer assignment and Bhubaneswar.  I’ve been in India nearly four months, which is surreal.  Culture shock is behind me.  I developed a daily routine of going to work, cooking dinner, and chatting with my roommate in the evening.  I made some friendships at work, and became part of the office.  All of which proves to me that I’m a creature of habit, craving routine and creating it even in a foreign environment.  That said, I still have moments, probably every few days, when something happens that makes me say, “Holy ---!  I’m in India!”  Little Debbie Siegel from Long Island is living in India.  Wacky.

This might be a slightly masochistic tendency, but noticing the comfort of my routine is a signal that it’s time to move on to new experiences, shake things up.  I tend to forget that change is hard, and vow each time before embarking on something new that when I’m in the thick of it -- feeling frustrated, lonely, tired -- I’ll remember that it will pass and get easier.  One thing I’ve definitely learned is that those feelings will come, so at least I’m not surprised when it happens.

The original plan was to go straight home when my assignment was over.  But somehow it just doesn’t feel like my time in India’s complete yet.  Besides, I have no clue where I want to live or what kind of job to get when I return to the US.  I’m already all the way over here, and how often in life does a person get a chunk of free time with no commitments at home?  The hardest part is missing my family.  I’m so lucky; they’ve been so supportive of this trip and my decision to extend my time a bit. 

My final act in Bhubaneswar was to send home some stuff.  (Long story short, rather than leave a suitcase somewhere and have to deal with picking it up later, I sent a couple of boxes home.)  This was my first time sending a parcel home (or sending anything -- I have yet to write a single postcard, sorry!), so I don’t know if my experience was typical, but I’m guessing it was.  Every parcel sent domestically or internationally has to be wrapped in white cloth to be accepted by the post office, why I have no idea.  So, naturally there’s a guy who provides this service who has set up shop just outside the post office.  He cut the cloth, hand-sewed the seams (!), and then another guy sealed every seam with wax.  It took an hour (outside in the heat) to wrap three boxes, two large and one small.  Total cost: 220 rupees, about $5.  The sheer number of people in India makes manual labor cheap and plentiful.  But it isn’t exactly efficient. 

So I’m headed to the northwestern part of India, with towns in the Himalayas that stay cool and provide escape from the crushing heat.  Tonight I fly to Delhi and meet up with my friend Anna; on Friday we’re taking the train up to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple.  On Sunday Anna heads back to Delhi, and then I’m on my own.  My first stop is Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile.  I’ve signed up for a couple of meditation courses, so if I stick to my plan I’ll be there for about three weeks.  Staying in one place for a while vs. moving around every couple of days seems like a good way to ease into traveling on my own.  At least I hope so.  It's high season in Dharamsala (since it's cooler than in the plains), and I expect that there will be lots of other foreigners.  (In fact, I’m sure of it, since many guest houses were full when I booked a room last week.)

Here we go!

My volunteer assignment has come to an end, so it’s time to say goodbye to Bhubaneswar.  I had a rough beginning, but overall it’s been a positive experience.  I’ve especially enjoyed getting to know my colleagues Sabita, Tanushree, Bharati, Nihar, Pushpa, and Bijay.  I’m not so sure, though, that my work has made much of an impact.  Mostly I did heavy editing of reports and wrote copy for a new brochure and the annual report.  The editing was pretty satisfying, since I think having a native English speaker fix the grammar and usage errors makes a huge difference in how documents read, and therefore how they’re perceived.  (At least I think so.)  I arrived at an exceptionally busy time at my NGO, so when I handed in drafts of documents I’d edited or written, feedback was slow in coming or non-existent.  I did get the opportunity to edit the NGO’s website content, which will definitely come to fruition when their new website goes live quite soon.  Overall, I think I got more out of being a volunteer than the organization got out of hosting me.

Beyond the work, I do think I made an impact as an ambassador of sorts.  Most people in the office have never met an American or a Jew before, so I now constitute their entire experience of both groups.  One co-worker told me he was struck by my humility, respect for cultural norms/behaving appropriately, and that I don’t talk super loudly. 

The custom in the office when anyone leaves is to gather the whole staff in a room, sit in a circle, have some food, and whoever wants to say something about or to the person chimes in when the mood strikes.  They did this for me a couple of days ago, which was a most pleasant and unexpected surprise.  Unfortunately most of the people I’ve come to know weren’t in the office that day, but my supervisor, the director of the NGO, and a couple of other people spoke, and I had an opportunity to share some of my own impressions about my experience and the organization.  And they gave me presents.  Woo hoo!

During my last six weeks in Bhubaneswar, I lived with my co-worker Tanushree.  We didn’t know each other at all when I moved in.  She made me feel welcome and at ease right away, calling the apartment “our” home and answering the zillion questions I had.  Living with an Indian woman in her late 20s was a very different experience than having a room in a hostel full of giggly 22-year old girls, most of whom spoke no English.  So even though Tanushree’s apartment was a bit far from the office, too hot, and had an Indian-style toilet, I was very happy to be there.  I got to cook my own food, Tanushree showed me parts of Bhubaneswar I hadn’t seen, and most importantly, I got to know her and formed a new friendship.

Originally I planned to go back to the US right after my assignment, but I’ve decided instead to extend my stay in India for a bit.  My time here just doesn’t feel complete yet.  More soon...

Last night Tanushree (my colleague and roommate) and I went to the home of a colleague, Bharati, to celebrate her daughter’s fourth birthday.  Bharati is lovely; we haven’t spoken a lot, but she was one of the few people from the beginning of my volunteer assignment who would say hello every morning and ask how I was doing.  I met her husband, Manas; Tanushree said he grew up in a rural village and was a rare example of a man from that background being a considerate guy and good husband.  Bharati and Manas were a “love match,” meaning their marriage wasn’t arranged.  Typically after marriage, a woman moves in with her husband and in-laws, but Bharati and Manas don’t live together; Bharati’s father died two years ago, and as the oldest child she’s now responsible for the rest of her family.  So now they (her mother, sister, and brother) live with her, and Manas is living with his parents in the village where he grew up.  They see each other at the most once a week.

Back to the party.  The invitation was for 7; we were the first to arrive at 7:30.  Indians are not a punctual bunch, and several people have asked me if Americans really value being on time like they’ve heard.  (That would be a yes.  After all, time is money.)  The birthday girl, Neha, is absolutely adorable.  She speaks Oriya (the only person in her family who speaks English is her mother), and is learning a little English now from a CD.  She serenaded me with the alphabet, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and Humpty Dumpty.  I also got to hear her renditions of traditional Oriyan folk songs, though of course I had no idea what she was saying.  Since almost no one there spoke English, most of the time I sat and watched the interactions, sipping Sprite and feeling only slightly self-conscious.  Other than two girls in their early 20s and my two colleagues, the adults totally ignored me; I suspect it was because they don’t speak English.  Now that I think about it though, I heard two men -- probably in their 30s -- speaking in English, but I think it’s just not part of the culture for a man to approach a woman (especially a foreign, unmarried woman) and strike up a conversation. 

At nine it was time to cut the cake.  Much to my surprise, Bharati asked me to help Neha cut the cake, as it would be “memorable” for her.  My mind raced with the reasons why it would be memorable: Because I’m white, I’m a foreigner, I’m a new person, everyone’s been talking about me the whole time in Oriya without my knowledge.  I quickly concluded the last one wasn’t the case; people are too wrapped up in their own lives to bother with mine.

So, I knelt down with Neha and we all sang “Happy Birthday” -- in English, despite the crowd not knowing the language.  I helped her cut the cake, and then completely unexpectedly someone shoved a piece of cake in my mouth!  I’d seen this once before, people feeding each other cake (and purposely getting it all over their faces) at birthday celebrations.  It’s one of the rare occasions when I’ve seen men and women interact.  It seems pretty intimate to feed cake to a person of the opposite sex, but I can’t figure India out.  Anyway, I grabbed the cake that didn’t make it into my mouth… with my left hand.  Yeesh.  I quickly moved it over to my right hand, hoping no one had seen my goof.  I asked Tanushree the next day, and she had in fact noticed it; she didn’t judge it, but she did notice it.  In India cake comes before dinner, so out came the food.  It was quite good, though too spicy for me, as is just about everything in India. 

Reflecting on the evening, I realized there were no other kids Neha's age there, not a one.  Kids in the US have parties with themes that cost hundreds of dollars.  (Well, some kids.)  This was on the roof of their apartment building, streamers and balloons taped to the laundry line, with plastic chairs and one bare lightbulb.  Tanushree and I chipped in for the gift, which was 200 rupees ($5) total.  People brought presents and gave them to Neha, and she said “thank you” in English when she remembered to.  The gifts weren’t emphasized, and there was no opening of them at the party.  It was so cool to see a slice of Indian life.  And it’s definitely something a tourist wouldn’t see.  Living here is often not easy, but times like this party make it worth it.

I got off the bus at Bhubaneswar this morning, left my backpack under lock and key at the train station cloak room and set off to check out some of the temples this city is famous for.  I unfortunately encountered more attempts to guilt me into donating more money to each temple I visited, but at least this time it wasn’t new to me.

One temple I did enjoy was one of the temples that lined the Bindu Sagar, a body of water (known as a tank) where the water is considered holy.   I don’t remember the name because I visited about 4 or 5 temples that afternoon and this one wasn’t listed in Lonely Planet. 

Anyways, one of the monks showed me around the humble complex by showing me how the Hindu followers prayed and where guests come to enjoy a good meal of rice, masala and some other foods I don’t know the names of, all on banana leaf.  He insisted that I try their food and it was delicious.  The monks were very kind and seemed to be really happy that I sat with them for a quick meal.  I sat on the floor to eat and for my friends who don’t know how Indians eat, I could only eat using my right hand. 

The left hand is for unclean things like toilet duties.  I myself don’t use the “hand” technique.  I prefer toilet paper thank you very much!  Especially since you don’t always find soap next to the sinks.  But I still only use my right hand to eat so that the locals don’t stare at me in disgust!

Back to the temple.  That was a pleasant visit.  And the goodness and warm fuzzy feelings lasted all the way until I stepped onto my train from Bhubaneswar to Chennai a few hours later. 

But that’s the next entry.

I just looked back through my journal, and on February 27^th I wrote that I felt nauseous for the second day in a row.  I hadn’t realized I’ve been feeling unwell for quite so long.  I’m usually a very healthy person; I can’t remember the last time I even had a cold.  And because I think of myself as impervious to illness, I ignored what my body was telling me.  Well, that and the fact that the symptoms came and went every few days; I’d have a day when I literally couldn’t eat anything and had a fever, and then the next day I was back to my normal, chipper self -- fooled into thinking that I was healthy again.

I felt like a big complainer at work, never sick enough to stay home but nauseous enough to put my head down on my desk a few times.  I got all kinds of home remedies from colleagues: from Sabita, coconut juice (in the form of a fresh coconut with the top cut off and a straw in it, presented by the office boy twice a day); from Pushpa, a creamy, milky white pudding of sorts, that tasted a bit like turnips and was I think actually made from root vegetables; from Sir (the guru at the ashram where I do yoga), a disgusting juice made from eucalyptus and other leaves; and from Sabita’s brother -- a homeopathic doctor -- two medicines, which the office boy (he’s busy) went out and got for me, and which I dutifully took without much questioning as to what they were and whether it was really a good idea (see previous blog entry about judgment suspension in India).

A few people told me to go to a doctor, but the stubborn, I can do it myself, I never get sick Debbie wouldn’t do it.  Finally my volunteer program officer, Will, gave me a bit of a talking to and insisted that I get myself checked out.  (Thanks, Will.  You were right.)  So I called International SOS, a medical referral service my volunteer program subscribes to.  They made an appointment for me with a doctor in Bhubaneswar, at Kalinga Hospital.  I got my courage up, went over there, and paid my $2.50 for the consultation.  The meeting with the doctor started with the basics: describing symptoms, taking blood pressure, listening to my heartbeat.  After that it got a little strange.  The doctor asked where I’m from, and proceeded to talk about how the US is the “greatest country in the world” and “the most powerful,” with a huge smile on his face.  My attempt at being deferential (“The US is a wonderful place, but it’s far from perfect” type of thing) was ignored, and round two of US is #1 started.  When he finished I didn’t have a response, so after a lull he wrote up the list of tests he wanted me to get: blood test, endoscopy, colonoscopy, chest x-ray, and more.  What?!?  I wasn’t able to do any tests since I’d eaten earlier in the day, so I went home and called International SOS.  Their opinion, based on the symptoms I described, was to get the blood test only; they called the doctor in Bhubaneswar to get the logic he used for ordering the other tests and confirmed they were unnecessary.  I’m not sure what that was all about.  Because I’m American and the doctor was trying to show that India can offer quality medical treatment?  To see the insides of a white girl?  Because I can pay for the tests?  Whatever.  No thanks.  Not gonna go there.  Nuh uh.

The blood tests results were normal, but I still felt lousy.  Then one Friday night my colleague Sabita invited me over to her apartment for dinner and to spend the night -- my first of either type of invitation in India, so I was very excited.  Dinner was delicious, and it was fascinating to see how she lives.  After lights out, the trouble started.  Let’s put it this way: Using an Indian-style toilet (read: hole in the floor) more than 10 times in one night is not fun.  In the morning it all caught up with me: Feeling nauseous, frustrated, confused as to what the hell was wrong with me, honestly a little frightened, wishing I were in my own bed -- and Sabita caught me crying.  She was so sweet, and when I thanked her for taking care of me, she wouldn’t hear of it and said it was her “duty.”  She put her arm around me and kissed my head, which was exactly what I needed. 

I called International SOS and asked for an appointment that day with a different doctor.  Take two, back at Kalinga Hospital, with a seemingly more professional doctor who didn’t seem to be the least bit interested in my being American.  He was writing up the long list of tests I should get (what is up with that?!?), and doctor #1 (whose office is right next door) came in, having gotten wind of my return.  They talked in Oriya and pointed at me.  Thrilling.  I finally got the right test (I’ll say it -- a stool test) that I should’ve gotten from the start.

Turns out I have E. coli!  Thinking back to that journal entry, I started to feel sick after I ate chicken at an outdoor festival.  No more street meat for me!  Unfortunately, it’s resistant to oral antibiotics, so I'd have to go the intravenous route.  I was already planning a weekend trip to Delhi, so I had International SOS set up a doctor’s appointment for me there.  What a difference.  A modern medical center with computerized records.  Anyway, turns out the drugs could be administered either in one day with a 16-hour iv drip, or with a single dose on five consecutive days.  Since I’d been feeling well for a solid week, I decided to go with the doctor’s recommendation: That I wait to see if my symptoms return (sometimes E. coli leaves the body on its own), and if they do, get the five intravenous doses in Bhubaneswar.  In my mind this appointment was going to put an end to this whole saga, and the “wait and see” approach had me on the verge of tears.  The doctor sweetly put her arm around me, though I noticed she didn’t say “Everything’s going to be okay” like my mother or a boyfriend would.  Though I do know everything’s going to be fine.

So now it’s a couple of days post-Delhi trip.  I’ve been taking a couple of drugs for what the doctor suspects is giardia, but so far the E. coli hasn’t reared its ugly head.  I feel back to my energetic self, and my appetite has returned.  The lessons learned: 1) No more street meat!; 2) Though I work at having a good diet and exercising regularly, I've taken my good health for granted for a long time, and have newfound appreciation for it; 3) Listen to people who care about me; and 4) I don't have to go through everything alone, and it's okay to ask for help.  I knew all of these things before (though now #1 is real vs. abstract), but the universe sent me a refresher.  Guess I needed it.  Or something.

Traveling somewhere for the first time, the intensity of the sights and sounds is magnified.  After a while, a filter develops to keep out what’s normal and allows through only things out of the ordinary.  India’s so different from what I’ve known up until now that the miniature filter I’ve begun to develop is clogged; I’m still hearing and seeing everything.  It’s making me a little jumpy. 

Some random observations on the sights and sounds in this (new for me) city:

I’m struck by how different the sounds are, both what I hear and what I don’t hear.  I still hear TVs -- and they’re still annoying.  (Hindi’s easier to tune out than English because I can’t process it, but it does sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher on steroids.)  Thank god for my ipod to drown them out.  What I haven’t heard the whole time I’ve been in India is a siren (an ever-present sound in New York City) -- fire, police, ambulance.  I certainly haven’t seen anything of the kind in Bhubaneswar.  What I do hear: Car horns, all the time.  I read somewhere that the constant horn honking in India isn’t always to warn other drivers that you’re coming, but rather to announce your presence, saying, This is the space I’m occupying.  There are no stop signs, a handful of traffic lights, and few lane demarcations, so the horns are critical.    

Sound: Wild dogs howling and yelping.  Wow.  They get each other all worked up and it goes on for a long time.  Sight: The dogs look awful.  They’re often curled up on the ground, looking listless.  I did see one man out walking a dog on a leash (as a pet), much to my surprise.  I hear the people downstairs yelling at the dogs, chasing them away from the front gate of the hostel.  I saw a puppy, dead on the street, its entrails spilling out, flies buzzing all around.  I thought, No one owns that dog, who will mourn it and clean it up?  But it was gone the next morning.

Sight: My feet, covered with mosquito bites.  Sound: I hear a lot of spitting, hacking up loogies, and belching.  It’s okay to let it rip in India.  Also lots of slurping noises while eating, made by men and women alike. 

Sound: Firecrackers at night, no idea why, not that far away, on more than one occasion.  Scared the bejeezus out of me.  Sight: Last night when I looked out the window, I saw the fireworks, and they were beautiful.  Sound: Live music outside that gradually grew louder as it got closer, until it was so loud it felt like it was in the hostel.  Out in the hallway, one of the college students explained that it was part of a wedding celebration, which I then saw pass by.  Cool. 

Absence of sound: Almost no one speaks to me.  They just stare, silently.  The few words spoken to me -- The security guard at the Citibank (!) ATM: Which country?  And Good morning, ma’am from a store clerk at 3pm.  Most of the time when English is spoken to me, I can barely understand it.  I wonder if my supervisor has noticed that I hardly look him in the eye because I’m watching his lips, trying so hard to follow what he’s saying.  Otherwise what I hear is all Hindi, all the time.  (There’s also likely some Oriya in there, but I wouldn’t know.  Ignorant American here!)

Sound: My heart thumping in my chest because people keep staring at me.  Sound: My internal voice, saying Just breathe.  Sound: Me, letting out a little chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

Sound: A cow mooing every once in a while.  Sight: The cows look terrible -- they’re skinny, and their teats look like they have long hairs growing out of them.

A frequent sight: Men peeing outdoors!  There’s no attempt to hide it, no embarrassment.  I saw it literally the first time I looked out my window at the hostel.  Just standing in front of a wall, on the side of the road, or just about anywhere.  Yes, my neighborhood is a giant toilet.  I keep saying to myself: Just observe, don't judge.  Just observe, don't judge.  Just observe, don't judge.  

Absence of sound: No construction noise!  I haven’t heard a single hammer or jackhammer in Bhubaneswar.  A sight: People removing dirt at a construction site manually, one basket at a time.  I also haven’t heard the long beeps of a truck in reverse, or the whoop whoop of someone activating a car alarm.

Sight: The beautiful colors of women’s clothing.  Sound: In Big Bazaar, the Walmart of India, a screeching, echoing male voice over a tinny loudspeaker: 50 par-cent discount, going on right now, 50 par-cent.  Sound: A bird every morning; I don’t know what it is, but it’s beautiful.  Also every morning, the singing of prayers, always by a male voice.  Sight: Boys (and occasionally men) holding hands, a social norm (of friendship) here. 

Sound: During the day, what sounds like a duck, but is actually a man on a bicycle, honking a horn.  He’s selling something, but I’m not sure what.  He also shouts what sounds like “brick,” which is how you say the Hindi word for bread.  So maybe he’s selling bread.

Sound: Intermittent scratching, coming from somewhere inside my room.  Sight: Realizing it’s a creature, something that looks like a gecko, up near the ceiling.  Sight: “Keep your city clean” signs amid what seems to me to be a city with much bigger problems, though I’m glad to see the effort.  Nearly every morning on my two-block walk to work, I see (and smell) a pile of burning trash off the side of the road.  The other day I read about the slums of Bhubaneswar; I haven’t seen them yet, but I want to, just to get the full picture of the city. 

Sight: Barefoot girls on an unpaved, rocky road -- ouch!  Children out on the street with their mother at 9:30am; shouldn’t they be in school?

Sight: The fingernails on my right hand are yellow from eating with my hand.  The last manicure I got in New York is g-o-n-e.  Sight: My dirty feet, after walking around in the office (including the kitchen and its wet floor) all day without shoes.  Sight: Flies all over the grapes at the fruit market.  Also at the market, long, gorgeous strands of yellow and orange flowers. 

You’ve heard the saying: Left-handed people are the only ones in their right minds.  That may be true in some places, but not in India.  As a lefty, I’m struggling with the whole use-only-your-right-hand-for-many-tasks thing.  C’mon, every Westerner who goes to India has to talk about the no toilet paper phenomenon.  During orientation for my volunteer program, we had a True or False quiz about Indian culture.  One quiz question was, Indians think toilet paper is unhygienic.  I actually stopped the quiz giver and said, I don’t get it.  What do you mean?  Are you asking if they think the paper itself is unhygienic, or the use of it?  (I blame my lack of oral/mental filter on jet lag, thank you.)  I was so stuck in my own way of doing things being the only way, that I literally couldn’t get my head around the question.  Turns out, the answer is True. 

So think about it: If you use your left hand and a bucket of water instead of tp, would you ever use that hand to bring food to your mouth?  Hell no!  So even though I carry tp with me everywhere, to fit in I’m attempting to eat with my right hand.  The other day I asked someone at work to give me an eating-with-your-hand lesson.  So now I get the technique, but my right hand is so useless I can’t get the message to translate from my brain to my fingers.  While I’m trying to scoop up food my fingers look like a deformed claw.  It isn’t pretty.  But I am managing to eat, and the food is delicious.  Yum.

The other day a co-worker brought in some homemade treats and offered me one.  She was standing to my left, and without thinking I reached into her Tupperware container with my left hand.  I caught myself and switched to my right hand; I’m not sure if she was reacting to what I did or to seeing me notice my mistake, but either way, I swear I saw her flinch.

There seem to be other cultural rules around when it’s okay/not okay to use the left hand, but they’re subtler.  I vaguely recall hearing at orientation that it’s better to handle money with the right hand.  But now I’m questioning everything I do: I never realized before how often I touch my face -- is it okay to rub my eyes with my left hand?  If I’m using a spoon to eat, is it okay to use my left hand?  (I think so.) 

Here’s one I don’t get: India has its own version of after-dinner mints in a restaurant, combinations of fennel or anise, sometimes with little pieces of sugar.  They’re delicious.  They’re presented in a tray with little spoons.  So do I spoon the mixture into my left hand, and then eat it with my right?  But then the food was in my left hand.  Oy, I’m so confused!  The education continues…

My volunteer assignment is in Bhubaneswar (boo-bah-NESH-wahr), the capital city of Orissa, a northeastern state.  It’s known as the temple city of India, at one time having thousands of them.  I’m about an hour west of the Bay of Bengal, across the Bay from Myanmar and Bangladesh, and about four hours south of Kolkata (aka Calcutta). 

My supervisor took me from the airport to the hostel where I’m living; he talked to the proprietors in Hindi, gave me no clue what he was talking about, and motioned me upstairs to see the room.  When I looked out the window, he’d driven away.  I didn’t know where the bathroom was, and my attempt to say “toilet” in Hindi was met with blank stares.  I literally had no idea where I was, when I was supposed to show up at work, how to reach anyone, if anyone would be coming back, where I could get food and bottled water.  I promptly burst out in tears, emotionally exhausted and going on day six with three hours of sleep.  About an hour later a woman from my office showed up, clearly having been sent to help me settle in.  She asked the proprietors to get me some fruit (peel-able, of course), crackers, and water.  She also peppered me with questions about my parents and siblings, which thankfully I'd been prepared for as part of the Indian custom of focusing on relationships, and understood it to be her way of welcoming me.  She described herself as having "chosen" not to get married.  Interesting.

By 8pm jet lag reared its ugly head and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I got ready for bed.  Five minutes later… a knock on my door; someone was here to see me.  In conservative India there’s no going downstairs in your robe, so I got dressed and talked with a co-worker who had been sent to see if I needed help going out to get food.  (Fruit and crackers can make a delicious dinner.)  Take two, back upstairs, in my pjs, bednet finally hanging properly… and another knock on my door.  Out of sheer exhaustion, more tears.  I got dressed again, went downstairs, and talked to my supervisor, who also came to check on me.

Hysterical, frustrated, annoyed (at well-intentioned people!), worn out, and wondering what the hell I was doing here, I had an Eat, Pray, Love crying-on-the-bathroom-floor-in-the-middle-of-the-night moment: This way of responding to stress can’t be good for my emotional and physical health.  Am I doomed to have this Pavlovian response for a lifetime?  There has got to be another way.  Just breathe.  So maybe this is one of the reasons I’m in India: Work on learning how to stay present and calm.  Though something tells me I’ll still be working on this one waaaaay after this trip.

Okay, so that’s not the most original title, but it’s apt.  There really are cows roaming around everywhere.  These two, for instance, are outside the gate at my office.  But India’s a study in contradictions: The cows are holy, but they go uncared for, forced to feed on garbage. 

The people in the office at my volunteer assignment are very hospitable, calling to make sure I’ve eaten dinner, bringing English language books for me to borrow, even offering to accompany me out shopping.  A lovely offer, but I need to learn to be on my own here.  And there’s another contradiction: On the one hand, such warm people, going out of the way to ensure my comfort.  On the other, when I’m out doing the shopping on my own I’ve insisted upon, I’m positive that I’m being taken advantage of, being charged higher prices because I’m a Westerner. 

Last weekend I shopped for Indian-style clothing, and the store clerks literally followed me around at close range.  Thankfully I’d learned at orientation that a) I should expect to be stared at -- I stand out, and there’s no avoiding it; and b) there’s no word for “privacy” in Hindi, and the concept doesn’t exist in Indian culture.  I didn’t feel threatened because I understood that the clerks had no idea how their proximity made me feel, but boy was it disconcerting. 

Those of you who know me well are familiar with my personal space issues -- as in, I need a lot of it.  So naturally I’ve ended up in a place where the culture doesn’t even understand the concept.  I truly believe this is an opportunity to grow, to learn how to stay calm and present.  Don’t get me wrong: I’m dreading the inevitable day I’m pinned up against a zillion people in a small space, but in a strange way I’ll welcome it when it happens.

Bina, the woman of the couple who are the proprietors of the hostel where I’m living, has knocked on my door a few times at night, come in, pulled a plastic chair up next to the bed where I’m sitting, and made herself at home.  I’ve been getting out my Hindi phrasebook, trying to make conversation, but have only ended up butchering the language and failing to get my meaning across.  I did look up the Hindi word for “funny,” which thankfully she understood and reacted to appropriately.

But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what this was about.  So I grabbed one of the college students living here and asked her to translate: Turns out, Bina just wants to visit with me.  The possibility never even dawned on me.  Relationships play such an important role in India, and they’re cultivated over time.  I was so busy trying to make conversation or interact in some way, while she was content to just be with me.  Now I understand why she was pointing at my book -- it’s okay for me to sit and read while she’s here.  I have to admit I’m finding the whole thing odd, but I’m just going with it.

And then last night the knock on the door came, but this time with a motion to go out into the hallway.  Bina had a tray of what looked like snacks.  It was 9:30 and I'd already brushed my teeth, so through hand signals I motioned no thanks.  After Bina walked away, one of the college students living in the hostel approached me.  She'd overheard my conversation with Bina, and I'd committed quite the faux pas.  Bina was offering to include me in her Puja prayers, which are performed by Hindus to pray or show respect to their chosen Gods or Goddesses, so as to seek their blessings.  The Puja is an acknowledgement of one's smallness and humility; the performance of the prayer removes Ego, which is truly the only hurdle on the path to success.  (A hearty thanks to Wikipedia.)  The student said, She offered you this honor, and you have refused her.  Smoooth.  Okay, okay, I get it already!  Be. More. Open.  And boy, talk about a humbling experience.

A brief postscript: The next day I asked one of the students to explain to Bina that we don’t have Puja in America and I didn’t mean to offend her.  She didn’t show much of a reaction, but she visited again that night so I take it all is forgiven.