Rongoli all over the city

I'm loving Diwali. The actual day of Diwali was on Tuesday but celebrations have lasted all week. I didn't have my internship on Tuesday, Wed., or Thurs. so I was able to take a break from everything. Everyone's saying that the festivities were subdued because of the stock market and financial crisis, but I couldn't tell. For the past week, I've been hearing so many fireworks and been seeing so many businesses, shops and apartments decked out in lights and lanterns.



Today when I got back to my internship, the girls had done their own rongoli designs (all made out of colored powder, sand or salt) which were beautiful! Then when I went to my meeting with my professor at the college, there was a whole classroom floor filled with different rongoli designs. They even created rongoli in the form of various politicians, a Kathakali dancer (that we'll be seeing in Kerala) and other "Indian" things. Look for pictures of all this in my photo albums....click on the link to the left that "My Pictures From India".

An Indian teaching someone about life in America...hmmm, interesting

At my internship, there is a group of older children that I help teach English to. We sing songs, learn different English phrases and learn the alphabet. There is a volunteer that comes in 3x a week to help teach these children as well. This past week, I had a very interesting experience with this group.

When I walked into the room where the volunteer teacher and older children were, I saw a new face in the group. There is a new girl that is in the fifth grade. I don’t know where she came from, but I would assume that someone found her on the streets or found her wandering around. It’s so sad to hear about the condition that these children were in before they got to the orphanage. But it’s good to hear that since they are now at the orphanage, they’re being taken care of much better than before.

The new girl is actually leaving in a month or so and will be adopted by a family in the United States, specifically in Texas. I’m surprised that a girl that old is being adopted much quicker than some of the babies, but I’m so happy for her. At the same time though, I don’t know if she’s already been at the orphanage for a long time or not. The only thing I know is that she just started coming to the class here. After thinking about it though, since she’s being adopted the sisters might have thought that she needs to learn English since she’s now going to be going to the U.S. Before, she was under the impression that she would be living in India so her main language wouldn't have been English.

Since she’s being adopted and is leaving in a month or so, one of the sisters told us that she needs a crash course about America and living. Even though I’m from America, the sister wanted the volunteer teacher to teach the girl about America and our way of life. I found that kind of disappointing. The things that the volunteer teacher was teaching her was kind of outdated and wasn’t the way that the average American does things. I found it hard for me to tell the teacher differently though because she was so confident in what she was doing that I didn’t want to constantly interrupt her and tell her that that was wrong.

It was interesting to see an Indian woman trying to teach another Indian girl about the culture in the United States, when someone from the U.S. (me) was sitting right next to them. Some of the ways in which the teacher presented the culture made me think about my own culture in a different way. When they talked about using the bathroom, she said to me, “you use paper, right?”. Other things that she was teaching the girl, I could tell she picked up from television serials/shows. But a tv serial/show is something that Hollywood creates, and sometimes it does not resemble a real American lifestyle. After all of this, I keep wondering to myself why the sister wanted the volunteer teacher teaching the girl things about America when I could help her out as well. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Reflection on my internship so far

When I was doing my graduate school applications, something struck me. Throughout this entire time at my internship, I thought it was merely an internship. But when I had to reflect back on my various experiences for the essay that I had to write, I found that a lot of my thoughts went back on the orphanage and my internship there.

As someone who wants to work in the student affairs field, I will be working with students from all backgrounds and ways of life. Reading a book about the culture that they’re coming from will help, but actually experiencing their culture is something that will give me an added benefit. Even though many college students might not come from India to study in the U.S., having this experience in India and at the orphanage will help a great deal. Anywhere in the world where there is turmoil and conflict, people will always go to their families and loved ones for comfort and safety. At the orphanage, when a girl is sick or is crying, she knows that she has people around her all the time who love her and can comfort her. If a student has just started college, they might have some very difficult times ahead of them. If they’re able to find support and comfort through other students that they meet, then they will have a more enjoyable time at college. Helping students to create that sense of support and comfort is something that I plan to do in my career.

Right now, I might not know the full extent of how much this internship has changed my way of thinking or how much of a change it has made to my life. But as I begin to reflect back on this internship, I can see that it will definitely have changed me in more ways than one.

Updates from India

To start out, I just want to say that "yes, I'm alive" and "no, I don't have dengue fever"...thank god! I got my test results and xray back from the hospital, went to the doctor and she told me that I don't have dengue fever, but instead I do have sinusitis. No surprise there for me because I've had it in the past and have seasonal allergies every single year. So now I've been taking some nasal spray and antibiotics to help with all of that.

Throughout all my crazy experiences that I've had in India so far (such as learning that I was practically being kicked out of my apartment and having to find another one in a few days time), I've managed to see the glass half full. If I never changed apartments, I would never have met Blanche, the woman I'm staying with. She has been so wonderful these past few weeks and months. It'll be midnight and we find ourselves talking away about politics, different governments, various festivals, our families, corruption and yes, even Angelina Jolie. I plan to definitely stay in contact with her when I'm back in the States.

And if I had never gone to the hospital thinking that I have dengue fever, I never would have been able to have an experience at a hospital in India. Let me tell ya, they certainly do things differently here...some for the good and some not so good.

Let's see, other news....My Dad & his friend Hollis are coming to visit the last two weeks that I'm here!! I'm super excited that they're able to come. It's always so nice when you've had a great experience somewhere or have gone somewhere amazing and you're able to share in that experience with someone else that you care about. When they come in December, we're going to spend a few days in Mumbai then make our way down south for a 10 day vacation.

December 10-12 Mumbai
We'll probably go see the Gateway of India, Elephanta Caves (carvings in a cave of various forms of Shiva...a Hindu god), and shop around Bandra (a suburb in Mumbai where I'm living and where all the shops & restaurants are).

December 12-15 Chennai, Mahabalipuram & Kanchipuram
Chennai and Kanchipuram are famous for the tons of temples that they have. In Mahabalipuram/Mamallapuram, there's the world's largest relief carving, and more caves and temples.

December 15-20 Cochin, Periyar, Kumarakom, Allepey and Trivandrum
Cochin has Kathakali dancing (performers are all men and dress up in elaborate costumes with very colorful make up/masks), Chinese fishing nets and other places to visit. Periyar is where a wildlife refuge is, and has elephants, tigers and other animals. We plan to take a boat ride on the lake inside the refuge and see where the elephants bathe and where the other animals drink water. Kumarakom is where the backwaters are. They're supposed to be beautiful and similar to the Everglades. In Allepey, we're going to be living in a houseboat for a night and will be able to pass by all the little villages in the area. Trivandrum is another city, just like Cochin, and will have some other attractions as well. All throughout Kerala (the state in which all of these cities are) is famous for the Ayurvedic treatments. It is known to be where Ayurvedic treatments and philosophy began. So, of course while we're in Kerala, we'll also be having an Ayurvedic treatment (or two, or three haha) done.

After all of that, the very next day we'll be hopping on another plane and heading home to the U.S. I wish we had more time to visit all of these places, but I'm sure glad I'm at least able to do all of this. It's going to be an amazing time. These days in southern India will hopefully be "good" days in India :)

Happy Diwali!

I'm so glad that I came to India in the fall because there are sooo many festivals going on! It's so wonderful to see all these new festivals and traditions happening right before my eyes. Since India has quite a few religions, especially in Mumbai, there's bound to be quite a few festivals for all of those religions.....Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, etc. And right now is the season for Diwali. Diwali is known as the festival of lights. It's an "uplifting of spiritual darkness" and a triumph of good over evil. "On the day of Diwali, many wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks. Some North Indian business communities start their financial year on Diwali and new account books are opened on this day." (wikipedia.org) In the schools, all the children get new notebooks to write in for after Diwali. I guess you could think of it as a celebration of the new year and luck in the new year. Many people also play card games & gamble during Diwali as they hope to have new luck in this new year.

Now, for the non-historical Diwali FYI....To me, it almost looks like another Christmas because of all the strings of lights on various buildings, businesses and homes. There's also sweets baked and exchanged among friends, lavish gifts given to each other and beautiful fireworks all throughout the city. This is the time when you really get to see all the colors of India. For the past week now, I've heard so many fireworks ("crackers" or "firecrackers" as they're called here) go off all over Mumbai. Over the course of the next few days, I'll also start to see colored paper lanterns hung up on the balconies of people's houses and in their doorways. Rongoli is also a part of the Diwali celebrations. Rongoli is a beautiful design that is often found on the doorways of people's houses. It's often made with colored powder, colored lentils (beans), flowers, rice or sand.

Here's a picture of Rongoli that was done on the floor of my college in Mumbai....all made out of colored powder and is done freehand. There's also little clay pots on the outer parts of the design that are filled with oil and a wick and are lit.

Here I am, wearing a traditional Salwar suit (Salwar Kameez) and posing next to the rongoli.

I'm sure I'll be taking more pictures of the Diwali celebrations as the actual festival starts (which is on Monday), so stay tuned!

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."

Two things happened today that reminds me I am no longer in Kansas, or anywhere in the US for that matter:
1. All the rickshaw & taxi drivers in Mumbai went on strike today
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aBe7OMRlEq9Y

Thousands of people rely on rickshaws to get to work and from one place to another, so this'll be interesting to see how people manage. When I was walking to the market this afternoon, I couldn't believe how quiet it was on the streets. There was still the mild honking of cars and the crazy Mumbai drivers out on the roads, but there was almost this calm in the air. Usually, wherever there is a space on the road, a rickshaw will take it up. But since rickshaws and taxis weren't out on the roads today, there was so much space. It made the narrow roads that I usually walk on so wide today.

2. I went to the doctor's today because of the cold that I've been having, and she thinks I could possibly have dengue fever or leptospirosis....two things that you would never hear being diagnosed in the US. I'm going back tomorrow for 2000 rupees ($50 US dollars) worth of tests. So we'll see then what the diagnosis is. While I was in the waiting room to see the doctor today, I was just looking around the room and noticed a sign of all the prices for health care plans. What?! I couldn't believe my eyes! You would never have seen how much a cancer detection is (only $50!) or how much a healthy woman check-up plan is ($20). And get this, no fine print. I was just waiting to see some sort of asterisk or fine print at the very bottom saying that this is what the prices start at or something, but I never did. Out of all the countries, I would never have thought India to be one to list the prices and give them to you upfront. The US should learn from India.

On the other hand though, there are some things India can learn from the US as well....like waiting your turn. When I got to the waiting room, the nurse told me that I would go in to see the doctor after 2 patients. Okay, I thought, not bad. But you never knew when the next patient was called in because there were always people creeping into the doctor's office and sneaking ahead of everyone else in line. Then a nurse started calling numbers (where I was constantly reminded of the waiting lines at the DMV) and I then realized that I was never given a number. Apparently one of the nurses never gave the doctor my chart so I was never placed on the list of patients and in the line. Grrr. So fast forward another half hour and I finally made it into the doctor's office.

Not being in "Kansas" has opened my eyes to so many things. I was always the person to plan everything out. And I'm still that person, but now another part of me is one that accepts a change in that plan. I know that if I wouldn't be able to accept a change in my day or plan that I would never make it through this semester. So even though some moments have caused me to lose my patience or grind my teeth, I have become a better person because of it. Mumbai, thank you for that.

Skin whitening?!?!

This entire week at my internship, the girls have been studying for their midterm exams. Since mostly all of their exams are in Marathi (a language spoken in Maharashtra, the state where I'm living), I can't help them study at all....which proves to be a very boring week. After the boring week that I had at the orphanage, I was really looking forward to being with the older girls on Saturday. Usually, we'll take a walk around the orphanage, play games, dance around and just have fun. Much to my surprise though, the older girls were studying when I walked up to the cottage where the older girls were. I saw some girls sitting outside on the steps reading and studying material for one of the exams that they would have this next week. When I gave a nice big “good morning”, they told me to keep my voice down because the sister was inside. If the sister heard voices coming from the classroom or outside, she would assume that the girls were not studying. This left me in an awkward state of “what should I do now?”

Throughout the morning though, I was able to have a conversation here and there with some of the girls. I wasn’t able to have a long conversation because they were always afraid of getting punished by the sister if she found out they were studying, but it was still a conversation. I wanted to make use of my time while I was there and wanted to get to know the girls better.

One conversation that we had kept replaying in my mind for the rest of the afternoon and weekend though. When they asked me if I liked Bombay, I replied, “I love it here! There are no big department stores, big grocery stores or lines at the grocery store. Everyone buys their fruits and vegetables every day or few days rather than buying a huge cart full of food every week. I love this lifestyle that Mumbai has.” When I told them this though, they didn’t understand why I didn’t like the big stores. They wanted the big stores, big malls, etc. Even after trying to explain why I liked Mumbai’s lifestyle rather than the American one, it still got us no where. I would love to live in a world without Walmart and JCPenney, but at the same time, they crave that world.

The theme for this day and possibly the theme for my whole time in Mumbai is, we all want what we can’t have. When I watch the news every night, almost every section of commercials has an ad for a skin whitening cream.

That's right, not a skin tanning cream but a skin whitening cream. At first I thought they meant a whitening cream for their teeth or something, but nope! Many Indians do not like their skin tone and instead want a lighter skin tone. Back in the U.S. though, you will constantly see shelves and shelves of self-tanner in the store, tanning shops set up all over town, and girls around town constantly trying to change their white skin tone to a darker one.

This brings me back to the conversation that I had with the girls at Sneangelie. Since they had a lifestyle where people go to the market once a day instead of once a week, they wanted a lifestyle that would give them time to go to the market once a week instead of once a day. They didn’t like having specialty shops that only carried meats and cheeses, or vendors carts that only sold fruit. They wanted a life full of big department stores and grocery stores where they could get their milk, meat and cookies all in one place. I guess the saying is true then, the grass is greener on the other side. Who would've thought that I learned this lesson from a bunch of 13 year olds though?!

Happy Durga Puja!

Today is the 9th day of Durga Puja, which is called the Dussehra...I think. There are so many festivals and holidays here that I still get confused by all of it. Today is when people decorate their cars, bikes, rickshaws and places of work with strings of brightly colored marigolds. Tonight, they also bring the idols of goddess Durga to the sea and immerse it. Since today's a holiday, I don't have my internship (wahoo!). So I got to take some pictures of the Durga Puja festival near my apartment. Enjoy!

More goddesses....I don't know which ones they are.

On the left is Ganesh (elephant god) and then another goddess to the right of him.
You can kind of see goddess Durga in the middle. She's the one with all the arms (she's got 10). And you can also see the crowd of people making their way up the wooden stairs there to pay homage to her and to worship her.

A sighting of Indian's Simon Cowell

As the last of the monsoon rain comes pouring down on the streets of Mumbai, and as I realize how many pages of my history book I still have to read, I figured it would be the perfect time to update my blog.

The wonderful thing about India is that you never know what you’re going to be doing in an hour, a day or even in the next few minutes. Sometimes this unstructured life is not a good thing. But for the purpose of this journal entry, let’s say that it’s a wonderful thing for the moment.

At my internship today, the woman who volunteers to teach some of the older children at the nursery offered to take me to a Durga Puja festival. I knew that there was a lot of dancing with sticks involved, but that was about it. On TV, I’ve seen some of the dancing that goes on, and it is beautiful to watch. Everyone dresses up in these elaborate costumes and dresses that are made for this Hindu holiday. And with any Hindu holiday, there is bound to be idols that are meant to be worshipped. But you can only read so many guidebooks and so many newspaper articles about it, before you just want to see it for yourself. So that’s what I did.

So after my internship, the woman (who I’m blanking on her name right now) and I went to one of the Durga Puja festivals that was near the orphanage. And of course the one day that I don’t bring my camera with me, I need it. I took some pictures with my cell phone, but long story short, I can’t get pictures from my cell to the computer right now. But anyway, the Durga Puja holiday/festival….When I walked into the temple/shrine that they had set up for the holiday, my eyes went right to the beautifully painted clay idols. One thing that I will never get tired of in India is the beautiful colors that are always around. These idols, and there were about 5 of them, were painted gold, pink, orange…just gorgeous! And they were so intricate in their details. The goddess Durga, the main idol, had ten arms coming from her body, and each arm was holding a weapon of sorts.

After taking some pictures of all the idols, we made our way through the crowd and to the food. The Durga Puja holiday came from the Eastern side of India, particularly the Bengali/Calcutta side. So of course the food that they had there was food from Calcutta. We ended up just getting some chicken fried rice, but it was still pretty good. The sweets though were wicked yummy. Both of the sweets that I tried were made out of milk and sugar, and had a sponge cake kind of consistency. Just as we were finishing our sweets, this guy came up and asked me if I liked the festival. Me thinking it was a random Indian attempting to talk to an American, just brushed him off and said that it was great. Then the woman told me that he was a nationally known singer who had produced songs for a lot of Bollywood movies….what?!?! Here I was, looking stupid as ever, that I ran into a celebrity but just brushed him off.

Singer Abhijeet

Ooo and did I mention that he’s a judge on Indian Idol (the Indian version of American Idol)? Later, the woman that I went with told me that he is the one that organized this entire festival here. As he saw us eating our sweets, he asked us why we’re eating over here when there’s a huge buffet of food from Calcutta (that was free by the way). So he brought us to the buffet, pulled us past the line of a whole bunch of people and made sure we were given what we wanted. They gave us some rice, broccoli mush/stew, fried & battered leaves or eggplant (I couldn’t tell) and another type of sweet from Calcutta. I tried my very best to eat it all, but I was stuffed even from eating the chicken fried rice from earlier!

After that whole experience, I headed back to my apartment. Which is the perfect time for me to mention that on the way from the train station to my apartment, the rickshaw that I took was blasting Hindi music & American pop music....weird! I've never been in a rickshaw before that had music blasting like that. All I could do at that moment was think about the tv show, Cash Cab, and how cool it would be to have a Cash Rickshaw show here :) Anywho, so hen I got back, I put up my feet, had some tea and of course, took a little nap. When I woke up, the woman that I'm staying with, Blanche, and her friend had come back from their house shopping around Bandra. Blanche's friend is looking for houses/apartments in Mumbai, but yet it's so difficult to find a good place that's not a couple million dollars. After waking up, I wandered into the living room and had a nice conversation with them that opened my eyes to the housing market in Mumbai. From this, I learned that Mumbai is the 4th most expensive city in the entire world to live in (after NYC, London and Tokyo) and that you can't get any decent size apartment for less than 4 crores (1 crore=$250,000 US Dollars, so 4 crores is $1 milllllion dollars). It's crazy!

After talking for a little bit more, Blanche thought it was a good idea for all three of us to go to the exhibition that's in town (an arts & crafts fair with different vendors from all over India). Even though I'd already been, it sounded like a good idea to finish off the afternoon. So we made the trek to the exhibition grounds via rickshaw and started browsing all the different vendors. In the end, I managed to get out of there only having spent 800 rupees ($20 US dollars). I got some Indian jewelry, some fabric to make into a kurta (long Indian shirt) and some really cool black pants that had this gold embroidery and jewels on it.

And that ladies and gentlemen concludes my day :)

My everyday life in India

It's weird that it would ever come to this, but life in Mumbai has become somewhat normal these last couple of days. I wake up at 7:30am, take a rickshaw to the train station, take a 20 minute train ride to another part of Mumbai, then take a 20 minute bus ride to my internship. If I need milk or more tea, I simply walk a block down the road and pick it up. No need to compile a list of 20 items and wait for your day off to roll around before you can go to the store. And I'm happy to say, that tea time has also become normal. For the most part, Americans are coffee drinkers. But here, you have your tea. And I love it! I have two cups of green tea and two cups of english breakfast tea every single day. And at night, my tiffin box is delivered to my door, and dinner is served :) A tiffin box is four metal containers that have chapati (a whole wheat crepe kind of thing), rice, dal (a sauce made of lentils), some kind of meat and then some kind of veggie dish. Here's some pictures that I took to give you a better idea...



At first, I was a little bummed that I wasn't going sightseeing every weekend or any time that I had off. But then, on my train ride to the orphanage, it hit me. I'm going sightseeing every day! Every day I'm seeing something new and experiencing a new culture. For me, Mumbai is a city to experience rather than to sightsee. Every time that I shop for my pomegranates, custard apples (very yummy I might add...kind of tastes like a sweet banana) and other exotic fruit, and I bargain with the fruit stand owner, I'm experiencing Mumbai. Every time that I see hoards and hoards of people pushing themselves near the train cars in hopes that they can grab hold of the train enough to get to their destination, I'm experiencing Mumbai. Unfortunately, those memories and experiences aren't something that you can usually click with a camera. But I know for certain that those experiences and memories will be memories in my head for years to come.