The alleyways of New Delhi

This whole week I’ve been going to some of SPYM’s program sites in order to get a better feel for the vast amount of work the organization does. On this particular day, it was planned that I was going to work on some things in the office in the morning and head out to visit a homeless shelter after lunch. And this morning like every other morning and afternoon, there’s chai time. There’s nothing like chai interrupting you doing your work :) 

The morning came and went with random tasks to get done and soon it was lunch time. SPYM is an organization unlike one I’ve seen before. They provide three meals a day to their staff. Usually though the staff just eat lunch there and eat at home for breakfast and dinner. Today’s menu was palak paneer, rice and dal....yum! 

After lunch, I came back to the office and waited for one of the staff to bring me to the homeless shelter. In true Indian fashion, after a little over an hour it was decided who was going to bring me and then we decided to leave. 

Side note: I should mention that yes, Indian time is not exactly American time, but my organization is currently short-staffed so everyone is running around doing the job of two people. So I can completely understand people being late because they’ve been tied up with other things going on. When I’ve asked some staff how they like working for the organization though, they keep saying how happy they are to have a job, especially in the social services. It just goes to show you that money doesn’t buy happiness!

It was a little after 3pm and the shelter was about 40 minutes away. I think it was safe to say that I definitely wasn’t finishing work at 5pm. Once we got on the road, we had to make a detour to drop off some paperwork to a training center near by. A half hour later we were back on the road and ready to head to the homeless shelter. After getting lost a few times and getting caught up in the New Delhi rush hour traffic, we finally found the right area. The homeless shelter ended up being in a neighborhood where the only way to get to it was to drive through an alleyway, the width of a driveway. So we drove through motorcycles coming at us, guys pushing carts of flowers and fruit, kids playing in the roads....classic India. I only wish I had captured the moment on my camera! We had finally made it. 

This is one of those times when the journey outweighs the end. And this is one of the reasons why I decided to come to India. Sure every so often I get frustrated by the auto rickshaw drivers trying to rip you off or the different pace of time, but after learning to take it in as part of the journey, I’ve started to actually enjoy it! It’s part of India’s culture and I wouldn’t want to ever change that. 

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.

And so the journey begins...

It all began when I purchased my $1,600 plane ticket.....ouch! I keep thinking of all the debt I could possibly be in after this trip. But then I realize something. When am I ever going to be able to have the freedom to do it after college? It's a perfect time now to be able to see another world, another culture. More importantly though, I'll be able to grow as a person...and you can't put a price on that.

So on August 25, 2008 at 4:35pm, I will be boarding a plane to Mumbai, India. At first I couldn't believe that I was actually doing it. It was like a cloud in the sky. A dream that was just a dream. And I was standing on the ground with no way up to the cloud. To be honest, I don't think that it will actually hit me that I really am going to India until I board that plane. Who knows, maybe it won't even hit me until I smell the new smells and see the new sites in India.

I've always known that I wanted to study abroad in college. For me, I knew that it would be much harder to travel around the world if I waited til after college, so college was the time to do it. Professor Stracke's sociology class really opened me up to different cultures. He opened me up to so much and I am forever thankful. I've always been interested trying new things and going new places. But at the time, I thought new places meant going out to Colorado or something. But India? Why not! And when I want to study abroad, I want to go all the way. Throw myself out of my comfort bubble and travel to a completely different culture. Turn me upside down, twirl me and let me experience something I have never seen before. I won't know until next fall if ripping myself out of my comfort zone was the best thing for me, but we'll see. You never know until you try it, right?

The independence factor will definitely be interesting. Until high school, I was so unbelievably shy and wouldn't do anything without someone else there with me. In high school though, I had to stand up for myself due to some learning disability issues. I needed to stick up for myself and make sure that I got the education that I deserved. That was when I slowly started to break out of my shell and become who I am today. Today for me, it's always nice to have someone else there with me experiencing the same things that I am, but it's surely not necessary. Having people around me makes me feel more comfortable in that environment, but also being able to experience things on my own is great. I have come so far from being that shy girl in middle school.

So here I am, being thrown out of my comfort zone and into a new culture. No safety nets included on this one. So thanks for reading this and listening to my experiences in India. It's going to be a very interesting journey come August 25th.