For India I’m just posting exactly what I wrote for my journal because there’s nothing else to write, so if it seems a little personal and really lengthy that’s because it is. Enjoy!
If you are looking for a nice vacation spot, I would not suggest going to India. But if you are looking for a place that will change you, horrify you, make your senses tingle, a place where you can’t believe what you see in the streets let alone on the sides of them, then India is the place to go. I’ve heard from everyone I know who have been to India before that India would change me and I never really thought about it all that much, it just went in one ear and out the other. Before arriving in India I was anxious, nervous and not sure what to expect. I wasn’t sure if I should expect to be robbed, mobbed by people, ran over by a rickshaw, or who knows what else. None of those things happened to me, in fact I was more comfortable walking around in India than I was in Brazil and South Africa. Now that India has come and gone I still don’t know exactly what I’ve seen, what I think of everything, or how it will impact me in my life. But I do know that it did impact my life very much. I was told so many things by locals and random people that when I heard some of these things in my mind I thought, that is the most amazing thing I have ever heard anyone say. In the town of Erode on a homestay we had some in depth conversations with the family we were staying with on the cultures of India and they would ask us about how things are in America. Within that hour-long conversation I learned more about India and about the people than I had throughout my whole life. In India you can see anything and anything goes. Cows roaming the streets, rickshaws weaving in and out of traffic, people sitting and laying on the sides of the streets in rags. I’ve just left India yesterday and already I miss the unique smell of the country. The two most valuable things I did was a homestay in Erode and I visited the Mother Teressa Orphanage.
I was very anxious to get off the ship in India, I had woken up early to watch us sail into the port. I walked out onto the seventh deck at 6:30 a.m., raised my hand to my face to block the sun from my eyes, took a deep breath and cringed. It was the smell of India, a smell that I have now become accustomed to. It’s a smell that can’t be described with words, it’s simply smells like India and when you breathe you can taste the smell on the taste buds in your mouth. To me this smell is beautiful and it can only be found in India. After smelling this smell for the first time I thought there’s no way I will ever get used to this. Little did I know that after spending about 2 hours in India I wouldn’t mind it at all. I proceeded to watch us pull into port. As we pulled into the port and docked a small band came up to the ship and started playing. We wouldn’t be getting off the ship for at least 2 hours due to customs and yet this band was playing. Two hours later when I got off of the ship they were still there playing. Little did I know that this would foreshadow the actions of almost every person I would meet in India. Every person I met would go out of their way to help you out, to make you feel at home. The first day I went around the city of Chennai with Laura and Anna (my roommate Ben joined us for an hour or so but had to go back to the ship for an SAS trip). We walked away from the ship and away from the five armed guards guarding it. Rickshaw drivers raced over to us saying: you want to go shopping? I take you shopping, very good price for you. You look like nice, I give you good price. We knew they were all full of it and we bargained with them. The bargaining is a lot of fun, at first they ask a ridiculous amount of money to take you to a place that’s 15 minutes away but you can get them to go down. They usually started out asking 200 rupees per person to go somewhere in the center of the city. Which is ridiculous, cause it shouldn’t cost more than 100 rupees for the whole rickshaw at most. We finally settled on a price of 50 rupees for the whole rickshaw to go to the city centre. We were very proud of ourselves for sticking to bargaining and not caving in to high prices. This particular rickshaw was a peddle rickshaw and it took us to the port gate and stopped, he told us to get out and get into this motorized rickshaw. We thought we were being kidnapped or something but we played along and got in the motorized rickshaw and he started driving. We were very confused and double checked that the price was 50 rupees to the city center. He said: I know, to me price is not important its what’s in your heart that counts. That was the first of many “that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard” sayings. He ended up driving us around all day. We were with him from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. He took us shopping. He took us to government shops (you don’t want to buy anything at these, the prices are ridiculous, but the rickshaw drivers get money for taking you there so they like to take you there, our driver would tell us, don’t buy anything here just look around then we go to a good store.) then he’d take us to some cheap shops, then we’d go to a shop that he’d want to go to to pick something up. By the end of the day he had taken us to a Hindu temple, a few different market places, a small mall, a grocery store, we had met his sister and he drove us by his house. We liked him a lot and he was very nice and when we got lunch we told him to go to his favorite restaurant and that we’d buy him lunch, he didn’t say much but he took us to a restaurant. He didn’t want to come in with us, he told us that he only ate at dinner time. We told him to at least come in with us. We ended up getting him to eat some food and we had some pretty cool conversations with him, we found out a lot about him about his life and family, about India. When we finally went back to the ship at the end of the day, he asked us for a ridiculous amount of money (which we were expecting because we originally agreed upon a 10 minute ride to the city centre but ended up spending the whole day with him). We didn’t give him as much as he wanted, we gave him about half, which he was fine with. It was still a ridiculous amount of money for a rickshaw ride (even for the whole day), but we were perfectly happy giving it to him because we had such a good time. I ended up running into this same driver on the second to last day in India, which was about 3 days later. I had just walked out of the dock gate and he came running up to me and said, “Hey Jimmy!! Where you want to go? I take you there very cheap, you very nice.” I didn’t need a rickshaw because I was walking but I was amazed that he had remembered my name. He hadn’t remembered my name exactly, but Jimmy if really freaking close.
One of the coolest things about India is the head bobble. When people agree to something you say or want to say yes to something without saying anything they bobble their head from side to side. At first it’s really confusing because it kind of seems like they’re shaking their head no, but not quite. It’s just really cool, I almost have the bobble down!
We left for Erode on the first night. We got there by train and stayed there for 2 days and one night. The trains were a lot nicer than I was expecting. We stayed in the first class sleeper cars. There was an aisle going down the car and off of the aisle to one side were rooms of four beds, on the other side of the aisle were rooms of two beds. The rooms were separated from the aisles by cloth curtains, not doors. The beds were not comfortable and the sheets they provided us contained all types of stains that I did not want to know what they were. The pillows they provide made my face break out. But it was a blast. On the train ride over there I didn’t sleep much because our trip leaders had told us that at night people liked to peak inside of your curtain and steal your bag if it’s in the open, so I was on guard all night. But all night I think maybe only one or two people had looked into my curtain, but only for a few seconds and when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I found out why, with all the curtains closed you can’t tell which room is yours. We arrived in Erode and went to the houses where we would be staying. 20 people went to the house that I was going to and I was amazed when we got there. Their house was huge, and it was on a farm. I was expecting it to be a little shanty house. But it was very nice. We later found out that this is a very wealthy family who is the main family of the village. There is too much to say about this homestay, I could probably write a book on this alone. But we walked around their farm, a few of us attempted to climb one of the coconut trees, they gave us some coconuts to drink. They fed us like none other. The food they made was without a doubt the best food I have ever eaten. The food was so good I didn’t even notice that for the two days I was there that I had had strictly vegetarian food. I didn’t notice and I didn’t care! We ate one meal on the floor on this leaf, which was good. We talked to the family a bunch, we asked them tons of questions about their culture, family, and anything else we could dream up and they did the same. I found it extremely interesting how close the families in their culture are. Everyone knows their second cousins, third cousins, aunts, uncles, and other extended family really well and they always hang out. That was our main topic of conversation and we talked about this for probably an hour if not longer. This family also makes the best tea I’ve ever had and they told us how to make it and I got the ingredients so when I get back to the states I’m making some bad-ass tea. They served us tea and coffee in semester at sea mugs, we found out that they have been doing this homestay with SAS for 17 years and they’ve collected 32 mugs from students that gave them to them as gifts. By the end of this homestay we had visited 4 or 5 different schools, one of which was a disabled kids school and they performed some skits for us and in return we performed the hokey pokey. One of the schools was also one of the best private schools in India and it was a very nice school and all the kids pretty much spoke perfect English. We had also visited a sugar cane plantation, a few places where they hand make rugs, a few hindu temples. One of which had a real live elephant in it, which I got blessed by. This homestay exceeded my expectations by about 100 times. It was awesome. Also, when we were driving to one of the schools we got knicked by another bus, we pulled off to the side of the road and the other bus kept on driving. It didn’t do anything to the bus though it had just made a really loud THWACK. On our train ride back we had an interesting experience, we got on the second class instead of first class and the classes don’t connect inside of the train so we sat in some empty beds in the second class sleeper cars until the next stop (1 hour away, the whole train ride is 8 hours). Then at the stop we had to run out and run up to the first class sleepers, which ended up being about 20 cars down instead of 1 train car down like they told us. While we ran we ran into them unloading cargo from the train and just tons of people in our way; which made things very difficult. It was fun. Then we got settled.
The Mother Teresa Orphanage was just insane. I went over there with Anna and Teddy to volunteer for a few hours. I was not expecting it to be how it was. 95% of the kids at that orphanage were either physically challenged or mentally challenged or both. The nuns showed us around and they were telling us about the orphanage and they took us into this room that just had a line of mats on the ground and on these mats were about 7 kids just laying on them. They ranged in age from about 5 to 7 years old They weren’t moving, they had flies flying around them and on them. They were the most malnourished kids I had ever seen, it brings new meaning to the saying, you’re all bones. The nun told us to go sit down next to a kid, she said that these kids just need to be nurtured and to be paid attention to for once. I went and sat down next to a kid, next to me was this lady that worked their with a kid, she mainly spoke Tamil but she spoke some very broken English. She told me to pick the kid up and to put him in my lap, I hesitated because he wasn’t moving and I didn’t want to hurt him. She saw my hesitation and concern so she picked him up for me and laid him in my lap (he was probably 5 years old). She told me that his name was Samoyo and to just talk to him. I said hi to him and asked him how he was, I knew he couldn’t understand me let alone respond. I held him and just talked to him. As I talked to him I stroked his face and arm to let him know that I was there. I did this for about an hour. As I was doing this I found out from the lady next to me that the Samoyo stopped eating food 3 days ago, he wouldn’t eat any food and they could only get him to drink water. On this note she handed me a cup of water with a spoon in it, I took it and starred at her. She pointed to Samoyo and I took it that she wanted me to give him water. So I gave him water spoonful by spoonful until the water was gone. Everytime I put the spoon up to his face he would open up his mouth and as I poured the water into his mouth he would stick his tongue out to meet and embrace the water. The lady that was next to me got up and told me to come with her, so I gently put Samoyo back onto the mat and left the room. She told me to take this other kid that was in a wheelchair for a walk outside. So I grabbed the girls wheelchair and wheeled her outside and we slowly did laps around the orphanage. We stopped in the shade for a little bit with Anna and Teddy who had also been taking a few kids for walks. The kids we had taken outside had big smiles on their face and they were just taking in the scenery. We would talk to them, we didn’t talk much to each other though, I don’t think we quite knew what to say to each other, we just looked at each other. But this other kid from the orphanage came out and played with us while we were sitting down. From what we could tell she was one of the few completely normal kids. She was very happy, and we had seen her earlier in the day but this was the first interaction with her. She was probably 10 years old or so. She didn’t really speak any English, she knew how to say hi and ask how are you, but that was all. But it’s amazing how much can be said without being able to talk to each other. She played these games with us while we were sitting down and we would get her to laugh and she would get us to laugh and it was a great time. After we had gone back inside this other kid came up to me, it was hard to tell how old he was but I’d say about 4 years old. I wasn’t sure exactly what his condition was but he was walking on his knees and his legs were folded up towards his back. His arms were very very short and unproportional with the rest of his body. Half of his nose wasn’t there and one of his main teeth was right below his nose, kind of outside of his mouth but kind of not. But he came up to me and started speaking Tamil, he didn’t speak any English at all. I didn’t know what he wanted so I bent down to get closer to him and shrugged my shoulders and he walked a few steps and looked back at me so I gathered that he wanted me to follow him, so I followed him. He took me to a little toy truck that little kids like to be pushed around on. He stood next to it, looked at me and smiled. I did a little motion of putting him up onto it and he did the head bobble that means ok. So I lifted him up on the truck and I started pushing him around. I pushed him around for at least an hour on this. Every once in a while a nun or two would stop and talk to him in Tamil and one of the times they were talking and after they talked the nun came up to me and said, “I just asked him if he wanted one of us to push him around and he said no, he just wants you to push him around, not us.” I didn’t know what to think of that and I still don’t, but one of these days maybe I’ll know what to think. And that’s that. I was very glad that I went and volunteered there for a few hours. It was a good experience.
After the Mother Teresa orphanage we went out to lunch at this really good restaurant that was about a 15 minute rickshaw ride away. After we ate we decided to try and find Spencers Plaza. This is just a place that has tons of shops and it looks a lot like an American mall, except it’s a lot more confusing because the shops are not laid out in any logical order (you have to see it to know what I’m talking about) and all the shops are Indian shops. But there’s a Pizza Hut inside and stuff like that. We tried to find this just by walking around and hoping to run into it. We had asked the restaurant for directions and they told us the general area it was in so we started walking. We walked around for a while and we came to a dead end in the street so we asked two cops where it was. When we asked them they both pointed opposite directions of each other. It gave us a good laugh. We figured we were headed in the right direction after talking to them for a few minutes. We continued walking for probably 45 minutes and we still didn’t find it so we gave in and took a rickshaw. We bargained with them for a while and finally settled on a price. Our driver was crazy, he was singing all kinds of songs to us and laughing. Right after we got in the rickshaw he floored it to pull a U turn and ran his rickshaw straight into a biker. The second accident I was involved in in India. But it didn’t do anything to him, he didn’t even fall over or anything so it was all good. But we continued to Spencers and found out that we had walked right by it and not even known, and we spent the rest of the day there. I’m pretty sure every person from the ship joined us in the Plaza.
Here’s a little ditty about India that I wrote:
They told us not to give anything to beggars, to say no to them and continue on our way. They told us that if we caved and gave money to the beggars that we would be mobbed. So I obeyed. As I walked down the streets, a little girl dressed in rags came running up to me holding out her hand, she started speaking Tamil but I didn’t need to understand what she was saying to know that she wanted money. I remembered what I was told and I looked her sternly in the eyes and firmly said no and continued on my way. I came across an older lady sitting on a street corner, I got closer and realized that she did not have any fingers on her hands, as I passed she reached her hands out to me, I didn’t need to understand what she was saying to know that she wanted money. I remembered what I had been told and ignored her and walked right by her as my legs brushed up against her fingerless hands. Further down the street I came across a mother with a baby, she came up to me and got in my face, she was holding out her hand and pointing to her baby’s mouth while speaking Tamil. I didn’t need to understand what she was saying to know that she wanted money. I remembered what I had been told, I glanced at the baby then I looked into the depths of the mother’s eyes and said more prominently than ever, NO, and I continued on my way. When I saw fellow students get surrounded by beggars I laughed as if amused, but as an Archbishop once told me, “If you’re not laughing, you’re crying.” They told us to just ignore the beggars and say no and continue on our way. They made it sound so easy, they failed to mention how hard it would be to do just that. They failed to mention the lepers, crippled children and mothers with babies that would come up to you. But I remembered what I was told, I said no, I ignored them and I continued on my way. After India, many things have changed.
India may be a place where you can’t do much to help people out but if I learned anything in India it’s this: a smile bridges any language barrier and brightens anyones day. There were many times when I’d walk by or just see someone on the sidewalk and just by looking into their eyes and smile at them and their faces would instantly light up. India is an amazing place. It’s impossible to be able to describe it with any amount words, pictures, or even videos. There’s nothing like actually being there, smelling it, tasting it, experiencing it. India is the land of overly nice people. People will come up to you and just start talking to you no matter where you are or who you are. People were very interested in where I was from, why I was in India and they loved to hear about Semester At Sea. It didn’t matter where you were or who you were, someone would always start talking to you. There were times where I’d pop out of the bathroom on the train and people would start talking to me and I would end up talking to them for half an hour. When I would step off the gangway I sometimes had people come up to me and say, “Can we have a few minutes of your time to ask you some questions?” And we would talk, sometimes for just a few minutes sometimes for who knows how long.
Without a doubt India has affected me. I’ve seen things I never thought I’d see. As of right now I have no idea how any of this has affected me, that’s something that only time will tell. I think that everyone should visit India at least once in their lifetime, because it’s amazing. I absolutely loved it, I’ve been told that you either hate India or you love it. I loved it and I haven’t ran into anyone on the ship who hated it, everyone I talk to absolutely loved it. I know that I will be back to India, there is no doubt in my mind about this. I liked it way too much to never go back. I will be going back one way or another!! After all, I still need to see the Taj Mahal!!
Here are three pictures from India: One if of me and an elephant inside of a Hindu temple, one is of a rickshaw, and that’s Eric’s head sticking out from the right. The other one is after the homestay when we got on the wrong class in the train, so we’re waiting around for the next stop to get off and run up to first class.
