Men Are Evil. Men Are Evil.

            Several women guest lecturers have applauded the fact that our group has thirty girls and only five guys because when they were in school it was the opposite ratio. One speaker who helps to run women’s empowerment group for rural women even stereotyped all men as incompetent, power-hungry people who waste all money on women and alcohol. In fact, their group sponsors microloans and they only give them to women because the men don’t pay them back and spend the money on women and alcohol. This portrayal bothered me, but during the next couple of days I saw a few things that proved it true. I think we men need to shape up.

            However, men still have a lot of power in Indian society and there are cultural restrictions on the women. I can pretty much do whatever I want here, but that’s not the case for the girls in our group. They are expected to be back at their homestays by 8:30 or 9, so no staying out late, and some parents want the girls to always let them know where they are. They girls in our group cannot wear shorts, tight-fitting clothes, or expose their shoulders in public, and so the first few days here there was a lot of shopping for light pants, long skirts, and light, long sleeved shirts.

All Better!

     I'm healthy again! I was back to normal by Saturday afternoon, thanks to three days of antibiotics. Some other members of the group are also having stomach problems, but nobody else has been lucky enough to get the fever/stomach combo that I did.
     Of course, this morning I hit my hand on the low-ceiling fan in my hotel room and wound up with a great slice across my knuckle. I just can't quite stay healthy anymore here. This also brings up another point about India, which is size.
     I'm just too big for India. My feet almost always stick off the end of beds and I seem to hit my head on everything in this country, such as doorways, bus tops, roofs of the tiny cars, and low-hanging things in hallways. I still haven't seen anybody taller than me and I usually tower a good head above everybody else in a crowd except Tom from the group, who's about an inch shorter than me. Apparently one of the faculty members saw a group of Indian guys who were taller than me, but I haven't seen anything for myself yet. 

Sick

         I finally got sick. I came down with a fever Tuesday morning and went home to rest. I slept most of the day, but felt pretty awful at night. Yesterday morning I felt a lot better, but I don’t think I’m quite in the clear yet. I didn’t go to class in order to rest. On Saturday, we’re leaving as a group for a five-day visit to rural India and then our week-long vacation starts when we get back, so I want to be well rested and healthy for those. I haven’t had access to a thermometer, but my mom said that whenever I have a fever that reaches 102 and above I throw up, so since I didn’t throw up the fever probably wasn’t that bad. I can’t pinpoint how I got sick because it feels like pretty anything I touch, eat, or breathe in India could make me sick.

            Yesterday I also started having diarrhea and stomach pains, so today I came to class to see the doctor. He put me on antibiotics, advil, and tums for three days and diagnosed me with a bacterial infection, probably from some bad food. I’ve been resting and sleeping the whole day and hopefully the antibiotics will start working soon.

Homestays

           We’ve all been in homestays for about a week and a half now after a week in a hotel. At first, it felt very strange for the group to be separated after three weeks together 24/7, but it’s nice now for everybody to get some space. I live with two other guys, Tom and Mateo, in a house with our host dad (Ashok), 24 year old host brother (Vignesh, or Vicky as he usually goes by), and their 2.5 year old German shepherd (Max). We have a 30 year old host sister (I don’t know her name), but she lives with her husband in Scotland. Whereas most dogs play with dog toys, Max plays with coconuts. He’s never happier than when he has a coconut in his mouth and someone is chasing him. The house is huge by traditional Indian standards. One floor tall, it has a living room, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a large kitchen,, and two small storage/laundry rooms at the front and back of the house. The house is also surrounded on two sides by a yard with many types of fruit trees.

            Sadly, our host dad’s wife passed away four years ago from ALS, and it sounds like a very difficult time for the family. We also don’t see too much of our host brother because he always has to work. He’s usually at his office from 9 am until 10 or 11 at night and he’s had to work most of the past few weekends too. He’s only had the job for five months now and since he’s new they treat him like a slave. Our host dad really doesn’t like the way he’s treated there, but can’t say anything otherwise they’ll take it out on his son. Luckily, today is Vicky’s birthday so he finally took a day off.

            The homestay situations vary pretty widely in the group. Students are all in pairs, except my homestay, and some students are with elderly people who barely speak English, some are with families with young children, and some are with families with children our age. Some students live close to where we take classes, but others, like us, live pretty far away. Our house is located in a suburb on the southwestern edge of Chennai. We have a commute every weekday to and from classes of about an hour. We get dropped off at the train station, take the train for about fifty minutes, and then take an auto-rickshaw to the hotel where we have classes.

            It’s a little far, but the train is really the best way for us to commute. Traffic can get horribly congested in Chennai and if you’re not in a car with windows and air conditioning all of the car exhaust can get to you. I really dislike taking the auto-rickshaws long distances because of that. The train also allows us to get more of a bird’s eye view of the city. We all just can’t believe how big it is. It just sprawls and never seems to end. Farther away from the center of the city there are also massive construction projects popping up all over the place. Some of these office buildings are the largest that I’ve ever seen, they’re mind boggling. We do get a lot of looks on the train, though. Most white people don’t join the regular commuters on the train.  

            Overall, we’re really happy with our homestay. Having a dog again is wonderful, I miss my dog, and he always want to play with us.   

Indian Food

            South Indian food is very different from the North Indian food I’m used to eating at home. I like it, but I’m really sick of white rice and I’m craving meat, pretty badly. I’ve had meat a few times, but you need to find a Sikh or Muslim restaurant and even then the quality can be questionable.

A normal meal consists of three courses: the first course is rice, chapatti, or dosa with some type of gravy dish and sambar, the second course consists of rice with rassam, and the third course is usually rice with curd, a type of homemade yogurt. When we first got here nobody in the group had any idea of the proper order to eat the food in, so we just ate it all together and found ourselves laughed at by the hotel staff. It was probably like mixing pasta, a hamburger, and ice cream together in one dish. Most South Indians are also Hindu and thus keep vegetarian, which leaves me with a lot of rice and not a lot of protein. Lentils are pretty prevalent in the diet, but it’s just not the same as a piece of chicken. North India grows a lot of wheat, which leads to more breads in the diet, while the South grows mostly rice. I love the curd because it provides protein and good bacteria for digestion.

            My stomach has taken a couple of hits, but it hasn’t been as bad as I was expecting going into the trip and I can usually recover pretty quickly too. Some of the other kids haven’t been so lucky, though.

            American fast food is also really popular here, especially KFC and McDonald’s. Apparently most Indians swear by KFC. Just for the hell of it, three of us went into KFC and McDonald’s two days ago. We were really surprised by how nice they were. They were clean, busy, and relatively “hip.” Fast food also has a reputation in the US for less than ideal standards of hygiene, but these kitchens were probably the cleanest that I’ve seen in India. At KFC we ordered some popcorn chicken and at McDonald’s we ordered a McAloo Tikki and the Chicken Maharaja Mac. If we closed our eyes, we could almost feel like we were home. All were pretty good, but the Chicken Maharaja Mac had something in it that we could only imagine had been a chicken at one point because chicken was in the name.

India pt. 1

     India is a total mind f**k. Everything about messes with my head. I love it and hate it at the same time. It's hot, dirty, smelly, and chaotic, but at the same time there's something wonderful in all of it. Maybe it's the complete strangeness compared to everything I'm used to. This is my first time in a developing country and it takes some getting used to. Other students who have spent time in developing countries feel pretty at home here, but students who are new to it have had a hard time adjusting to some of the conditions. When we first got to the hotel we were a little surprised at the worn condition of the rooms, but after our first day exploring the city we came back and said "this place is comparatively very clean, cool, and quiet. It feels like five stars!"
     India really is a land of diversity and disparity. Tons of new buildings are going up in Chennai and a brand new, massive shopping mall just opened near our hotel that is filled with Western brands, such as Converse, Levi's, etc. At the same time, walking around these buildings at night you have to watch your step in order not to step on the many people who sleep there on the street under blankets. We've only been in the city, but I cannot believe how big India is and how diverse it is. There are some 21 national languages and around 1600 dialects spoken around the country! Terrain, food, living conditions...they all change vastly in different regions.
      I also can't get past how inexpensive everything is here! You can easily eat a meal for $3-5 and clothes cost a portion of what they do in the US. To travel we usually take auto-rickshaws for around a dollar. For a while, I had a hard time haggling over the equivalent of ten or twenty US cents with these auto-rick drivers since it seemed like such an inconsequential amount and I own things that cost more than they make in two years. That also brings up driving in Chennai. Indian drivers are the best I have ever seen because it's a wonder they don't crash every other second. I would never drive here and crossing the street is an adventure in itself. Most traffic laws seem like recommendations rather than actual rules. 
     I really do love the food here. It's all so good. Most of the food is vegetarian, but we've found some meat as well, such as the delicious goat curry I ate last night. I thought I would be hungry here, but I'm constantly full, there's a bunch of food around and the hotel we're in right now loves to stuff us. Also, amazingly, my stomach has managed to hold its own against the barrage of spices! I thought I would be downing the Immodium by now, but I haven't needed it yet.

Pictures will hopefully come soon depending on the internet situation!

Sorry for the delay!

     Sorry that I haven't been able to post anything for about a week now! Internet has been very hard to come by in India. We safely made it to India at about 2 am local time on Sunday morning after a very long day of flying to London and then from London to Chennai. We've been in a hotel for the past six days and we move into our host families this weekend. Hopefully the families will have internet I can use, but otherwise I'm working on getting a portable broadband USB port to get online.