On Being Famous

“Ap celebrity hai?” (Are you a celebrity?) That was the question a man asked my co-SALTer and I as we were traveling on a crowded bus to an isolated rural area. Sometimes being in India does make me feel like a celebrity. In America, I was used to anonymity. I could go out and about, walk into stores, go to events and usually get relatively little attention. But here is a different story. Walking outside brings automatic stares and attention. Once I was seated outside of a store drinking juice and there was an entire group of people standing on the road staring at me. However, adults are usually too discreet to stare openly at me in public. Children are a different story, though, especially the small ones.

People often want to take my picture, especially Indian tourists on holiday. When I was on vacation with other service workers, we were asked frequently at tourist places to take pictures with random families. I’m sure they were excited to go home and show their relatives and friends pictures of the interesting foreigners they met on their vacation. I was even asked once by a young girl at a zoo if she could take my picture. School students have asked me for my autograph and a store owner advertised a particular brand of shampoo by telling customers it was the one used by the foreign girls.

At first, it was difficult for me to understand why people are so interested in foreigners, but then again, I come from a country where immigrants from all parts of the world are relatively common. In India, many people spend their whole lives in the same area where they are born (Interestingly, moving from one part of the country to the other is referred to as migration). This is particularly true in rural areas. Foreigners are not common in most parts of India. In Ranchi, a city of 850,000 people, there are only about 100 foreigners (In the rural town where I first lived, it was 2 foreigners out of 100,000 people). So it makes sense that people are excited to meet foreigners since they are uncommon and unusual.

So I have adjusted to my life of fame. It is amusing sometimes, but mostly, it makes me feel awkward. As much as I love India, I will be happy when I come back home to the US and I can go about my business as just another face in the crowd. :)

Rural India

Like the streets, the rural areas of India were one of the first things that drew me to this country. Every time I rode a bus, train, or car through the Indian countryside, I would sit by the window transfixed, unable to unglue my eyes from the places I was passing through. Everything looked as though it came out of a national geographic magazine – miles of green rice fields, women in brightly colored sarees carrying jars of water on their heads, bullock carts, herds of cattle in the road, the mud houses of villages. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. Although I spent most of my time in India living in cities, I always felt a sense of excitement when I was able to get out into the “interior” areas.

My first assignment in rural Chhattisgarh was an eye-opening experience for me. Although I lived in a fairly large town that was only a few hours from a major city, I was still struck by the isolation. In spite of the size of the town, few goods were available. Traveling was difficult. It took 14-16 hours to reach our organization’s office in Calcutta, first a two hour bus ride to the nearest city and then a 12-14 hour train ride to Calcutta. The town only had one internet café that never worked and I used to spend my lunch hour using the internet on the school’s computer so I could check a few emails on the slow, dial-up connection. Most of our students did not have mattresses, but instead slept on charpoys, a bedframe with strips of cloth strung across it. We were supposed to teach reading to the students, but we had almost no English books. The ones we had, we only had one copy – how could we teach reading with only one copy of a book for 30-40 students? The lack of resources and opportunities in the rural areas made a big impression on me.

In so many ways, life is tougher and more difficult for people living in rural areas. Access to services is low (or nonexistent), meaning that many places lack medical services, electricity, schools, running water, and sanitation facilities. Living on a hospital campus, I didn’t have to face many of these challenges personally but I at least began to gain a little more awareness of them. When I moved to a major city, my life became much easier. I could easily travel by train, use the internet and other communication facilities, access newspapers and books, buy any kind of goods I might need, go out for entertainment, etc. But I find myself often missing the rural town where I first lived and missing the people I met there who were so resourceful, creative, and strong. I consider it a privilege to have had the experience of living my first few months in rural India because it taught me about a way of life different from anything I ever imagined.

Household Drudgery

After washing my clothes in a bucket for over a year, I have decided the one appliance I will always own is a washing machine. However, part of me is strangely grateful for the experience, although I wouldn’t necessarily want to repeat it again. :) Attempting to manage my own household gave me a small taste of what most women in the developing world experience throughout their entire lives – long days of hard, exhausting, physical labor inside their homes in tasks like cooking, washing clothes, washing dishes, hauling water, sweeping and mopping floors, etc. And keeping a household clean in India is more difficult than in the US because of the dust. Usually after we mop the floors, there is a handful of dirt in the bottom of the bucket. I’ve also gotten used to brushing layers of dust off of objects that have been sitting on my shelves.

The one good thing about all this household work is that I am physically stronger and more powerful than I have ever been in my life. This has given me an unexpected sense of confidence. I trust myself to be able to handle most types of work that need to be done. I feel a sense of pride in my strength and I have found that manual labor can be satisfying.

But I still have to confess that one of the top things I'm looking forward to after returning home to the US (besides seeing all of you of course!) is being able to do my washing by simply throwing my clothes in a machine and pushing a button. :)

The Streets of India

As I mentioned before, what first drew me to India were its streets. Seeing images of those streets doesn’t fully capture the feeling of being on them. Walking on a typical street in India is a total experience of all the senses: I see the crowds of people, the zillions of small shops, hear the sound of the traffic, smell food cooking, feel the heat, and dodge obstacles as I try to get to my destination. There’s an energy in the streets like nothing I’ve ever experienced before in my life.

When I first came, that energy terrified me. I literally did not go into town alone for the first five months I lived in India. Even in the small rural town where I first stayed (small being relative, as the size of the town was about 100,000 people), the streets were so crowded that I could barely walk down them. So much was happening all at once that it put my brain into overload. During a fifteen minute walk from the nursing school to the market, I might easily see a hundred people doing a hundred different things. The roads were full of any and every kind of vehicle, including cars, trucks, buses, cycle rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles, bullock carts, and pedestrians. It was impossible to walk on the sides of the roads, as they were taken up by parked vehicles and street vendors. So I had to walk in the road and listen carefully for the sound of a horn, which meant that a large vehicle was coming so I’d better get out of the way.

The streets in Ranchi are a bit different than the ones in the town where I first lived, but they still have the typical energy and motion that I’ve seen over and over when I’ve traveled to various parts of the country. A few months ago, I was waiting in line to use the ATM on a busy Saturday morning. Since I had a long wait, I passed the time by observing what was happening around me. The road was crammed full of cars, autorickshaws (see photo above), cycle rickshaws, and motorbikes, leading to a roar of traffic and almost constant honking. A policeman was directing traffic through the large intersection. He would come over from time to time and whack the autos with a stick if they lingered too long while picking up passengers. The stores were open for business, including the general store where I often shop. Women in beautiful glittering salwaar suits stepped over the open gutter running in front of the stores so they could make their purchases. The sun was blazing, making everyone feel hot even though it was winter season. I thoroughly enjoyed the wait. Where else would I ever be able to see such things? Images from India’s streets will always be burned into my memory. I will miss those streets with their frenzy of activity that never leaves a dull moment.

So as I prepare to go home, I wonder how I will react to our quiet, clean, orderly streets of America. Streets where I can walk for miles and only see a handful of people. Where the activities of life happen inside buildings, not on the side of the road. I’m afraid I will find our streets a little boring after the continuous overstimulation I’ve experienced the last two years here. Although they have their own beauty, I suspect that looking at our empty streets will make me long for the commotion that is part of daily life in India.

Introduction to the story...

I remember the first time I fell in love with India. It wasn’t my immediate reaction upon arriving. My first few weeks were a mix of feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and homesick. But a few weeks after coming to teach at a nursing college in rural India, the principal decided that my co-SALTer and I should take a trip with a batch of Nursing students. We went to the government hospital, water tower, and local dam. Something happened to me during that trip. Staring out the window of the rickety bus, wind blowing in my hair, watching green fields of rice, villagers on bicycles, women in brightly colored saris – I realized something I hadn’t felt before. A sense of wonder. Was I really seeing what I was seeing? I can’t count the number of times I’ve wished that everyone I loved back at home could see what my eyes were seeing. I suppose this blog is an attempt to convey some of that to all of you. What my eyes have seen, my ears have heard, and my heart has felt. It’s an attempt for me to try to put into words the experiences I’ve had and begin to share my story.

To be sure, every cross-cultural experience carries with it difficulties and challenges. My experience is no exception. But as I approach the end of my two years in this country, what sticks most to my heart is a sense of gratefulness for all I have learned. Every experience has taught me something about life, God, myself, and the world. I am so grateful for the support of both my host community and my community at home.

The thing about crossing cultures is that everyone knows that it’s challenging to enter a new culture. What most people don’t know is that it is significantly more challenging to re-enter one’s home culture at the end of the experience. Coming home again is a process that begins months before one leaves the host country and ends months after one has returned. It is a process of seeing one’s own culture in a whole new way and finding a place in it again. So over these coming months, I hope to share some memories, insights, challenges, and laughs with all of you. So read on…if you dare. :) Love to you all!