Luci Travels

Indianisms

lucitravels — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:23:00 GMT

There are two versions of English in India. There’s the British-English they adopted from England during the colonization, which still is taught in schools today. Some schools are taught in only English and are called English-Medium. Otherwise, English is taught in schools as a language requirement. Most Indians will know English, Hindi, their “mother tongue” language, which is their ancestral language and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with where they live, and whatever the local dialect is. There are upwards of 300 different languages in India.

These languages mesh and conform to the place that they’re spoken. English is no exception. This is the second version of English, or what most call Indian-English.

Indian-English is frustrating, yet endearing. Pronunciation-wise, Indians emphasize the syllables in the middle of the word, rather than my way of enunciating the beginning and end of the word. I found this out by my Indian friends pointing out that I didn’t, in fact, live in BANG-a-LORE, but rather in BANG-alore. I also found that no matter what I’m doing it’s probably wrong.

Word-wise, Indians have a delightful way of creating new terms. Below I have complied my favorite ones I hear most often.

With regards to commands/questions: As I said in an earlier post, there is no please. A normal way to share food would be to put your plate in someone else’s face and say, “Have,” or, “Take.” People will also bring their fingers towards their mouths and ask you, “You had your breakfast/lunch/dinner?” because they love talking about food. You then say, “Yes, I had.”

My absolute favorite command/question Indians will say is, “Come home.” This means, please visit my house sometime, but the Indian way of saying it is much sweeter and more welcoming.

When you want to leave: “I’ll go and come.” You’re free to leave anytime, but will you never come back? To alleviate the stress of not knowing whether you’ll see that person again, saying I’ll go and come means yes, I am leaving, but not permanently. You can say this in absolutely any situation. Leaving for lunch? You’ll go and come. Leaving at the end of the workday? You’ll go and come. Leaving on a ten-year voyage to Europe? You’ll go, but eventually you’ll come back. The only suitable time would be if you were about to be executed, but in most Eastern religions reincarnation is a central belief, so even then, you’ll go for a little bit, but you’ll come back, even if it’s in a different body.

To explain why things are the way that they are: “It’s like that.” This is one of the few slightly unnecessary but ever-present clarifying terms. A person will be explaining to you something that happens every day, like kids eating their lunch at school. They’ll say, “The kids go from class, then to the lunchroom, then back to class again. It’s like that.” Or, they’ll be telling you about a fact of life. “Summer is always the warmest time of year. It’s like that.” You want to smirk and say, is it? But you don’t, because that would be rude. It’s like that.

Instead of saying, “Right?” after some truth was relayed, Indians will say, “Isn’t it?”As in, isn’t it great, isn’t it true, isn’t it the best/worst darn thing you’ve ever heard? Many of my professors will say this after pretty much anything they teach us. Indians like to add in an extra oomph wherever they can.

Answering the phone after saying hello, or “hallo”: “Tell me.” This makes me laugh every time. I will call my host mom and she’ll answer, “Hallo?” I say, “Hi Asha, it’s Luci,” and she’ll say, “Ah, yes, tell me.” It’s adorable. It’s also not limited to the phone. When you walk into a room and want to talk to a person, they will sit you down and the first words out of their mouth will be, “Tell me.” Again, very unnecessary, because it’s not like you won’t tell them if they don’t demand it, but it’s something I will without question take back to the USA.

When Indians themselves are doing the telling, they will inform you as such with, “I am telling.” I kind of like it, it’s like I’m hearing a secret fact no one else can hear, but they’re telling me because I’m special. I think it’s the way they say it. They will say something like, “North Indian food is amazing,” and look right into your eyes, maybe place their hand on your arm, and say, “I am telling.” They’re not just saying it to everyone, they are telling me. Bam. Special.

To someone who’s sick, you won’t say that they are sick because that means the core of their being is sick. If they have just caught a common cold or a bug, you say, “They fell sick.” Their immune system fell down for a bit, but you can bet that it will go and come. It’s like that.

Perpetually puzzling, instead of just saying one or two, Indians will say, “One-one,”and, “Two-two.” If they’re giving you directions, they’ll say, “Go down the street one-one block and take a right. There will be two-two buildings, and right after that is where you want to go.” If you say three-three and four-four, they’ll look at you like you’re mental. It’s only one-one and two-two. Don’t ask me how, and don’t ask me why.

For directions, this isn’t necessarily a term, but a way of talking. I have found that in my daily auto rickshaw rides, they understand, “Straight-ah, right-ah, and left-ah,”more clearly than “Straight, left, and right.” It’s most likely the Indian languages fused with English, but I like the ring it has. Add in a little head bobble and some arm movements, and you’re basically Indian.

“Ha.” It means yes it Hindi, and I can’t stop saying it. At first, I thought everyone was laughing just a little bit at everything I was saying, but now I know they were just saying yes.

They use, “Only,” a lot, but it’s placed different part of the sentence. It’s either after a question, or to clarify a statement. They’ll ask, “Do you stay here, only?” aka, “Do you only live here, or somewhere else too?” Or they’ll ask, “Do you study in Bangalore, only?” They also will say, “I like chocolate ice cream, only.” It’s very definitive.

When they don’t understand you, they’ll say, “I didn’t get.” Again, there is no beating around the bush. There’s no, “Please repeat that,” or, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.” Just a slightly confused look, an awkward smile, and, “I didn’t get.”

If they don’t already guess the country, they’ll ask, “You are from?” or, “Which country?” They are always smiling, excited to find out the answer. When you say USA, they will either say, “Ah, great country,” or something about Obama. They love Obama. He’s very respectful of Indian culture and will whole-heartedly partake in Indian customs whenever he visits or meets with the leaders of India. This is a sincere thank you to Obama, for making my time here just a little bit easier.

Any female, especially a foreign female, is, “Madam.” It sounded too formal at first, but now I like it. I feel regal, unless there are 10 different shopkeepers and street beggars yelling it all at once.

“So much of.” You didn’t have so much food. You had so much of food. You don’t simply have happiness, you have so much of happiness. There aren’t so many terms India has created, but there are so much of terms India has created.

Sorry to all of my friends back home, but you’ll have to deal with my side-to-side head bobble and saying, “ha,” after everything you say for quite some time.

The Art of the Sale

lucitravels — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:22:00 GMT

There is a dance in India that is done in shops every single day. It’s the perpetual dance between the seller and the buyer, otherwise known as the ever-frustrating barter.

India, I’m on to you. Being a white, American shopper in this country for a little over three months, I’ve done this dance enough to know the steps. Maybe not enough to do it gracefully, but knowing the steps will suffice.

Craft is incredibly important to the Indian economy. There are scarves from Kashmir (Cashmere), shoes and leather goods from Rajasthan, small gold elephants, Buddhas, Shivas, and Krishnas, traditionally hand-woven clothes, embroidered kurtas and saris, and blankets upon blankets on the streets with a symphony of multi-colored jewels laid on top. Storeowners are proud of their craft, which could be from the nearby villages, imported from other parts of the country, or done right in the city they’re selling in. Regardless, they know they have something unique to India. What they also know, and the wayward foreign traveler does not, is that these items cost almost nothing to make. That’s why there are two prices in India: the Indian price, and the foreigner price. One, I won’t tell you which yet, is much, much higher than the other.

The stores in India are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Small and compact, they cram every inch of the space with “rare Indian artifacts” which the shopkeeper claims, “you won’t be able to find such craft anywhere else, I guarantee.” Walking past them, being very obviously not Indian, I might as well have strapped a gigantic dollar sign above my head. They yell out,
“Madam!”
“Madam, please, come see my store!”
“Fine leather goods, you like? (Holds up bag).”
“Where you going? Come in to my store.”
“Madam, please don’t go!”
“Germany?”
“So fair you are, scarf?”
“You are looking lovely, come into my store.”
“Madam! Madam!”

It’s like walking past a verbal firing squad. I almost fell into a stress-induced coma the first time I experienced it, and the next few times it didn’t get much easier.

For a spring break trip, my host sister Misha, my roommate Krissy, my friend Eva and I all went up north and spent time in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Agra, and Delhi. It’s known as the “Golden Triangle” that foreigners usually take when they come to India. They go to the states of Rajasthan, where Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur are to see the pink city, blue city, shop and see the temples and forts, then to Agra where they see a small unknown building called the Taj Mahal, then end their trip in Delhi where they can experience the quintessential hustle and bustle of a large Indian city.

We ended up doing most of our shopping in the beautiful Udaipur. We were all on the hunt for gifts to bring back home. Us foreigners had been in India for about two months at that point, and had been hustled by shopkeepers for all of those 60 days. We were hardened souls, not ready to take any poor treatment from the storeowners abusing our naïve western minds. We were done, d-o-n-e. Now we knew the dance.

The dance is as such: First, you find out from an Indian what the actual price of something should be. We would have Misha, who is from Bangalore and speaks Hindi, go into the shops before us and then tell us how much things were, or she would know by memory how much the item we wanted was. Then, armed with our knowledge, we would go into the store with our heads held a little bit higher. The trick when seeing something you want in a store is to not act taken with it. The worst thing you could do if you find something you like is to pick it up and hold on to it as you shop. Mistake, mistake, mistake. Then the shopkeeper knows you will buy it no matter what. You have to act completely indifferent towards it.

Second, you point at the item and say, “How much?” If it’s a kurta, which is a long shirt with slits on the side that is part of a typical Indian outfit, they will usually cost about 150-200 rupees, or about three US dollars. These kurtas will fall apart after you wash them a few times, so yes they are only worth three dollars. If you are not Indian like me, the storeowner will look at the kurta, look at you, look down and say, “1,000 rupees.”

Earlier, my western brain would do that math and say, “oh, 1,000 divided by 61 is about 16 dollars, pretty good price for a shirt!” I would pay the quoted price and be happy with my cool Indian shirt, until I went home. I would show it to Misha and she would ask me, like a dog owner would ask the dog what they did to the couch, “Luci…how much did you pay for that?” Already knowing that I probably overpaid by the tone of her voice, I would look down and quickly say, under my breath, “a…thousand.” She would either laugh or just look disappointed.

We had had that interaction enough where I knew I couldn’t let myself be fooled anymore. Frankly, I couldn’t afford it, ego-wise, and money-wise.

When the shopkeeper quotes you the ridiculous price of 1,000 rupees for a shirt that will fall apart tomorrow, you quote them back an equally ridiculous low price. “50 rupees,” you say. The shopkeeper will shake his head.
“No, no, no, no lower than 1,000. This is authentic, hand embroidered!”
“Okay,” you say, and walk out.
As soon as you turn your back, the shopkeeper will say, “Madam! Ok, ok, 800 rupees. Final offer.”
“No, 60 rupees.”
“Madam, I cannot go below 800. I cannot.”
“Fine.” You start to walk out again.
“Madam, please! Okay, 500, final offer.”
“No, 60.”
“60 too low, 450. Traditional design, very rare.”
“100.”
“400. I cannot budge. No lower than 400, not possible.”
“150.”
“No, 400.”
You walk out again.
“Madam! I am telling you, 250.”
“200.”
“Fine.”
Now everyone’s stressed out and angry, but you my friend have danced the dance and won the gold medal. The shopkeeper will grumble and groan and tell you he has no change for you if you ask for it. You pay and walk out and the shopkeeper will look at you like he’s mentally cursing you and the Indian that told you how much a kurta should cost.

This is the science. In Udaipur, we put it up to the test and ended up feeling pretty good about ourselves. Sometimes, storeowners will be blatant about the two prices. Misha and I were in a store looking at wrap skirts. She held one up and asked the storeowner how much it was. He told her 300. I held up a similar skirt and asked how much it was. He told me 400. Misha was angry, and started to yell at him in Hindi. We both walked out with nothing, although to be honest I probably would have bought the skirt anyways. Sometimes, pride makes room for vanity.

Being in a country where, just by looking at you, someone knows they can take advantage of your lack of knowledge is a blow to your self-esteem. But, it makes it all the more thrilling when you make it out alive. To live in any place big and unknown to you there’s an element of survival, and surviving Indian shopping tops my bucket list of things I did that I didn’t even know I wanted to do.

India has beautiful items for sale, but I’m ready to go back to my less stressful, fixed-price world, no matter how expensive it is. To all of the people I will give gifts to when I return, yes the gifts are pretty cheap, but the absolutely monumental effort and mental turmoil I went through to get them is worth its weight in gold.

How to Eat

lucitravels — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:20:00 GMT

During one trip to a sugar cane farm, my friends and I were treated to sweet dosas and coconut chutney for breakfast. The farmers had a huge skillet, and made probably 50 dosas for 10 people. They placed one on our banana leaf in front of us and scooped a huge pile of chutney on the side. My friend Krissy isn’t a big breakfast person, and really doesn’t like dosas. Those are the two worst things that can happen to you while eating an Indian cook’s meal, one: you’re not hungry and two: you don’t like what you’re being served. Critical mistakes.

Krissy choked down one dosa. As the man with the hot plate of food walked by to give us our second serving, she placed her hand in front of her leaf and shook it vigorously saying, “beda beda,” which means I don’t want in Kannada. He pretended he didn’t hear her and put one on her plate anyways. She gave half to me, which was great because I love dosa, and the other half to our friend sitting next to her. Critical mistake number three: having an empty plate.

Seeing her banana leaf without anything on it, he came by again and held the dosa over her leaf, taunting her. “Beda!’ she said with a higher, louder voice. “Beda! No!”

He looked at her with an overwhelming amount of sadness.

“Why?” he asked, as if she just told him she killed his dog.

“I’m not hungry,” she said, smiling, trying to be polite (mistake 4: be firm with your refusal)

“What?”

“I’m not hungry,” isn’t a real sentence. You’re either fasting, stuffed, or you can probably eat more food. The man looked at her for a while, the sadness penetrating even my heart. He looked away, into the distance of his farm. Then, he looked back quickly at the banana leaf, narrowed his target, and with a swift toss flung the dosa in front of her, bolting right after it hit the leaf.

In India, eating is everything. Three times during the day, you will sit with a stainless steel plate or banana leaf in front of you. A traditional Southern Indian meal looks like this: A double-fistful serving of rice, polished (white) or unpolished (brown), a big dollop of dhal (lentils, cumin seed, mustard seed, salt, all mixed into a gravy-like substance), a spoonful of chutney (ground spices and veggies, sometimes fruit), a small chunk of pickle (a SPICY spicy red pickle chunk), cooked veggies, and a cupful of sambar (aka dal’s identical twin but with different spices). You will smoosh all of these tasty gravies in with your rice to make it thick enough to pick up with your hand (right hand only). Using the top half of your fingers you scoop up your delicious rice ball and then push it into your mouth with your thumb. You end each meal with curd rice. It’s regular rice with a ton of curd, which is kind of like yogurt, and is literally the only thing Indians will talk about when it comes to stomach upset and digestion. Indians love their curd rice. There are a few variations of the main meal, like dosas (big ol’ savory pancakes) or idli (they look like Uncrustables but only taste like the crust part, plus a little tang) for breakfast, rotis (tortillas) for lunch and dinner, and some amazing fried street food if you’re lucky. As someone who doesn’t eat spice often, Tums has become my best friend.

The flavors of these meals are chosen with careful consideration. Ayurveda, which translates literally into the science of life, is deeply ingrained into Indian society. It’s a Vedic practice of alternative medicine that flows into every aspect of how they live with the supreme goal being balance. Eating to them is a form of preventative medicine. There are six tastes that should be in every meal to achieve this balance: sweet, sour, pungent, salty, bitter, and astringent. Their food was preserved through their colonization by the British, and is a part of their culture that makes them swell with pride. Everything is, “Good for the health,” or they’ll say, with a hand confidently in the air, “Good for digestion.” That curd rice you had? Good for digestion. The sweet lassi you drink to cool you down? Good for digestion. Rice? Digestion. Roti? Also, very easy to digest. Dhal? Plenty of lentils, good fiber for digestion. That bug that you ate on the auto rickshaw ride to dinner? Since it’s an Indian bug, it’s probably pretty good for digestion.

Should you decide you want sweets for a snack (or a meal), they are sugary enough to give you a cavity right then and there. Everyone disregards this fact and eats them anyways. I will do whatever I can to find laddoos in America.

In most Indian languages, there is no please. Everything is very command-focused. They say their sentences with a purpose and don’t have time for unimportant filler words. Instead of asking, “Would you like to have some rice?” they say, “You will have rice.” They don’t leave much room for disagreement. This gets pretty dicey at mealtimes. What makes the situation worse is the meal size. If I don’t eat three servings of rice, some chutney, sambar, pickle, popum, and three sweets at the end, I will be looked at with concern.

“Did you fall sick?” they will ask.

“Why are you not eating?”

“Did you not like?”

“Too spicy?”

Head bobble

“Have more curd, it’s good for digestion.”

I just moved from my original homestay to an internship and I’m now living at Bimba the Art Ashram in central Bangalore. I’m lucky enough to be living in a place with a restaurant attached and an amazing cook. I suffered some Delhi Belly over spring break, and my stomach couldn’t take food for a few days. My first day at the internship was first day back from spring break, and I was still reeling from North Indian street food. My new hosts told me to eat dinner at the restaurant free of charge, but I knew that I was walking into a death trap: no appetite at dinner.

The cook said hello and started to pile rice on my plate. “Wait!” I said, “I’m sorry, but my stomach isn’t well. Could I have just a little bit?”

He looked at me, directly into my eyes and soul, and said, “You will eat.”

Then he put more rice on the plate, some dhal, and some sambar.

This is India. You will eat.

My Big Fat Indian Wedding

lucitravels — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 02:49:00 GMT

There are some moments where I forget where I am. India is getting more and more normal to me and sometimes I forget I’m abroad at all. Then, there are other moments where I think, “yep, I’m in India.”

I’ve been here for almost a month now and can officially check going to an Indian wedding off my bucket list. When the girl I’m rooming with and I told our host mom, Asha, that we’d like to go to a wedding our first week here she went, “Oh sure, I go to one this weekend. You will come.”

Our first weekend in India and we were getting dressed up in saris. Mine was pink and gold and I was in Indian heaven. I felt as exotic as a Swedish person can get. My sari, tied in a way that was native to the state of Karnataka, had three parts: a blouse, which is like a cute little crop top, an ankle-length underskirt to tuck the sari into, and the lengthy fabric that is the infamous sari. Indian women have unattainably slim arms and shoulders and, well, lets just say it took a few different blouses to fit around these guns. Once I found my not-too-constricting fit, I let Asha tuck the 6-foot sari into my blush pink and modest underskirt and drape the rest of the shiny fabric over me in a complex way that I will probably never remember.

We put silver bindis on our foreheads. A bindi is the small dot or jewel men and women wear on their foreheads. I was worried about being disrespectful towards Hindus and general Indian culture, but apparently it’s not strictly a Hindu decoration. It’s more like a style statement than a religious one. I had a gold headband I put around my forehead to cram every Indian style I knew in one look, but I felt like I was over-doing it a little. Then my host sister Misha came in the room, looked at me, and told me I needed more jewelry. I put on two armfuls of bangles and pink dangly earrings. At noon, Asha, my roommate Krissy and I all piled into a car and drove into the dusty, crowded Bangalore streets.

The wedding was for our neighbor’s son. I knew the family was Brahman, which is high caste, but I had no idea what to expect. Bollywood movies fizzled away in my head as the reality of the wedding hit me. We walked into a large auditorium filled with the most color I’ve ever seen packed into one room. Women in India are always in beautiful, bright colors, but for weddings they really outdo themselves. They were in the most fantastic shades of rich magenta and dark blue along with every single color in the rainbow, walking gracefully with their intricate, embroidered details dancing across their saris. They wore necklace upon necklace and ten bangles to an arm. I’m sorry to Indian men, but they looked a little lackluster in comparison. What was an even larger contrast were the rows of cream-colored plastic lawn chairs that the sparkling saris draped over as the women sat and talked.

In fact, everyone was pretty much sitting and talking. I became very confused. Had it started yet? Is this some type of intermission? Then, Asha began introducing us to her friends. The first question Krissy and I would get was, “Where are you from?” Or, in my case, a man just came up, pointed, and asked, “Germany?” When we would say USA, each male would yell, “BARAK OBAMA!” as if they won a trivia game. Actually, people all over India do this. He visited Delhi in January over Republic Day, and it was all anyone would talk with us about for the first two weeks.

South Indian weddings are a lot of sitting down, talking, and eating. Krissy and I felt a little uncomfortable at first (we had tight blouses, tight drawstring skirts, and couldn’t really understand Indian-English), but we were welcomed into the wedding with so much warmth and excitement that the discomfort faded quickly. The wedding lasts for a minimum of three days. Yeah, you read that right. Three. Day. Minimum. What happens during these three+ days? A lot of old Indian traditions are played out upon a stage that everyone at the wedding more or less ignores, besides the camera people, bride and groom, and most of the wedding party. There they walk around a circle seven times, get blessed, get their photos taken, and participate in hundreds of other traditional ceremonial measures to ensure good karma for the years of marriage to come.

Clearly, I am very ignorant about the traditions that happen during the wedding. But, I am very knowledgeable about what happens behind the scenes. Brides normally have nine different outfit changes, each one more amazing than the next. There is SO MUCH FOOD, and that is one of the reasons to go to all three wedding days, apart from watching the beginning of everlasting love. It’s given to you on a banana leaf and they film you while you’re eating, so everyone who’s watching the wedding can watch you eat. I think the camera lingered on the only white people (me and Krissy) for a little longer than normal. Then you go upstairs and chat. There you will find close family, 100 members of their extended family, 60 of their closest friends, college friends, high school friends, grade school friends, 16 of their friend’s cousins, their neighbor’s postman, the person who cuts their hair, their aunt’s neighbor, their out-of-town friends they met once on a trip to Delhi, their friend’s grandmother’s sister’s best-friend’s neighbor, a couple they met on a train, and someone who happened to be walking outside when it began. Basically, everyone is invited.

With that mentality, they are so open and welcoming to newcomers. Krissy and I got the royal treatment as everyone wanted to take pictures with us, give us blessings, introduce us to all of their family and friends there, and tell us all about their traditions. One of the most endearing qualities Indians have is how proud they are of their traditions. One middle-aged man came up to me and asked where I was from. I told him USA and he said, “Oh, yes, BARAK OBAMA!” Then asked me what my opinion on the nuclear deal was. When I pretended to not understand him, he started talking about the turmeric powder marks on my face, given to me by some of the lovely wedding party, and the toe rings that the brides wear. He looked at me sternly and said, “The most important thing you need to know about Indian customs is: Everything has a REASON!” and shot his finger triumphantly up in the air.

As Krissy and I were trying to leave, three teenage girls asked to take our picture. Being white is like being a mini-celebrity, because pale complexions are a novelty and very highly revered. I think I was born in the wrong country.

We had to get dragged away from the girls, who took maybe ten pictures with us, and were so sweet. Everyone was so sweet. I would take a South Indian wedding over any other kind. Where else can you look like a dream, sit and talk to hundreds of people, get free food that you eat with your hands, and leave the wedding with a coconut as a gift? India. Only India.

Photos: Traveling Around India

lucitravels — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 06:17:00 GMT

Photos from my study abroad trip based in Bangalore, India

Landslide

lucitravels — Mon, 9 Feb 2015 11:44:00 GMT

We walked to the top of the hill and overlooked two man-made bodies of water and the green expanse beyond. I had my red and blue patterned scarf pressed against my nose so the smell wouldn’t cause my already queasy stomach to cough up my breakfast. There were burrs in my sandals but I didn’t feel like bending down to pick them out. The ground beneath me was one layer of dirt over 80 feet of garbage.

For my study abroad, the U of M has partnered with the Environmental Support Group, or ESG, based in Bangalore. Their platform is to aid in making India’s various institutions sustainable and ecologically responsible. I can honestly say that I had no idea we were working with ESG before I got here. I thought I would be learning about Indian art and culture and India’s education system pretty much the whole time. Close reading is one of the skills I have learned since my arrival.

I always thought I had an eco-conscious mind. I recycle, buy organic, etc. etc. When I found out that we were partnered with a company like ESG, I was so excited. ESG had composting bins, wouldn’t waste food, talked about all of the changes they had made and all of the changes they hoped will eventually come. They’re teaching us about Indian art and culture, and I’m learning about their education system, but sustainability and eco-friendliness is the base of everything we do.

They told us one of our first field trips would be to a landfill. The landfill has a long, complicated, sinister history, but long story short-it was killing anyone within a two-mile radius because the garbage was poisoning the water. Before visiting the site, we took a short trip to an Ayurvedic hospital and walked around the garden of medicinal plants. The plants were grown for curing small ailments and we got to smell, eat, and learn about which plants helped what. India is on to something, I thought. I left the hospital feeling hopeful.

Fast-forward to standing on the garbage pile. On one side, we could see a space about half of an acre down the hill that housed the organic, biodegradable waste. The waste was in piles of six feet by six feet and smelled so rotten I couldn’t breathe. But that waste was okay. It was going to go away eventually, even if it was piling up too high for the workers to really take care of it. In front of the waste piles, there were little tents pitched. A mini-slum where the workers lived. Next to the smell, next to the pile of plastic, and surrounded by water that would kill them if they drank it. We were looking down on these little blue tents, standing on an 80-foot mountain of waste that would take more than a few lifetimes to disintegrate. The other side was a village shrouded in trees where people were getting skin diseases and cancer because of their water and food supply. The animals they were eating and the plants they were growing needed that water.

I had never been to a landfill before and I know there are similar ones in the US. There are superfund sites and toxic waters because of them all over the planet. I use plastic every day and don’t think about it…until now.

This isn’t necessarily a call to action. I didn’t even know this issue would arise when I came to this country. But all I know is that it only took 10 minutes standing in a pile of what I use every day to make me reconsider my entire lifestyle. Maybe it was the smell, or the wild dogs nose-deep in whatever edible garbage they could find. Or, maybe it was looking at the garbage pile underneath my feet and knowing it wouldn’t go away. For the first time, it was real.

Things I Worry About Now

lucitravels — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 11:42:00 GMT

If I eat dosas and rice three times a day every day will I be able to fit in the airplane seat home?
How to divide everything I buy with rupees by 61 to see how many dollars I spend
Why I ever buy anything in America
If I walk across the street, will I get hit by the hundreds of motorcycles and mopeds and auto rickshaws and cars all coming at me?
Is that a group of stray dogs?
IS THAT A GROUP OF STRAY PUPPIES?
Will anyone mind if I take a puppy home?
How about six puppies?
If I’m in traffic for a very long time, it’s very likely that there’s a cow in the middle of the road that no one will move
What that side-to-side head bobble really means
Did they understand me? Are they telling me to go away? Why are they just bobbing their head side to side?
Living a little over a mile away from my school and having to leave an hour in advance
How American I look and sound while bartering
If I’m getting ripped off while bartering
Everything about bartering in general
Is that guy riding a motorcycle with a baby?
Can I wear my kurtas and big baggy Indian pants when I get home?
How many scarves are too many scarves?
It’s been one week and a third of my sunscreen is gone
Eat with your right hand eat with your right hand eat with your right hand
How neat Indians look while eating with their hands and how I look like a toddler
When and where will I get diarrhea
What are the intentions of that monkey?
Having to tell the rickshaw driver where to go and potentially ending up in China
Will people be just one hour late or two hours?
Will this tap water make me vomit up my chapatti and veg curry?
Can I attain the level of sass half my Indian guides have?
Will I ever be as nice as the other half?
Can I see every bit of India I want in these four months?
Can I travel the world for the rest of my life?

Eating and Sleeping

lucitravels — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 11:39:00 GMT

India is everything and nothing that I thought it would be. I’ve only gotten a taste at this point, but that taste is pretty strong. Traveling there was intense. From Minneapolis to France it was an eight hour flight, and I had a two hour layover in France where I ate sweet pistachio macaroons and listened to Le French speak in their beautiful rhythmic syllables. I took three years of French in high school and can say some phrases, but after stumbling through some awkward dialogue with the macaroon woman, I decided to keep it safe with English. My American-ness couldn’t be hidden for long.

We left Paris and nine hours later were in Bangalore. During those nine hours, we ate probably five meals. I would doze off for a bit and wake up with a tray of steaming food in front of me. It was a little magical, and also French food, so yes I ate all five meals. There was an older Indian woman who sat next to me. For part of the flight she propped her elbows up on the tray and watched the Jungle Book with her chin resting sweetly in her hands.

Some of my group members were on the flight with me, and we all eventually met up at the airport. I was jetlagged and slightly insane. It was 1:00 AM there, and Bangalore is 11 hours ahead of Central US time, so I was almost on the exact opposite sleep schedule. We saw Cheryl, our program coordinator, standing outside with an MSID sign, and I almost felt like crying with relief that a night of rest wasn’t too far away. We had some hot chai and waited for our taxis as stray dogs passed us by, favoring the people with food.

Indian driving is…something. All road rules are really more like guidelines that you can follow if you feel like it. Most Indians don’t feel like it. They’ll swerve, tailgate and drive at full speed towards the back of a huge truck, only to move at the very last second. I was too drowsy to care about my life, so I just looked out the window as my head gently bumped against the headrest.

We woke up the next day and had breakfast, slept until lunch, and had to fight the urge to sleep before dinner. My days will revolve around meals because the food. THE FOOD. Oh my goodness the food. The drinks are milky and sweet, and the food fills your mouth with a symphony of flavors that are spicy and strong. You’re served warm tortillas and use them to scoop up the goodness on your plate. I will never eat better Indian food again and I will treat each meal as it’s my last.

Every Indian I’ve met has been welcoming and friendly. The woman on the plane talked to my roommate and I for five minutes and wanted to know where we were living so she could visit us. Everyone who works in our hotel smiles at our attempts at speaking Hindi and Kannada, and tries their hardest to speak with us in English. All Indians, in most interactions, will do a little head bobble from side to side. I’m still confused as to what it means exactly, but it could mean anything from, “I’m thinking,” to, “you’re welcome,” or even just acknowledging your presence.

I knew India would be chaotic and loud, with smells and sounds I’ll never again experience. Car horns are in constant use and cows moo as they lazily cross the roads, stopping all traffic. What I didn’t know is that there would be pockets of serenity within the chaos. There’s a park next to our hotel that’s like a jungle oasis; children play on the playground underneath big, beautiful green palm trees and other trees speckled with orange blossoms. Even though I’ve seen a small portion, I can already tell it has the potential to be as stunning as it is chaotic, and Indians can be as compassionate as they are foreign to me. I think India will be exactly how I choose to see it, and I can’t wait to see more.

The Land of Utter Extremes

lucitravels — Mon, 5 Jan 2015 11:35:00 GMT

Hey everyone! I have a two week countdown until I leave for Bangalore, India. I might write one more post before I leave, but I’m sure my experiences before I travel aren’t too thrilling for all of you. Yesterday, I finally started to pack. I put in my two pairs of shoes, a few toiletries, and some kleenex, and realized over half of my suitcase had been filled. I might need to re-evaluate the importance of my things.

Over the past couple months as I’ve been excitedly telling anyone who will listen that I’ll be going to India, I’ve realized that a lot more people have traveled there than I originally thought. Everyone has a friend who knows a friend, which has really bumped up my amount of email contacts. The general consensus from those who’ve been there is: don’t drink the water, no walking alone at night, and India can’t be explained, only seen.

I’ve talked to a few people in person about the country. One of my favorite yoga instructors had gone there to teach yoga and looked at me with big, earnest, “your life will change forever” eyes when I told him I’d be spending four months there. He told me India was, “a huge shock to the system, it’s utter extremes, just, extreme poverty and human suffering and death and extreme beauty.”

It’s like traveling to any country, there’s no way you can’t come back as a different person. I picked India because the culture, climate, and experiences are nothing like I would ever experience in my lifetime, so why not immerse myself for these four months? I’m going into my travel with an open heart and mind, and hopefully find what everyone else there has found: a new perspective.