I am safe and sound back in my normal homestay. I know my last post was about how weird the day was at the university, and the rest of the week was just as strange. I had more lectures to no one, used microphones in empty rooms, got shown laboratories where we just stared blankly at expensive research equipment with no explanation, and spent a lot of time sweating.
We had some good times, but they were mostly couched in long moments of stress, repeating what you wanted, and lots of sighs. Our fieldtrips about trash got repetitive, we ordered in at the hostel too many nights from too small a menu, and our food came too often in plastic bags. I have seen vermi compost centers three times since I've been in India, which is 3 more than Ive seen in America and 2 more than I needed to pursue here.
A perfect sample of my Chennai experience can be summed up by the events of Wednesday afternoon. Completing our lectures early to a room of only ourselves, my study abroad peers and staff chaperone for the trip, the homestay advisor, ate lunch at the university, then sat and waited for about 20 minutes in the deans office to come to the school. From there, we loaded into the cab, and our homestay advisor, Rama, told us that we would be going to the mall. She had talked to someone, they recommended it, and so we would go. It would probably take an hour.
Once we got in the car, three of squashed into the non-AC backseat, we heard Rama blunder through conversation with the cab driver. Being that Chennai is in Tamil Nadu, everyone speaks Tamil and maybe some English, so we heard them negotiate talking about how long it would take - actually closer to an hour and half. So we slept and sweated in the back, until we pulled up to a huge mall in the middle of a low but dense urban area, and piled out of the car, rushing through the humidity into the mall. The mall was a bizarre piece of Americana excess in the middle of India - Burberry, Hush Puppies and an Aldo were among the stores, as well as a movie theater showing English, Hindi and Tamil language films. There was also a food court with a special KFC and Pizza Hut (pizza, in India, is pronounced with a softer z, like the end of quiz). The five of us walked around the mall exactly like a group of four 20-somethings with very different fashion tastes and needs and a middle-aged Indian surrogate mom would: haphazardly. Furthermore, no matter what store we paused in front of, our Indian mom told us that everything it sold would be available in Jaipur as well. As she had said that about everything in Chennai - from coconuts and beach games to humidity and lungis - we had to take it with a grain of salt.
Then the 4 students decided to assert ourselves by picking a restaurant out of Lonely Planet and convincing Rama to get our cab to go there, which also involved taking a walk past the food court just to make sure that we didn't want anything there. We didn't.
Our pick from LP was an American diner, run by American ex-pats with pictures of Frank Sinatra on the walls. We piled back in the cab, sat for 15 minutes waiting to get out of the mall parking lot. On this particular leg, I was seated in the front of the car, where one student inevitably sat between Rama and the driver - the exact spot where one's right leg was inevitably in the way of the car's gear stick. So we waited, then drove, then asked for directions 4 times, then came very close to finding the American diner, and then a rickshaw man told us that diner was in the middle of a 2 month closure for renovation. Too sick of hostel food to call it a night and drive the now half-hour long drive home, we picked another restaurant from LP and started off again.
Our taxi driver didn't know this place - Tuscana - or the neighborhood - something that sounds like Nungabukum - or the region within the 'hood -Wallace Gardens. No matter - we went off. About 20 minutes later, and 4 songs of ABBA sung in duet with Rama in the front seat, and we were close - misleading close - to the restaurant. And then we made a wrong turn, down a one way street, so we had to circle back. Then we made the same wrong turn again. So we circled back.And then we circled again. For the third time.
Finally asserting my reading ability from the front seat, I pointed out that rather than making the same turn a fourth time, we should probably turn left as both 1st and 2nd street were on the left, and presumably Tuscana, located on 3rd street, would also be on the left, rather than to the right, which by the way, we had checked three times already. We turned left, then turned down the street after 2nd, which turned out to be 2nd again. BUT it connected to Third, so lo and behold - we had arrived.
Two pasta dishes, one pizza, and a calzone, prepared by an Italian expat, and we were 4 happier campers. Then we piled back in the taxi, sweated our way home, and watched some Bollywood music videos and called it a night.
Key words here: hot, humid, lost, language barrier, culture gap, and ultimately, goals somewhat met.
Alright alright, enough with the whining - here are some photos:
We had some good times, but they were mostly couched in long moments of stress, repeating what you wanted, and lots of sighs. Our fieldtrips about trash got repetitive, we ordered in at the hostel too many nights from too small a menu, and our food came too often in plastic bags. I have seen vermi compost centers three times since I've been in India, which is 3 more than Ive seen in America and 2 more than I needed to pursue here.
A perfect sample of my Chennai experience can be summed up by the events of Wednesday afternoon. Completing our lectures early to a room of only ourselves, my study abroad peers and staff chaperone for the trip, the homestay advisor, ate lunch at the university, then sat and waited for about 20 minutes in the deans office to come to the school. From there, we loaded into the cab, and our homestay advisor, Rama, told us that we would be going to the mall. She had talked to someone, they recommended it, and so we would go. It would probably take an hour.
Once we got in the car, three of squashed into the non-AC backseat, we heard Rama blunder through conversation with the cab driver. Being that Chennai is in Tamil Nadu, everyone speaks Tamil and maybe some English, so we heard them negotiate talking about how long it would take - actually closer to an hour and half. So we slept and sweated in the back, until we pulled up to a huge mall in the middle of a low but dense urban area, and piled out of the car, rushing through the humidity into the mall. The mall was a bizarre piece of Americana excess in the middle of India - Burberry, Hush Puppies and an Aldo were among the stores, as well as a movie theater showing English, Hindi and Tamil language films. There was also a food court with a special KFC and Pizza Hut (pizza, in India, is pronounced with a softer z, like the end of quiz). The five of us walked around the mall exactly like a group of four 20-somethings with very different fashion tastes and needs and a middle-aged Indian surrogate mom would: haphazardly. Furthermore, no matter what store we paused in front of, our Indian mom told us that everything it sold would be available in Jaipur as well. As she had said that about everything in Chennai - from coconuts and beach games to humidity and lungis - we had to take it with a grain of salt.
Then the 4 students decided to assert ourselves by picking a restaurant out of Lonely Planet and convincing Rama to get our cab to go there, which also involved taking a walk past the food court just to make sure that we didn't want anything there. We didn't.
Our pick from LP was an American diner, run by American ex-pats with pictures of Frank Sinatra on the walls. We piled back in the cab, sat for 15 minutes waiting to get out of the mall parking lot. On this particular leg, I was seated in the front of the car, where one student inevitably sat between Rama and the driver - the exact spot where one's right leg was inevitably in the way of the car's gear stick. So we waited, then drove, then asked for directions 4 times, then came very close to finding the American diner, and then a rickshaw man told us that diner was in the middle of a 2 month closure for renovation. Too sick of hostel food to call it a night and drive the now half-hour long drive home, we picked another restaurant from LP and started off again.
Our taxi driver didn't know this place - Tuscana - or the neighborhood - something that sounds like Nungabukum - or the region within the 'hood -Wallace Gardens. No matter - we went off. About 20 minutes later, and 4 songs of ABBA sung in duet with Rama in the front seat, and we were close - misleading close - to the restaurant. And then we made a wrong turn, down a one way street, so we had to circle back. Then we made the same wrong turn again. So we circled back.And then we circled again. For the third time.
Finally asserting my reading ability from the front seat, I pointed out that rather than making the same turn a fourth time, we should probably turn left as both 1st and 2nd street were on the left, and presumably Tuscana, located on 3rd street, would also be on the left, rather than to the right, which by the way, we had checked three times already. We turned left, then turned down the street after 2nd, which turned out to be 2nd again. BUT it connected to Third, so lo and behold - we had arrived.
Two pasta dishes, one pizza, and a calzone, prepared by an Italian expat, and we were 4 happier campers. Then we piled back in the taxi, sweated our way home, and watched some Bollywood music videos and called it a night.
Key words here: hot, humid, lost, language barrier, culture gap, and ultimately, goals somewhat met.
Alright alright, enough with the whining - here are some photos:
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| This sign inexplicably showed up on Wednesday of our week at the university - and I think disappeared for the remaining days. We are the "Undergraduate Students of the United States of America" that it is calling out. Note that no other people are in this picture. |
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| We all bought saris! And then enjoyed our best approximation of a nice stiff drink to take the edge of the very sweaty day. |
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| We are literally staring at a big tank of trash. |
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| I rode a horse at the beach! The young gentlemen helping me on the horse told me his name was Bruce Lee - "Yes, like fight.. like dragon.. enter the fist!" |
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| Guilty. I had to go shooting again. It was so fun! I did so good this time too. I got 4 out of 5. |
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