India!!

When I typed my journal it was 11-pages long and, not wanting to cut out much, my blog is nine pages long. I’m sorry. I don’t expect anyone to read it except for mom, dad, and especially Deb since she is my baggage carrier. Grandma, you better read this goodness too.

I loved India though and if you read nothing else just know that.

As the alarm does every morning that we reach a country, it went off extremely early in India. Being awaken from a deep sleep I found myself angry and confused about why I was getting up. Arriving in India seemed unreal to me and in turn, I didn’t think very much about it before that morning. So when Kathryn and I rose to see the sun come over the horizon I wasn’t in the right mindset. As I climbed the five flights of stairs in order to reach deck 7, I found it finally hitting me. My new song became “We’re in India!” sung to the tune of my Alaska song “It’s my last day!” Only Allison would understand.
The sunrise was somewhat disappointing. Clouds covered the sky and a faint hole in the darkness let some of the orange sunlight shine through. Carrie, Kathryn, and Erin soon deserted the sunrise ritual in order to go use the free internet before everyone else got up and it slowed down drastically. I stayed outside for another 20 minutes, trying to grasp the fact that our ship would soon be in India. In the far off distance coastline was visible. The Christian kids on board stood around with guitars, singing Jesus songs in harmony.
I eventually gave into to the temptation of free Internet, left the hot, muggy outdoor air, and retreated to my room to grab my laptop. For the first time since our Internet began being free two days earlier, it was fast enough for me to send out emails. By the time I met the girls for breakfast at 7:30 the ship was along side the huge cement parking lot of a dock. Outside dozens of dark figures stood around, some waiting to inspect our paperwork and others wishing to offer us rides throughout the city on their auto rickshaws. A stray dog, one of the many we had been warned about, lay calmly among the men.
Clearing customs took quite some. On top of that, everyone had to collect their passports and paperwork from the ship. There were numerous announcements over the loudspeaker as administration got upset that not everyone had picked up their passports. Finally, at 11:45 am, I officially entered India.
I spent the day with two girls, Cynthia and Ashley. In India you can’t travel with many more people; three is the maximum amount you can squeeze into a rickshaw. As soon as we stepped off the ship we were bombarded with offers to take us anywhere in the city. We held off for a bit, wishing to at least walk away from the ship before we set ourselves on a specific cab driver. At the end of the parking lot area rows of rusty manual rickshaws stood, their drivers approaching SAS kids insistently. There were a few cabs in the area and the man we agreed to go with happened to lead us to one. His price of one dollar each was hard to resist. The three of us squeezed onto the torn-up velvet seats in the tiny cab.
The man who recruited us for the cab ride turned out not to be the driver. Instead, he was the one who talked to us about where we wanted to go. We hadn’t driven five minutes before our cab slowed down and the man jumped out of the front seat and disappeared. I thought little of it as our ride continued slowly down the street. Around the corner some officers looked at our paperwork and ushered us on. A moment later, on the other side of the police barrier that he had merely walked around unnoticed, the man jumped back into the front seat and we continued on our way.
I was mesmorized by the drive. As we rode along busy streets we passed motorcycle after motorcycle. Everyone rode them. Women sat on the back of the bikes with their legs hanging off one side, in a lady-like manner. One bike had a mother, father, and small child all crammed onto it. Crowds stood along the side of the road, waiting for public buses. Several women swept dirt around on the concrete with what we would consider “old-fashioned” broomsticks. On the dashboard of our cab was a small shrine to one of the Hindu gods. A sticker of the praised “lingum” or penis was stuck to the black plastic dashboard also. The open windows of the cab supplied a breeze which helped with, what we considered, oppressive heat. Thick dusty air filled my lungs. My throat is still sore.
Our first stop was a bank as we had asked. The driver parked the cab across the street and the other man lead us through the busy street, putting his hands out as though traffic would stop, or even slow down for him. Crossing streets in India is not easy, wait, scratch that. Crossing streets in India is dangerous.
Anyway, after the bank we told showed him a map and pointed to a specific place we wanted to go to shop. “No, no. I take you somewhere cheap that’s close. That’s very far,” he told us. Ten minutes later we pulled up to a large cement building. “Go inside,” he urged us. The building was not what we had expected as it was not the markets we had wanted to go to. It turned out to be a really expensive fabric/everything else Indian store. We knew we were being overcharged but wanted to be polite so we walked around for a bit. On the second level were two American brothers from Nebraska and surprisingly they were not with Semester at Sea. The older brother who was about our age explained to us that he too had been brought to the store by his cab driver. The drivers receive commission if they drop a tourist off at certain stores.
So we went back outside and told the man, who was still waiting with the cab, once again where we wanted to go. To make a long story short, he ended up taking us to three more overpriced stores and kept telling us “Yes, after this store I’ll take you there.” So finally I was firm with him, insisting that “Spencer Plaza is where we want to go, no where else.” “Okay, two more shops first,” he said, which was funny to us because at the last shop I had made him promise me that this was the final one he was dragging us too. We argued for awhile and I continued insisting that we only wanted to go to Spencer Plaza, even though he claimed it was an hour drive. Finally the cab driver mumbled to us, “Okay, Spencer Plaza.” It only took us fifteen minutes to get there.
By the time we reached Spencer Plaza we were starving and anxious to eat so we grabbed some food from an Indian bakery/fast-food restaurant. It was my first real India food experience. The vegetarian samosa and wrap-type-of-a-thing that I got were spicy as heck. After downing pepto-bismo, I ate the samosa quickly, trying to ignore the burning in my mouth. When I finally took a deep breath I realized how hot my face, as well as my mouth, felt and as I sniffed due to my now running nose, I downed water out of my Nalgene. The small wrap I had gotten was even spicier than the samosa. I was able to get two bites down before passing it on to Ashley to finish.
Ashley, Cynthia, and I spent the next four hours walking around the three-story mall. Many of the stores sold the same things: purses, jewelry, wall-hangings, etc. Cynthia and I had tops made for us at a fabric store and by the time we left the mall at 5:30 they were completed.
Our ride back to the ship that night was much smoother. We hopped in one of the bright yellow auto-rickshaws outside of the mall, squeezing ourselves and our purchases inside the doorless vehicle. The ride was terrifying, but by the time I left India I had gotten used to passing other vehicles while busses hurdled towards us. I sat wide-eyed, the entire way back, sure that I was going to die.
I had planned to go out to dinner with Anna that evening, but was exhausted and she suggested we just eat on the ship. So we did, afterwards she sat in my room while I showed her each purchase I had made earlier in the day. We call it “show-and-tell” and it has become a tradition after each port now.
After show-and-tell I showered, packed, and attempted to journal before meeting with the thirty other kids who were going on the homestay visit with me in Erode, a south-central village. We met in the Union at 10:00 pm and by 11:15 were walking through the Chennai train station. On the way to the train station I saw families lying on the sidewalk to sleep. Homelessness was everywhere. People slept on the brown cement that covered the crowded train station. A thin shirtless old man laid out several dirty blankets before resting on them for the night as the thirty of us stood ten feet away, waiting for our train. When we entered the station rows upon rows of hundreds of Indians sat in the main area, waiting for their trains. It being my first day in India, I wanted to take a picture so badly. But I couldn’t. Everyone was staring at us, heads completely turned to the side, just as we were staring at them. So many times in India, and in all the ports, I’ve wanted to take certain pictures but haven’t for both ethical reasons and for the sake of not being too obtrusive.
A little boy who was missing half of one of his arms followed us around in the station. He motioned to me that he wanted his picture taken and so I took one, showing him his picture on the back of my camera. Another trend in the countries we’ve visited is that people, usually children, want their picture taken for the sake of seeing themselves on the back of our cameras. One girl on the homestay visit with me calls it the “township game”. When we were in the African townships, many of us were bombarded with kids pushing each other out of the way as they stood in front of our cameras. In India this was the case as well. At the Dalit village we visited, young children noticed the camera in my hand and requested that I take their picture. Soon I was surrounded. The older kids often beat out the younger ones in the battle to be in front of the camera lens. Several times, older siblings got my attention and motioned that I should photograph their little sisters or brothers who were quietly standing in back of the group.
After walking through the rice paddies in the Dalit village, an old man who spoke no English attempted to communicate with me. I shook his hand and after a while realized that he wanted his picture taken. As I got my camera out and turned it on he dropped his cane at his side and stood tall in preparation. He must not have realized that I was able to show him the picture right then and when I turned my camera around so he could see himself he lit up. His eyes widened and he exclaimed in joy, putting his hands together in a prayer pose, thanking me.
So anyway, back to the train station. We stood around sweating for about a half an hour before we boarded the train. We were in first class sleeper cars, which was a relief as the other class consisted of tightly packed, poorly-ventilated cars with bars over the windows. It’s not like first-class was that much better though. I didn’t mind it. “We’re in India!” was basically my answer for everything and I found it easy to deal with the less-then-perfect accommodations. Aparna, a rich girl from Houston who I paraglided with in Venezuela, made me laugh as she sat on the blue plastic-covered seats with a worried, disgusted look on her face. I slept decently well in the train that night, only covering my legs with the blanket they provided because I doubted its cleanliness. I wore my fleece and woke up in the middle of the night to find myself covered in sweat, a constant theme during my 5-day stay in India.

We arrived in Erode at 7:00 am the next morning. From there they split us into two groups and sent us to separate host families. Driving through the “town” of 250,000 people was interesting. Pairs of oxen with painted horns pulled wooden carts down the road. Brightly colored plastic containers of water were carried on top of heads. And of course, all the women were wearing sarees, as they were in the city as well.
We arrived at our homestay house, were showed our rooms for the night, and were served breakfast right away. It was awesome. Every meal the family served us was amazing, in fact. Varieties of rice and bread dishes with different sauces made up all our meals. They weren’t too incredibly spicy, many of the meals on the SAS trips weren’t, because our hosts had been told to bland it down a bit since most of us were not used to such hot food.
Oh and the host family we stayed with, they were such good people. There were eight members of the family at the farm. The property is owned by the older members of the group, the grandparents, but their three children, as well as one of their sons’ wife and two children were there. The children, ages 12 and four, were adorable although I didn’t talk to them too much.
After breakfast we received a tour of the families’ property. We walked down a narrow road surrounded by palm and coconut trees and stopped to watch a man who worked for them scale a coconut tree. It was impressive. He used this manual contraption to balance out his body weight and climb the forty-foot tall tree in seconds. At the top he picked coconuts and threw them to the ground. After climbing back down, he got out a small machete and sliced open the tops of the coconuts and a teenage boy placed straws in the holes, handing them to each of us. Some of the boys on our trip attempted to climb the coconut tree as well in the same fashion as the man had, and failed miserably.
We loaded back into our mini-buses after a bit and were taken to a sugar refinery. Sugarcane was crushed by this machine the squeezed out the liquid that then flowed into this huge wide-rimmed bowl that looked like a gigantic soup bowl. From there it’s stirred around and sifted through and at some point during the process it becomes sugar, really I don’t remember. The hut where the steaming bowls were was unbearably hot. Three women were inside pounding the already processed sugar into a packed circular form. Their tiny girls stood around looking up at us.
Next we traveled further down the road to see thread made out of coconuts. Tall stacks of split and dried coconuts laid everywhere. The thread from these dried coconuts is processed and made into rope. The work was done outside but a dark cement building sat beside the processing machine. There were several children inside, two of which were terrified of us. One two-year-old boy stood behind his grinning brother with tears in his eyes as he stared at me.
After that we were dropped off at a village and allowed to roam. Few people in the village spoke English so a member of the host family accompanied me as I tried to make conversation with some of the locals. I was invited into one older woman’s home. There were five rooms inside all of which were painted either bright green or turquoise blue. I looked around the house and the woman, excited to have me in her home, came out of her kitchen with a plate of small bananas. (By the way, all bananas in India are like half the size of the ones in the U.S.). I declined the offer because I was not hungry and I just feel bad taking from people who have less than me.
Before leaving the village we briefly visited the school down the street. The uniformed children were so excited to see us. One ten-year-old girl put her hands up as though to play “patty-cake” or whatever it’s called. We clapped our hands together and she tried teaching me a routine but I didn’t do too well. She also taught me a handshake that began with us touching thumbs and eventually shaking hands. I tried it about ten times before I got it down. I was forced to leave before long since our bus drivers were rushing us. I felt like a movie-star as I was leaving. Everyone wanted their hands shaken. The kids were pushing their hands towards me with big grins, one after the other. I shook as many hands as I could before I had to run off. The kids stood on the porch of their one-room school, waving frantically at me as I ran to the buses.
Back at the farm house we ate lunch off of bamboo leaves that were lined up along the floor. I ate with my hands, as is the custom in India. Scooping rice with my fingers was definitely something new for me. I sat next to Purni, the mother of the two children at the home. She was a really interesting woman to talk to, very well-spoken, and I learned a lot from her.
For quite some time after lunch we all sat around, drinking coffee and tea, and talking with the host family about everything from politics to marriage. Purni got out old photo albums for us to browse through. I retired to my room for a half-hour nap at one point because I was losing all my energy from the already-very active day.
October falls right in the middle of monsoon season in India and it started raining somewhat heavy in the late-afternoon. It died down after a while and we were taken to the village markets to walk around. We weren’t there five minutes before it started pouring. The local vendors let us hide-out underneath their tarps while huge puddles formed and water dumped from the sides of the tarp. The rain didn’t let up and eventually we were forced to run through it and towards our buses, splashing in the unavoidable puddles on the way.
We spent the rest of our evening at the farm house. Purni and I talked for quite some time about marriage and her children. After dinner a drum band performed for us on their property. We didn’t want to dance but were asked to and so many of us danced around in circles with the drummers, making fools out of ourselves. Another reoccurring theme in India is locals wanting us to dance or perform for us. I can think of five times off the top of my head that we had to dance or sing.
Before going to bed I cleaned my feet in the sink since I was confused by the provided shower system of a faucet and bucket.

I slept horribly on the hard beds that night, partly because I was stuffed up. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that I’m sick again?? A week and a half ago I finally got over my cold only to recatch it the day I entered India. I’m frustrated, I just keep getting sick.
So we got up at 6:00 am, had coffee, and left our host families house for good. The twelve-year old girl cried as we were leaving. We were taken to a school for children up to standard 12, or age 16. Some of the older children stay at the school in dorm-like setting. They supplied us with breakfast and hurried us back onto the buses.
We went to two different temples, the second of which was amazing. It was a whole complex of temples, with an elephant that blessed us with his trunk, and a river alongside with people washing clothes and carrying on their daily routines. Our group walked around barefooted, being stared at by locals. I saw a monkey walking around on top of the huge entrance shrine, I got a kick out of it.
Next we went to a carpet weaving center. Tons of looms were in the back of the center underneath two parallel huts. Women were spinning thread and making large rugs in the heat. Before leaving we practically bought the store out because everything was so cheap.
Our next stop was a disabled children’s school. Most of the kids, perhaps all of them, have polio. We were taken upstairs to a room where about seventy kids sat in tightly packed rows on the ground, waiting for us. The school put on a show for us with different groups of students dancing or doing karate. Many of the kids performing had fake legs, or feet that were turned inward as the walked on the sides of them. You could hear their leg braces creaking as they danced. After their show one of the heads of the school asked us to perform for them. We stood up and did the hokey-pokey and then sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
We returned to the school we had eaten breakfast for lunch. Afterwards our group was given time to roam around to see the school. I began talking with a sixteen-year-old girl and soon she was introducing me to her friends, pulling them out of crowds of students who were watching me as I passed by. Before I knew it I was surrounded by teenage girls, asking me questions and making small talk with me. They ended up guiding me around the school, showing me classrooms, where they sleep each night, etc.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the way they would encourage me to go into classrooms where classes were in session. “Do you want to see?” they would say and so I would walk in, disturb the class, and feel very awkward as everyone stared at me. One time the teacher stopped class and asked me to speak to the students. So I stood there, all gross and sweaty, and told them how welcomed everyone was making me feel and that I appreciated their letting us see their school, etc. Then it got quiet and nobody said anything, they just stared at me waiting for me to say more. Another time I went into a classroom and the teacher told the students to ask me questions. One boy raised his hand and asked, “What is your name?” “My name is Annie,” I said, having not spoken yet to the class. The entire class burst into laughter as though I had just told a joke. I smiled, not understanding what was so funny. Another boy walked up to me, bowed, and said, “Welcome.” All his classmates laughed. I swear, I was laughed at so many times in India, as were all the other SASers. Kids got such a kick out of hearing us talk or seeing us dance.
We walked around the school yard and young children continually ran up to me, pen and paper, in hand, wanting my autograph or email address. I stopped to play basketball with a few of the boys and tried to get a game of lightening started but it was too hectic and getting the kids into a line was impossible.
The girls really wanted me to see where they slept so I climbed the flights of stairs to the third floor of a nearby building and saw the large room that was separated into tiny sections by four feet tall walls of cement. Each section had a bed and a desk that took up the entire space. The adult in charge of the floor of girls greeted me as well, bringing me a plate full of pomegranate seeds and a glass of water. Trying to be polite, I ate quite a bit, encouraging the girls to join in eating the seeds, but instead they left the food for me and stood around watching me eat as sat on one of the beds.
At 4:30 a group of girls dressed in beautiful sarees performed for us on the school’s stage. All the children stood behind the chairs that had been placed out for us SASers to sit on. The girls danced beautifully and when they were done the teacher who had introduced them asked us to come up to the stage to dance with them. I made a fool out of myself as I tried to follow their moves. After dancing we were asked to perform even more for the kids. We did an unorganized version of the electric slide and some of the boys did the worm, which the students loved.
After the performance we were herded off once again, this time to visit a medicine factory. We learned about some herbal remedies and saw actual medicine being made. I randomly saw a peacock on top of a neighboring school building, which shocked me.
So we went back to the school for dinner and as soon as I arrived the girls from before found me. “Do you remember me?” many of them asked. The worst was when they would ask if I knew their name because I never did. “Eh, let’s not play that game,” I said. Dinner wasn’t quite ready so I stood around and talked with the group of girls who had gathered around me. They asked me so many questions, and I did the same to them. My favorite question was “Do you have any friends who are boys?” I told them yes and explained how in the U.S. girls and boys hang out together. In India, it’s rare, in fact girls have little contact with boys until they are married through arranged marriages in their early 20s. “I have had a boyfriend too,” I told them and they giggled in shock. “Have any of you ever kissed a boy?” I asked, knowing the answer. They all gasped, “Oh no, no, not until we’re married,” a girl said quickly.
When dinner was served several of the girls brought their plates to the bench I was sitting on and gathered around me in plastic chairs. They asked me why I was eating with silverware as all of them ate with their hands. The honest answer was that my hands were filthy and I didn’t want them to touch my food.
“Tell me about your culture,” one girl asked and I told her about the 4th of July. She then wanted to know what my daily routine was. All the girls laughed when I told them that back home I usually sleep in till 11 am. “We go to bed late and get up early every day…I’m always tired,” someone told me. The girls asked me if I sang and I told them that I used to in high school but don’t anymore. Soon they were begging me to sing. I refused. One of the girls, who told me to refer to her as “Honey” because I couldn’t remember her beautifully long name, sang to me. When she was finished she looked to me, expecting that I would sing back. Finally I gave in, and after finishing an extremely spicy meal I sang the group of girls, “Wading in the Velvet Sea” by Phish. I didn’t do very well, being sick wasn’t helping me, and I was embarrassed because other SASers could here me, but the girls applauded when I finished and told me I have a “sweet voice”.
As the evening progressed I fell away from the girls and found myself surrounded by young boys who wanted to shake my hand. I asked about their hobbies and a 10-year-old boy told me he like to draw. He ran up to his room and brought down a large envelope full of drawings to show me. They were really good. I was so impressed that I called over some of the boys on the trip with me to see.
At about 9:30 we had to leave the school in order to make our train back to Chennai. Before leaving some of the guys sang their rendition of, “You’re Lost That Lovin Feelin,” for a group of young boys. It was loud and off-key, but very entertaining.
The train ride back to the city was decent. We almost left without a couple students as they had gone off to make phone calls and the trained arrived early. The train had already started moving without them but they managed to jump on as it headed out of the station.

The train got into Chennai at 6 am on Saturday morning. Back at the ship I showered, repack, ran to breakfast, and met a group of students in the Union at 7:45 for yet another SAS trip.
The thirty of us rode buses for about an hour and a half until we reached the Dalit Delta Center, a nursing school for girls our age. Upon arriving we were given strings of flowers to wear and presented with a long show full of a million different performers.
We had lunch at the center and then were given an hour or so to walk around the area. Standing outside of the cafeteria area, I saw a mob of young children in the distance running towards a couple of us yelling “Hi!” Part of me wanted to run back into the building, but I stayed and shook their hands as they came up to me holding them out. A group of girls my age came and “rescued” me and a few others from the children and showed us around the area. We ended up in one of the bedrooms, sitting around and talking.
Around 4:00 we got back into our buses and were driven to a Dalit village. Crowds of people swarmed around our buses, women put strings of flowers over our heads, and men beat loudly on drums as two dancers balanced multi-colored ornaments on their heads.
They paraded us around the village, children walked beside us asking what our names were and offering a handshake. Women walked out of their huts to view the commotion. It felt like the whole village was walking with us down the dirt road. A 16-year-old boy kept asking me to dance and so to humor him I skipped along several times to the beat of the drums.
After the parade we sat down in front of a cement stage three feet tall. The children gathered in front of our seats, sitting on the ground to watch the show that followed. The rest of the village stood around behind and next to the plastic seats we had been given. We were each given a coconut full of milk to drink. For the next two hours we watched a show full of dancing and “magic tricks.” Sticks of fires were hurled around, carrots were placed on young boys and sliced by a blindfolded man. It was entertaining but it lasted far too long. By the time the show ended the sun had set and it was dark out. We were led directly to our buses and taken down the road about a mile to an empty home where we were spending the night.
We didn’t stay in a hut for the night, but rather, a large house with three stories and marble floors. It was still pretty dirty though. Upon arriving at the house we had a meditation ceremony with prayer candles and then ate our boxed dinners that the ship had provided.

The next morning we were up by 6:30 but didn’t get back to the Dalit village until 8:30. In case I forgot to mention, Dalits are referred to as the “untouchables” in India. They fall at the lowest class in the caste system, which is a huge part of Indian society. Until recently, Dalits were discriminated against and not granted many of the basic rights that other Indian citizens had. Dalits are often marked as inferior people and looked down upon.
Anyway, we were only given about an hour to roam the village and in that time we were led down the narrow rows of intersecting dirt that separate the rice paddies field. Men sat in the six inches of water in each paddie, cows pulled plows over the crops. We were invited into several homes, all of which had no beds, only a cement floor and minimal decorating with religious shrines. I wish we had been given more time to explore, but unfortunately we were rushed back onto our buses around 9:30. By noon we were back at the ship and I was taking a long, hot shower.

So India is over with, but I plan to someday return. After all, I have to see the Taj Mahal at some point. From the squatting toilets, to the head bobble of the Indians, to cows running out in front of vehicles, the entire experience was amazing. Everyone back on the ship is telling stories of how they were dragged from store to store by their rickshaw drivers and how guilty they felt at turning down begging children. I just can’t believe I’ve been in India and we’re already moving onto our next port. And speaking of our next port, we’re already there. In a few hours we will dock into Yangon, Myanmar where we will spend the next six days. Mentally I don’t feel prepared for an entirely new culture, especially because we’ve only had time for one global studies lecture on the country and I only had one day on the ship to collect my thoughts after India. I’m sure I’ll have a good time regardless though.

And as of yesterday I am exactly on the other side of the planet from everyone back home. Crazy to think about.

Oh and I am following the World Series. Some boys on the ship get up each morning that there is a game and pay 40 cents a minute to watch the broadcast online. I wish I was in Chicago to feel the excitement. Go Socks!

K. Time for Burma, or Myanmar, or whatever you wish to call it. Much love.