36 hours but back in the states - photos, corrections, and thanks!

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First of all, let me deeply apologize to everyone for my *horrendous* spelling and typing mistakes in all my blogs. My mom was so sweet and downloaded all my entries to print out and asked if I wanted to make any changes first, so I did a spellcheck and discovered am embarrassing number of horrible mistakes... sorry!! About half the mistakes were just typos, since I never wanted to spend the extra time/money to recheck my blogs, and half I'm sorry to say were due to my lack of spelling skills... Only "N" I ever got in elementary school was in second/first grade in spelling, and it still plagues me today! I blame spellcheck technology for my continued deficiency. ;P Thanks for putting up with it everyone, though. I've gone through and fixed the entries and added pictures to most of them, so if anyone's interested (or really bored =P ) feel free to browse through!

So, last week in India we basically just hung out. We really could have used an extra day in Jaipur, but hindsight's always 20/20 right? It was so nice and relaxing, though, to just sit around, sleep in, and eat at Maria's place. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but her mom's from Michigan, so her house is just a wonderful, clean, modern little bubble of Westernization while still being Indian, so it was great. One night Maria let Zara and I try on a couple of her saris, which was really fun. It's so amazing how some of the women there wear these everyday. Basically it's a short, fitted blouse and a skirt that you wrap a wide 6 ft-long piece of cloth around and make into a dress! The hardest part is getting the pleats nice, which Maria did all the work for. Apparently the different materials pleat differently, and there are several different ways to wear a sari. It was a lot of fun. Been a long time since I played dress-up. 😉

Getting home was, of course, an adventure. Wouldn't be India otherwise, right? =) I had to take the 8:45 AM train, which was pretty nice. Rode 3rd class AC, which means (obviously) that it has AC, but also that there are three bunks. Luckily the train wasn't that full (extremely, extremely rare in India...) so no one was above me (I was in the bottom bunk) and somehow my luggage actually was able to squish under the seat! I had a really nice Indian woman across the way from me, she worked in DehraDun but her husband works in Sydney, and she was flying out to see him. Luckily she spoke English very well, and helped me figure out exactly what was going on with the train attendants a couple of times. The toilet on the train was quite amusing. They were Indian style toilets, of course, but instead of draining anywhere, it simply went into an open tube, that emptied directly out onto the tracks below.

The train was late (of course) getting to Delhi by about an hour, but nevertheless the man from CFHI who was supposed to meet me at the station wasn't there. Big surprise... The woman who'd sat across from me was extremely nice and offered to take me to the airport with her, but I ended up calling Mayank, the local coordinator, who said he'd call the guy who was supposed to meet me and to just sit there, so I did. About an hour later (sitting in the hot sun after having fended off the coolies who wanted to take my luggage for me) the guy finally showed up, and off we went to the airport. I was really early, despite the hour delay, since my plane wasn't supposed to take off till 10:45 PM and it was about 5:30 by that point, so they wouldn't let me in the airport. I was ushered off across the way to the visitor's lounge, where I sat until 7:45, and then went and checked baggage and all that. About FIVE hours later, we finally got on the plane... it had been delayed, which no one had told us about. We just sat around in the airport at the gate, all waiting and waiting and waiting with the TV screen saying "15 minutes" under "Security" for an entire 3 hours or so. I think it was the incoming flight was delayed, since the flight crew didn't arrive or get on the plane until about 11:30 or midnight or something. Since our flight out was 2 hours late, we were 2 hours late getting into Newark, and I *just* made my connecting flight to Boston after clearing Immigration and customs. I litterally got to the gate pretty much right as they were calling my row number. It was amazing, though, how differently everything ran pretty much the second I got into the States. Suddenly everything was on schedule, people were letting other people go ahead of them, and I cannot tell you how quirky it was to have a truck actually *stop* for me to cross the street when we were leaving the airport! All part of the reverse culture-shock, I guess. I remember when I first got to India how overpowering all the noise and people were. Kind of like when you go to NYC for the first time and are suddenly surrounded by mobs and cars everywhere you look. Now as we were driving out of Logan I was struck by how much **space** there was everywhere! I mean... really! Just so much... emptiness! And looking out at the surrounding city and not seeing a single person walking anywhere! It was just... weird. And how quiet driving was. Not a lot of cars, which I had only gotten when we were high in the mountains or it was very early in the morning or late at night, and so... quiet. I swear I actually felt a little lonely as we were driving home, with just the 3 of us in the car and no one around us, really. Where were all the other people??

It's also weird to me how little, so far, I'm having any other symptoms of culture shock. I think my mind just enters different modes when I'm in different places, and now that I'm back, my whole mindset just puts me back in that US/school/home arena. I went to the mall with my mom yesterday because she wanted to pick up a few things, and granted I wasn't really all "there" (I calculated it out and it took me a good 36 hours to get from DehraDun, India, to Boston, MA. I then slept for a good 12 hours straight that night...) but it really wasn't as "shocking" as you might expect it to be for someone who's come back from a developing country. I guess I just wasn't there long enough for it to impact me so dramatically?

Anyway, that's it for me. I had a lovely time and learned so much. I'm sure I haven't even realized all the ways this experience has changed my outlook on the world or myself, but maybe you guys can help me with that as I go along... It's probably easier for those who know you best to notice these changes than for you to notice them in yourself.

Thank you all so much for reading my blogs! I hope they were entertaining, enlightening, or a good procrastination/boredom break, and that this worked out better for you then my doing mass emails. I'd be interested in what you guys think, if I should do this in the future too. Let me know! Have a great rest of the break for those who have it, and for everyone else I hope you got the chance to take a nice relaxing vacation this summer!

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Comments

[David Rix]

Thanks so much
Ange: I just want to say that I will miss reading the blog. You gave a fascinating picture of India and your experiences, many of which stayed with me throughout the day. I felt for you during your sickness; mourned when your patient died; heard the noise of the country; relaxed in Jaipur and saw the third world through the eyes of someone experiencing it firsthand. It is a wonderful way for others to see your thoughts and feelings and emotions. I looked forward to your entries and will always associate them with this summer and good reading. Thank you so much.