I arrived home from India three days ago. I had traveled internationally a few times before, but I’ve never felt as strange returning home from a trip as I did this Sunday. When I say I felt strange I’m not talking about jet lag. An hour after I got to my house, my mother and I went to the grocery store. While we were driving everything just felt empty. Where were all the people? The cars on the freeway were…
Week 1: Adjusting my Expectations On the very misleading website of the non-profit I came to work for, there is a photo gallery of all the activities that happen at the center. Among those listed were yoga, drama, dance, and art activities. I had been under the impression that these things were everyday scheduled activities at the community center. In my skype call with the org I asked if I could help out with the creative arts activities. My host…
When I was a junior in high school I read a short story by Hemmingway for English class entitled “A clean well-lighted place.” At this time I was working my way through Hemingway’s book of short stories “In Our Time,” so I had read lots of his work, but this story stuck with me for some reason. The story is about an old man who comes every night to a café and drinks until very late, and a disagreement between…
Every morning my host father and I wake up at 6 (before the temperature has risen over 100º F) to go for a walk in the nearby Jahanpanah City Forest. We walk through a peaceful neighborhood of elegantly decorated Upper-Middle Class Delhi apartment to a massive public park with trails through the forest. As we walk, we pass many live-in servants washing cars for their employers or chatting with each other before their bosses wake up. Each walk is interrupted…
It’s hard to believe that my arrival in Delhi on May 10th was only 8 days ago. With an overwhelming array of new experiences (in the best since of the word) if I were to try to reflect on all of the week’s events, I would be writing a novel. Instead, I decided to compile a short list of 4 initial realizations. 5 Weeks in India is NOT ENOUGH TIME! Before finding out that I had received this fellowship, I…
I’ve always been fascinated by India. From the picturesque Himalayan mountains and the legend behind the Taj Mahal, to the Bollywood celebrities, the more than 700 dialects of Hindi and the persistence of the caste system, India is a universe of its own. I’ve always had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that an entire fifth of the world’s population lives inside its borders. I’ve always seen India as one of those places that you have to…
