My life in a song:

 Before I get all mushy and that kind of foolishness I want to talk about a few things.  People for some odd reason think I am funny, but I’m trying to tell you, I’m not actually that funny, my life is just big LOL most of the time. There are somethings in life that won’t happen to anybody but me and that is because most of the time my life is a joke; which is ironic because as I’ve stated before I don’t joke.

Now, when I was casually hanging out in the Ahmedabad airport getting ready to  fly off to Mumbai, I heard what I thought was a cat meowing. But I thought to myself, Leigh, surely there is no cat in the airport, because that would be stupid. Well I was sitting therer minding my own business and I see an ornage tabby, casually strolling through the airport.  Well appaernatly only I was confused, distressed, put off, whatever you want to call it, because others saw the same orange tabby as I did but they just continued on with their conversations, even the security dogs in the airport weren’t concerned. I just looked around and tried to understand what was happening in the world…I never figured it out.

Cat chilling in the airport

And as we’re on the topic of things I don’t understand here’s the banana I was given on the plane.

do you understand this tiny banana?

So I was in Amsterdam getting ready to fly on home and when you get to the gate yu have to go through a  type of security again. Well there was an airport rep there asking me the usual questions (have you accepted anything from a stranger since you’ve been here? How long were you in India?) Then he asked me “Why were you in India?” I told him I was working at a school teaching deaf and mute students English. Well, (and here’s where it get awkward) he decided it would be appropriatge to hit on me. So he responded by eyeballing me and saying, “hmm, I wish I deaf and mute and you were my teacher.” I just looked at him and said “Do you really wish that? Because I think you don’t. OK goodbye.” Then I ran away.

On to the mushy stuff:

If you know, maybe even if you don’t you know that I love the Avett Brothers, I love their music, I love the meaning behind it, I love everything about them.  There’s a song by them that sums up my trip to India pretty perfectly.

Salvation Song by the Avett Brothers  (you don’t have to read all the lyrics but I would encourage to give the song a listen, I’ve also bolded the important parts for you)

And I would give up everything

No this is not just about me

And I don't know a plainer way to say it Babe

And they may pay us off in fame

Though that is not why we came

And I know well and good that won't heal our hearts

We came for salvation

We came for family

We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away

We came to break the bad

We came to cheer the sad

We came to leave behind the world a better way

Now if I'm walkin' through the rain

And I hear you call my name

I will break into a run without a pause

And if your love laughs at your dreams

Well it's not as bad as it seems

Either way one of them has got to go

And if you take of my soul

You can still leave it whole

With the pieces of you own you leave behind

We came for salvation

We came for family

We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away

We came to break the bad

We came to cheer the sad

We came to leave behind the world a better way

And I would give up everything

And if you were to come up clean

And see you shine so bright in a world of woe

And they may pay us off in fame

But that is not why we came

And if it compromises truth then we will go

We came for salvation

We came for family

We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away

We came to break the bad

We came to cheer the sad

We came to leave behind the world a better way

I’ll miss my kids. I’ll miss the family we had. But I did what I went to do, and I learned a lot.

Signing off for the last time.

I came to leave behind the world a better way,

Leigh

I love it when a monkey eats a cookie with me

Things that are untrue:

 this sign

I really don’t think I need to say more but in an attempt at full disclosure, this sign is up the McDonalds down the road.  I just don’t understand why they think a disgusting looking veggie patty is irresistible.

Things that are true:

Monkeys love Parle G cookies. 

In case you can’t tell, I am feeding a monkey, he is literally taking a cookie right out of my hand….do you know where I fed said monkey? In the hostel….No big deal. There were just some monkeys chilling in/at the window of the hostel so I ran down with a pack of biscuits and fed them! It was so awesome! That it is was awesome until it got scary…and it got scary when there was like 7 monkeys…coming into the hostel. We were trying to feed them through the bars but they just kept on coming in, they sat on this girls bed, then they walked around inside the hostel for a while.

We accidentally dropped a cookie pretty far back inside the hostel and the monkey pranced right on in like he owned the place and picked it up. 

And for all of you that know me, you know I hate goodbyes, so I do this really unhealthy thing where I pretend like nothing is going to happen and like I am not going anywhere…so that’s what I’m doing now.

pretending like I’m not leaving in 2 days,

Leigh

                    

I was riding my elephant through the school…

Well as you can see through the title I had a particularly eventful last couple of days. I rode my new favorite elephant (I named her Lucy) through the school! I deemed it socially acceptable to call and wake up my mother at 1 AM her time to inform her of this event. She didn’t answer…thanks mom. Well when she finally called me back she said “wow Leigh! That’s so cool! Where did you ride it?” I said “through the school, naturally…where else would I have had an elephant ride?” So Lucy and I are gallivanting through the school and I’m waving at all the children, who by the way have gotten up out of there seats and are now standing outside, and I’m thinking to myself…I’m on an elephant right now…im actually riding an elephant in India…through a school of all places.  It was awesome. I love Lucy. She’s practically my best friend.

So I’ve figured out why some of the teachers would consider me a slight distraction…In one day I effectively distracted at least 20 students, and I only went to two classes….In the first class one of the boys challenged me to an arm wrestling competition. Well of course I had to step up to the challenge, and once I wrestrled (and beat) one of them that prompted a whole competition…so I was wrestling the 3^rd or 4^th boy (and still winning I might add, even though some of them might tell you differently, but they would be wrong) and the match ended and I won and I was jumping and cheering and I turned around and there the teacher was…just standing looking at me, he said congratulations then proceeded to teach…I silently snuck out.

In the next class the kids were looking super sleepy so naturally the best decision  could think of was to through limes at them when the teacher wasn’t  and force them to eat them. Well what happened was, the teacher happened to look up as I was chucking a lime at a kids head and all I could come up with was “Sorry, she lent me that earlier.” I was truly failing. I just left and went and sat in a corner after that. (there were supposed to be pics, but Im 99% sure the kids accidently deleted them : ( 

So we were semi hiking/semi riding up this mountain yesterday and it was super awesome and really pretty!

The problem with the hike/ride was that there were cows and donkeys all over the place. I was standing there, minding my own business and here comes two donkeys charging at me. Well I thought, I’ll just show them so I stood my ground and looked serious….well apparently donkey’s don’t understand my serious face as they kept right on coming and I had to (at the last minute mind you) literally jump out of the way. These guys saw what happened and said "Don't worry, they won't harm you." to which I reponded, "Well, they were chraging at me, so...I think they might have harmed me." I don’t understand a country where the donkey’s aren’t afraid of the humans.

And also, apparently the monkey are racists. When we were in line to go up the mountain some people were feeding the monkeys so naturally I needed to get in on that because I mean really, how many times will I get to feed a monkey? Well I told Mr. Jaysh I’m going to feed that monkey!!! He promptly informed me that the monkey could see me, and he would know I was not Indian and he would slap me. I stood and stared at Mr. Jaysh for a second…then I said “Monkeys don’t slap people…” and he said “Yes, Leigh these monkeys will, they know you’re not Indian.” So basically what I deduced from this entire conversation was that Indian monkeys are racist…and I don’t like that.

Racist monkies.

We slammed on brakes yesterday so that we didn’t hit a wart hog…I was royally over that. O and then we had to wait because a cow was grazing…in the middle of the road. I’ll only say this once more, cows=steak not friends.

Cows are food,

Leigh

the lights will work forever...now, about the water...

I wrote a blog a while back about questions you should ask before you come to India, I have another one to add to the list: ask if there will always be running water.

When the guy picked me up from the airport he was talking about how advanced Ahmedabad was because the homes will always have power, no matter what day, no matter what time there will always be lights. I was trying to look excited about always having electricity…I come from America where we also always have lights so this wasn’t like a big thing for me. Well what he failed to mention (and I would soon find out he failed to mention a lot of things) was that while Ahmedabad may always have power, this city doesn’t not always have water. So imagine my surprise when after a hard day work (and by work I mean I taught some English then proceeded to sweat profusely for the rest of the day for no apparent reason), and I come back to the hostel and all I want to do is wash the gross lingering funk off of myself, but THERE IS NO WATER. I stand in disbelief and think ok maybe it’s just this faucet (at this point im starting to get a little delirious), so I try the next one, and the next one…until all the faucets have been tried but there is still no water. I almost had a break down.  That night I washed with the rest of the water in my half full water bottle. Needless to say I was not very clean and I was thoroughly over it.

O and NBD or anything but there were a couple elephants walking down the street the other day…I went outside...I got to pet them:

I mean we pretty much became instant BFF’s, I named the 1^st one Turquoise and 2^nd one Lobster. Don’t question me.

Before I came to India I went thrifting and bought quite a few horrendous looking skirts. I bought them because they were long and I could wear them in India, but I made no plans of returning to the US with them.  Well this morning I had a brilliant idea (I don’t have many, so when I get one  run with it),  ask one of the girls in the embroidery class to make one of my awful (and awfully long) skirts into a pair of shorts! The print is super cool it’s just the skirt is horrid. I was so excited and I was trying to make sure she understood what I wanted…I’m not 100% sure the message translated…so I’m either going to get back a super cool pair of shorts or she’s just going to cut my ugly skirt…I’ll find out soon enough.

In case anyone was wondering, NO the language barrier between the interns has NOT improved. Here’s the conversation that happened this morning with one of my dear French speaking friends. (bear in mind this is how I heard the conversation)

French speaking friend: What’s is Pinot Noir?

Me: It’s a type of wine.

French speaking friend: it’s what?

Me: Wine! it’s Wine!

French speaking friend: is it like the things you see out of?

Me: What in the world are you talking about? It’s vino, wine…it’s wine.

French speaking friend: no no no (and I’m writing this like she pronounced it) VINOCULERS!!

Me: are you kidding me? Binoculars? Yes, it’s the things you see out of.

French speaking friend: ok, thank you!

Me: Lord have mercy.

The thing about it is, this kind of conversation is normal.

Pinot Noir is wine,

Leigh

Touch the car, slap the person

So I’m in India, right? That means I can make up totally random slightly inappropriate games to play while driving through the India traffic, right? Well I hope you answered yes to both questions because that’s what I’ve done. All the interns at the school (keep in mind there’s 7 of us now) play this game called touch the car, slap the person. Let me explain before my many mothers out there think I’m going to get my arm chopped off.  Basically when we’re in a rickshaw and we’re close enough to another car, bus, or motorcycle we reach out and touch it really fast. You get 1 point for cars and buses and 2 points for motorcycles because it’s easier to get caught. Now we only play slap the person with each other, that’s when we’re in 2 or 3 separate rickshaws when we pass each other we reach out and slap the crap out of the each other. You may not enjoy our games but they keep us entertained when we think we’re going to die while driving through India.

We went to a night market last night I GOT TO BARGAIN! People in this country think that because I’m a foreigner I don’t know what I’m doing…they’re partially correct. But please note I have haggled with the best of them in Mexico and Jamaica, once I got the hang of it I was solid. I got a lot of stuff and only got cheated out of like 500 rupees (but that was in the beginning when I was young and dumb) by the end of the night I was pretty much a pro.

If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll know that there is a tiny little human boy here with whom I’m in love with…BIG NEWS!!!!!! I walked up to him yesterday and said “Namaste” and gave him my hand (like so he could shake it), well he mumbled “namaste” and eye balled my hand suspiciously, then instead of shaking my hand he rubbed it….I figured this was more than I could ask for, so mission accomplished!

I was taking a nap yesterday and I was rudely and abruptly woken by tiny hands squeezing my forehead…I don’t know why this happened but it did and I was superbly over it. The auntie in the hostel walked up to me and said “headache?” I said “No auntie, not at all. They’re just squeezing my head.” She laughed; I don’t think she knew I was being completely serious.

Also, apparently I am a distraction…whoops…one of the teachers told me on Friday that a couple of the boys (Gelo and another one) haven’t been doing their homework because I come over to the hostel and distract them, ok this may be true BUT I distract them with English! I’m teaching and testing Gelo on the days of the week; so he had a legitimate excuse the other one did not. So the teacher told me to tell the boys that if they didn’t complete their homework I would hit them. Let’s rewind for a second here: they hit in this country, the teachers, the hostel aunties, all of them. It’s totally socially and culturally acceptable to hit children in the school. Well, I’m an American and we don’t hit kids, especially not teachers. Ok fast forward back to the story: well I knew that I would be lying if I told them I would hit them so I stood up and looked very serious and told them if they didn’t start completing their homework I would…be very sad. The teacher looked at me and was so confused…I gathered my stuff and scampered away before she could say anything.

Distractions and all,

Leigh   

"The movie is in Hindi...w/o subtitles..."

So last night we went and saw our first BOLLYWOOD MOVIE!!!!! it was super awesome! There was a small problem though…it was in Hindi…which could have been super awesome except there were no subtitles…so we sat through a movie fully entranced by what was going on but having actually no clue what was being said. The movie was super great through! It was  a story of love, comedy, tragedy, and action! It was pretty awesome. O and half way through there was an intermission…WHAT? There are intermissions in plays, not movies, but there was 5 minutes intermission in the middle of this movie...only in India.

The 4^th of July was super awesome!

I wore an American flag like a cape for the entire day! Underneath my cape I was wearing a red, white and blue polo, I felt a little closer to home. We set off super sketchy Indian fireworks that night and had this massive cake! We cut it into tiny pieces so all the kids could have some. Apparently in India it’s like a thing to rub cake in peoples faces…I sad this isn’t a thing in America on the fourth…but nonetheless this is how I ended up

Nikki left yesterday, it was so superbly sad. The kids were crying  she was crying, I was standing around looking awkward because I don’t really do feelings and I definitely don’t do crying. It was a sad affair, but she’s an American, I mean shes from Chicago, I’ll see her again.

I’ve started teaching some English! We play English games, so I’ll sign a certain word or draw a picture and two kids will run up to the board and it’s a competition to see who can write the word fastest and correctly. Well some of this English teaching carried over into the boys hostel where I spend a lot of time in the evenings. I’m tutoring a few of them in English (just learning basic English words) and working with some of the older ones on correct spelling and word usage. So last night Gelo and I were working on spelling all the days of the week correctly, well I looked away for one minute and magically he had all the days written down correctly, which was a real task because just 5 minutes earlier he was riding the struggle bus hard with Wednesday and Tuesday. So I looked at him and told him he was liar and a cheater and we weren’t friends. Well it turns out one of his friends across the room was signing how to spell it to him! I was very angry and he was so apologetic but I told him I didn’t care if he learned how to spell them or not and I refused to help him. But he moved and sat directly in front of me so I would know he wasn’t cheating and he started studying….so I may forgive him…if he can spell the days of the week today, I’ll let you know.

So there’s this little blind boy who’s my absolute favorite in the entire world. He’s approximately 2 ½ feet tall and he has 1 blue eye and one brown eye.  So the problem with this is my feelings of love are not reciprocated…every time I try to speak to him he literally runs away.  Our converstions normally go like this:

Me: “Namaste!”

Him:  Looks at me and sprints aways as fast as his tiny legs will carry him.

one day however it went like this:

Me: “Namaste, tiny baby”

Him: looked at me sketchily, “Namas…” SPRINT AWAY

Like he realized he was speaking to me in the middle of the word then realized it was time to run away….

here’s his pic:

He's so precious! I need him to love me back...

America the Great,

Leigh

washing clothes=struggle

As I was sitting next to the devil while washing my clothing last night I had an epiphany: someone should have told me that hand washing clothes was the worst thing ever. I was washing clothes for 3 hours last night. 3 HOURS. Maybe it was partially my fault because I haven’t washed clothes in 2 weeks, but I brought enough clothing with me and I;ve bought enough clothing here that I don’t have to! O and to make matters I was about to wash the last pair of my 5 pairs of jeans and one of the girls came into the room and looked at the jeans I has already washed and convinced me to letter her at least sho me how it was supposed to be done, well she washed my jeans better than any washer machine ever has and it was super disgusting because when she was done you could see the dirt coming out of them…the ones I washed didn’t do that…She looked at the jeans I had washed and lifted one of the pant legs and was pointing at the dirt that was on the very bttom of th pant leg (like from where I walked on them) and I didn’t know how to sign “Honey I’ve been washing clothes for 3 hours I don’t care about that at all” so I just told her it was ok and that I would wash them again another day.

Ok so the other day I was wearing a knee length skirt (to all the tri sigmas reading this it was the white skirt we wore during recruitment only I didn’t have it high waisted I wore it on my hips like a normal skirt) well we were about to leave to go see this old historic well (yes a well) and Mr. Jaysh said, “Leigh you go change?” I said “No im good!” to which he responded “o…your skirt is very little though…” I was so beyond over it.

My dearest bff on team America is one of a kind! I came home with her last night and spent the night. We ate dominos, watched cable, and lived in the sweet sweet air conditioning; I was basically in heaven. It was needless to say the best night ever. O AND I GOT TO TAKE A REAL SHOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM SO SPOILED!

I AM EVEN MORE CULTURED!!!! I bought a sari today!!!

I love it! It’s so awesome! What wasn’t awesome was the 20 person crowd that gathered  to watch me try the sari on…

I don’t understand why people think I’m that interesting…

Conversation I had with a lady today while out shopping:

Lady: where are you from?

Me: I’m from the United States.

Lady: So you’re from Kenya.

Me: I am from America. I am an American. USA…American

I have been asked at least 19 times since being in India if I’m from Africa, the other day a lady was surprised I spoke such good English because she thought that I was from Africa…#fail

Something else that’s an epic fail all around is this sign:

If anyone can see, this sign reads: “Infertility and test tube baby centre” WHAT? Things that are socially UNACCEPTABLE: THIS SIGN! Like really? I don’t even understand why anyone would think that calling it a test tube baby centre would be an ok idea. I just can’t even…I don’t even know where to begin…

Well the boys and girls but more so the boys are trying to convince me to stay in India and not return home. : ( I told them I had school and my family and friends to which they responded just bring them all here…well I came up with another solution….mom you should probably start preparing the guest rooms…

Things to think about: If a person is born deaf, what language would they think in?

Mind blown,

Leigh

No Problem…No Problem…well

I’ve found that it’s a big part of Indian culture to say “no problem” about pretty much everything. The issue with that is that sometimes I do have a problem. Like when I got locked in the hostel and I went storming over to talk to Mr. Jaysh he said “it’s ok Leigh, no problem” and I said “No, Mr. Jaysh this is a HUGE problem” and he was confused. No problem has become one of those phrases that I NEVER want to hear again. Our dear friend Rumi, got bit by an ant that was carrying some kind of bacteria and her skin is turning black, and when she went to tell someone about it they said “no problem no problem” to which I responded well her skins going to fall off, so maybe there’s a small problem?

I got my culture on last night!

it’s so pretty! the girls are so talented! Well there was a problem with the culture on my arm…it resulted in a particularly itchy rash…#fail

On top of the new rash that’s broken out on my arm, I also went to the “hospital” last night. I put hospital in quotes because it was in fact not a hospital. It was a man at a desk wrapping pills in pieces of cut up newspaper. I told him I wasn’t feeling well and that I probably had Malaria and asked him was I going to die. He looked at me and said I’m confident you don’t have Malaria and that you’re going to fine. The kids were al gravely concerned about me because one of them touched my arm and signed to me that I had a fever…well I didn’t know how to sign back that my skin was hot because their entire country is hot, so most of the day was spent with children touching my face or rubbing my arms…so much touching. O and there’s a new girl who has taken to pinching my cheeks…I’ve had to tell her never do that again.

We went to the Gandhi Ashram (house) a couple days ago it was super cool. The ashram is where Gandhi lived when he was in Ahmedabad (for 15 years)

                                                           "My life is my message"- Gandhi

I really love this quote! New tattoo? I think so!

I’ve found the one thing that India has that if it makes it to the US half of our population will die off:

 

Delivery McDonalds? Seriously? Who in Gods name would want that awful food delivered? I might be bias because I hate McDonalds and everything they are (except the philanthropy aspect, that’s cool)

Somehow I have become the person responsible for mediating conflict amongst the kids. So they do a lot of hitting here because they don’t have another way to call each other, but sometimes they hit each other as a game…that I don’t approve of. So yesterday one of the boys that I love dearly slapped (playfully) one of the girls that I also love dearly. Well I marched right on down to him grabbed him by his shirt and told him to apologize. It was such a spectacle; well this incident, which occurred in the cafeteria in front of everyone, prompted all the students to bring their grievances to me.

Well yesterday I saw a dog sleeping in a planter:

I asked  “why is that dog in that planter?” the response was “o he’s just taking a rest” I said “well that’s odd because dogs don’t sleep in planters…so…”

In the evening I hang out with the boys at the boy hostel, this is the time where all of my electronic devices (both phones, laptop,  ipad, and camera) are passed out and they boys pretty much go to town. I have SO many pictures that I’m not quite sure what to do with them anymore…I’ll be printing about 200 photos before I head out.

My life is my message,

Leigh

+

Not hunrgy...really though...

What I really need is for people in this country to stop trying to force me to eat as much as humanly possible.  Everyone in this school eats a lot, the boys the girls, the women the men, even the dogs, so when you don’t eat as much as them they think you’re literally starving. I ate a normal breakfast and was full, but all of the students were trying to tell me I needed more food and I needed to keep eating, but they don’t understand that I’ve stopped eating because I'm not hungry anymore. Today after lunch (which is at 10 am, I know what you’re thinking; that’s breakfast! I thought the same thing) they gave all the kids mangoes for dessert well they gave all the kids 3 and they tried to give me 3 and I told them no and that I only wanted 1, well that wasn’t acceptable so they gave me 2. I ate one and tried to give the other one back, that didn't work. One of the boys I was eating with made me put it in my purse and told me I could eat it later...I carried a mango around all day.

I know it’s customary and traditional but people have to start letting me do my share of the work (thank you GRP). I haven’t washed a dish, made a bed, wiped a table, or help prepare a meal since I got here, but that’s not from lack of trying! I have tried so hard to wash my own dishes or help in whatever way I can but NO one will let me do anything. I mean if we’re being totally honest some of it I don’t mind…this making my bed everyday thing is no joke.

Let me tell you what is truly unacceptable: I was in a convenient store the other day and my total was 49 rupees well who has perfect change these days? So I gave the nice man 50 rupees expecting to get 1 rupee back, because that’s how simple math works…or so I thought. He gave me back this:

 

In what world and on what planet does 1 rupee change=random Indian candy??????????? I thought it was like a mint that you would get after dinner…then as I stood there staring at him waiting on my change my friend kindly informed me that he didn’t have any change so the candy was my change. I looked around, particularly perplexed…and stated that in my country if a store runs out of change they either give you more back than you’re supposed to have, or they GO FIND SOME CHANGE! No where is it acceptable to give someone candy instead of change. I’m actually still confused.

Apparently fire hazards aren’t like a thing in India. Let me tell you a little bit about how my afternoon went:

4:30 sitting casually in the hostel

4:32 decided I needed some water

4:33 found that the door to exit the hostel was locked…from the outside

4:33 remembered I worked at a school for deaf kids so yelling wasn’t helpful

4:34 waved down a kid made them go get me help

4:38 help finally arrived with a key to let me out

4:39 stormed into the office and ranted about how I could have died

It was pretty eventful.

Just in case anyone was wondering: Yes, it is still hot.

locked safely away,

Leigh  

Please stop touching me

If you know me at all you know that I am NOT overly affectionate, not particularly sensitive, and above all else I REALLY HATE being touched, I don’t really hug. I mean I don’t particularly mind hugs, there just not like on the top of my priority list or anything. I don’t just casually touch nor do I care to be touched. Well apparently people in India are touchers…why????????? People here are always touching me, there’s petting me or rubbing my skin. SPOILER ALERT: contrary to popular belief I am black and no, the color doesn’t rub off. So you can imagine the look on my face as I’m walking through the zoo and someone starts rubbing my head or stroking my arm. I mean do I look like I need to be rubbed???? I couldn’t possibly.

                                                                A lady petting me.

                                                    The crowd that gathered to pet me.

The zoo turned out to be quite disappointing. The animals were behind 3 and 4 fences therefore I couldn’t get a good picture. We however did turn into a side show again, this time it was kind of our own fault. We really wanted to see the hippos but they were chilling hard in the water so we started making all these awful high pitched noises and told people that was a hippo call…we thought it was funny….they thought we were idiots. Even though the zoo was a little disappointing that’s ok, because I kind of live in the middle of the zoo. On our way back to the school from the zoo we saw about 16 cows, 1 donkey, 7 goats, 3 horses, and when we got back to the school there were 12 monkeys…in our backyard…so…that’s my life. Speaking of cows, while I love India I need to be back in a country where cows understand their place: steak.  Now some of you may say that’s culturally insensitive and I should know better, but you trying being held up in traffic because a cow is just chilling in the road…eating some hay and looking around like he has not one care in world.

Things I’ve learned thus far in India: don’t let other people document events you find important. For example, Phoebe and I went halves on a new cricket set for the boys, well it was a surprise for them so last night all of us (Rumi, Mélanie, Phoebe, and myself) and Mr. Jaysh (the man pretty much taking care of us) went to the boys hostel and Mr. Jaysh explained we had a surprise for them! Well it was super exciting to see how their faces lit up when we pulled out the new equipment, they were so stoked! Well I was pretty stoked to see the pictures I asked our dear Puerto Rican friend to take, this is what they look like:

SPOILER ALERT: this picture sucks. There went that moment.

Speaking of my precious baby angels (sorry GRP’ers), all of the interns got a little dressed up the other night because we were going to have dinner with a friends family, so we put on our best clothes, and even put on some make-up. Well the boys were so surprised that I could manage to not look gross that I was receiving compliments up and down and naturally it turned into an event for pictures, they told me they needed to remember that I could look nice…things that are socially unacceptable: THAT.

                                    YAY! Leigh can manage to not look disgusting! SWEET!

and to continue on that thought, in addition to being the translator here I have also become the police of deeming what is and is not socially acceptable. Which is EXTREMELY funny, because I rarely fall into line with what is socially acceptable.  I’m having to constantly tell people I’m with, “you can’t do that” or “you can’t say that”. For example, taking a picture of the police while he’s scolding someone who just ran over his foot: SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE or speaking loudly about two guys holding hands who are literally right beside you: SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE. If you don’t understand being gay that’s fine I will explain it later, but really talking about anyone doing anything that you don’t understand or disapprove of when they are actually right beside you is…you guessed it: SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE

Well, half of my toe nail is missing…In the hostel, there’s a little ledge and I was running to get to my cellphone because it was ringing (thanks mom) and I hopped the little ledge and one foot cleared it…the other wasn’t so lucky. So my toe nail cracked about half way down the nail and it hurt like the pain of a thousand red ant bites. Well this situation brought my mind back to a conversation I was having with my doctor back in the states before I left. The conversation went like this:

Doctor: Leigh I see you’ve never had a tetanus shot?

Leigh: You’re correct.
Doctor: Well you should probably get one now, before you go to India.

Leigh: I’m good, but thank you.

Doctor: Well why not?

Leigh: Because I know that getting a tetanus shot is a choice.

Doctor: Ok…and?

Leigh: And I am choosing NOT to get one. Really thanks though.

When my toe falls off because it gets super infected, I’ll remember that choice and the pure sass I gave the doctor. Ehh…win some, lose some.

I GOT TO SLEEP IN A ROOM WITH AN AIR CONDITIONER! Ok so imagine you’ve been living on the sun, then all of a sudden you got to live in Alaska…in November. Imagine how happy you’d be! Then multiply that happiness by 16. That’s how happy I was! I had to use a blanket! I never thought I would need a blanket again. Our friend let us sleep at her house and her family fixed us the best meal we’ve ever had in India and it was a beautiful and blessed experience. Here’s the family that made my entire weekend:

Well as you may know I’m from the south, where it’s customary to bring a dish to dinner or to take turns buying and cooking. Well that’s not the case in India, the family invited us all to come back over for dinner next weekend so I excitedly asked “What can I bring” I was met with confused stares. So I asked again, “what can I bring to dinner next weekend” I was promptly and politely told I could and would bring nothing and if I did it would not be accepted. So then I was confused. Indian culture demands that guests be treated like family and apparently family doesn’t help by brining a covered dish. Also family doesn’t say ma’am and sir, I told them that was one thing I couldn’t help.

O and I may be teaching Gujarati studies today…

Love and Social acceptability,

Leigh

Shaking hands, Kissing babies, Petting elephants...NBD

 I PET AN ELEPHANT TODAY! so I was just chilling in India hanging out at a festival and up walks some elephants! They were the best things in the entire world and I love them with all my heart! Here’s a pic of me petting one!  I named him Jello, to make up for the fact that I have no one to call Jello…

That awkward moment when the foreigners turn into the main event at the festival: So we were just chilling at the festival watching some elephants and camels go by when all of a sudden person after person start asking us to take pictures with them or dance with them in the parade, or (and this is my personal favorite) hold their babies. It was a tad bit disconcerting…I felt like a politician: shaking hands and kissing babies. So many people wanted to shake our hands and touch our hair or skin, or take pictures with/of us. My personal favorite (other than holding someone’s baby) was when a police officer took his phone out and took pictures of us.  I wanted to let him know that he didn’t look as intimidating as he thought when he was cheesing from ear to ear while taking photos of us.

O and did I mention that we will be on the Indian evening news? Because we will be.  While at the festival a news reporter came up to us and asked us how we were feeling in India and how we were feeling at the festival, then he took lots of photos and videos! We even got special privileges while at the festival because we were foreigners. We got to get out of line and take special pictures; we got to get out of line to have pictures taken of us. It was pretty cool, we were pretty much VIP’s.  We spent the last 45 minutes of our time at the festival taking pictures with people.  The weird part is a lot of people wanted to take pictures with us, but they didn’t have cameras, so they wanted us to take pictures with them on our phones and cameras, so they’ll literally never see the pictures…

I’ve figured out why America is the most obese country in the world. At parades and festivals we’ve gotten to the point where we toss out full sized candy bars to the people in the crowds…not in India, in India they toss out stuff like cucumbers and mung beans, and water, and some candy, but not nearly the amount or size of that in America. #problemsolved When we got back to the school we divided all the candy into 3 bags (one for the boys, one for the girls and one for the blind boys) then we took the candy around and passed it out like it was Halloween! It was great : ) I’ve pretty much become besties with all of the boys.

Speaking of the boys, I realized that boys will be boys, no matter where you go or who they are they’re all the same, even here in India.  Today my friend (the one from previous blog posts) tried to convince me that some elephants would be coming to the school at 6, well at 6 when they weren’t here I asked him where they were, then he tried to convince me they would be here at 7, well I told him I thought he was full of crap. I told him he was dishonest and we were no longer friends, at which point he immediately started trying to convince me that there were elephants across the street…he knows I can’t leave the commune…this all basically ended with me being super over it because I was quite excited about seeing some more elephants.  But at the end of the day the boys are pretty much the sweetest things ever, they gave me flowers and it was cute : )

As I told a friend of mine yesterday, I can tell this is going to be one of those rip my heart out and leave me for dead summers…I’ve still got plenty of time so I’m not thinking about leaving yet....

Foreign Celebrity,

Leigh

TEAM AMERICA WINS AGAIN!

I have a new friend!!!! Her name is Nikki, and she’s an English speaking American who understands that PR is a US territory, plays hide and seek AND speaks Gujarati!           She is everything that is right in India. We’re pretty much bff’s…I’m not sure if she knows that though…she’s a senior in high school and from Chicago. When she got here we went on a tour of the commune then we ended up playing cricket and hide and go seek with the boys for a while. She doesn’t really sweat though…and I’m super jealous about that. I’m trying to convince her to apply to UNC #goheels #goamerica

Things I don’t understand: long sleeved shirts in this heat. So apparently Wednesday is casual (forgot about Friday they said), so the kids are rocking their gear, some are in jeans, others in their traditional indian gear, but still…some…were in long sleeves…like what the heck? It’s literally 106 degrees here everyday (at the minimum) and on the one day these kids can wear literally whatever they want they choose to wear long hot sleeves. I don’t get it. I think my issue is I don’t particularly care for sweating, I think it’s gross…it leaves you sticky and weird looking, feeling, and smelling and I honestly just don’t have time for it. I chose the wrong country apparently. I just cant comprehend these sleeves, I mean even ¾ length would have been better, but no lie, half the kids were in long sleeved shirts, I mean why didn’t they just put on turtlenecks and be done with it?

Ok so as I was sitting still and sweating last night while doing my homework…yes I said homework. My Gujarati languages teacher assigned me homework. If I wanted to take a summer class I wouldn’t have come all the way to India to do it! I would have stayed right in good ole Chapel Hill.

That SUPER AWKWAD moment when you YELL heads up during a game of Frisbee with deaf kids…whoops…well we hit a couple kids in the head with  a Frisbee, but really what could we do? Mélanie taught the kids how to toss and catch the Frisbee today and I would like to say that it was a win.

Things I am doing when get back to my beautiful country: writing a letter to the President demanding (yes demanding) that they teach English in ALL US territories (because this language thing is no joke, we are riding the struggle bus something serious to understand each other), AND I’m suing McDonalds India for false advertising. I’ve never wanted anything more than I wanted the ice that was supposed to come with my coke (I know it was supposed to come with it because it showed in the pictures, that clearly stated “come inside”, which led me to believe that if I went inside I would have ice and a coke) WRONG: all I had was coke. my feelings were sooo hurt.

Writing on the festival tomorrow,

Leigh