Tumor Blog is now an India trip blog

Okay, so I've moved on from my tumor, and in a twist of circumstances, my ependymoma blog has now become an India trip blog. I thought of starting a new blog/account, but I'm really just way too lazy.

My trip to India has become more insane by the day, and I thought it would be worthwhile to share some experiences.

Oh like this one: today I found out that I will, for the rest of my life, have access to my family's ancestral home in the Himalayas. My parents never bothered to tell me or take me there. I'll be going for the first time this July.

I also met my grandfather's brother who spends 6 months of the year doing geological studies in the Himalayas. His geological studies have motivated him to... get this... write a book on the history of time.

My family's really cool. It's really too bad that my parents never told me, especially since now everyone is either dead or going to die soon.

Let me backtrack a little bit.

For those of you who don't know, I'm in India for the summer. For those who don't know why, I'm here because I am unable to spend a semester abroad (as I had originally planned) I received a scholarship from my school to volunteer for an organization. www.adharshilatrust.org I start work on Monday and from what I understand, I will be assisting a legal awareness program. It's 114 degrees here, and I will not have air conditioning at work.

This is my fourth trip to India. I have not been here in almost 10 years. For those who would like the short novel, I have copied and pasted exerpts from e-mails that articulate my experiernces thusfar. Again, I am lazy. Please pardon the (lazy and) choppy language.

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I'm having a great time here. At first, I was really distraught that this would be my study abroad experience, since I'm not taking new classes or going to a new place. But now, I've realized this is probably better than a school structured study abroad experience, since I will have to learn how to function in India one day (I will have things to take care of here), and since I look Indian, I sort of get to experience the society as an outsider/foreigner from the inside. It's really challenging , scary, and uncomfortable, but that's what a study abroad experience should be... right?

I'm also trying to re-establish fluency in Hindi. When I was little, I was fluent, but my dad yelled at me and told me to stop speaking Hindi because he was scared that I wouldn't learn English... I had really ignorant teachers in preschool who thought I was learning impaired because I confused consonants between the two languages. That's actually why my parents sent me to private school... everyone said I needed "special attention" because of my speech "impediment."

My parents didn't know until a couple years ago that I could understand Hindi almost perfectly. I've only been here a couple days, but my speaking abilities have improved... I expect to be fluent by July. You only really need Hindi to talk to people at markets and servants. Most people here speak English-- all the street signs, billboards, and stores use English. Companies use English, and my family speaks to me in English, and to one another in a combination of Hindi and English. I think it would be pointless to learn how to read or write it.


I've been to India 3 other times, and this visit has given me the biggest culture shock, since I'm older & look Indian-- strangers/people at markets/everywhere expect me to be more Indian than I actually am. I was at a restaurant last night, and I explained to the waiter how shocked I was by how spicy my meal was since he told me it wasn't spicy at all. He didn't get it until I told him that I'm from the U.S.

I'm going to have some(CMC) friends in Delhi by the end of next week, so I'll have a better idea of what people our age do here. I have 2 friends who will be 15 minutes away and 3 friends who are like 40 minutes away. So far, I've been hanging out with some family friends-- two brothers who are 20 and 25 and their female cousin who is 19. I'll be meeting up with the big CMC group next week. I'm going with them to Agra, and they will be having dinner with my aunt, who is going to be giving a talk to them.

I haven't begun working yet... I've pretty much been shopping, eating, seeing family, and letting my aunt spoil me. If you have money, the quality of life here is just spectacular. Everything's really really cheap... like the nice movie theatres cost like 3 dollars. Every household has at least 1 or 2 "servants," (they do everything for you... I walked into my bathroom the other day, and one of the maids was cleaning my hairbrush... they also iron my underwear... it's really weird). It's been really hard for me to have servants here. I'm really big on socioeconomic equality, so it's hard for me to have people doing things for me. Some households treat their servants like crap (India is an extremely class-conscious society). In my house, they are paid very highly and treated like family.

When I was little, I would play with Kanchi (one of the servants who has been with our family for over 20 years), and she has gone shopping with me. The maids get to watch TV when they want, and Kanchi is going to teach me how to cook. My dad gave my aunt a really nice cell phone a couple months ago, and my aunt just gave it to Kanchi and pays for Kanchi's cell phone plan. Kanchi came to work with our family when she was 18. Some people work as servants when they are as young as 8. Kanchi and Neela (the other servant) don't really seem to mind working for my aunt. I always forget to take my pills, but Kanchi and Neela really always remember for me, they always turn on the AC or fan for me when I fall asleep in a room randomly, and they always insist that they clean up after me and my aunt. I try to do my own dishes/clean up my own mess, and they don't let me. It's really weird.

Poverty here is pretty insane. It used to be worse, but New Delhi's been getting a lot of money and new jobs have been created. The rich are getting richer, and they want more services like street cleaners, drivers, maids, security guards, retail, etc. But New Delhi's still pretty dirty with a lot of slums. I'm working with an organization that specifically helps people in slums, so I'll have a better idea of what Indian poverty entails... and when I start work, I will probably feel even more horrible about how spoiled I am. There are still a ton of beggars and even in my aunt's extremely wealthy neighborhood, there are bum shanties and people sleeping on the streets....right outisde.

It's really weird. I hear that other parts of India are much worse. I'll be going to Mumbai in July to visit my family on my mom's side. They aren't as wealthy as my aunt, so I'll have a better idea of how other people live in India. Also, CMC has sent a group of 13 students to India for 2 weeks. I'll be going with them to Agra (4 hours from Delhi), which I hear is a bit more conservative than Delhi.

I don't know if you know, but there are a lot of cows on the streets of India... however, they are more or less being transported away from the cities. There were more cows 10 years ago, but they cause a lot of car accidents. There are also monkeys everywhere, but I haven't seen any yet. I saw a lot more when I was last here.

They have KFC, Baskin Robbins, Subway, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, and all sorts of the same retail stores that you have in the US here.