i completely suck at keeping up with this thing and many many many things have happened since the last time i wrote. the only thing on my mind is the fantastic chocolate ball and the chai from our local bakery shop, Cafe Edelweiss, that I get everytime I go there with the rest of the gang. it's our place of unwinding. For some reason, amidst the chaos (not really of the city, but the chaos of everyone's frame of mind. Udaipur is not a crowded city at all. I'm going to Mumbai next week for a week, THAT i know will be real chaos) indulging in chocolate and chai makes you forget about everything else except wondering about why there's no cats to be seen anywhere at all, how the stray dog on the street just pounced on a pigeon for lunch and now is dragging it around the street looking for a place to sit down and eat it, and what in the world is aggravating the baby cow strolling around the cafe for him to be making so much noise.
Jaisalmer was incredible which is something that I just have to dedicate time to at a later time to delve into, but many other issues have surfaced within the past week. An excerpt from what I had written a while back :
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"You just have to let go of the little things. Otherwise the whole
experience becomes miserable...", our group leader was telling me on our walk back from work. I realized how much harder this bit of advice was progressively getting
for people on the trip. For some this has been the first international trip, and
definitely the first time in India for most. At first, the curiousity
of wanting to figure out a new place and feeling an ecstatic high at
the mere thoughts of realizing that you are abroad, in FREAKIN India, makes
everything new and exciting and makes you feel as though you have the
whole thing of being a global citizen and being an invincible traveler
figured out. everything is different and ‘cool’.
after tens of hundreds of gawking stares, lots of "hello! hello!
hello! hello!" from kids hollering at you, or following you, or asking for things or just trying to touch you, stepping on cow dung, having to unsuccessfully bargain
over every little thing and realizing that the color of your skin
completely gives away how easily you can be fooled and ripped off,
people start feeling a bit antsy. Everything starts to feel chaotic
lacking any 'systematic' order, the vegetarian food gets old and
people are just craving a burrito or a burger, and after dodging a
cow that happens to pass by them at the wrong time they are "F------
done with India". These are some of the sentiments that have surfaced
over the past week. i think this is what they mean when they say
culture shock.
there’s been comments made about how unprofessional and untimely
things seem and how because of that there doesn’t seem to be any
incentive for work. “why should we care if they don’t?”. “why are
things not ready on time?”. although i am no one to tell anyone else
to make an experience positive nor am i anyone to dictate what the
right or wrong way to feel is, i do feel that this is the exact
Americanized arrogant perspective that we are despised for. This
notion that as Americans we have things figured out and it’s so
“frustrating” to see other places not catch on, or not have it figured
out as well as we do. Comparing a different culture, a different system through the parameters of American lenses, and then judging it based on the 'discrepancy' is utterly stupid to me. I don't know, maybe that makes me being arrogant in my own right. I keep on wanting to say " is not America. This is India." No one in our group is ill mannered and no one has ill intentions, but everyone's inner frustrations (no matter what they are) are surfacing after 2 and a half weeks of being here and I'm definitely included in that equation.
People are swinging back and forth from high highs to low lows and everyone has a different take on what this experience is supposed to be like.
People have made comments about how confusing the caste system is and how strange it feels to be served and to watch servers be ignored. "It's so weird that no one even smiles at them or even acknowledge them". Somehow the mystery and the backwardness of the caste system was to be blamed for this, and since that's so unknown to us, it was that much more foreign and confusing. but really though? is it that foreign? not really, i don't think. it's just that people have a tendency of always thinking that THEY come from a better place when they travel elsewhere (this goes for Indians going abroad too. the notion of "oh we have our culture preserved. Americans are lawless and corrupt." yeah there's no caste system in america, but we do have a pretty heavy handed deeply rooted institutionalized system of racism. and that, is not even dicated in any religious text. as unfortunate as it is, the janitors, cafteria workers, and kitchen staff of most places come from a similar ethnic and socio economic background. we don't seem to mind it. but then when we come to india, omg this classism business is SO backward and the caste system seems to have so much to do with it. the reality of the matter is, we live in the same world and these problems are not that much different from the problems that we still need to fix in our home communities.
Interesting stuff. For some this short short trip to India is a confirmation that doing laundry from a bucket is not something they are cool with and they would not want to come back to india ever. for others it's a confirmation that this is exactly the part of the world that they would want to come back to again and again and again.
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