Whiplash of reality

I am here. I am here in India. This is wild.

After a 4 day stint in Istanbul, Turkey, we arrived in Mumbai/Bombay at 4 in the morning. It was chaos. I was blear-eyed from travel, dragging from exhaustion, and attempting to make sense of the fact that I am in India. Customs was a long, strenuous process basically involving line after line, signature after signature. Or it was simpler and my blood-shot eyes and half-conscious memory might have skewed the events of the early morning. I’m not quite sure.

After navigating the rest of the airport, we found our scheduled shuttle bus where the nice driver was holding a “GWU” sign. I was extremely grateful for the pre-planned transportation – considering I was in no state to carry a conversation, let alone find a taxi, negotiate a price for the taxi and venture to some unknown hotel. Thank you Dr. Vyas from helping me not die so early in the trip.

We arrived to the hotel by 6:30am – it was swankier than I was expecting The staff are extremely kind and the lobby manages to stay refreshingly air conditioned. However the bleak reality of India remains closer than we could have imagined. I peered out of our posh hotel room window towards a cluster of shanty houses and deteriorating apartment buildings. Quite literally under my nose is a slum; one of many in this city. How is this real? How is this fancy hotel, where the lights for the room are turned on by an iPod touch, crammed next to a slum. Dr Vyas explained that this is not the US – poverty and wealth live side-by-side. Unlike DC where we could live in Diupont or Georgetown and never see a trace of poverty, here all we need to do is look out from our air-conditioned room to see a mother and young child picking through garbage in hopes of finding goods to sell. This just got real.

My exhausted brain couldn’t even begin to comprehend my new reality. So, by the time we made ourselves comfortable in the hotel room (which I am sharing with my good friend Jenn or “jQueen”) I look a Benadryl (for some mysterious bites I can explain later) and one Excedrin PM and said “sayonara reality” and fell into a deep, very much needed sleep.

3:30pm – I groggily awake to the sound of our doorbell. Yes, our room has a doorbell. Once again I have to ask myself, “Is this real?” It’s Lindsy, beloved fellow MCHer (Maternal and Child Health) as well as recent Turkey travel companion. It’s time to wake up. Jenn and I start unpack our effects, discussing random tidbits of our trip to Turkey; “Remember this?” “Wasn’t it crazy that we did this?” “What was the name of that place?” etc etc. We unpack, clean up and head down to greet the other students. By the way, we’re in India.

I quickly learned that the outlet adapter I brought for the trip works great…in South America. Considering that was the last place I took it, it never occurred to me that I should make sure that the plugs were applicable for India – or really any place else in the world that is not South America. Well, crap. A flood of anxiety swept through me. I battled all the ridiculous hypothetical situations that could arise from me not having an adapter for my electronics – If I can’t plug in my computer it will run out of battery, I won’t be able to complete my assignments or let my mother know I am alive. Not to mention I won’t have any pictures from the trip due to a dead camera. This is a terrible disaster, how will I ever survive? All of these anxious thouhts seemed to have blocked the very simple reality that I am in India; the land of the outsourced technical assistance personnel. I’m sure someone knows someone who knows someone that works for Best Buy telephone assistance and could help me find an adapter. Also, this stream of anxiety completely ignored the fact that I have 15 other students on this trip that probably have access to an adapter I could use.

Not important – I thought I was screwed. I went down to the front desk to ask if there was a store nearby to buy an adapter. The concierge is just the absolute best. I handed him my computer charger and 500 rupees, the equivalent of $10 USD and off went one of the staff members to buy me an adapter. Within 10 minutes I had an India adapter – costing me a mere 40 rupees (less than $1 USD). I should just buy everything here.

Yes! A charged computer at my disposal. However, that does me little good given that the internet is as slow as molasses and as finicky as a 7 year old refusing to eat her dinner. Speaking of which, after internet was sorted out, we all piled into quite the spectacle of a bus, full of gringos heading to some unknown destination for dinner. We find out on the bus – we’re going to a mall. Are you serious? A mall? Sure enough, after battling Mumbai traffic for 1.5 hours (and dealing with hungry, jet-lagged Americans), we arrived at the mall. It was pretty modern and clean, seemed almost like the Cumberland Mall back home; with the exception of the many, many shops that sold sari’s.

20 of us at dinner at this super swanky Indian restaurant in the mall and so began the bidding game to see who could win the professors’ attention, who had the greater story to tell, who had the most ambition, who was (in the end) the best. And with this so began my feelings of confusion, displacement, and regret for making the decision to venture to India with these women.

I don’t know how to even begin to process what is around me. I feel so out of place. So lost. I am not use to travelling with some many people – especially woman – and in such a lavish lifestyle. We are staying in air conditioned rooms where you use an iPod touch to turn on the bedside light. Come on! Not to mention being toured around Mumbai in a private bus and eating dinner in a westernized mall at a swanky restaurant where they call me “ma’am.” HELLO?!!?! Where are the cows? The trash? The honking horns? The begging children? the people want to touch my hair? The malaria infested mosquitos? With the exception of the slums to the right of the hotel and the inordinate amount of women in saris, I would have no idea I was in India. And that pains me.

My typical style of travel usually involves super cheap hostels in “colorful” parts of town where I am sharing a dorm room with 6 people from at least 3 different countries. Not to mention I hate travelling in large groups and grabbing more attention than necessary. I mean, I get it. I tend to stand out – a lot - even in the US. But my motto when I travel is to melt into the culture around me. Try to absorb all that I can from my experiences, the people I meet, and what is the norm in a place that I do not call my home. How can I do that when I am surrounded by 15 other female, American (or Americanized) students? Our presence damn near demands attention. It’s just weird and “off” for me. This does not feel right…yet.

To be fair, however, everything has a silver lining and a bigger picture. I have not been putting my last 9 hours of consciousness in a new country into perspective. I am not in India to haphazardly backpack around the country, sleep in hostels, and buy souvenirs. I am here to participate n an incredible learning opportunity – exploring social entrepreneurship in the context of India. I guess I need to start looking at this as a business trip with a service component. Or would it be the other way around? This trip is about seing the realities of India, coming face to face with poverty, hunger, and poor health and learning how to communicate and work with the clients/communities that various local organizations serve.

This trip is not some joy ride through Tuscany, sipping wine and ignoring all the stressors of daily life.

This trip is to prepare me as a public health professional and even a fellow human being of how another part of the world lives.

I feel like tomorrow will be better.