Here at Last!

Greetings from Coimbatore!

It still does not feel entirely real that I am here.  But I'm not the only student who's saying that, so I don't feel too bad.  Besides, the past two days were spent in an unholy limbo of check-in, security, waiting for arrival, boarding, flight, layover, departure, luggage check, et cetera.  I'm not sure whether it felt incredibly long or whether any time had passed at all.  The flight details have blurred into one long montage of meandering around airports and going through security.  But I suppose it hardly matters . . .

. . . now that I've made it to India!  Our flight (the last of four) landed at 9:30am local time - although we'd made it to Mumbai at 12:35am local time and had a soul-sucking layover.  Throughout my journey, I was incredibly grateful that I was traveling with two other students from the India Studies Program.  I only expected to be traveling with Emma, but we ran into Faith while waiting to board the first flight.  Without the two of them, I would have felt very lost; it was a relief to navigate through airports, security, and customs with two other people by my side.

By the way, you can (and should!) follow Emma's blog here because she is a seriously awesome human being and she rocks my socks.

BUT!  The group rendezvoused in the Mumbai airport and we made our flight to Coimbatore with relatively little difficulty.  Although we were all pretty exhausted from our flights, we met the Director of the program, Kirk, his wife, and their two sons.  We had our first taste of Indian food (in India!  I just can't get over it) in a little café and were able to meet our peer mentors.  Part of this program is having a peer student from the college be paired with everyone in the program as a friend and resource to navigating Indian culture.

We then went to our apartments, spent the afternoon unpacking and walking around Coimbatore and taking care of some necessary paperwork.  We didn't do too much - our brains were all fried - but we found some stores, hung out with our peer mentors, got a tour of Bishop Appasamy College of Arts and Science (BACAS, for short), and finally went out to dinner with all students, peer mentors, and the Director's family.

These next few days are going to be a bit rough - we start at BACAS tomorrow, and there's a lot to do and get used to in a very short period of time.   It's a bit late here and I'm still jet-lagged, so I'm going to sign off right now.  But, as an example of the love and acceptance I felt waiting for me, let me show you the picture Kirk's son drew for me.  (Sorry about the light.)

A rose from the program and its students!

A letter from Kirk's sons.

I'll do my best to write again soon.  Wish me luck!

The Great Ordeal

or, Interludes From Gretchen’s Long and Arduous Quest For Her Visa. 

(This'll be a long one, folks.)

SO, first of all, let me reassure everyone who has been asking that YES, AS OF TODAY, I HAVE RECEIVED MY VISA!  With 36 hours to spare.  Yikes.  I received it on the last possible day that I could have gotten it, after a long and (somewhat) stressful journey.  The FedEx lady was not only very nice, but heartwarmed by my note of gratitude and interested in my trip.  I wanted to wait until the whole blasted thing was over until I posted about it, one way or the other . . . but then I decided that rather than record the whole sordid tale, I would pick out some of the amusing anecdotes and detail them. 

. . . . 

i.)  A great disappointment and a great praise

On our Monday visit, my father and I - along with twenty-some other people - were turned away at the door of the agency.  The security guards were two huge men who did their jobs well without being rude.  On Monday, when I wrote my previous post about being at peace about whatever happened, as I honestly didn’t think I would get it.  

But for my praise!  Because we were turned away on Monday, on Thursday my father drove me up to NYC . . . and through the city.  Let me repeat.  He drove.  Through New York City.  In our minivan.  Applaud him, y’all.  He deserves it.  

ii.)  in which my parents and me attempt to research the consulate

“All right,” the intrepid explorers say, soldiering on.  “Let’s check out the consulate website!”  Websites are Googled.  Addresses are found.  The brave three click on the link for the New York consulate.  

FORBIDDEN, is the first word to greet their eyes, followed by: “you are not allowed to access this page on the server you are using.”  There is a moment of blank shock from the explorers.  Forbidden?  Yes, friends, the word on the screen was indeed ‘forbidden,’ as if this web page was not in fact the website for a consulate but was instead a crime scene, a nuclear weapon, or an apple in the Garden of Eden.  

The backspace key is pressed.  Another link is tried.  “FORBIDDEN!” booms this page as well.  We attempt the next.  The ominous prohibition is nowhere to be found . . . and neither is the page, from what the screen is telling us.  (None of the links worked, but the consulate reviews were hilarious.)

iii.)  calling the consulate

The pre-recorded message for the Indian Consulate of New York was recorded by a man with the thickest New York accent I have ever heard.  It was quite disorienting, as I was expecting an Indian one.  

iv.) the magical post-it

My dear friend Emma, one of my traveling companions (and the other one from my school), went down to NYC the day after I did.  She found out that the agency was no longer accepting walk-ins.  But (unlike me, when I went the following day) she was given what I deemed the “Magical Post-It of Access,” which got her past the security guards and up the stairs to the magical place of application (see the theme here?) to submit her application.  When I came up on Thursday, the Magical Post-It was shared with great joy.  

v.)  The Crazy Lady (and I do mean THE crazy lady)

When going to NYC, I was told to not be a “pushy American.”  I didn’t know what that looked like until Thursday, when another applicant threw a tantrum.  Literally.  She started yelling at the security guard, then screaming at him, then finally began sobbing hysterically until they finally let her up the stairs.  Once upstairs, she calmed down (she even mentioned to me that she started crying so they would let her upstairs).  It was appalling!  I couldn’t believe that someone would actually do that.    

The worst part was that she flew out on September 15 - and she had an upcoming appointment with the agency.  Emma and I both flew out on Monday - we were visiting Thursday, but we only had two business days to get our visas!  There was also another student there who was flying out over the weekend.  And all three of us students - leaving out in 48 hours or less, mind you, and still without visas - were calmer and more mature than this woman who had over a week before she left, and a scheduled appointment.  

vi.)  Nilesh the Wonderful

But, lest you think that all was misery . . . when we finally got into the agency on Thursday, we were helped by a very nice gentleman named Nilesh.  He found my application - which hadn’t been processed - and was able to figure out what was wrong with it.  (It turns out that they thought I was the pastor, thus the required additional documentation.)  He then was able to submit it for emergency processing under a new number.  When we made it clear to him that we needed it processed within the next day, he gave me options for how to pick it up once it was done.  He did mention that once the consulate had it, it was out of his hands, but he would make sure it was listed as an emergency visa so it would be expedited.  

He gave me his name and his cell phone number, telling me that I could call him the next day to ask if he’d gotten it back from the consulate.  His personal cell phone number, not the work phone number, mind you.  When we were concerned about how to get it (we didn’t want to go up to NYC a third time), he actually offered to bring the visa back to his house in Pennsylvania so that we could drive there and pick it up from his house.  We decided on a FedEx envelope . . . and on Friday, he texted me not one, but TWO times to let me know that A.) it had been received, and B.) it had been shipped.  

I did not expect to get my visa in time.  But with Nilesh’s help, I did.  

"Three Little Birds Sat on My Window..."

". . . and they told me I don't need to worry."  These lyrics are from Corinne Bailey Rae's song "Put Your Records On," and right now, they are describing how I am feeling about this whole visa situation (sans the birds literally appearing, because that would be weird).

The short version is that this whole attempt to get my visa has been a serious endeavor which has confirmed that I detest paperwork, resulted in many phone calls, spawned a ridiculous amount of emails, and generally created far too much stress in my life.  What it comes down to is that I now have seven days until I am scheduled to leave this country and I STILL do not have a student visa in my possession.

But it's all right.

No, really, it is - for once, I'm not being sarcastic.  See, here's what I've learned about myself: I do a lot of things and try to get a lot of things done.  And often, things don't quite go as planned (or they do, and it's still a lot!) and I end up getting more and more stressed and tense and snippy until tick-tick-BOOM!  Except there's no boom.  It's actually more of an implosion where I go from feeling insanely stressed to feeling complete and total apathy.  Things will be fine.  They'll work out, or they won't, and either way it'll be fine.  I have passed the point of caring.  Que sera, sera, to throw another song at you.

The only problem is that this state of mind often tends to hit before a lot of things are due, which gives me no motivation whatsoever to accomplish said things . . . eh.  The point is, folks, that this is how I'm feeling right now - my visa will come on time, or it won't.  We'll have to cancel and hopefully rebook my flight, or we won't.  We'll have to spend even more money than we already have to get this resolved, or we won't.

I'll go to India this fall . . . or I won't.

And it will be fine either way.  It truly, truly will.  As someone told me as I was talking about the whole saga, "If you're going to pray, don't worry.  And if you're going to worry, don't pray."  So right now, I'm just going to cooperate with my brain (already trying to tell me that all this worry isn't worth it), and really trust that the things that should happen will happen - and that whether I go or not, things will be good.  Or, to use the words of Julian of Norwich: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

And you know what?  They will be.  They really will.

Two Weeks!

Two weeks!

As of today, it is two weeks (!) until I hop on a plane and fly to Coimbatore, India, for a semester abroad.  I actually doubt much hopping will be involved - we are talking about an international flight, after all (and I suspect a domestic one might not be a walk in the park either).  Regardless of how easy it will be to actually board the plane, the time is certainly approaching.  I'm not sure where the summer has gone.  It doesn't quite seem real.

I initially never planned to go to India.  I was going to study abroad in France.  I had it all planned out, too, down to the general education courses I could take at the university there.  And then, somehow, the idea to go to India was dropped - like a tiny green lentil - into the furrows of my brain.  As a whim, I checked our study abroad programs, and when I saw the BestSemester Abroad program in Coimbatore, that little seed exploded into life and completely overwhelmed my plans for junior year.  Within two weeks, I talked to my parents about switching my destination . . . and everything has careened forward from there.

(Well, everything except the insurance and my visa.  But that's a different story.)

In fourteen days, I will leave my comfort zone, my family, my friends, my school, and my side of the world behind.  It's going to be a crazy adventure.  (It's going to be crazy, period!)  I am so incredibly excited for it, and I can barely wait for it to start . . . and fortunately, I'm not going to have to wait for much longer.