Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Wait, I'm interning WHERE?

Part of the India Studies Program is doing an internship or field experience.  Early this semester, we all waited with bated breath to see where we would be placed.  Everyone's internship sounded perfect for them and like a great place for learning.  I waited.  I didn't know where I would be placed - I had mentioned writing and editing in my 'internship interest' form, but I had no idea what would come of it. 

"You'll be interning at The Hindu," the professor told me.  I gaped. 

See, The Hindu is India's largest English-language newspaper.  It's been around since 1878.  For crying out loud, I read The Hindu as part of my attempt to familiarize myself with Indian current events!  And I was going to be interning there!  I was totally agog.  It was kind of hilarious, because my professor and internship guide kept asking if I was okay with it, if I was happy to go, and I had to say, "No, it's great, I'm over-the-moon excited about it, I just can't believe I'm actually interning at The Hindu.  LIKE WHAAAAAAAAAT???"  . . . well, you get the drift. Anyway, it wasn't all smooth from there - there were some hiccups in getting the internship off the ground.  The Hindu had a different format for internships that what the program had planned, so it took a little bit before we got it started - but start I did!  I came back after homestay to hear that they wanted me to start the next day.  Mindblowing. 

It's been feast-or-famine here - since it's a newspaper, they either have a lot to do or almost nothing, depending on what's coming in and how far along they are on the day's issue.  (Also, since I don't know Tamil, it can be hard to find things for me to do, as news comes into the office in Tamil and is then written as an English article.)  I've gone over to one of the entertainment sections, Metro Plus, often since they have things for me to observe and do.  There, they do something similar to what I do with the Writing Center newsletter, so it's been cool to see how they format things and work with everything.  I'm hoping I can use this experience to better my writing, editing, and formatting of the Writing Center newsletter. 

Far and away the coolest thing that's happened during my internship was writing an article for the Metro Plus, watching it go through the process of editing and formatting . . . and having it published the following day!  I heard responses from people in the program, but other people from commented on it, too - it's just so cool to know that something I wrote was published, and that a lot of people read it.  It was such a fabulous thing to see and be a part of, and such a great learning moment. 

Internship at The Hindu has been interesting, to say the least.  Sometimes it's been stressful, and sometimes it's been boring - and sometimes it's been so packed with amazing things and learning experiences that I need a day to just sit back and process everything.  A bit like my overall experience in India, actually.  I feel so lucky that I was privileged enough to be placed here - what a crazy, wonderful, thing. 

My article, published in the weekend edition of The Hindu's Metro Plus!


Monday, September 16, 2013

A New World: Flora and Fauna

India has held many new things and new experiences.  Today, I thought I'd describe some of the new things I'm seeing in nature! 

First of all, the plants.  There are so many different plants here: palm trees, banana trees, cacti, banyan trees . . .  Many of the plants are tropical ones, with flat waxy leaves that look almost plasticine, especially when wet.  Some are spiky, some are soft, but they all have a very different, sleek look to them.  There are plants of all colors - this morning, I noticed a kind of creeping plant that was a dark, rich purple color.  The flowers on the trees range from canary yellow to passion-fruit orange to bright fuchsia.  Some are duller pinks and blues, some are white, but all of them stand out. 

In India, even the bugs are colorful.  Yesterday, I observed a centipede crawling - it reminded me of a powerstrip, with bright orange legs and a black body with an orange strip running down it.  On my homestay, we saw a butterfly with black wings and a bright red body - we're talking fire-engine, acrylic red here.  So bright.  The Japanese beetles (while huge) are metallic emerald and copper hues.  Butterflies are orange, yellow, white, black, nearly every color you can imagine . . .

On homestay, we saw a kingfisher.  They are a bright turquoise, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and just streaked them with it.  Unreal, the way the butterfly was bright red.  Almost too pure a color to be plausible.  It was gorgeous to see it fly.  And, of course, I was able to see a peacock at the zoo and it was stunning, with its tail spread and feathers on full display.  Crows here are interesting, too, as they have a band of color at their throats, sometimes a dull gray and sometimes a mousy brown; the rest of them is oil-slick black, but they have just a patch of a different color.  Pigeons are kind of the same everywhere, but the ones here often range from dark gray to a fine pale silver, with marbled green-gray-white feathers around their beady black eyes.  They like to flutter around our balcony and windows. 

But my favorite moment of observing the huge differences between nature home and nature here happened last night around 6:30, at dusk . . . when the bats came out.  I had visited the small zoo here and seen hundreds of them sleeping in the trees, and I'd been hoping to see it for a while, so it was very exciting that I finally got to see them come out last night.  They flooded the sky, and if you didn't know better you could mistake them for a flock of crows or starlings.  Within a half hour, they had dissipated, but for that half hour they were swooping all over the sky, flapping by overhead.  Incomparable and incredible.  There was a full moon, too, and seeing the bats sweep over the moon against the steely blue dusk was magnificent.  I couldn't take my eyes off them. 

There's other things, too - like the cow we ran into one night, just hanging out down a side street, or the goats and small dogs that roam the streets - but these are the little, everyday moments of beauty that pop out every so often and remind me that this is India, and it's a whole other world from what I see at home. 

P.S. Sorry I don't have pictures.  I can't always capture these things, so you'll have to make do with my description until I see if I have anything to put up. 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Gratitude Without Guilt

First of all, let me apologize for the very late post - I was without Internet access through the weekend and into Monday, and the Internet in our apartment is spotty right now (as in it honestly takes at least 5 minutes to load a plain-text page - forget about anything with pictures or backgrounds!).  There are so many things I could blog about from last week: classes starting, the ongoing internship saga, hostel night -- but what I want to talk about the most is my home-stay last weekend with my peer mentor, Karuna.  

There are so many things I could say when talking about my home-stay (so, so many things), but I want to focus on one thing in particular.  There is a saying here: “The guest is like God.”  Nowhere was this more evident to me than in my home-stay.  Karuna took me and another student, Faith, home with her for the weekend.  Upon arriving at her house, her mother welcomed us with a traditional Tamil welcome ceremony.  From that moment on, Karuna and her family were hospitable to the point of embarrassment (at least, on my part).  

We never went hungry.  We sat at a small table set for two, and Karuna’s mother served us the wonderful food she had prepared.  She would keep coming back, asking if we wanted more, if the food was good, if we wanted something else, or what she could make if we didn’t like it.  (It was all delicious.)  The first day, everything, including the snack she brought in on a plate, was served on a banana leaf - this is something done for special occasions in Tamil Nadu.  Karuna and her mother would serve us tea or coffee in the afternoons, always asking if the ratios of milk and sugar was all right and, of course, if we liked it.  

They were always turning on the fan for us, telling us to take the only chairs and sitting on the floor instead, making sure we had enough to eat, getting us water, finding snacks for us, seeing if we were comfortable - basically, trying to please us in every way possible.  And every morning, Karuna’s mother gave us fresh flowers to put in our hair, sometimes ones she’d picked and strung together just for us.  



From Left: Karuna, Me, Kanya, and Faith 
One other amazing thing about the weekend that I have to mention is that we took an auto up the mountain to be shown the banana plantation Karuna’s family owns - 40 acres of banana plants.  I can’t even describe the beauty of the trees and the mountains.  We could see the clouds shrouding the mountaintops.  The banana trees were stunning.  There’s nothing to compare it to in the States, no way to compare the wide, slick green leaves of the trees, or the way the different types of bananas grow upside-down, or the height of the trunks, or their orderly rows.  There were banana trees as far as the eye could see, surrounded by  water.  It was incredible.  
We did a lot of other things.  Karuna, her mother, and Karuna’s cousin Kanya pulled out all the family photo albums for us.  Her mother didn’t speak much English, but we went through every single album with the three of them, hearing about where each photo was taken and who was in it.  It was a bit overwhelming, but it was clear that by doing that, they wanted to not only show us their family but make us a part of it.  Kanya was over at the house every day, spending time with us; we played cards and games and got to meet her family that weekend, too.  In addition, Karuna’s father came back home from Chennai to meet us - Chennai.  It had to have been at least a 7-8 hour journey for him, but he came.  He came so that he could welcome us to his home and to his family.  

At the end of our stay, when we were already so humbled by our time there, they bought us saris.  Let me repeat: they bought us saris.  I was blown away.  When Karuna’s father told us he would be buying us saris, I couldn’t believe it.  So we spent our last afternoon at Karuna’s house looking at saris (and of course, they asked repeatedly if we were happy with the fabric, if it was okay, and telling us if we didn’t like it, we could exchange it, no problem). I honestly don’t know how to emphasize the enormity of the hospitality we experienced, but the sari purchase was only one example of the so, so very many ways they welcomed us into their home and their family.  

They sent us home well-fed, with half a papaya and other fruits, with new saris, with a lot of amazing pictures of everywhere we stayed, and most importantly, with a new and personal understanding of the incredible hospitality extended to guests.  It was a fascinating, beautiful, grace-filled, humbling, indescribable weekend.  I only wish I could have described it better.  


Me with Karuna's Family!  From Left: Me, Faith, Karuna's Father, Karuna, Karuna's Mother

Monday, September 2, 2013

Is That It?

It's hard to believe that it's only been six days.

Six days since I arrived in India!  They've been so long and so much has happened and been thrown at me that it feels like much, much longer.  The time difference is a bit odd and has taken a while to get used to (I hope I'm over jet lag?), because it's 9 1/2 hours.  It's just long enough to throw off the day but not long enough to be a complete reversal.  

So: in the time since I last wrote, we've had multiple days of orientation at BACAS, information about our internships and field experience, our first shopping trip, our trip to get our "uniform," i.e. traditional clothing, and our first day of classes!  

The memorable moments: meeting our peer mentors, who are BACAS students assigned to us to help guide us in the culture and help us with whatever we need.  Mine, Karuna, is absolutely wonderful and I love her already.  I was excited to find out about my internship - hopefully, I'll be interning at The Hindu, i.e. the largest English-language newspaper in India!  Also, shopping for salwar kameez was a blast.  The clothes are great.  Attending church was neat, and obviously our classes are really interesting.  Oh, and produce - I bought fresh produce for super cheap here, so that was pretty exciting.  

I hope to post every Monday - a bit ambitious, maybe, but we'll see if I manage it.  Ta for now!


ISP Batch 5!  As you can see, we've started settling in (with our new clothing!).