Another extremely long day. This is only the third day I've been in India, but it feels like at least a week already! So, impressions:
When the taxi cab driver finally drove me through the city, heading towards the university, I was completely overwhelmed. I feel like overwhelmed is a word I'll use quite a bit during my stay here. The traffic was the first thing I noticed, or rather, there is no choice but to notice it. I've heard people use the phrase "organized chaos" to describe the traffic in India... this is very accurate. There are lines on the road, but as we were driving toward the university, I noticed my driver was driving on top of those lines, not in one particular lane. Basically, there are no road rules, but very few people ever crash.
The next thing that caught my eye was the variety of color. This is mostly from the women. Even in the small shacks in the slums on the side of the roads, the women wear beautiful sarees (traditional Indian women's dress) or salwar kameez (consisting of a tunic like shirt: kameez, pants: salwar, and a scarf: dupatta).Our CIEE program even gave us a stipend of 3,000 rupees to buy an outfit at "Fab India", a store selling pre-made suits. The better (cheaper, more authentic) way to obtain the Indian style of clothing is to actually go to a tailor. One can just buy fabric, then go to a tailor who will make you an outfit to your specifications. I have yet to do this, but it is one of my goals!
Another thing that is very strange to me, is that there are a million stray dogs around the city, including on campus. Actually, there was a litter of puppies camped right outside our dorms. SO. SO. cute. Of course, we were warned not to pet them because of fleas. It really broke my heart that they are left out there with their mother, and would eventually grow up to become one of the many random stray dogs in the city. Today they were removed. They said that whatever is equivalent to the humane society in Hyderabad picked them up...
On a nicer note, everyone in our program is extremely friendly, and I feel like we all have a similar view on the world, which is an amazing thing and makes making friends very simple. Tonight for example, we went out for one of our group member's 21st birthday! It was a pretty big ordeal to be honest. They almost didn't let one of our members in because he didn't look 21 years old.. some of us didn't have ID's on them. With a lot of negotiating, mostly thanks to the birthday girl, we got in and had a great time.. ended up arriving at the dorms around midnight.
There is so much to say, it is difficult to remember all of it, even after only three days... which I suppose is the purpose of me writing things down. At the moment we are still in the process of orientation. We've been briefed on security, health, and cultural issues, among other things. I have to say, I am very impressed with CIEE. They've been very helpful, and I feel pretty confident about living here for the next four months. We'll know what classes we can take (and a lot of other information) on the 31st of December... it will be a most enlightening day. (One thing we've learned is that it's hard to get a straight answer in India.) Our program leaders are so nice and willing to help us in any way. My peanut allergy has been cleared with the cooking staff of our cafeteria (which serves delicious Indian food..we really are spoiled), so I don't feel too worried about that either. I'll stay away completely from street food, just to be sure. For this reason, I'm also not staying with a host family. This is kind of disappointing to me, but it would be very inconvenient for families to cook in a different way than they are used to, just for me. Peanut oil is pretty prevalent in Hyderabadi cuisine.
It's pretty late now... tomorrow we get a tour of the city during the daytime and we are visiting a mosque, which will be interesting. I'll also add photos to all of these posts once I actually get them on my computer!
So far, so good... I am loving India and all the confusion and joy that it brings!
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