India

I’m just going to save myself thought and name every post India. Maybe.

I’ve been here three days now. The time is flying much like I thought it would. There has been pretty much no culture shock for me.
I still haven’t gotten quite used to an auto rickshaw (..which is this) driving us head on into a bus and turning at the last minute. There are no road rules here and everything is traffic chaos. From above it is like a beautiful choreographed dance, but it’s actually just traffic running entirely on human cunning and instinct.

It’s awesome.

Crossing the road is like Russian roulette! Life here is definitely bustling and insane-o.
However, none of it is new.

For the longest time I didn’t have much memory of India. My mother said it was due to the fact that young children that are suddenly jolted out of their comfort zone often have to adapt by forgetting what their past comforts are so they can survive in their new surroundings. Forgetting their previous environment to make emotional room for the new one…  It’s a psychological defense mechanism that I went through for a solid 18 years at least. I lost my ability to speak my language and any memories of my six years before I was forced to change countries, cultures, languages, and people. Even now I cannot speak even though I can fully understand the spoken language.

Lately, I’ve noticed many of my “lost” memories resurfacing. It’s been happening the last three years for the most part. Suddenly I’ll have a flashback of a moment in my past that I had no recollection of for nearly two decades. Now that I’m in India, it’s like the floodgates have opened. This did not happen to me the last time I was here. I start to remember faces and places and people and events from when I was so little.

A flower on the street sent a wave of memories awash in my mind this morning.
At the beauty parlour, the woman kept speaking to me in Tamil and suddenly the right words for responses fell together in my head. I didn’t have the guts to actually speak them because I was still surprised I had a mental grip on a sentence that made perfect sense. But there they were. Since then I’ve been formulating responses in my head to make sure this isn’t just a one-off thing. It’s not.

It’s been a trip. In more ways than one.
I was griping about how crazy this trip was, and how unplanned it was, and how I’d just be another foreigner to everyone.
But, as usual, it seems God had other plans. And as usual, they’re unexpected, yet necessary for the solid formation of who I am.

Oh yeah. Photos. :)

The first day I was here we went to a local sari shop and picked out a beautiful pink peacock feathered sari for me. I will have to post pictures of myself wearing it. I’ll just say at Rs.2000 it was a steal.

At another clothing shop, I picked up a few nice tops for a great price too. I am thoroughly amazed at how well Indians are at packing a place full of stock. This room is barely bigger than my bedroom but it houses an entire store, a few employees and a tiny fitting room.

Beautiful saris in every color:

Tomorrow, I hope to have time to post some images I took of everyday life for the working class on the streets. I’m hoping to also have some crazy video of the traffic antics I get to be driven in by the end of this week.

Also it’s totally like 75-90 degrees at night & day. I am loving it. It’s midnight here now so I’m just going to pop off to bed. Hope everyone in America is lovely. :)