Vannakam! First looks at India.

My semester abroad began with a drive to Boston, a flight to New York, and two international flights containing minimal sleep and a few icky plane meals. Upon arrival in Mumbai (previously known as Bombay) I met up with one other girl from my group and we waited together for the other members of our group to arrive. We were supposed to all meet up there and catch a domestic Indian flight to Coimbatore, the city our program is in, but we sat there for about seven hours and never saw anyone else we were supposed to meet. Eventually we moved forward through the airport and discovered another pair, and at the last possible moment we all moved through security and happened upon the remaining three members of our group. It turns out we’d all spent the night in different parts of the airport, all worried that the other participants weren’t going to make our group flight.

Crazy traffic patterns at one of the few stop lights in the city.

First rickshaw (aka auto) ride without an adult!

Upon arrival in Coimbatore we were welcomed by Kirk, the director of the India Studies Program, as well as several Indian students who are assigned to us as mentors. Each of them had a flower for one of us and they were super excited to meet us. That entire day was kind of a blur of settling into our apartment, getting an introduction to the college campus, and meeting lots of different important people.

During the first few days here, there have been many introduction and orientation activities happening. We went to a neighborhood called RS Puram (puram means neighborhood in tamil) that is kind of a shopping district in order to buy outfits for school. The shirts are called camiz, the pants are salwaars, and the scarves (which are NOT optional to the outfit) are called duppattas.

The first day we went to the school, some of the students from the design program made rongolis. They are these really cool Indian designs drawn first in chalk and then filled in with brightly colored sand or flowers. They were absolutely beautiful. 

Who knew I was going to Piza??

Even though I’ve only been here for a week, I have learned MANY lessons about Indian culture and how it differs from American culture. I’m planning a series of posts about all the things I’ve learned since getting here, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Lesson number one will be how difficult it is to find internet access, let alone wi-fi so that I can use my own computer. UGH.