Lesson One: Take Off Your Shoes

Coming from a background of dorm living, where I’ve trained myself to never be barefoot, this was a really hard adjustment for the first day in a new (third world) country. In India, feet are considered repulsively dirty. As with many countries in this part of the world, the ground is dusty and dry which in turn makes shoes absolutely filthy. When entering a home, temple, or various other places that deserve reverence, it is Indian custom to remove your shoes. Furthermore, the bottom of the foot is considered dirty by association and shouldn’t be pointed at other people. That means no propping your feet up on the coffee table and that even crossing your legs isn’t a totally nonchalant position like it is at home. It is weird that in America, which is on the whole a much more cleanly place than India, I spend all of my time with at least flip flops on to keep my feet safe from germs and yet while I’ve been here I’ve spent an astounding amount of time in public places barefoot. It is reassuring to know that Indians take great pride in keeping a clean home and sweep sometimes several times a day. All I can say is that I hope I don’t get ringworm.

Escaping City Life.

On Saturday, the students from the India Studies Program were sent home with some of the students from BACAS (the college I’m attending here in Coimbatore). Now, many of the students who go here are from places far away and live in school housing which is called “the hostel”. These students are referred to as “hostelites” and have LOTS of rules. But the remainder of the BACAS students live in and around Coimbatore with their families, and those were the students we were sent home with.

The bus drivers wanted a picture with us. 

Ashley, a fellow ISPer from Pennsylvania, and I went with a girl named Yoga to her family’s home. We rode two busses in a journey that ended up being about an hour and a half long just to get from the school to her house—which she makes twice every weekday. It was crazy! Anyway, Coimbatore is bordered by some sort of mountain range which can be seen even from in the city but are quite a ways in the distance. Well our bus journey took us all the way to the last stop on the 3 bus and almost to the foot of the mountain range. It was amazing! Yoga lives in a small village that her family has lived in for over two hundred years, according to her uncle. Several of her family members all live within a few houses of each other and we spent a significant part of our day simply visiting with each different aunt in her family, touring their homes, and attempting (and failing) to refuse the food that EVERYONE in India offers to (read: forces on) guests. Unfortunately, almost nobody in Yoga’s village knew fluent English, even Yoga herself. Her uncle who is a lawyer in the city was able to converse with us, and another sixteen year old uncle (Yeah, I don’t get it either…) also knew pretty advanced English. I only know about two words in Tamil at this point (hello and thank you), so communication was limited. But it was nice to get out of the city for a day.

Yoga’s family has traditionally been farmers and they still own their farmland and employ ten to fifteen people to farm it, so Ashley and I got to journey on the backs of motorcycles along a rutted, one lane, dirt street to the farmland the family owns. At that point, we could literally see the base of the mountain. The landscape here is remarkable because the land is completely flat and then the mountains just bust up out of the earth.The farm was pretty interesting. Not really what someone from America would picture a farm as. Everything was still all dusty and didn't really seem like good soil for growing things in.

While we were in Yoga's village, we visited a local government run school. Because we were foreigners and guests to the village, we were able to walk through the rooms that the students were working in. They were all so adorable that I just wanted to take them all home with me! I was dying. All I had to do was wave at a little kid and they would be so excited they couldn't even sit still. It was precious.


By the end of the day I was so tired that I almost fell asleep on the bus ride back to the city! And it was only about 4:30 in the afternoon. I can't believe that Yoga rides the bus an hour and a half every morning, sits through a day of school, and then travels all the way home again in the evening. I thought it was bad to ride in to Hall-Dale from Richmond when I was in high school. At THAT was in my mom's van, not public transportation. Overall though, it was a great day and I was really glad that I got to spend a day away from the noises and crazy traffic of the city!

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.