Answers to Life's Profound Questions

[This is from a letter I wrote to April]

Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa!

Do you spell your middle name with two "l"s???? I always thought (your own sister even!) that there was only one "L" in your "michele" which would make it hard for people to pronounce! hmmm. Well. I thoroughly enjoyed your email. It brought a smile to my face and heart, although my heart doesn't have lips, so it was quite diffilcult, and I had to go to the hospital to sew up the makeshift lips I created with my heart (because it was an open-lipped smile, of course). Anyway, email, in some perceptively subtle way, has inspired me to answer some common questions that someone might have for me like, "How is India?" and "Is it totally hot?" Brilliant!
"How is India?" and "Is it totally hot?" So, India is great! and filthy, and beautiful, and poor, and lavish, and clean, and yes, very very hot, even "totally" hot as some might term it.

The first city we were in was Chennai which felt like we were in a bowl of Chilli (which is how the travel guide aptly describes it). It was SO hot and humid - I guess it had rained right before we came so it was especially humid. I enjoy sweating. yes. but not smelling. so Chennai (pronounced CHENN-ay) and i had a love/not-so-love relationship. When we got there we officially used the squatter toilets for the first time and then discussed possible strategies for not going to the bathroom for the next 3.5 months. Then we went out to meet Jay, but alack! all we saw was sea of pepper-colored faces. then we saw Jay on the right. He met us away from the crowd and proceeded to run us through the gauntlet--seriously. Knowing we would be exhausted, he loaded 30-40 pounds on each of our backs (mine was almost 50) and led us through harrowing obstacles, such as cement barriers, unfamiliar smells and crowds, alongside a street of car horns - I think there was more honking than there were cars - and they don't follow traffic lanes at all - they're very very efficient people --- if you can fit 7 cars, a bike and a bus side by side on a 2-lane highway, all the better! Well we survived that test and made it to the train and the hotel. Next time I travel, I am totally not packing anything - my pack was sooooo heavy. Oh well. Then we proceeded to sweat profusely after the gauntlet walk. It was quite admirable just how much we sweat! Well we didn't really stop sweating for the next 5 days until about the night before last, when for an hour or so at 1 or 2 am, it actually got a little cool. Sweating is fun, but being cool at 1:00 am is funner :)

CULTURE SHOCK? Well I don't have any culture shock at all, except for the time when I was vigorously trying to escape a woman with a crutch and something wrong with her leg...she saw me giving some coins to another lady and popped out of nowhere. She chased me for about 3 blocks (for which I was actually quite impressed - she was about grandma Black's age and stature, yet she was dodging obstacles, weaving in and out of fruit stands and always headed me off at the pass. What was sad, though, was as I was chasing her, I nearly stumbled over a man lying on the street face down in the heat of the day. He only had stumps for legs and thighs, and sweat was all over his back in the hot midd-day sun. I nearly started crying. He was begging too - I would have given to him if the other lady weren't in hot pursuit and then I walked a few yards and saw another man, lying face-down in the street with sweat on his back - He was also begging. Anyway, that aspect has been a little difficult to deal with. The money is so little to me that I don't mind giving...but when I have to deny someone, I feel guilty. I haven't seen any beggars since I left Chennai though.

Other than that, culture shock is like, "Oh yeah! I'm in India!" or feeling like you're watching a movie about India, and then realizing that the leather-skinned man in a linen skirt standing next to you is not common to South Jordan or even Provo for that matter :) Hopefully it will hit me permanently that I'm really in India and I will live in reality for a change.

Oh wait - another thing I am still trying to figure out is the head bobble - it's more entrenched and complex than I ever before imagined. I think it means both yes and no and maybe all at once! I'll let you know when I figure it out.

MY TIME - Well now that you mention it, my time on this computer may be running out soon...Do I want to pay for an hour? and hour and 15? We'll go for an hour and 15 for now. Um we're spending time sleeping and eating and brushing our teeth, and talking and walking, and riding busses and running errands, and reading and studying. Pretty boring I guess...Well, up until now, we've spent a lot of time just travelling and making preparations for travelling. Right now we're on a trip to the city to run some more errands: get mosquito nets, anti-malarial drugs, use the computers, buy a nightgown, etc. We did visit a few hindu temples and a place called Shanti Ashram and take a walk around the village. This introduced us to the children, mostly, and some of Jay's friends.

The children are pretty cool. They ask lots of questions like, "Hi! How are you!?" "What is your name?!" "Your father's name?" "Your Mother's name?" "Grandmother's name?" "Grandfather's name?" "Coming from?" or "Native Place?" [sorry -- I had to divulge the family secrets!] Then they giggle A LOT! One of them even took me for a ride on the back of her bike. They are really very beautiful people. The women dress in the most brilliantly colored sarees (dresses made of one bolt of fabric wrapped around you - kind of) and salwars - shorter dresses with pants and shawls. They seem to love gold jewelry and dress in really cool fabric...Hopefully I will get to bring some home and they won't be too discolored by the end of the summer...Who knew such a place existed? I did - but it still amazes me how cool they are...

Well, this email is beginning to wax long and boring. I did get through 4 of your 12 questions and hope to get through the rest soon!

I love you and miss you and wish you could be here (by the way, I saw a place that sold submersible pumps with lots of pictures of pumps and my heart lept.)