Orientation Disorientation

Apologies for that last post…I’ll try to be more eloquent and witty today. In my sleepy haze I forgot to mention that I flew to Amsterdam on an airplane named Audrey Hepburn. I just thought you should know. The plane to Hyderabad was named Maria Callas.

Where does one even begin when every moment is total sensory overload? We’ve only been here for two days, but I could easily write a long, long blog. I’ll try to abbreviate.

Isn’t it funny how one day you’re eating Christmas dinner with your family in Oregon and the next day you’re on a flight to India? Life has many little curiosities. There were five students who arrived with me on the Amsterdam flight the other morning at about 2 AM. Getting though customs is…easy…in India. I’m not sure I really needed to bring my passport… Then baggage claim is…a long process…in India. Eventually everyone’s bags arrived and in the massive, noisy crowds outside the airport we found our drivers who took us on a rather adventurous hour-long, middle-of-the-night, lucky-we-survived bus ride to campus.

I remember very little of the first day other than walking around in a foggy mess, but I met all of the other students and everyone seems very nice. First day jitters gone. We’re living temporarily in an old dorm building which is less than luxurious, but today we are moving into a dorm that they have just finished building which is very nice and very far away, but more on that another time.

Day two began with one of our first orientation events where the woman who runs the health center gave a presentation about all of the deadly, tropical diseases that we’re likely to catch over the next five months. Staying true to my hypochondriac nature, I mentally diagnosed myself with all of them as she was speaking…so it was nice knowing you. One other girl and I were the only two among the group who didn’t bring any anti-malaria medication and apparently you need that. The lecture lady wrote us both prescriptions and rolled her eyes at how irresponsible we are. She also gave us the advice that, “if it doesn’t come in a bottle, it’s not really water.” Other advice we have been given so far is “Whatever trouble you are in, or whatever you need, there’s almost nothing in India you can’t get by bribing someone, “ and “Should you ever find yourself in a motorized vehicle that gets into some kind of accident, it’s best to just get out and run away.”

We did some more orientating, and then I the afternoon we took a little bus ride around town. We hadn’t been off campus up to that point so the drive was pretty exciting. At one point our program coordinator, whose name sounds like but is not Marjorie, told us that we were going to have 10 minutes to walk around off the bus in a little shopping area. 10 minutes sounded unreasonably short to us beforehand, but afterwards everyone seemed to agree that baby steps are good. Motorcycles are ready to run you over in from every direction, beggar women with babies in-tow have no reservations about touching you to ask for money, and your glaring white skin and Anglo looks are cause for a lot of stares. That said it was a really fabulous 10 minutes. Here’s one picture I got out of the bus window. Please make note of the family of 6 that is all on one motorcycle.

Martha, my irresponsible, likely-to-be-infected-by-malaria friend, and I needed to use the brief excursion to take our prescriptions to a “pharmacy.” There were three of these “pharmacies” on one little street. Each one was basically a ten square-foot, open-air box with a countertop facing the street with about five guys standing inside. The first one we tried didn’t have what we were looking for and the second only had enough to supply us each with two month’s worth. We bought what we could and in a few weeks we’ll have to try the whole procedure again. It’s worth mentioning that a two month supply of these malaria pills cost the equivalent of 6 American dollars.

We arrived back at campus in time for a music performance that the program had organized for us. Everyone was pretty blown away by it. The room was hot, crowded and stuffy from incense, we were sitting on the floor, and the music was very loud, but that really felt like the most appropriate atmosphere for the event. Totally dazzling. I took a brief video clip for you all to enjoy: CLICK HERE

Tomorrow they are taking us shopping for traditional Indian clothing and in a few days we are going to the movie theater to see a Bollywood film. I’m excited for everything!!! My study-abroad guidebook informs me that I am currently in the “Euphoria Phase” which will be followed in a few weeks by bitter homesickness, but I’m enjoying the feeling for now…or maybe it’s just the Malaria drugs.