Sick Days

Today has been a day of irony.

Ironic Day, Part 1: The Apartment

Last week I was cooped in my room due to Sohini’s absence and desperately wanted to break out of my prison cell and run rampant in the streets of Vadodara; now Sohini has returned and I can travel with a friend, but I have been feeling sick for the past few days and all I want is to stay confined within my apartment. My illness is nothing serious, but I have a slight fever and my stomach has been twisting and tangling into knots while a heavy blanket of fatigue is draped over my body.  Yesterday morning I promptly went to the principal’s office and asked if I could take a few sick days and rest in my apartment, which he happily obliged because supposedly I do not look good at all. One would think that this comment is redundant since the mention of an internal sickness implies effects on one’s external health as well, yet I keep being reminded of my poor appearance.

When I crawl out of my hole and trudge down four flights of stairs and hike across campus to the cafeteria to eat, the students and staff members gasp and ask in a curious roar, “What happened to you?” Personally, I would ask this question if there was a grotesque physical abnormality, like a burn blistering on the side of someone’s face or a deep gash across a person’s arm – not for having a pale, peaked look and slow-moving steps. I’m tempted to answer this embellished question with an exaggerated answer: “This giant bacteria bug with twenty legs and a thousand pointy teeth suddenly sprung from my food and lunged into my mouth! I began to wrestle the venomous creature with my tongue but to no avail it hurled towards my intestines. My white blood cell army was roused and prepared for battle against the monster and I have barely survived four endless days of gut-wrenching terror on the battlefield.” Or I could merely mumble, “It must have been something I ate.” Lol. Either way, this slight sickness has given me a chance to nap, although this heat is causing strange dreams . . . When I awoke from my nap today, I was dreaming that two new geckos were found in my room and I named them Edith and Edna. Oh dear :)

I-Spy, India Edition :)

           

Ironic Day, Part 2: The Earthquake

Two years ago when I was studying at the University of Ghana-Legon, I was abruptly woken up at 3:00 am by a furious pounding on the door accompanied by frantic shouting that there was going to be an earthquake and everyone needed to evacuate the building. All of the international students scurried out of their beds and gathered outside amidst the swarms of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and humid black air. We stood, crouched, sat, and wandered around outside for over an hour until news spread that the earthquake warning was a prank by a radio station; we angrily sleepwalked back to our beds.

            Well today there actually was an earthquake in Indonesia and tremors were felt in some parts of India, yet I was given no warning or wake up call. Honestly, I didn’t even feel the tremor or know about its existence until Sohini brought up the subject by asking if I also felt the earthquake around lunchtime. But I must give a big shout-out to Melissa Scherer who is a true friend (not to mention a well-aware citizen in worldwide events) and sent me a concerned message today inquiring after my safety :).  Don’t worry, Mel-Bel, I’m fine . . . except for the giant bacteria bug with a thousand pointy teeth that I’m battling to the death. 

It's a Small World After All: Easter Sunday

Although the Indian state of Gujarat is not necessarily a tourist destination, there are quite a lot of foreigners who live in this area. One of my 9^th grade students, Mari, is from South Africa and she invited me to join her family and attend an Easter celebration for all international residents of Vadodara. Almost every continent was represented at this event as families of all colors and accents gathered on the large lawn; I was introduced to people from Russia, Germany, France, England, South Africa, and a few Indian families who lived in the United States for the past 10+ years and have now returned to their home country. There was even an Indian couple that recently lived in Sheboygan, WI because the husband works for Kohler; the bigger shock was that he actually knew the location of Denmark, WI LOL! It is uncanny how small the world is sometimes. :)

The majority of my evening was spent in the company of a family from New Zealand: the father, Joe, who was in Accra, Ghana for a 10-day stay at Labadi Beach Hotel the same year I was there; the mother, Leah, who has extraordinary beauty and is one of those people who makes strangers feel immediately comfortable; Johnny, their son who graduated from high school last year and will be starting college in the Boston area in August on a soccer scholarship; and their daughter, Danny, who I would have taught for 7^th grade English at NISV, but she did not like the social cliques and has decided to home school and dedicate extra time to her future career in tennis.  

We all got better acquainted through tedious introductory chitchat, but the personalities behind the smiles surfaced as Mari, Leah, Johnny, and I played a competitive game of croquet.

Initially, I had second-thoughts about going to this event because I had started feeling sick in the morning, but countless times throughout the night my spirit curved into a smile and was thankful that I was able to meet other foreigners who met the same challenges in India as I did. It has also been a blessing to meet some more individuals around my age who are also interested in seeing more sights of Gujarat, especially since Sohini is leaving in one week :( . Things happen for a reason so I am trying to embrace as many opportunities as I can to find the reasons.  

Chocolate is Good for You

Events of Saturday, April 7:

There must have been a twilight brawl between Luna and Sol, because at dawn the sun was brooding; fumes of heat scorched the Earth as all of the NISV children celebrated World Health Day by doing yoga in neat lines across the football field.  It was only 8:30 in the morning and yet the heat was blistering as a hundred bodies bent and stretched up to the angry ball in the high sky. I stood with the other teachers as a spectator, but the sweat still dripped like I was a participant. After only fifteen minutes under the sun’s harsh stare, I retreated to the shade and then went back to my room to change my clothes, threw on a refreshed attitude and was ready for the rest of the day.

However, near the end of the school day I was called to the principal’s office. Instead of marching to the administrative building with a confident air of a colleague, my brain went into student mode; I hesitantly stumbled to the building as if I was to be greeted with a black-hooded headsman with a gleaming axe. I began yanking the front of my blouse up to my neck as my mind frantically ransacked the filing cabinets of past actions, desperately searching for red-penned errors: Is my clothing unprofessional? Was I supposed to participate in yoga this morning in the grueling heat? Did my cooperating-teachers reveal a discrepancy in my curricula? What have I done wrong? My face scrunched and contorted; I tried to iron out the wrinkles before opening the heavy glass door to the principal’s office. The two RAs of the boys and girls hostel were already seated across from Mr. D’sousa and my stomach spun into a spool of anxiety – each strand of tension twisted and tangled around the Unknown. Shortly after I was seated, the director of the fine arts department and the drama teacher, Mr. Anish Chandra Renu, filed into the office and I was finally told the reason for this impromptu meeting: the concert for the student boarders. My stomach untwisted and untangled, stretching with deep sighs of relief.

On the last day of school, May 7, the students who reside in the hostels on campus will be showcasing their talents to their parents and teachers and celebrate the end of the school year in a variety show. I had already been asked to direct a one-act play for the boarders and have selected a comedic scene entitled “No, Not I” from Pole Sengupta’s anthology of children’s plays, Good Heavens!. There were extremely slim pickings of play scripts in the NISV library, but this script has a large cast and a lot of character interaction to allow the budding actors to practice relating to one other on stage. Plus, the plot is quirky and will bring out the energetic personalities of the students: a thief decides to climb a wall and steal from a luxurious palace one windy night, but as he was climbing the wall, it fell down onto his toe. The thief screams in anguish and a lawyer promptly advises him to sue for this new injury. The comedy of the script is enacted when the thief goes to the homeowner to sue for his broken toe, but the owner says that he is not to blame, but they should sue the one who built the wall. So the thief hobbles over the mason to sue him, but the mason denies responsibility and blames his cook for putting too much salt in his meal the day he was building the wall. So they all rush over to the cook to sue him . . . and the blame game continues. :)

          The meeting was called to discuss the various acts of the show and potential rehearsal times. It was revealed that the concert will include an introductory dance, my one-act play, a pantomime skit directed by Mr. Renu, and a song performed by the chorus and band participants. Mr. D’sousa also mentioned that we should incorporate different cultures into the program and suggested the addition of a Western dance. Before I could filter my response, the excitement gushed out of my mouth as I exclaimed, “Oh yes!  A hip- hop routine!” Mr. D’sousa nodded his head in enthusiastic agreement and asked if I would be interested in also choreographing this dance. Before I even agreed to this request, my brain threw open its filing cabinets again, feverishly searching for hip-hop songs and fun moves from my old dance team days. This is one of the first times I have been genuinely excited about my participation in this program and I whole-heartedly agreed to choreograph the hip hop dance and chose to do a mash-up of the following songs: So What by Far East Movement; Yeah by Usher; and Low by Flo Rida. Booyah! This dance is going to be bomb! :D

After school Sohini and I went to town, which was AMAZING since I had been cooped up in the hostel for the past week in her absence; I have never been so happy to be continuously jilted and disoriented in a rickshaw lol.  We went to various stores and malls to find professional work clothes for Sohini and since we had some time to spare before dinner I suggested that we eat dessert first and go to The Chocolate Room.  

It was a perfectly posh little place with dark brown walls and bright red booths and their menu is everything chocolate: chocolate shakes, chocolate sundaes, chocolate pizza, chocolate fondue, chocolate sandwiches . . . chocolate deliciousness. The slogan of this restaurant/café is “Chocolate is good for you,” which I will personally testify to be completely accurate. It was hard to choose which dessert to order due to the plethora of scrumptious chocolaty options, but I finally settled on the Chocolate Rocher Sundae, which was chocolate ice cream topped with fudge sauce and chocolate covered almonds. I’m pretty sure that I keeled over three times from pure happiness while eating this sundae lol. I was on a sugar high for the remainder of the evening, which made the day completely legen . . . wait for it . . . dairy! 

A Taste of Celebrity Life

This morning I was chatting online with a friend from UWEC and she asked me if I was loving India, because at times she could not truly tell by reading my blog. I believe that my feelings about this country change like normal reactions that bend and twist to meet each set of 24 hours: some days we are exhilarated by life, wishing to brand the memories onto our skin with the fiery passion that burns within; other days are blurred, sluggish – and we crave a crumb of Wonderland bread, which will shrink us to nonexistence until a new day appears. For the past 3 weeks that I have lived in India, my days pass like they did back home: they bend, burn, blur; I shrink and grow (metaphorically that is . . . although, with all the rice that is being served for EVERY SINGLE MEAL, I would not be surprised if the latter verb becomes literal LOL). However, I have been tipping the scales (ha ha!) with a more negative tone in my recent blog posts, so I will put balance back into the Internet recollections of my life and write in an uplifting tone LOL :)

This could be more of a difficult task than you think since I have been a tormented victim of Chinese water torture, which has been endlessly inflicted in the dead of night (pun intended LOL) for the past week . . . My room’s air conditioner is leaking . . . and the inconsistent, yet continuous drip, drip, drip . . . dddrrrriiiipppp, DRIP . . . drip, drip . . . is inconsistently, yet continuously draining my sanity; my brain is becoming soupy – dreams are soggy. I can’t fathom why I was chosen as a prisoner to endure this cruel punishment . . . What secret information have I not confessed that needs to be extracted through force? Except, perhaps, the location of the gecko that has been hiding in my apartment; I really should have asked him more questions about his past activities before I allowed him to stay here. It wouldn’t surprise me if this ambiguous amphibian has a criminal record for breaking-and-entering, since I came home a few days ago just as he was slithering through the crack of my bedroom door – into the ONE room he was forbidden to enter. I’m considering a revocation of the name, Sefah, and instead, call this creature, Tom (as in Peeping-Tom).  My torturers’ efforts will be useless, however, because I never seem to know where Sefah/Tom is hiding, but we often scare the living $h!t out of one another when we simultaneously discover the other’s presence in the room :) .  I scream and he scurries. I feel like a neighborhood bully lol. Scram, gecko, or I’ll steal your lunch money and give you a knuckle sandwich. Maybe Sefah/Tom should have checked MY criminal history before deciding to stay :) 

Anyways, enough with the critter stories LOL, although I guarantee that there will be more Sefah stories to come . . . My dripping sanity was spared by various outings last weekend. On Friday, March 30, my supervisor, Dr. Sujata Srivastana, invited me out for the evening to do some shopping around town and have dinner at her house. I was grateful for this invitation as I was in dire need of something to wear to the Valedictory function the next day, because the dress had to be a) white, b) off-white/cream, or c) pastel colors and d) preferably a sari . . . And as far as what was hanging in my closet, I would have to answer e) None of the above.  Sujata was gracious and drove me to various malls on both sides of Vadodara, but my mood was fickle as I was hot, tired, and hungry . . . and I didn’t have my dear sister to pack me a diaper bag with snacks, like we do when we go on shopping expeditions at home J.  So the pants were too tight, the tunics too loose, the colors too bright, the prices too expensive . . . and I vowed to not waste money and purchase something that I would only wear the following day.  Finally I forfeited my shopping needs to the more pressing need: food (and for those who have been around me when I’m hungry, you know that I probably saved someone’s life in this decision LOL).

The meal consisted of toasted buns, which were broken into smaller pieces and dipped into a sort of thick stew that was a blend of various vegetables, beans, and spices. It was one of the best meals that I have tasted in India (despite the fact that I had a splicing headache for three days to follow this traditional, tasty dinner) and the company was equally wonderful. After dinner, Sujata escorted me to her gate and tried to hail a rickshaw for me to take back to NISV; the vehicles lacked vacant seats, but had plenty of intrigued looks to give me. I often feel like a celebrity when I venture to town because I get bombarded with waves, smiles, stares, whispers, and get occasional pictures taken; to think that all of this unnecessary commotion is caused simply by me walking down a street! One man on a motorcycle even went as far as to pass by me, look back, and then actually turn his motorcycle around to park the bike in front of me as I waited for a rickshaw. This confident stranger then proceeded to speak to me in Hindi with a feverish gaze. “What?” I mutter through amazement and annoyance, “I’m sorry, but what did you say?” He flashes a smile and replies, “Oh! I was asking you for directions. I thought that you lived here.” REALLY?!?! LOL. When I was younger and passing through the stage where every child wants to be a famous celebrity, I vividly remember my mom telling me that she would never wish that kind of life for me because it lacks privacy. Little did she know that she should have added this argument to her reasons why I should stay home with her instead of traveling abroad again LOL. 

The “center-stage” feeling of a celebrity lingered around my presence for the remainder of the weekend, however, as I was wrapped in a majestic magenta and blue sari for the Valedictory function Saturday evening. I have never felt so beautiful . . .  One of the teachers at school, and a blossoming friend, Bhavna, lent me one of her saris to wear to the graduation ceremony and even came over to my apartment with another teacher/friend, Shweta, to help me into it. As Bhavna was folding, creasing, wrapping, and pinning the sari into place so that it hugged all the right places, and exposed the right amount of skin (which in her book, is quite a bit LOL), Shweta just kept repeating, “Wow! I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction to how good you look!” And it was nice to be greeted throughout the entire evening with an explosion of compliments about how well I carry a sari. I find that sometimes the process of actually getting ready and merely moving around in a gorgeous gown is more exciting than the actual event I’m attending, and this function was not an exception. The ceremony was like every other graduation I have attended: hot, long, and on the verge of unbelievable boredom. But it was a wonderful excuse to dress in traditional Indian fashion and solidify the bonds that I have been building with the family here at Navrachana International School. 

New friends: Bhavna, myself, and Shweta

Healing Balm. Apply Twice Daily.

Every morning is a new day with fresh beginnings. The cliché holds truth . . .

and mercy.

Yesterday the weight of the world fell into the deepest pit of my spirit with a vibrating thud, shattering my stability; questions grew feet and walked in meticulous circles around my brain: What is my purpose in traveling to India, sitting in the back of a cramped classroom and isolated in my room at night? Why did I feel like I was fatefully drawn to this country? What is so different about this place that I could not have done at a student teaching placement back home and saved thousands of dollars? Am I really making the most out of my trip to India if I only stay in Gujarat, which doesn’t have a lot of sights for my camera to capture?

Emotions crashed over me in furious waves, grinding against my expectations until my pieces were sharp –

jaded.

My dreams waded in restlessness; conscious and subconscious pressures stirred a thick chemical fog that loomed over my entire being. But as the ripe sun fell into the shadows, the questions were also buried.

As the faded morning rays weaved through my bedroom window, revealing a new day, the answers were not unearthed, but at least their weight was lifted off my chest. I woke up refreshed and renewed. Instead of blending in with the classroom furniture, this afternoon I taught two periods of 11^th grade English with expressive theatricality and a glimmer in my eye that asked, “How could I think of doing anything else?” The lesson revolved around an unseen text - an excerpt from Kate Chopin’s short story, “Desiree’s Baby” – and its connection to social constructs of female identity and racial heritage. The students were sloth and sullen from the heat, but I could still sense that they were enjoying my energy as I discussed the “wild side” of the American author who defied social norms in a time when females were nothing but shadows of men and America was in war with itself over the issue of slavery.

The school day ended with an exhilarated cluster of around ten 5^th grade students, full of crooked smiles and stories in their outstretched hands. I then retreated to my sun-flooded apartment, thrust open my balcony doors and lay on the cool floor as the sun seduced my body with warm, salty kisses. As the sun waved adieu with fiery tendrils, I spend the remainder of my time reading a book about the triviality of love and loss; I silently sent up a bundle of thanks to the night sky for the one who’s name means “God has consoled my heart” and who consoles my own heart every single day, like healing balm over my layers of scar tissue.  

Yesterday I saw these tasks as mediocre and deprived of meaning, but today the warm reception of the students hugs my spirit, the sun’s rays have a cerebral presence as they hover over my body, and the time to read is appreciated.

It all comes down to one word:

Perspective. 

My Poem's Inspiration

A Hannah-Shaped Hole in the Universe

Why does the Indian sun

stoke my passions to a fiery foreboding

‘til my dreams leak in droplets

and evaporate back to the stifling sky?

Why am I here?

Not a matter of existence,

but location.

The Question is dusty,

sweeping through my heart’s hollowness,

each grain rubbing against the

callous of my core;

then it seeps with dampness,

sops with sullen sorrow –

eyes flung open like the bloated dead.

Thrill sludged with scum,

bogged below the ripples of doubt.

The cracked turquoise gate is bolted

shut –

Through knotted bars,

Expectations stoop naked,

stripped and slashed by Reality.

The charade is unmasked.

Wilted parade remnants crumble to

dust

and

bury

the neglected nude;

the swamp of swollen questions

bulges and

burps.

Everlasting night smothers

my numbness

with a dark shroud of

solitude

and

isolation.

.

.

.

On the other end of a tattered line

pity wraps its fragile arms around my neck .

Guilt stains my clothing

in bleeding dark embarrassments.

Life slowly oozes out of life.

The pine door of my soul

creaks and moans,

expands and unhinges.

I breathe in splinters.

Why am I here?

Not a matter of existence,

but location.


I’ve never stopped at any scenery,


I haven’t even met myself,


I have this complaint, but I am not angry;

All cities are the same, villages are the same,


People are the same and the same names . . .

Why am I here?

Kisi manzar par main ruka nahi


Kabhi khud se bhi mein mila nahi


Ye gila to hai main khafa nahi


Shehar ek se gaa’nv ek se


Log ek se naam ek ooo . . .

Why am I here?

Because . . .

There’s a richer life ahead . . .