write what I did and when I did it. Sure, I'll include some of my
itinerary, but overall this is going to a more random, and probably very
long, entry, encompassing what I did, what I saw, fun facts, random
moments, and a whole lot more. Why is that, you ask? Well, there's a few
reasons:
1*There was a whole lot of travel involved. In six days I went to:
Cochin-->Delhi-->Agra-->Jaipur-->Delhi-->Cochin-->Chamalagan-->Cochin.
2*I don't actually know a lot of what I saw. A lot of the tours I went
on during my SAS trip were so time crunched that our guides literally
just told us the name of the place, gave us 10 minutes to take pictures,
and then re-assembled us on the bus. We were given no other information
and I have no recollection of the names of a lot of places.
3*I learned more in India than I have in any other port. Gender plays
such a huge role in this society and I just have never seen anything
like it. I am so intrigued, and so interested, and I'm not sure how to
phrase a lot of what ran through, and continues to run through, my head
but I'm sure going to try to explain it.
Warning: If you don't like random, scattered thoughts, you should
probably stop reading now. The following will consist of some
chronology, some random bullet points, some random phrases, some
thoughts that probably don't make a whole lot of sense, and a whole lot
more of fun-filled writing. So this is your warning. So if your lame and
don't like wicked cool all-over-the-place thoughts, bye bye.
Because I made such a big deal of the randomness of this entry, I'm
going to start with a discussion on toilets. Yup, you read correctly,
toilets. Toilets are nice, right? Some are comfortable, many are clean,
and there's often a feeling of relief coming with a trip to one. But
sometimes we find ourselves in toilets that more or less make us want to
puke. While in America, this image is traditionally identified with a
roadside gas station. For many people on my trip (and my previous trips
in other countries), I have found this to be quite true. I have seen
people turn away because a toilet was too gross, or smelled too bad, or
didn't flush or lacked toilet paper. In India, I saw people wait in line
for 20 minutes to use the one Western-style toilet when there are 5 open
stalls with Indian-style bathrooms (google it). Honestly, a month ago I
would have done the exact same thing, but Ghana showed me the value of
any bathroom. I was the one who bypassed the line of western waiters and
pulled out my charmin to go for the Indian experience. Yes, the toilets
are disgusting, but the fact that they exist isn't something I forget.
The people of Senase live without this luxury, and even the dirtiest one
is a reminder of a small blessing. Of course, I much prefer the MV
Explorer for those more intimate bathroom moments, but toilets have
really come to be the defining factor of poverty for me. It's easy to
think of poor as no roads and no educations...but a toilet is a small
luxury I have realized is often entirely overlooked in dealing with
poverty. I'll use that Indian toilet, and I'll be thankful for it. The
people of Senase would be.
My big trip in India was a trip with Semester at Sea titled Agra and
Jaipur. While this mostly consisted of traveling, we did get some
site-seeing in. Here are some of the highlights:
-Gandhi's Tomb. This was SO, so cool to see. It is inside of this
massive park that is just filled with memorials and flower gardens and
important buildings. We didn't see too much of this stuff since we had
very little time, but the tomb itself is the highlight anyway. There are
two ways to see the tomb, from ground level or from above. For the
ground level, you have to take off your shoes before you can walk in.
Thankfully, I wore sneakers that day so I went to sock-mode and went in
with Dain and Kelsey. All of the edges are marked with scriptures in a
bunch of different languages that talk of Gandhi's amazing work and some
of his speeches. In the center is his tomb with a simple candle on top.
There were about 70 people there at the time, and even though it was
just a tomb it was a very awe-inspiring moment. The serenity of it all
mixed with the perfect, sunshine-filled weather and it took us a minute
before we even realized we were standing on hot cement. We ended up not
being able to go the upstairs part because we spent all our of time down
below, but it was worth every second. I know I didn't do it justice in
this description, but it's kind of a feeling I can't even attempt to
describe. Here is my apology now: there's a lot of this in India.
-A whole bunch of forts I don't know the name of. The highlights of
these were mostly bathroom experiences, Dain getting yelled at for his
tripod (see below) and sunburns.
-ELEPHANTS. This was technically Amber Fort, which is in Jaipur, but
I'll be honest, the highlight was riding an elephant to the top. I also
got to pet an elephant on the side of the road. India has a lot of
animals just roaming. Cows cross the street, goats are everywhere (like
we see cats and dogs), camels are a mode of transport and dogs are
watchguards. But riding the elephant was definitely the coolest animal
experience so far this voyage. And way cooler than the actual fort.
-McDonalds. McDonalds, a site to see, whaaa? But wait just a minute, in
India cows are sacred. So what does McDonalds actually serve? I had to
find out! The menu had a few chicken sandwiches, but also sold a bunch
of veggie products I had never seen at a McDonalds before! It was so
different!
-The Taj Mahal. That's a pretty big staple of India and I don't think a
visit to India is complete without it. And i'm pretty sure that's the
first "site-seeing" most of you thought of when I said India. So that's
why it's in the middle of this list, because I promised spontaneity and
it just wouldn't fit to put it first. The security at this sacred and
historic building is so intense that literally only five items are
allowed in - cell phones and personal cameras being two of them, but
extra batteries and memory cards were not allowed, along with pens,
notebooks, any cosmetics, and pretty much anything else. Standing in
front of the Taj was simply unreal. Here is this image we have seen on
TV and in books for years and years, and there I was, standing in front
of it. Hands down this was one of the most out-of-body experiences to
date. I couldn't believe I was walking the path I had watched people
walk on a screen time and time again. It's a beautiful building and a
world-renowned site. And there I was, standing in front of it. I'm still
in awe.
TRIPODS. I promised that tripods would be below, so here it is.
Basically, for some reason I still have yet to figure out why tripods
are banned almost everywhere in India. Of course, Dain doesn't just take
that lightly and tried to pull it out to take group pictures at more
than one place. He got yelled at more than once and forced to put it
away at each location. Still, for anyone that knows Dain, it won't
surprise you at all that his "putting it away" was picking it up and
taking the camera off, promising to do it while walking and setting it
up in the next spot. At the Taj, security was so strict that it wasn't
even allowed in, but everywhere else had just told him he couldn't use
it when entering. At one location, the security guards told him more
than once to put it away so he broke it into the three pieces and asked
me to hold the tripod and the stand. Legitimately, we weren't going to
use it but we were already quite a bit behind our group and in a rush to
catch them that we just figured we would disassemble it on the bus. So
the security guard followed me for the next few minutes, just continuing
to walk around me and stare at me while Dain ran off through various
rooms taking pictures. I knew he was watching me, but I just figured it
was to make sure I didn't use it since I did have my canon around the
neck. However, when I walked up to Dain the guard suddenly came over and
started yelling to put it away now. The answer of we weren't using it
wasn't going to work again and he stood there until we put it away. This
was extra interesting because of the gender-definition of it. I was
watched, but not spoken to, because I am a female. India has A LOT of
gender dividing lines and discrimination, and it's quite funny how I
could carry a tripod but he couldn't.
DISNEY. Of course, nothing in my life would be complete if Disney wasn't
a part of it. In addition to taking pictures of Mickey's that I see
around (which I do in every port, here I even saw an article on tourism
to Orlando with a picture of main street in a magazine!), India was
extra special in Disney-terms for two reasons:
1*Dain and I are pretty much Semester at Sea DCP Campus Reps without the
perks, and convince people to participate in the future left and right.
We even convinced our friend Michael to apply in Ghana and interview in
South Africa. And in India, he found out he was accepted! He got his
first choice role of Bell-hop too which is a pretty small role so we
were so happy for him! He is unfortunately starting after Dain and I
leave for the summer, but hopefully we will have more fall trips there!
Some pretty common things of India:
-The India "smell." A few ports thus far have had a very particular
smell, a smell that I'll probably remember for the rest of my life and
think of with similar scents. One of these countries was Ghana. Another
was India. I can't really describe what it smelt like because it was
quite different, but I know most of us have an idea of the "smell" of an
Indian person in America, so try to multiply that times 1.2 billion
people plus the other cultural factors at work. All of the clothes that
I wore and everything that I brought has this distinct scent. And, no,
it wasn't all that pleasant but it was more bearable than Ghana's. I
never realized how blessed I was to live in country that smells pretty
and clean.
-Haggling. Haggling has been pretty common in the journey thus far. It
happened in Dominica, Manaus (in Brazil, but it didn't happen in Rio)
Ghana, Mauritius and now India. When I say haggling I don't mean like an
American flea market where someone says twenty and you say fifteen and
then it's a deal, I mean vendors grabbing you left and right and yelling
in your face, shoving products in front of you and causing a 5-10 minute
process just to buy something. Half the time I have left stuff I
probably would have bought otherwise because I didn't want to deal with
the process to buy one thing. For example, we went to a local bazaar in
India, and Dain and I (and by that I mean Dain while I sat and tried to
contain my uncomfortable awkwardness) spent literally almost 20 minutes
negotiating the price of some pants, a purse, and 2 shirts. I'm not
comfortable with arguing back and forth, and to be honest, I'm not very
good at it. I'd prefer a standard price, even if it's a little higher,
but alas, that's not how these countries work. It's crazy to think about
having to go day-to-day constantly negotiating prices, and probably
paying a different price all the time. I'm ready to just see a price tag
and know that is what I am paying. Though in India the vendors weren't
as aggressive as in Ghana (where we were literally getting pulled in
every direction), it was still quite extreme and I'm pretty thankful
that Vietnam will probably be the last port where this is such a big deal.
-Jewish stars. There were stars of David on a lot of religious
buildings. I don't understand the significance as this is a Hindu and
Muslim country, but if someone reading this wants to google it I'd
really love it:).
Walking through the Delhi airport, I couldn't help but hate it. It's
gorgeous, probably the most beautiful airport I have ever seen. But why
is that necessary? Here is a country that is starving and then an
airport that has clearly cost billions. Couldn't a run-down airport
sufice and those billions be put towards stopping the killings of
females or ending dowry?
-Gender. Gender is a serious problem in India. In this paternal society,
a woman is completely dominated by their father/husband/brother. When
entering buildings, we had to use separate entrances than men. There
were certain things that men couldn't say to us, and had to ask one of
the men in the group to pass a message on. Women are not allowed to wear
jeans, and instead must conform to the Sari or long skirts (tourists
wont be turned away if they have jeans, but they will be stared at), but
men can wear whatever they want. Women often are not educated, and
instead of little girls getting to play, they have to stay home while
their brothers get to run around. Women are forced to do the housework,
and are slaves to their husbands families until they produce a boy. For
families, a girl is considered a loss while a boy is the prize. The
girls family must pay a dowry (a female to male version of a brideprice
- high ticket gifts often costing up to 5 years salary that must be paid
from a woman's family to the man's upon marriage), and then their
daughter will leave them for their husband. Meanwhile, a boy receives
the dowry for his family and will stay at home when he gets married.
Therefore, female feticide (the aborting of a baby very late into the
pregnancy due to finding out the fetus is a girl) and infant killing is
far too common. Currently, the overall ratio in India is 125 males for
every 100 females, but in a country of 1.2 billion people, these numbers
are clearly very skewed in some areas. For example, in our port of
Kerola, the literacy rate is very high and the ratio of male to female
is 1 to 1. This is the most equal state in the country, and although
extremely impressive, it's important to realize that if the overall
country has a rate of 125:100, and this state has a ratio of 1:1, that
means its very, very worse in other parts.
As we were driving the streets in Northern India, I could see this
differences. I saw men everywhere, but women really were rare. I seemed
to grab more attention than Dain in public, and I often felt
uncomfortable with the men who approached me. When I did see women, it
was in inferior roles. For example, they were hosts at restaurants, but
the men were waiters; they were working the check in booth at the
airport but not security; and they stood behind the desk while the men
did the selling in stores. I saw a billboard in Delhi that was trying to
discourage female feticide. And although the government made Dowry
illegal in 1961, they still do nothing to stop it and females seem to
live in fear of paying for their daughters payment.
Oftentimes, if the dowry isn't paid the wives will be burned to
death in "accidental kitchen fires" and there is absolutely nothing to
be done about it. Fathers have been known to sell their kidneys or other
organs for dowry money, and yet the Indians that I talked to didn't seem
to think dowry was at all a problem. Our tour guide told us that dowry
was "a gift" and there was nothing wrong with it. Of course, he was a
male and his family would therefore be on the receiving end. I wish I
could have asked a female this question, but they are so secluded and
sheltered by their male superiors that they couldn't even speak to us.
Driving through India, I was consumed by the idea that if I was
born into this country, there are pretty high odds that I would have
been killed before I reached two (if I made it out of the womb at all).
We heard a story of a doctor that was just convicted after police found
7 full wells of female fetuses in his year. It reminded me of what it
may have been like to be a black person in the American South, where
entrances were different and inferior, treatment was worse and lynching
was completely acceptable.
Of course, the lack of women in India is causing a major
disruption. Because of the ratio of men to women, in some places where
hte ratio is highest the rape rate skyrocketing and the cosumption of
alcohol is a major problem. But the system of dowry is so large that it
honestly doesn't look like it is going to change. If the current
generation is 125:100, I can't imagine what it will be like 50 years
from now. And if the repression of women is this bad now, I can't
imagine what it will be like with an even higher number of males over
females.
India was the most educational experience I have had thus far. Of
course, I learned so much about poverty and living with nothing in
Ghana, but seeing the way the males dominate this world was seriously
enriching. By the time I got back to Cochin, I had a whirlwind of
emotions. For me, this trip had nothing to do with the siteseeing. I
learned more from driving the back roads than the Taj Mahal could have
ever taught me. Of course, I'm glad I went to this amazing world
landmark, but truthfully, I am no longer a tourist. I am a traveler, and
India defined this for me.
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