Semester at Sea Days 55-56

SAS Temple Visit
Teaching Science to Indian Students
School Greeting by Homestay host, Pavithra

Indian Homestay, Erode, India. Ariel, Tien, Nikki, Linda, Greg
Homestay Breakfast
Yum
Homestay host Prashanth
Rickshaw Driver

In a Rickshaw with Tori, Rabbeqa, Alex
Spencer Plaza, Chennai, India
Cabin 3075, MV Explorer
Cafe Pescada, Hookah Bar in Chennai
Hookah Bar, Tien nursing injured foot from coconut tree climbing

Day 55 October 20, 2008

We left Chennai, India a couple days ago. Here’s the recap:

1^st day: Arrived in Chennai in the morning. Left immediately for a school trip related to my science education class. The first school we go to is an all-girls school. There is a warm reception and introduction, all the girls are sitting in the hall cross legged, silent, in rows. Very disciplined. High school age. We jump right into our projects. A group out front starts the air rocket demonstration. We bring our gravity-powered car materials to a flat area, get a table for a ramp. Their task is to build cars out of cardboard, straws, dowels, wheels, and see who can build the car which will go the furthest/straightest. The kids are very smart, but do not have much experience building things. They have a blast, have some great ideas, are all engaged, many name their cars lightning mcqueen or something related to the movie Cars. I also saw a bunch of “Cars” toys in the shopping malls later, guess it was pretty big here. Met a little Indian girl who was born in Detroit. They are all asking for autographs. We sing a little bit, take pictures.

We went to another school later, a bigger school, all grades, coed. Welcome reception is long, drawn out, they are all chanting/singing forever and we just want to get started. Rocket display out front. We try to do our car thing in the hall but there are too many kids. They swarm us, incredibly eager to participate, but there are just too many children. We struggle to get some kind of order established. I give up and start handing out balloons. This starts a frenzy. Eventually we get rid of enough of them to have some resemblance of a lesson. I end up building a car myself and having them watch. I’m huddled in a corner with little Indian kids almost falling on top of me. We finish, have tea and cookies with the principle, and back to the ship.

Danika and I go exploring. Take a bicycle rickshaw out of the port. Get ripped off. Get in an auto rickshaw (little taxis with three wheels) after some intense negotiation…Selvam our driver turns out to be a pretty nice guy. Takes us to an empty restaurant (its early for dinner here, 6:30 pm. Most people eat after 7:30, or much later) and we invite him to join us for dinner. It’s really good. Chicken tandoori, lots of dips and breads, no utensils. He takes us to an ATM, meet some really friendly people in line, they all do this weird head nodding thing. We go to a tourist-trap shop (they pay off the rickshaw drivers to bring us there) and get mildly ripped off. Stuff is cheap anyway. (50 rupees to the dollar, a full meal costs around 100-200 rupees)

Left for my homestay that night. We are taking a sleeper train to Erode, a more rural area. It’s not too bad, its basically a train full of bunk beds. Everyone is gross and sweaty.

Day 2

Arrive in Erode, get off the train half-asleep. A minibus takes our group (12 people?) to our host family, a couple of doctors. Turns out they had to perform an emergency surgery and wont’ be there. Their daughter (Pavithra) and son in law (Prashanth) will show us around. They have a breakfast feast ready for us. The house is huge. It becomes apparent that Pavithra is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Our conversation quickly moves into philosophical, religious, social, cultural realms and I am stunned by her contemplation of these issues. She is a Hindu and describes wonderful stories about the Hindu Gods, and the significance of these stories. Her husband is the Indian equivalent of a Merchant Marine, a very cool guy. Doesn’t talk as much. They are in a “love marriage”, in contrast to the prevalence of arranged marriages.

Their family started a grade school in the area over 10 years ago, and Pavithra used to teach there. We visit and interact with some of the kids. We go to a organic farm and see sugar being made, walk around. I climb a coconut tree and it rips a layer of skin off the ball of my foot. This is inconvenient.

We go back to the house, they take me to their parent’s hospital, and I get my foot bandaged up. It’s ok. Back to the house for a huge awesome Indian lunch. Nap time. We go out shopping, it starts raining, we buy some saris (traditional women’s dresses), jewelry, stop by a food market, head to another house, and have dinner.

Day 3

Join up with the rest of the homestay groups in Erode. We are paraded around to a couple different schools, I’m over it. We don’t interact much, and there’s a lot of time-killing. At one school, they have a program to entertain us with students doing traditional dances. Then its our turn to present something. We have nothing prepared. I sense impeding doom. I’m right. The 40-some of us attempt the electric slide, Macarena, and the national anthem. All are abhorrent. My foot hurts. A bunch of our events are canceled because our train schedule has changed. They take us in a huge circle and back to the last school. We eat dinner and head back to the train. Another overnight leg back to Chennai. The first day was worth it.

Day 4

Sleep for a few hours on the ship after we get back. Call Rabbeqa (girl Garrett did a homestay with a year ago) and meet her at Spencer Plaza, huge shopping mall. We head to the food court for lunch, and are joined by two other SAS girls who happen to stop by. I don’t really know them. Alex and tori. They tag along. We shop. And shop. And shop. We go to a Diwali festival market, where we meet Rabbeqa’s boyfriend, Hanan. I’m over all the shopping. It is incredibly humid and hot. We go to a rooftop Hookah Bar, and all get “Mickey Mouse” drinks (coke floats). They are shooting some kind of music video there, or setting up for a concert. I borrow the Indian Emo rocker’s guitar and play a song for the girls. We go back to Rabbeqa’s place, we are going out to a club tonight. The SAS girls go back to the ship to get ready. I hang out in Rabbeqa’s family’s apartment and use her computer. Her dad is bed-ridden from a stroke. She has servants. Hanan gets mad when he finds out I’m at the apartment. Silly. The girls eventually get back (late) and we head to the club. It’s fun, the music is good, I dance on my bum foot, Rabbeqa’s friend Tousif is being rather forward with Tori, I’m falling asleep. We get back to the apartment where we are all spending the night, I play Rabbeqa’s guitar for a while, sleep on the top bunk way before everyone else falls asleep.

Day 5

Takes forever for people to get going in the morning. It’s afternoon by the time we get out. Rabbeqa, the girls, and I head back to the mall. Hooray. We have an awesome lunch at the food court, then head back to her apartment. It’s time to say goodbye. Take an auto-rickshaw back to the ship, but can’t get to the gate because of the political rally. Thousands of people dressed in yellow and huge banners supporting some politician. Rickshaw driver tries to rip us off, starts yelling at us. Not a great note to leave India on, these rickshaw drivers are a huge hassle. They never want to agree on a price and drive like maniacs. I guess everyone drives like a maniac though, thankfully no students got seriously injured in traffic. It’s happened in the past.

Ship departs Chennai. I have a lot of cloth. Lots of cool silk, tapestry products. Maybe our cabin walls will be a little less barren now.

Didn’t really explore much on my own in India. Maybe that’s for the best, India is a whirlwind and who knows where I would have ended up. I need some alone time though, I’ve been constantly surrounded by people and accommodating the slow pace and consumerism of certain female travel companions. Have a few half-songs in the pipeline. Miss home a lot. Miss certain people, rather. I could live in any of these places, if I could bring them with me.

Day 56 October 21, 2008 Enroute to Penang, Malaysia

We get to Malaysia tomorrow. I’m getting really excited/nervous about this election. Can’t believe it is so close. Also very excited about seeing Erin and Corey in Penang.

Trang turns 26 tomorrow. Every year her proportional age advantage of me seems more inconsequential. When I’m 50 and she’s 55, we might as well be the same age. That will be strange. Maybe I’ll have a kid that is older than one of her kids, and my kid will tease her kid. Turnabout is fair play. Of course they’ll make up afterwards and raid the fridge for ice cream. Unless it’s Trang’s house. She probably won’t have ice cream. And then her kid will be like, man I bet Uncle Tien would have ice cream right now. And she would be right. I would have it just for the kids, because I’ll be 50 with great abs and that means you can’t have ice cream. But when you’re a kid you should have ice cream sometimes. That’s just what I believe, Trang. Make your house as boring as you want. I don’t care. Actually, Trang usually has delicious Mochi at her pad so this whole rumination is probably improbable. If you don’t know what Mochi is, you need to find your closest trader joe’s and enlighten yourself.

Tonight we have the FIRST EVER Semester at Sea CAMPUS-wide Theatre production!!! Which means, a bunch of student written skits about race, ethnicity, globalization, stuff like that. It’s for my race and ethnicity class. I wrote a skit about customer support/outsourcing, I’m singing a version of “I heard it through the grapevine” about Namibia, and I’ve been doing all types of random stuff, making powerpoint slides, posters, the kind of stuff that really engages me. Writing papers, not so much. It’s going to be a mess, but it should be entertaining.