India: The Rest of Day 2 Through the Morning of Day 5

HOMESTAY IN INDIA: ABRIDGED

I took a sleeper train waaaay down South to the small village of Erode. Keep in mind that India had 1.2 billion people, so a small village for them means 2.5 million people. Let that sink in for a moment.

The sleeper trains are fun. It’s literally like a military bunker, except the place moves. I’m happy to say that I got the top bunk, and was not only the only Indian, but also the only female in my particular quadrant. This didn’t really mean much considering the proximity all of the SAS students to one another, and the fact that the “quadrants” were only separated by a think curtain that could be opened and closed at will, but I still felt cool for about five minutes.

We arrived in Erode, where we were taken to our new home. It seemed strange that there was a group of 11 of us, and we were all going to be staying with the same family. Looking back at my homestay in Ghana, the thought of 11 of us squishing into that little hut made me cringe a bit. When we finally pulled up at the house, everything started to make a bit more sense.

It was a mansion.

Yes, that’s right: a mansion. Turns out we were going to be staying with the village landlords. The place wasn’t too ridiculous-looking. It was like…you know how some mansions are five stories tall with gargoyles and columns and fireworks and guard dogs and stuff? This was more like a really, really long, one-story house. It was pretty, but not fancy. There was always a new part of the house to find once you thought you’d seen it all. A lot of it was open-air. Farmland surrounded the entire area, but the place itself wasn’t a farm. I guess the place was just…I guess…look, it’s difficult to explain.

But here’s the interesting thing: living in the mansion was possibly the coolest thing I could have done because it gave me such striking insight into the nature of income inequality in the country of India. In America, I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that it’s pretty easy to tell which areas are poor and which are rich. Just look at Denver. We know damn well that we should avoid East Colfax street, and that that Cherry Hills is the place where all the people in the million-dollar McMansions live. In Erode, I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that I lived in the only place in the entire area with access to electricity. Like seriously, I spent a lot of time lounging in the open-air villa sipping drinks and being waited on by a troupe of servants. Right down the road? Pretty much Tagorme Village. I’m talking huts, trash, and long-ass days of menial labor making sugar and rope in the sweltering heat. My hosts wore jeans while the rest of the locals wore next to nothing at all. Uma was an ex-UN worker while most of her neighbors could barely be classified as gainfully employed. Uma’s niece Aninya was 10 years old and obsessed with Pokèmon and the iPhone, while the kids next door were close to illiterate. The US enjoys its “separation between church and state”. What it often neglects to mention is the blatant “separation between rich and poor” via its gated communities and tall fences. I didn’t need to travel more than 5 minutes to see India’s inequalities at their greatest. At let me tell you, it’s pretty bad.

My activities were pretty standard. I got to see the process by which coconut husks were made into rope (and also got to fail at climbing up a coconut tree). I got to step into the steam room (and by steam room I mean the place where some Indian villagers melt something similar to sugar for 10 hours a day, every day), and enjoy the comforts of the local sweatshop. Oh, did I mention the sweatshop? Because there was totally a sweatshop. It was a little further into town, and wasn’t actually introduced to us in the typical “what you’re about to see may scar you, so be warned” type of way. No, it was more of a “Yo, these people have sheets. Let’s watch how their employees make sheets, and then buy us some sheets.” And to answer your burning question, yes, sweatshops are EXACTLY as the media describes them. I was actually sweating after being in one for a good ten minutes, and I wasn’t the one doing work. It’s kind of horrifying. I’ll show y’all the pictures when I get a chance.

During our time, we got to visit a good amount of schoolchildren. What’s interesting about India is the national obsession with modernization and development. This is pretty clear when you talk to the kids for about two seconds. Ask a ten-year-old what he wants to be when he grows up in America and you’ll hear the words “astronaut”, “movie star”, or “secret agent”. In India, you’ll probably get “accountant”, “doctor”, or “engineer”. Even the girls do this. I don’t understand how it’s possible for such a huge bloc of people to be so unanimously practical. I’m also not completely sure that I approve. It’s not that the country suppresses the arts at all. They have a vibrant Bollywood community, and there’s a humanities track that you can take in school. It’s just that, well…nobody seems to take it. Good for the children for wanting to succeed, but it’s almost unnerving that success does not necessarily correspond with happiness or lifetime dreams, but with an upper-middle class income. Doctoring as a noble goal I get…but who really wakes up one morning and says, “I feel like changing the world today. Where are Kumar’s receipts? I’m gonna proofread them a few more times! Living the dream, baby!”

We also went to a school for the physically disabled. I’m not sure what it means that India has schools specifically for the disabled. It’s either really progressive, or has such a large proportion of disabled to non-disabled kids that it’s actually essential to separate the two into different institutions. I don’t really know, but it’s worth looking into. I nearly cried when I saw the little faces looking up at me. Some of them were relatively normal-looking. Maybe they had a foot missing and that was all. But some of them were just…well, I don’t want to use the word “inhuman”, but my thesaurus is telling me that it’s the best word to use. I saw some kids that defied my reality of what it means to be considered handicapped. It was terrible. Nonetheless, they tried their damndest to put on a traditional Indian dance performance for us. I respect them for that. They really did tries their best, and for many their enthusiasm overshadowed the performance itself. We proceeded to do an impromptu performance for the little ones, which basically encompassed me being handed a microphone by my trip leader and being forced to sing the star-spangled banner with a chorus of my shipmates behind me. I’m not actually sure if the kids were impressed.

We were left alone with the kids for a little while. This was an iffy choice on the part of our host, considering we didn’t speak a word of Tamil, and most of these children spoke at most 3 or 4 sentences in English. I spent most of the time as I usually do: letting the kids play with my camera and look at all of my pictures. When that got old, however, I started to throw out random words/activities and hope the kids understood. “Swimming?” I’d say as I imitated a front crawl. “Yes!” they’d cry. “Football, running, tennis?”

And that’s when it happened. A little boy looked at me and piped up, “JOHN CENA!” That’s when I knew. I whipped out my iPhone and sped to my pictures, where I conveniently had placed pictures of my John Cena-themed bedspread, Sheamus shrine, and the live WWE event I attended in Cedar Rapids. We started having an in-depth conversation that pretty much went as follows:

“John Cena!” “Triple H?!” “Yes!” “You like Sheamus?” “Sheamus?” “Sheamus.” “Rey Mysterio!” “Yay!” “619!” “WWE!” “You can’t see me!” “Wrestling!”

I was forced to leave midway through that discussion. Dammit.

We took a sleeper train again, and I arrived back on the ship around 6am. I proceeded to pass out until Day 5 at noon. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the very abridged story of my 2 and a half day homestay in Erode, India.

 TO BE CONTINUED.