India was a fascinating experience. The American International School Chennai is the consulate school there and the campus was pristine--green spaces, swimming pool, soccer field, art work, open air, covered walkways, fancy things like markers, tag board and post it notes. We enjoyed every last bit of the two days of the middle school writer's conference and it was great to get to know the eleven kids that traveled with us.
We stayed at the El Doris hotel, a “boutique” hotel that is an example of how the pictures online and the reality are two different things. I imagine it was once a five star hotel, but immediately upon opening it ceased to be maintained and now, maybe ten years later, the rooftop railing is eaten through by rust in places and painted over with shiny black spray paint, the wooden decking bowed and bent, the rooftop pool water was thick and I couldn’t see to the bottom. The electrical fixtures in the rooms didn’t work consistently and it smelled...interesting. Palm trees came up from courtyards of neighboring structures and trash lay strewn in open lots. But all of this overlooked the waves crashing on the beach off the Bay of Bengal and sitting there on the last morning before we left, drinking instant coffee and reading my book, none of that mattered too much.
There is beauty and exoticism that exists amidst such serious squalor and poverty, traffic jams and horns honking, bicycles, motor bikes, cows, dogs and goats. There is trash everywhere and people everywhere. The roads are narrow and drivers communicate with each other with their horns, non stop. Light taps or blaring bursts indicating warning, watch out, beware, “I’m here!” --whatever the case may be. Most of the people out and about are either barefoot or wear flip flops or sandals. Traditional dress is the dress. Nose piercings, red bindis on the foreheads of both men and women is common--which signifies marriage. We saw numerous Christian churches, mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples. Everything is worn out or cracked or dirty. On one evening we all ate at a restaurant called “Animal Kingdom,” complete with animatronic T-Rexs alongside plaster mohawked natives and unnerving piped in Teradactyl calls that sounded like the death cries of animals being slaughtered in the back before being prepared for us. Once we got past that, the food, service and hospitality shown to us here was outstanding. It was the most incredible buffet I’ve ever experienced. I was introduced to pani puri here, and it was the highlight of the meal. There were so many appetizers delivered directly to us one after the other that the buffet itself was a little anticlimactic. At the hotel each morning, I also enjoyed a common Indian breakfast called idli with coconut chutney. The people we encountered at the hotel and restaurants and businesses were warm, gracious and often proud of what there was to offer. The Indian head bobble is as ubiquitous here as the folded hands in Thailand. It means all is good, ok, no problem, take care.
We encountered beggars outside the gates of Mahabalipuram, a 1300 year old Hindu temple complex with a ring of stone bulls. Outside the gates an old woman used a machete to chop the ends off coconuts, pop a straw inside and sell to us tourists. Our students drank away and then threw their empty coconut shell on the mountain of others that sat next to the woman selling them, threatening to eventually dwarf her. A little girl, tiny, maybe six years old, barefoot, dirty and in rags, appeared amidst these 7th grade girls in their Harry Potter T-Shirts, braces and back packs and gestured to her mouth with her fingers. Another pair of men tried to sell us their hand made drums and persistently clung to our group for a half an hour. Meanwhile, the kids bought little wooden elephants and other trinkets for their families back home.
We saw some small grass houses where people lived, dirt floors, common wells, and also tiny little single rooms that house an entire family, as well as walled villas with ornate, fancy gates. Pondicherry, on our last full day, is a heavily French influenced coastal city with a distinct tourist vibe (or at least more than Chennai). We saw a huge statue of Ghandi and one of Mother Theresa and we toured a grand, shabby Catholic church where we stepped off the bus and a man with no arms and withered legs lie on the ground begging with an open hand.
Our final India evening was in Pondicherry after the kids finished playing in the surf and the sun had set. We were on a second story deck that overlooked the dark beach. We drank 750 ml. bottles of Budweiser, ate fresh prawns and fish and visited with Nesireen, our co-chaperone and colleague at ISG whose family is from Kerala the next state over and has dreams of opening her own school someday, and I think she will probably do it.
The manager patiently waited on all of our kids and made family size orders that they could share. He had recently settled down with a wife and child but had previously worked as a baker on cruise ships for twelve years, which had brought him to the east coast of the U.S. and down south. He said he was addicted to the sea and would return to it one day.
Arranged marriage is a fact of life and absolutely accepted. I’ve even been asked if my marriage was a “love” marriage, as they call it. This surprised me because I always thought it was controversial or at least not particularly prevalent but most of the Indians we’ve met and work with are the products of arranged marriage. It’s just the way it is, although I’ve asked a few parents what they wanted for their own children and they have all said love marriages for them.
Like Thailand, India’s energy is dynamic and varied. These places are another universe from our life in Aitkin. We all know it’s a big world but I continue to feel fortunate to get to step inside of it and see it for myself, only to realize it’s not that big after all, as people are just living, working and raising families like any place else--doing the best they can, like the rest of us.
We made the final decision to continue for the second year here last month and have been very open with our colleagues and students that two years is the extent of our contract and our time in Saudi and that we fully intend to go back to Aitkin and pick up where we left off having fulfilled a dream and goal we had for ourselves to teach overseas after the kids graduated. The question I continually get asked over and over again by my students is, “What do you think of it here?” I'm not sure what they want me to say. We are getting the experience we asked for.
We are over “hating” this place and have chosen to embrace the nonsense. It is comfortable but isolating and isolated. Our school is often ridiculous. That’s not to say good teaching isn’t happening and the relationships, friendships, and experiences are extraordinary, but its culture and leadership are often absurd and what occurs in the classroom occurs in spite of the system that surrounds it rather than because of it.
We miss our family and friends and miss Minnesota and appreciate the natural beauty of U.S.--the laws, regulations, systems, roads, sanitation, and a hundred others--all the things one might take for granted, which is what travel is supposed to help us with. I am looking forward to trying out a beer or two at the Cuyuna Brewing Company this summer, probably start with the Yawkey Red and just hang out in the great outdoors and maybe have some of that homemade hummus, chips and a Yuengling at the Miller house.
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