Note: this post is copied here from one of my early blogs, and recounts parts of my trip to study abroad in India in 2007!

It is Monday morning, 10am. I forgot to write last night, so let me just update now. The night before last, I couldn’t sleep very well (first night in a new place, lots of bugs, etc.) and I woke up around 5am, or as the sun was getting up. (I don’t really have a watch or clock here, so time is much less important). 🙂 Anyway, since the rest of the house was asleep still, I got dressed and brought my camera out to explore our campus a bit. I first went on our roof to take a look around, and saw tons of cool (tropical!) birds, lots of palm trees and jungle foliage, etc. In the first 10 minutes I saw enough interesting wildlife to excite me for days. (ADORABLE little flying-squirrel type things- palm squirrels, crazy looking woodpeckers, giant bright red bugs, huge ravens, tiny hummingbirds, geckos…)

It was early of course, but there were people out. The campus has guards walking around, and there were some workmen and other guys around too. It’s funny here… looking at men or smiling at them too much is taken as a sign of sexual interest, especially if you are American, so you learn to pretty much never look at men. I think I’ll come home with the habit of averting my eyes! Anyway, the men stare a lot anyway, or make noises at you, so it is best just to ignore them. Women, however, will interact, and especially after limiting your contact with men, it is perfectly acceptable and encouraged to exchange smiles and hellos.

So anyway, I walked around campus for a long time in the morning. It is very beautiful. The colors here are so vivid and unique. The soil is a bright clay red, and the trees are jungle green, with of course beautiful tropical flowers, and even the dead, dry stuff (it is almost monsoon season) is vividly bright gray. It’s funny, there is garbage everywhere, (there is just no where to put it, and there are so many people, that there is no way from keeping garbage out of even a clean and protected university), but even with the garbage, it is just as beautiful. It really seems to be that with India, you have to take ALL of it as part of the experience. This applies to other areas too. Walking down the streets of Pondicherry, you can see so many amazing marvels, but they are right next to all the signs of poverty and sadness. Really, India seems to have EVERYTHING. Many people who have been there, or lived there, told me before I came that I should forget any expectations, and not to compare anything to what I knew before. This seems totally true; one’s head would go mad if they were constantly judging the things that go on here, labeling them as “good” or “bad” parts of the experience. Just experiencing it all is enough…

So anyway, back to the day’s events! I came back from my walk and had some breakfast (we get served 3 Indian meals a day- very spicy!). After breakfast, we just hung around for awhile. I played with a stray puppy outside. (You aren’t supposed to- all the dogs are half-wild, and hang around people in the way that feral cats do.) This guy was sooooo cute though, and too little to really be sick. In the afternoon, we took the bus into the city to go to a large Sunday market. Can I just say, #&^#^$%**!&^$@!!!!!!!! The bus… I’ve never been so close to so many people in my life. You have to be very careful for pickpockets, and also have some semblance of preserving the have-as-little-contact-with-men-as-possible thing. Both are extremely difficult, considering the tight conditions. Picture the most crowded NYC subway you’ve ever been on. Now put 30 more people in it. Then add the stifling heat and smells of India. Put yourself right in the center of it. Now add on top of that, the stares you get since you’re a foreigner, and a woman. Make sure the driver is slamming on the breaks and the gas before and after each stop, so you get the maximum amount of jostling possible. Imagine trying to protect your purse or camera, and your dignity. There you have the buses of India. So it’s insane, but it also is a really exciting experience. (And who am I kidding, I love all of that chaotic uncomfortable stuff!)

So finally, we arrive in the city, and after departing the bus, being squeezed and squished in ways I never thought I could be squeezed and squished, we step out in to the busy streets. We explored the market for awhile. They sold mostly things that westerners would call junk. As one of my housemates put it, they sold “everything and nothing”. It is funny, westerners visiting India (like myself) only want to buy the local, handmade goods and crafts. Locals want to buy only the imported western stuff. Strange! We walked down to the “promenade”, the rocky beach where everyone hands out to look at the ocean, eat ice cream, etc. Then we went to a park in the center of the city. (More like a jungle habitat- the trees were awesome!!) There were so many people there, and every different kind too. Families bringing their kids to play, old men, teenagers… I got a fresh coconut to drink (mmmmm!) and we all sat down on a bench. We got asked by a few people if they could take their pictures with us, which we found hilarious. I have to say, it is really nice to have some boys on the trip with us. It’s much more comfortable to walk around the city with men then just alone or with other women. There was more awesome stuff in the city, but I can’t really remember it now. Oh yeah, and I saw a monkey sitting on a fence!!! AWESOME! Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable experience. Every place we visited, I found myself thinking, “I AM FREAKING IN INDIA! THIS IS AWESOME!”

Check out some photos from the day by scrolling through the album below!