Background and Arriving

Ah, tropical paradise with a side of 3^rd world country, how I love you. It’s been really interesting to see how much India reminds me of Ecuador….the thatched huts, burning garbage, incredible food, intense heat, traffic conditions like a perpetual game of chicken….but India is a different flavor of exotic that is absolutely awe-inspiring and a complete assault on the senses.

So maybe I should back up.

India. Why India?

Why not?

It’s amazing. It’s the last field study option BYU has left and I can use a research opportunity to learn a ton. It’s an incredible experience with even more amazing people. The idea is to receive a few classes from local professors on the local history, culture, and language to qualify as our 12 credits for school, and then each student in the program is to conduct research in some specific area of study: accounting, history, linguistics, etc, so I’ll be working primarily at a special needs school, Lebenshilfe, doing a research project comparing speech therapy assessment in India versus the US. Our program director will be with us for the first few weeks, but a site coordinator, who has been doing this for 30 years will be in charge of us and make sure that we have all that we need. On Friday morning of the 4^th, I flew to San Francisco and met up with 3 other girls in our group: Mackenzie, Eva, and Kelly. We took a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong and arrived (by virtue of a time-space continuum warp….or just time changes) at about 5 on Sunday morning. Can I just say….I am in love with Singapore Air.  Everything from the  flight attendants to the dim sum breakfast to the movie selection was classy and impressive….well…actually, some of the movies were kind of sketchy. (I started watching a Japanese/ German movie called “I Phone You; the cover is a guy and a girl dressed up as strawberries looking lovingly at one another….innocent, right? Huge, resounding FALSE). 

Anyway, Hong Kong was good, but very foggy and since it was early morning, we really didn’t get to see much. Four hours later we arrived in Singapore (THE most beautiful airport, P.S…..Hong Kong is nice, but Singapore seems so friendly, plus it’s stinkin’ GORGEOUS. There’s even a butterfly emporium inside! We also got our first view of a squatty-potty, which will be our new norm for the next few months…), where Daniel and Joan picked us up (Daniel is my best friend from high school who lives/works in Singapore). True to form, he saw me first and the only thing I was aware of was a slightly-larger-than-your-average-Asian figure in pink skinny jeans hurtling toward me. Holy cow I missed him! Since he’s been living in Asia for so long, he’s developed the most endearing, stilted accent where he rolls “r”s inappropriately, puts interesting tones on all the vowels, and drops pronouns willy-nilly. Daniel and Joan were so so sweet and SO generous with us. 

We visited their totally Ikea apartment, complete with black cat and funny Singapore toilet and then visited some really amazing temples in Chinatown and got some delicious food in the downtown area. We also visited this incredible hotel, right across from the Lion/mermaid fountain. The hotel has I don’t even know how many floors, and on top of the roof (which is maybe slightly smaller than a football field), there is a beautiful garden with an enormous pool, which looks down on the other side of the hotel, where there are amazing botanical gardens. Off to one side of the gardens (towards the bay), they’ve built two half-ellipse shaped greenhouses (Biosphere style), one that houses a mini rainforest, the other contains a small desert environment. So cool. But then in the MIDDLE of the botanic gardens, there are huge man made trees that tower over everything and look like they came right out of some sci-fi movie. (Let’s face it, all of Singapore feels and looks like it popped out of a futuristic sci-fi movie). Daniel told me that the tops of the structures are to gather rain to water the whole botanic garden, but then at night, they light up and it’s incredibly beautiful.  There are multiple bridges crossing between the trunks of the “trees,” so it’s got a really cool Avatar flair (the blue avatars, not the little boy one). 

  Even though it was super hot and sticky, we all fell in love with Singapore and, after having enjoyed the very best of the city,  leaving felt almost like a punishment. Also, the flight was not quite so comfortable. Dr. Krishnayya (the site coordinator) and Dr. Nuckolls (the program director) picked us up from the Visakhapatnam airport late Sunday night and drove us to Lawson’s Bay Colony, a very nice suburb a few blocks from the beach. The ladies that work at the house, Sailaja (who is about 21 and just the cutest person on the planet), Gowri, and Durga greeted us and helped us carry our luggage where we needed to go…I had borrowed an old suitcase that had already seen quite a bit of travel battle, and I’m very relieved to say that it arrived, and more so to report that the contents were intact. Both of the handles were ripped off, a corner is severely crunched, and one of the wheels is entirely missing. Poor gimpy suitcase. BUT! The gifts that I brought in that suitcase are still all in one piece, so I’m over the moon.

They’ve rented two houses on the same block for the program, so we girls are living at the main house (the green house) and our only boy, Christian, is living a couple doors down at the program house with Durga, her husband Raju (who does all the washing), and their little son, Siddu. The green house is apparently quite the meeting place. Dr. Krishnayya,

 who had taught philosophy and religion at the local university for many years, always has old friends stopping by to wish him well, bestow some sweet gift, and make small talk, or just sit in silence and smile kindly at us and bobble their heads every now and again. (We’re told that a head bobble is like saying “I see” or “I understand” or a vague positive indication, whereas a nod is a very specific yes…having so many friends stop by has been really cool…so far we’ve met a former president of two universities in Andhra Pradesh, multiple professors at the local university, and an anthropologist from Cambridge whose studies focus on possessive shamanism in a hill tribe in the bordering state of Orissa…he’s got the perfect documentary-narrating voice, it’s amazing!). Dr. Krishnayya is one of the coolest men I have ever met. He is extremely gracious, very attentive, and is always looking for ways to help people feel comfortable and to help us drink in the rich experience that is India. Although the people who work at the house are from a lower caste than he is (they are from the washerman caste, and he is technically a part of the shepherd caste), he treats them all as his own children and takes a very personal interest in their lives and happiness. We have two translators who will be helping us throughout the semester, a former elementary school teacher named Raja Lakshmi, and a young man named Madu. They’ve been so so patient with us and I’m very grateful, especially for their bargaining skills….Raja Lakshmi took us shopping for clothes on our first day (we aren’t allowed to wear typical American clothes so that we show respect towards the culture and help establish a good reputation for the program), and I’m certain she saved us from having to pay an arm and a leg.

These first two weeks will be chock-full of adventures because Dr. Nuckolls will be here to escort us around, so I’ll do my best to share specifically what happens these first two weeks, but then I expect that a day-to-day account won’t be quite so exciting as schedules are established and we really start to work on our projects. Check back for more to come!!