Making the Most of Little Opportunities

Since we are currently on a forced holiday otherwise known as a city strike where everything shuts down completely and no vehicles are allowed on the road, I decided it was a good day to catch up on blogging.

Sometimes because everything just takes so much longer and requires a lot of effort and it’s always blazing hot, you have to really will yourself to do something. I’ve been saying for weeks, I want to check out this “park” that’s in the middle of the city because I’ve seen people out walking there in the evenings and I feel as though I never get to have much exercise here. That’s been a hard pill to swallow. I can’t just go for a walk wearing athletic clothes and there are hardly any sidewalks and crazy traffic so it’s just not very feasible. I could probably go walk at the beach but going alone is never fun cause I usually get mobbed with people. So I decided that yesterday was going to be the day that I finally went out to this biopark place. I arranged with my auto driver to drop me off and come get me 45 minutes later. Although the park is not much to brag about and smells like rotting eggs, I was glad I forced myself to go. I probably looked like a crazy person.

 Let me describe my outfit. I had on a bright pink Indian churidar (a long shirt that covers my butt) tight athletic Capri pants (no one wears anything but full pants here and certainly not spandex! Therefore I was scandalously showing off my calves and ankles), tennis shoes (have never seen one woman wear these) and was hauling my camelbak which I’m not sure even exists here. So I was a glorious sight to behold and turned every head.  I was speed walking in this park that went about a half mile. Took about 10 minutes and I thought, now what?

 I rounded a corner to a small lake and out of nowhere I saw a redheaded girl. Shocked to see another foreigner, I walked over to her and just started chatting. Her husband quickly joined and I found out that she’s from Estonia and married an Indian guy from Kerala. They were visiting some of his family as part of their honeymoon. We had such a nice chat and they were about to eat some ice cream. Before I could even refuse, her husband went and bought me another one and while I thought this was somewhat counter-productive to my attempt at exercising, I was sweating bullets and decided sure why not? So sometimes forcing yourself to get out and do something has great rewards. They are staying for 2 weeks and we plan to get together for dinner next week. In addition, I was able to refer them to my friend’s guesthouse and may be able to get them a bit of business during the slow peaks. So win, win! This girl’s face lit up when I said the guesthouse had A/C as she also is discovering the climate shock and they are apparently staying at a cousin’s house with just a fan. Not ok! 

Also attaching some videos of my students playing Do you like your neighbor!

Fun Moments in the Midst of Chaos

Now that I’ve been here for two months, I’m finally starting to feel like a have a grip on how life is going to be day to day. A loose grip…as things always change, but even a little bit helps. Here are a few moments that I’ve really enjoyed over the last week or so.

My relationships with the students continue to grow and we now have many moments of laughter during classes, like when I taught them about the art of small talk and explained that asking “Are you married?” after just meeting someone for the first time may not be the very best approach to putting someone at ease. They all laughed as I exaggerated how I feel every single day when someone asks me this question, which for me hopefully means they get it! We also recently played “Do you Love Your Neighbor?” a classic game I played in high school with my youth group. No matter what culture you are or how old you are, this game is always a winner. I love watching them finally get the concept and we laughed a ton this week as I played with several classes. Nothing like playing a game where you run around the room when it’s 85 degrees in your room already. We were a sweaty mess!

Last weekend I went to Kappad Beach with an Irish family that I’m friends with and we had a nice time relaxing at the pool, getting to be tourists for the weekend. Calling for room service for dinner was hilarious. They were both tired and asked me to call. I now know why! Not only is it hard to understand each other but despite the expansive menu that they boast at the beach resort, about 1/3 of the items are actually available. So our conversation went something like this…

“Yes, I’m calling to order some food for room service.”

 “What room are you in?”

“403”

“Yes madam. What would you like?”

“We will have one hakka chicken noodles.”

“That’s one order of the hakka chicken noodles.”

“Yes, one order.”
“You are in room 403?”

“yes, but we would like more than that.”

“Ok, what else you like? I’ve got one order of the hakka noodles”

“Yes, we would also like the garlic pepper chicken.”

“Madam, the garlic pepper chicken is not available.”

“ok, how about the fried lamb with garlic sauce.”

“Madam, that is not available.”

“Ok, and how about the chicken curry?”

“Madam, that is not available.”

“Ok, can you tell me what is available?”

“Yes, madam, we have select items available.”

“Yes, I am getting that. Can you tell me what is available?”

“You have ordered one order of the hakka chicken noodles. Do you want anything else?”

Insert me trying not to fall apart on the phone laughing!

“Yes, do you have the chicken teriyaki?”

“Yes, madam.”

“ok, we’ll take one order of that.”

“Actually madam. Chicken teriyaki is not available.”

“Ok, how about chicken pakora?”

“Yes, pakora.”

“We will have 2 orders of pakora.”

“You wish to have one hakka noodles and pakora.”

“yes, two orders of the pakora.”

“Ok madam, two orders of pakora. Anything else?”

“Fish curry? Is that available?”

“Yes, Malabar fish curry is available.”

“Ok, we’ll have one order of that. And please make it two orders of hakka chicken noodles.”

Needless to say, when our order came to the room, we had one fish curry, steamed rice, two orders of noodles and no chicken pakora! My friends were cracking up listening to me on the phone. I’m sure they knew how this was gonna go down since they’ve been here several years. As I hung up, the husband says, “The Indian way. Over promise, under deliver.” Haha But it was so nice to get away and we even sat out on the balcony listening to the waves crashing eating chocolate bars and drinking wine out of coffee cups (cause we’re classy like that) I soaked up every minute!  

Other pleasant moments include going to my two favorite coffee shops where I think they will soon know me by name. I’m probably frustrating them by not ordering the same thing every time, but that’s me. I want to try everything on the menu! J One is called Bun Club and this week the cook walked out from the kitchen area and talked with me for several minutes. Turns out he worked in Dubai at a Starbucks for two years. When I told him how I missed having just iced coffee with milk and caramel, he told me that he knew how to make it like Starbucks and gave me his number and told me to text him when I was coming in next and he’s make it. How awesome is that?? I’m definitely beginning to see the kindness of the culture present itself in more and more ways.

I’ve also had more random encounters with people that have just encouraged me along the way, which I know is due to many people praying for me here. I met a really cool couple this week who live in Kochi which is not that far from me and we ended up having dinner together and swapping stories for a good while. The husband is from the States and his wife is German. Her name is Brigeta (which I secretly was so excited to finally meet someone named Brigeta due to my intense love of The Sound of Music) and they were such a nice welcoming duo and now I have a place to stay when I decide to venture to Kochi!

This week Ive been preparing for an English camp I’m going to run in Delhi next weekend. I’ll be working with an NGO that set up a foundation and school for children that have been displaced due to rioting and several that have been left orphaned. I’m going to use camping as my theme for the lessons and have had a good time getting ready to hang out with 4-6 yr olds for a few days. I can’t wait to be around children. 

So with all that, I have much to be thankful for!

Lunches and Neighbors

So I have two amusing stories to share. The first one being about a lunch I was invited to a couple weeks back. One of the doctors at the company I work with invited me to visit his home for lunch. Mind you, he is a strict Muslim and I'm not sure why he chose Friday to invite me since this is the day that men are required to be at mosque. But anyways, he did and I accepted. So my boss dropped me off at his house a bit early (like 30 minutes before I was supposed to be there) and I sat in the living room while his wife served me lemonade and his daughters sat quietly staring at me. I knew they could speak and understand English, however, they were pretty shy so I had to keep the conversation going. I enjoyed their company and after about 30 minutes, they invited me into the dining room to have lunch. I was asked to sit down and plates of food were set in front of me. They wanted me to eat alone but I kept asking them to join me. So two of the daughters finally gave in to my plea and sat at the table with me to eat. 

The doctor did not come home until well after we were finished eating (like 2:00) and he greeted me, asked if I enjoyed my lunch and then told me that I should go "rest" upstairs while he ate and then his driver would take me home at 2:30. So after eating almost by myself with him being the only person I was even remotely familiar with and then being asked to go upstairs to one of his children's bedrooms to "rest" while I waited until he finished, it definitely became a memorable weird dining experience. For future, I recommend actually being home when you invite a guest to lunch and then maybe spending a few minutes talking with them. Maybe I'm just strange and there were cultural things at play here that I didn't understand but it was truly an odd experience! 

The other story happened a week or so after I moved into my new temporary place of residence. My friend was coming over for language class and was barraged by my neighbor (who I'd never seen before) asking her a million questions at once. She kind of just didn't answer any of them and knocked on my door which I found so funny. She completely left him hanging! So she told me to watch out cause my neighbor gave her the slightly creepy vibe and we didn't think anything else about it. Well when we were almost through with the class, my phone rang (which up until that point, I didn't even know my apartment had a phone!) and I thought, "Oh this ought to go well. I speak about a word of Malayalam and I'm sure it is the security guard downstairs who speaks about 2 words of English. So I answer timidly and I hear the faced paced voice of my neighbor who I now know is Sunish. He says, "Hello. This is Sunish, your neighbor in 2 C. I heard you are associated with the eye hospital." He gives a brief pause while I say, "Yes, I am." He then asks, "Can I have five minutes of your time?" I explained that I was in class and that I would have to talk with him after. Well, my friend insisted that we bring her husband along who speaks Malayalam just in case. 

So after class we all knock on his door, (now who's the creepy one? Bringing my bodyguards with me lol!) and he again says hello and introduces himself. He then says while pointing to his eye, "As you can see, I suffered a serious eye condition and I have been to MIMS hospital for a treatment plan. I am not sure they are giving me the best course of treatment and want a second opinion. Can you tell me what you think I should do?" I try desperately not to crack up as I realize he thinks I am an eye doctor visiting from the U.S! I quickly explain to him that I am simply the English teacher for Al Salama and not an actual doctor of any kind. We all sort of laughed and I told my friends goodbye. Since then, I have kindly had Sunish knock on my door, bringing me a box of candy from Dubai and then again calling me the other night when I had all the ladies over for prayer to tell me to look out the window because there were fireworks! We all laughed as I told them about my over eager neighbor and we all enjoyed a couple minutes of the fireworks. Once I leave in another week or so, I think I'll actually miss him haha! It makes for never a dull moment :)