Paris: La Ville-Lumière

As of today we have been in Paris for four whole days.  In those four whole days we have thoroughly exhausted ourselves in our lengthy explorations of the city.  Below I've included some highlights.

Most memorable eating spot: eating a delicious chocolate pastry under the pleasant shade of trees… while in a cemetery (in my defense, many Parisiens faisaient la même chose).

Une tarte au chocolat

The best food I’ve had is simple and fresh.  My favorite meal so far has been a sandwich of fresh-baked bread with tomato, brie, and chèvre that I ate with friends in front of the Centre Pompidou.  You will not hear me complain about the warm pain au chocolat I have for breakfast every morning here.  Our hostel buys them, as well as its loaves of bread and croissants, fresh every morning.  I’ve found a people who, like me, find excuses to eat chocolate at every meal of the day, and I’m happy to have made it.

A mural near the Pompidou (modern art museum)

Best park (as of today, which is our fourth day here): Le Parc Montsouris.  A friend and I spent a good hour sitting on a bench in this park this morning people watching.  Since Sunday is a day the French set aside to spend with family, we watched a entertaining parade of petits enfants, tiny versions of their well-dressed parents, tottering along the path, chasing pigeons, and frolicking in the grass.

Honestly I would love nothing more than to spend hours over a meal with friends here.  Every café I pass has this perfect, glowing ambience and is filled with people.  I cannot wait to join them.

Seen as of today:  Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Bastille, le Tour Eiffel, boat tour of the Seine

Still to explore: Le Quartier Latin, Les Halles, and spontaneous coffee at a petit café  (**This list will continue to grow as I learn more about Paris.)

See below for pictures of our explorations in Montmartre: 

Exploring Montmartre

Sacre Coeur

From South India to Paris, France

While clearing out my bookshelves as I packed for a semester abroad in France I realized something about myself.  I am a young woman in transition.  As I sorted through the books, out went the Pendragon and Princess Diaries series, in came my favorite books from my last two years of college.  Books like In Spite of the Gods and Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed rested next to my high school favorites, Mrs. Dalloway, Life of Pi, and others.  Yet my childhood favorites remained on the shelves.  Good Night Moon, Charlottes' Web, and the Harry Potter series, sat next to my new, grown-up novels.  My overflowing bookshelves chronicle my transition from child to young adult.  As I contemplate a semester (four months) in France, I carry these books, the books that have led me to attend Davidson, to study abroad in India, and now travel to France, with me in my heart and mind.

I write this from Davidson, North Carolina, where I have spent that past few days catching up with friends and finishing up my summer responsibilities.  Just as it was strange to be here before leaving for India, it is strange to be here now.  I am happy to be here and see friends before leaving, to enjoy the Carolina blue sky and the golden sunlight of the early morning, and to have the time to read the paper at leisure.  For me, August has always had a sense of excitement that hangs in the still, hot air.  As the hot, muggy days give way to crisp fall mornings, I inherently know it is time for me to start anew.

For the past three years, each August has brought me a new beginning.  The fall of my freshman year I headed off onto a backpacking trip and then onto my freshman orientation.  The fall of my sophomore year I flew to India for a semester abroad in South Asia and the Middle East.  The fall of this year, my junior year, I fly to France, where I will live for the the next four months.

Why a semester in India and then a semester in France?  Could I have chosen to study abroad in two more different places?  Probably not.  Though, since I have never been to France, I cannot yet say.  So far I have been able to predict and experience these differences:

• Packing for three seasons in one suitcase is a nightmare.  Long-gone are the days in India where I could pack two pair of shoes and 5 outfits and be just fine for 4 months.

• In France I will be able to drink tap water and eat fruit and salad! (It's the little things.)

• I'm expecting a drastic transition from multi-religious India to secular France.  In India religion was a normal, almost expected part of daily life.  Everyone, save the few young, secular Hindus I encountered, considered religion a critical part of their lives (more on this, I'm sure).

Advice I've received: wear black clothing, walk everywhere, (within reason) say yes to new experiences, make friends with locals, and speak and think only in French.  Some of these tasks will be easier than others.

As with many new opportunities in life, everyone will have their own opinion and advice on the matter.  Only by going to France myself will I learn for myself, through trial and error, what works and what does not, such as where the good running paths and coziest cafes are, and what's the fastest route to school.  

So begins my next adventure!  A bientôt!

Summarizing a Semester Abroad

“How was India?” is the most common question I have gotten since returning home.  Friends, family, and even strangers all ask.  I always answer with “It was great!,” which it was.  In reality, my answer should be “I have no clue.” 

I have no clue how to summarize 3 ½ months of my life into one engaging sentence.  I have no way to put India’s overwhelming sights and smells into words let alone one sentence.  I rode elephants, climbed mountains, wrote, took pictures, ate my weight in rice and sambar, rode in consistently-unsafe autos, got very ill with a myriad of bugs, and drank buckets of chai.  This list could go on for paragraphs.

Without question my favorite part about India was experiencing something new every single day.  I never knew what to expect from India, but I knew to expect something new, whether it was trying goat for the first time, exploring a new city, or meeting new people. 

The generosity of the people whom we met in India never failed to impress me.  Indians are hospitable to total strangers.  Indian families and professors welcomed us into their homes and hearts with cups of chai and steaming samosas and gave us parting gifts of jewelry and saris.  Never before have I experienced the same boundless and indiscriminate kindness.

India has many flaws – its medical, political, and educational systems to name three.  (I could say the same exact thing for the United States of America.)  Despite their myriad of woes, the Indian youth whom I met had an excitement and hope for the future, a hope many disillusioned Americans have lost.  In the face of crushing poverty and economic uncertainty, India’s youth dream and invent with an unparalleled entrepreneurial spirit.  The United States has lost its drive to succeed and rise.  India, though realists might warn against growth without regulation or infrastructure, is experiencing the same increase in relevance and economic growth the United States faced at the turn of the 20^th century.  It builds hopes of Superpower status at the same time that political analysts predict the fading relevance of the United States.

I have so many places I want to go, people I want to understand, and languages I want to learn.  Next on my list of “Places to Go” include France, Chile, Peru, Thailand, Jordan, and New Zealand.  I do not know when I will go to these places, but I will do everything in my power to go there.  All 7 continents by the time I am 30, right? 

Until the next Adventure!

The Remnants of War

A monument hit by errant bullets and shrapnel during the war

This country was broken, but with the hard work of its people, it is on the mend.

In our ten days in the country, we spent only four days in the northern province of Sri Lanka where the government and the Tamil Tigers fought hardest during their thirty years of civil war.

Driving in to Jaffna, the North’s major city, two things struck me.

Northern Jaffna is how I imagine the southern United States might have been after the Civil War. On every block at least a few bombed-out buildings stood. Not one building escaped the cross fire; I found small bullet and shrapnel holes carved into their thick plaster walls. Sri Lanka fought three successive wars against the Tamil Tigers between 1983-2009. The most recent war or “humanitarian effort” as the government calls it lasted from 2006-2009 and culminated with the government soundly defeating the Tamil Tigers. That victory came at great loss of civilian lives and livelihoods. Their families missing, their homes destroyed, and their communities broken, civilians and militants in the north and east of Sri Lanka are returning to their native land after decades in refugee camps.

A bombed-out church in Jaffna

People are slowly recovering. They are opening shops, repairing and rebuilding their homes, and learning new employable skills. Young school girls, dressed all in white, smiled as they meandered past the shells of former shops and homes. As a victor’s peace, the government had the option to deny the defeated Tamils of all reconstruction efforts and foreign aid. For the most part, it has dedicated itself to appeasing the former combatants through reconciliation and rehabilitation so that the war never happens again.

For now, Sri Lanka has peace. It should last, but no one, not the Sri Lankan military officers nor the Tamil civilians would tell us without a doubt that peace would be permanent.

**An additional note: Since returning to America, I have talked with many family members and friends.  Few of them knew that Sri Lanka had a war that ravaged its country off and on for 30 years, or that the two main forces were the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).  The country is rebuilding, but many issues remain unresolved (e.g. property rights, freedom of speech, human rights abuses, and English language education - to name a few).

Reflections upon Leaving Chennai

The gap between the upper and lower classes in India grows by the minute.  India’s burgeoning “middle class” accounts for the top earners in the country as half of its population still lives on less than two dollars per day.  The increasing economic disparity between the top and the bottom classes means an increasing disparity in quality of life.  The expectations of the upper classes increase as their purchasing power increases.  They begin to demand better hospitals, schools, cars, and homes.  The economically irrelevant lower classes do not have the influence that disposable income brings.  The conspicuous consumption of the upper classes serves as a daily reminder of their poverty.  To give my first-hand observations about the contrast between the lives of the upper class and lower class in India, I have four stories to share.

Chennai Mall Life: I have frequented the glossy Express Avenue mall in Chennai a number of times now. The structure rises six stories into the sky, filling the air with its frantic consumerism. Bright lights shine on sparkling saris, trendy Nike shoes, and a bustling KFC. India's middle and upper classes mill in and out of shops. Their expanding waistlines push them to shop at newly opened plus sized stores. From this enclave, India's social and economic problems seem far away. However, just across from the mall, tucked away behind stores, lie the corrugated roofs of a sprawling slum.

Hotel Opulence: In Pondicherry we stayed in a hotel in which surfaces gleamed with polished granite, glittered with crystal chandeliers, and shone with burnished ceilings. Every night the hotel hosted glamorous weddings. The guests chatted while wearing their best silk saris and sipping champagne. Outside the high gates of the hotel, however, a cloud of dirt and noise replaced the cool, clean air conditioning. Maneuvering around the buckling sidewalk and piles of trash outside, I was overwhelmed by the contrast between the hotel's spotless opulence and the unabashedly grimy poverty of the surrounding neighborhood.

The Privileged College Student: Every time I leave the sylvan enclave of MCC's middle class campus for the city I pass beggars who plead for money. They sit in piles of rags with festering wounds, amputated limbs, and raggedy hair, curled up against the battering flow of the passing foot traffic. Instinctually I want to help, but I have been told that any money I give will only attract unwanted attention. My fellow classmates have remarked in guilty tones how easy it is to ignore beggars. Even in Tamil Nadu, one of the most affluent of India's 28 states, abject poverty is normal.  For every day we spend here, Davidson's wide brick sidewalks and innocuously friendly townspeople fade from my mind as a new normal, the Indian normal, replaces them.

Beautification Projects: Sitting in my taxi on the way to a posh department store, a gypsy woman with a small baby approached my window. She made silent gestures from her mouth, to her baby, to me.  Her watery eyes bore into my own.  She is used to being ignored.  Her newly affluent middle class counterparts view her as an unsavory reminder of their former economic hardships. I have even seen many signs on hotels and restaurants telling passerbys that the establishment "reserves the rights of admission.” I take these signs to mean establishments will allow in only "appropriate" well-to-do customers and exclude the dirt-covered lower classes.

Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) petition the government to eliminate slums from the neighborhood.  Since the slums are technically squatters, they should not legally live on the land.  However these largely selfish beautification campaigns have no intention of bettering the conditions of the poor. They move the poor to crowded tenements on the edge of the city or demolish the slum without advance notice. The upper class would rather beautify its city than solve any of its problems.  In the way that India's upper class wants to keep poverty out of site, India is very much like America.  America does a fantastic job of hiding its poverty.  Out of sight, out of mind, right?  In my hometown in Ohio I drove to school every day through a disaffected area of town, but the streets were always wide and clean with out a single homeless person in sight.

The gap between India's rich and poor is growing. The rich buy their fancy cars in air conditioned mega-malls and eat western food with abandon, while the poor live without clean water or toilets.  India’s prosperous accept this lifestyle gap as normal.  I must admit that I accept poverty as normal both in India and at home.  I cannot apportion blame upon others without recognizing my own faults. I ignore poverty in my own city and spend wildly while many of my countrymen have no disposable incomes, homes, or even clothes of their own.  Just because poverty is normal for America and India does not mean that the poor should continue to live in squalor.  In spite of their historical love of socialism, Indians today do not make much effort to redistribute wealth so that everyone might benefit from the country’s prosperity.  As long as pure capitalist morals (i.e. amorality) grip the growing middle class, the gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow.  The gypsy woman will continue to beg.  The hotel in Pondicherry will host elaborate weddings.  The waistlines of the middle class will keep expanding, and India will continue along the same economic path for the foreseeable future.

Bindis and Skin Cream

I recognize that there are many paths to truth, every religion is valid in its attempts to explain the world. I do not hold the monopoly on truth, nor should I pretend to.  My way of life, my opinions, my interpretation of the world are only one person's opinions out of 7+ billion.

Religion is malleable. It molds itself so that it conforms to the expectations of the majority.  For example, in India numerous, colorful statues of saints and biblical figures adorn churches in a manner similar to the gods and goddesses which adorn Hindu temples.

Religion is not only more chameleon in nature, but also more visible in India than in the United States. On the wall behind the concierge of our hotel hung a glow-in-the-dark rosary.  In our houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala hung a picture of Jesus.  Every auto rickshaw I pass has a bumper sticker with pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses, or words like "Baby Jesus" and "Masha Allah"

For better or worse religion in America remains below a layer of consumerism and materialism, a shopaholics two favorite -isms. As the West becomes more secular, India clings to its many religions. In India I see temples and churches and mosques on every block and devotees of each religion display their faiths with turbans, hijabs, bindis, and crosses.

Atheism and the distinctly western "spiritual but not religious" movement seem to play a minimal role in India. However, secularism has its place in India, particularly in the foundation of its government.  It's government is secular in that it allows for the freedom and expression of all religious beliefs, but does not espouse one particular religion in its constitution.  Parties like the Hindu nationalist BJP stand to challenge India's long-standing tradition of religious tolerance.


On another note, when speaking with MCC students a few weeks ago I mentioned that I attracted a lot of stares. A student replied "It's because they think your skin is so beautiful!"  I wasn't sure how to reply. She herself had coffee colored skin, somewhere in between North India light and South India dark.  I told her that her skin was just as beautiful and that in the U.S. I would go outside in the sun just to get tan.  She laughed at the thought.

The face creams and soaps at drug stores are called things like "Fair and Lovely" and claim to lighten skin.
A surprisingly large number of advertisements - from bus companies to clothing stores - feature white babies.
In a forum with college students from Lady Doak College in Madurai, the female students explained that the darker a woman is than her husband, the more expensive her dowry.

This kind of advertising reminds me of the white-centric US products and commercials that promoted light skin over dark skin until the 1960s.  For all I know these advertising techniques may be present in the U.S.  I have just been too oblivious to notice.

What I Take for Granted

Trash collects on the side of the road.  Only the cows dare to touch it as they root through piles of putrid garbage with dainty precision.  On rainy days, the streets stream with warm, grey water and the garbage gloms together in slippery globs.  On dry days, the mud dries only to be blown about by passing autos and the trash globs dry into little moguls over which I must walk.  MCC's campus is forested and lovely.  However, on its many walking paths water bottles, candy wrappers, and rubber flip flops  smother the natural vegetation.  (On an odd side note, I only ever see one flip flop.  Never two.)  While I was on a run last week, a sweet yet putrid odor wafted over the cricket pitch.  At my inquisitive glance, my friend explained it was garbage, specifically plastic, burning.  Beside my thoughts that the airborne carcinogens were negating the healthful effects of my run, I worried about the environmental consequences of the 1.3 billion people of India burning their plastic waste.  Who would step up and enforce environmentally sustainable recycling programs in order to keep India's roads and water ways free of trash?

(A repeat from an earlier post) Om nom.

The power goes out at least two times per day.  The first time it did go out, I was sitting in class and the lecturer was speaking.  Without warning the lights and the projector shut off and the speakers made a feeble popping noise.  The lecturer, a resident professor at MCC, continued right on with her lecture as we all looked around in confusion.  During our next two lectures, the power went out a total of six times.  At MCC and in Chennai, the power supply is constant compared to the power outages the rest of the country faces.  Power cuts in rural areas can last for eight hours or more per day.  This is assuming that the village had access to electricity in the first place.

On a personal observation, not about the energy crisis in India, I depend entirely on electricity and the internet.  How do I get to this restaurant in Chennai?  I Google map it.  How is my family doing?  I email them.  The moment the power goes out, my first instinct is to sit around, twiddling my thumbs until it turns back on.  Even my leisure reading I keep on my iPad, a luxury made useless with the long-term loss of electricity.

This is the longest time I have ever been out of the country. My Egypt trip ended after 3 1/2 weeks.  To date I've spent 4 weeks and 3 days in India.  This program is far more laid back than my adventures in Egypt.  Rather than squeeze out every opportunity, I have almost four months to leisurely explore and plan my own travel occasionally.

I take advantage of my privileges in the West.  I can wear what I want (within reason).  I can go where I want by myself.  I can marry whom I want.  Women in the west do have gains to make with regards to equality.  However, our issues pale in comparison to those facing women in India.  The modern Indian woman lives in an unabashedly patriarchal society suffering from rising rates of rape, dowry debts, honor killings, and sati.  This picture of India is entirely worst-case-scenario and overly pessimistic.  More women today have access to higher education and to job opportunities outside the home.  The law does give women rights on paper, however, the government does not and can not enforce it.  For example, the law states daughters deserve a share of their fathers' property equal to their brothers' share.  Rarely, however, does a woman inherit half, if any, of her father's property.

Indian husbands often define their wives.  Widows are largely worthless in society.  Every day I pass old women begging on the side of the street.  Their hair tangled, feet without shoes, they sell small limes and fragile flower garlands to passerbys.  I can only help but wonder if their families have abandoned them to live the last of their lives on the streets alone.

Last weekend we hopped on a plane from Chennai to Mumbai to the old Portuguese state of Goa.  Over the course of the trip we traveled by ferry, taxi, auto-rickshaw, and foot.  Lots of foot.  A little more than I bargained for, but with good company.  We spent a total of three sun-soaked days wandering around Goa's winding streets.  On either side of us, colorful buildings, centuries old, weathered the crush of the ocean waves with an air of distinction - the peeling plaster only added character to the cobbled and tree-lined side streets. The beautiful architecture was a breath of fresh air from Chennai's monotonous progression of high rises.

Language notes:

• Don't say "oh" for zero.  For example, 2013 is not two-"oh"-one-three.  If you want to get your message across, say two-zero-one-three.
• A "scale" in India is a "ruler" in America.  "Bring me a pencil and a scale" need not merit a search for an Indian "weighing machine."  Language is fascinating.