Reverse Culture Shock

So I promised this a month ago. Now it's here. My final blog post about India. Well. Maybe.

A phrase that you hear a lot at Sangam when it comes close to your time to leave is "Reverse Culture Shock". Everyone knows about culture shock, about the feeling you experience when you go somewhere new, unfamiliar. Its that feeling that means you hate travelling round roundabouts the wrong way, that means sometimes you just crave a steak, and familiar features of the land you grew up in. When travelling to India, it's the smell, it's the traffic, it's the noise, it's a lot of things. There's a lot to be shocked by when you've grown up in a sheltered Western world. But this culture shock, it only lasts a couple of days, a week at the most, and then India is home, and those things that were shocking, they don't matter any more. You can quite happily stick your head out of a rickshaw to shout to the people behind you. You can walk out in front of motorbikes. You barely notice the constant honking, and the smell of India.

But what about the end of the trip? What about when you have to leave behind all of that? What about when what was the unfamiliar is now the familiar, and the familiar suddenly isn't so familiar any more?

Last time I travelled home from India, I experienced it in the form of returning to running tap water, constant electricity, and even semi detached houses. This time, surely, I knew what to expect, I knew about reverse culture shock, it wouldn't get me this time, surely?

I arrived home one weekend in December, landed in the cold world that is Heathrow, and was very quickly hit by this feeling, this reverse culture shock. For the first time in 3.5 months, I was confronted by Indians. Not so shocking you would think, after 3.5 months in India. But the difference was, these Indians all had British accents. They were my culture, they were my people, they were what joined two entirely different parts of my life together, and it was strange. I grew up, and in fact still live in, possibly the most ethnically diverse city in the UK, where ethnic minorities are the majority. I grew up in schools with kids from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, before you even begin to mention the other countries in Asia, or Africa, or the Middle East, or even the rest of Europe. And yet, the sound of Indians with a British accent shocked me. Thoughts raced through my mind. Here stepping off a flight from Mumbai, I was surrounded by Indians who actually might not understand me if I walked up to them and started to use my limited broken Hindi. Maybe these Indians only know English. I wasn't expecting that.

After a lovely night at my brother's house, with an open fire and sausage and mash, I woke up the next morning to my next hit. My brother and his wife had already left, and my mum and I were going to join them. My brother was running 5km cross country, and we were off to watch - the first time I've been able to! We got ready, and I set out to pack the car with all our stuff. I opened the door and I stopped. Outside, I was greeted by cold, white flakes falling from the sky. Not only was it 25 degrees lower than I was used to in India, it was snowing, and for some reason, for 30 seconds, I didn't understand what snow was. I just couldn't comprehend why white flakes would be coming down, and so fast and heavy. After what felt like an age, my mum snapped me from my daze, and pointed out to me that if I wasn't going to go outside, I could at least close the door and keep the heat in. I shook myself, came back to my British life, and headed out into the white.

My reverse culture shock didn't last much longer. (Although I still occasionally find myself wondering why mum isn't just driving around the traffic queue - i.e. driving down the opposite side of the road - because I'm sure that would be much quicker.) I don't think I'll ever forget those two surreal experiences though, and I think next time I see snow, I will appreciate it so much more for having forgotten what it was.

Oh, and it's been a month now that I've been home, a month and a bit. I don't miss India, not yet, I may do eventually, but I could never live permanently in such a noisy place, where there is no peace. I do miss my friends. I miss Sangam. I miss the crazy, made-up world that we all created there. I miss the work I did, and the fun I had. But I'm ready for the next challenge now.

India - the last two weeks

So, I'm home now, but I still have two blog posts left to write about this adventure, or at least two blog posts planned. Firstly, this one, about my last two weeks in India. Secondly, coming up soon, Reverse Culture Shock! 

Well the last two weeks were a bit of a blur, of final evaluations, leaving parties (mine and other people's). The event finished, life settled back down into a relatively normal routine of work and fun. I somehow seemed to keep picking up new jobs to do right until my final day, I'm not sure how that happened. When Sophie and Aleia were coming to the end of their term, their to do lists got shorter. I think mine got longer!! I didn't finish everything as I would have liked to, but I think I would have needed another month doing just my to do list to get everything sorted properly - I would have also needed the technology to work as I wanted it to, which is more difficult than adding an extra month into my life!!

I also managed to fit a lot of late nights into my last couple of weeks at Sangam. 

There was the night that Jess, Phlip, Ellen and I sat up til 2am putting the world to rights. Then there was the night that we had a laptop party in the staff lounge, everyone else ended up going to bed by midnight, Jess and I were still in there at 2am! There was the night I went to Parvarti Hill with Em, and then crashed out in front of the TV with her. There was the night we sat in the dining room chattering away and making flapjack (English version!). There was my last night, where we went out to Malaka Spice, and then Ellen and I came back to talk to Jen for a bit, and then everyone ended up in our room til 1am. There was Love Actually night -Emily hadn't seen Love Actually before, can you believe it! She loves it now, obviously!! 

There was also a bit of swimming, a bit of shopping, a bit of baking, a bit of posting parcels, and a lot of laughing!

There were far more things that happened during my last two weeks, but as I said at the start, it was such a blur, I'm not sure what happened! They were incredible though, and made me realise what fantastic friends I have there, and how much I love the Sangam family, and my Indian home. 

As I said, the last night, we all went out, it was so good to see everyone there, 17 people came out to say goodbye to us! Then lots of people came and sat in mine and Ellen's bedroom afterwards, chatting, falling asleep, not really wanting to go back to their own rooms, which was awesome. Then I left at 6am, and everyone was there to say goodbye. Jessica, Philippa and Ellen were crying their eyes out, which was very funny for me :P I love you guys! 

The journey back was very boring and long, and England is very cold. I will adjust soon enough! As I said, there'll be another blog post in a couple of days, but for now - just know that I'm home safe!

It's the little things in life...

I haven't really got a lot to say about the big things in my life right now. Since I last blogged, I have been working on my evaluations, and final presenation, and generally finishing off bits of work - updating manuals, writing guidelines, that kind of stuff - so that this place can run without me, however difficult that might be.

I have still had lots of time for fun however, and this blog is dedicated to those silly moments in life that just have you rolling around on the floor (literally in some cases!). These are my top 8 things that I found amusing, in reverse order!

Number 8 - The Sweet Shop Expedition

Last night, Phlip, Emily and I decided to head to the sweet shop. We'd had a hard day at work, and so we were all in our PJs at 9pm when we decided this sweet shop trip would be in order. So... we headed off in our PJs. This may be a normal occurence to some of you at home, but we're in India - I'm fairly sure if people had realised that they were our PJs they would have been horrified. Maybe some people were. But they look just like the "modern" style of trousers that people are starting to wear in India these days (the youngsters anyway!) that we like to call awesome pants - or wowsers, a shortening of  "WOW, check out your trousers!". I do of course own a pair, and I'm looking forward to England being warm enough that I can wear them. I'm not expecting this to happen anytime soon!

Number 7 - The Breath Experiment

This morning I have been sat at reception. As part of reception duty, you're meant to start work at 8am. This is fine. I was here just before 8 and ready to go. But then I noticed something. My breath. It has now got so cold here in the mornings that I can actually see my own breath. I AM IN INDIA. Crazy.

Number 6 - The Clay Crushing Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon was spent crushing clay. As part of Sangam's 45th Birthday, Sophie started a project of creating clay tiles. However, the staff didn't get a chance to make theirs, the event was too busy, so we're going to make them on Saturday, when we have our staff picnic (yes you're jealous!). BUT, this requires having clay. We had left over dry clay from before, but the problem was, it was in rather large chunks. When you fire clay tiles made out of large chunks, they break. We needed small, very fine clay particles. So. Yesterday afternoon, Philippa, Jessica, Emily, Aarti and I sat down on the floor in front of the programme room, armed with dandier sticks (sticks to do a type of Indian dancing), a hammer, a spice roll (a big stone they use to crush spices into fine powder), a sieve and a couple of buckets - oh and Christmas music, of course. We spent 4 hours rolling, banging, crushing, sieving clay until we had enough for all the staff to create their tiles. There is still some clay that is too large to use. We gave up at 6 when our hands were cramping, our legs had been dead for hours, and the music ran out. This is why we were in our PJs by 9pm! It was fun though :P

Number 5 - The Photo Deleting Issue

So, I have spent the past month attempting to clear some photos from the drive on the network. It's very full, and some of the photos are unfocussed, and just generally bad photos. There's no point in keeping them. However, for the past month, when I have tried to delete them, an error has popped up. I asked the computer guys, they told me there wasn't a problem. I asked the computer guys again yesterday. Guessed what the issue was yet? Oh yes, they had changed our settings so that we couldn't accidentally delete photos. I wanted to delete photos on purpose! Bless them, they were only trying to help!

Number 4 - The Narnia Incident

Last night, after we had been to the sweet shop, Phlip, Emily and I crashed out in front of the TV. We watched Masterchef USA, and then the second half of the new Narnia. The fact that this is not as good a version as the original Narnia, and the fact we were tired, resulted in many amusing comments from us... 

"Aslan: if lions were in l'oreal ads" - Emily 

"I knew not to sleep next to a dead lion when I was 12!" - Emily

Both of these quotes were put on facebook, one by me and one by Phlip, without us even discussing it! Very funny! I also accidentally called Aslan Alan... whoops!

--- Just to confuse you, I stopped writing this blog, and I am now starting again the next day - so I started it on 9th Dec, and now it's 10th Dec, so any "today" "last night" or "yesterday"s are different from the ones I was referring to before... keep up! ---

Number 3 - The Fairground

Today (10th Dec) is Datta's birthday. Datta is one of the Hindu gods, the one with the three faces. There is a temple for Datta literally a minute down the road from Sangam. It's the temple that most of the local staff go to. For Datta's birthday, they brought in a fairground. It's excellent! We headed down sometime last week, I can't remember what day now. I went on two rides and survived. On the ferris wheel, someone threw up on Jessica (I hope you weren't eating while reading this :P ). It was hilarious! We came home after that, but the whole experience was just immense - I never expected to get to go to an Indian fairground!! 

Number 2 - The Moonwalking Cat

Sonu is Jen's cat. She is now nearly 6 months old, and she is so cute! On Tuesday, she had the operation, you know which one I mean. She is feeling very sorry for herself now as she has to stay in Jen's room for a bit and isn't allowed to prowl around Sangam. She also has to wear a cone so that she doesn't play with the stitches. This makes me laugh a lot. she can't quite work out how big the cone is, so she keeps walking into things. She's also taken to walking backwards, we think this is because she's trying to walk out of the cone, but it's brilliant! There'll be a video at some point! 

Number 1 -The Mystery of the Shoes

This is the funniest thing that has happened at Sangam while I've been here, seriously! Philippa lost her shoes at the beginning of November. She was very ill, and lost track of three days, and her shoes. She was pretty annoyed/upset about this, as they were good shoes, and her flip flops were rubbing her feet, which meant she had to wear proper trainers all day, instead of her nice comfy sandaltrainer things. She e-mailed people to ask if they'd seen it, she asked in the 9am meeting, she wrote it on the whiteboard. No one had seen her shoes. We checked everywhere, we even checked in the doctors! We could not find her shoes. Eventually, at the end of November, she had gained some new flip flops, and had given up on her shoes. Well. Last week, we were in the dining room messing around on our laptops. Philippa was in the kitchen making flapjack (of the English variety), when she comes into the dining room, and tells us she's found her shoes. We celebrate, obviously, and ask her where... Lets pause there for a moment and think where could she have found them? under the cupboard? In the pantry? on top of a shelf? By the fridge? They're all fairly reasonable suggestions yes? Well, our Philippa had in fact found her shoes... wait for it... on the nightwatchman's FEET. Manik was stood in the kitchen doing some washing up, when Philippa had walked past, and done a double take. Yes, there he was, wearing Philippa's shoes!! 

She did not ask for them back, she is letting Manik keep the shoes, she has her new flip flops that don't rub, and now she has closure! All is well with the world! 

So that's the end...

BUT WAIT. There's more! Oh yes, there are two extra things that I would like to add to this blog, and they both revolve around Christmas!

1. We put the Christmas decorations up in Sangam yesterday. It was very exciting! Aarti and Sayali were a little confused as to why we were QUITE so excited - I mean, there are festivals every month right?! Well my little Indian sisters, no, festivals of this scale only come around once a year in my world. There are Christmas trees all over the place, tinsel, stars, it's awesome. Jen and Ellen seem to think the dining room is tacky - I wonder what they would think if they saw my house if they think that's tacky! I'll take photos and send them to Sangam :P 

It is very strange to be starting to celebrate Christmas here at Sangam. It's still warm when you go outside (although it's VERY COLD in the mornings!). We were decorating trees yesterday whilst 50 screaming girls were jumping around the pool. I think it feels like we're having a fake Christmas in June - which isn't unheard of for me, so I'll cope! It will be strange coming back to winter though. 

2. This is just a video for you all to enjoy, after reading my epically long blog: 

You might have seen it already, as I'm guessing it may have been on UK TV, but I love it. I have it on repeat! 

Now I'll end, and go finish my final presentation and generally enjoy my day off :D

The Beginning of The End.

So I haven't updated for a while. If you'd like to know what's been going on in my world then I suggest you check out Jessica's blog and these links:

Are there rickshaws like this in your country?

Advocacy in Action

She's much better at writing than I am, and I don't have any particular inspiration or desire to re-write what she has already written very fluently! But in brief, we had a very very cool seminar based on how to advocate, and specifically how to advocate about HIV/AIDS. There were 21 participants from 10 different countries and they loved it. We had some fantastic feedback and it was a brilliant way to end my time here at Sangam.

And that end is actually what I want to talk about in this blog.

Whenever I've been on camp, or away for a while, and my mum comes to pick me up, I spend the whole car journey home talking basically non stop about everything that happens. My poor mum has to listen to basically an hour by hour account of everything that happened, every minor incident, everything that made me laugh, everything that everyone else did, you name it, my mum has to listen to it.

So in two weeks time, I fly back to Heathrow. My mum will come to pick me up. We'll drive back to Mark's, and then the day after, back to Leicester. I'll sit down in that car, and ... well where will I even begin to describe the three months here? How will I explain everything I've done? Everything I've seen?

During my last two weeks of work here, as there is no event on, and also no event coming up until 21st December, I will be focusing on my final evaluations and presentation. Again - how do I fit 3 months into a 5 minute presentation? Even my dissertation presentation was longer than that!!

I'm sure I will talk to my mum non stop, I'm sure I'll manage to fit everything into 5 minutes, but it just blows my mind right now when I try and comprehend everything I've done so far, and everything I've learnt, and everything it's meant to me. But right now, it's the beginning of the end...