First Week of Fun and Quirks

It's been quite a learning curve my first full week here in India.  I've had a lot of emotional ups and downs of both being excited to start teaching and wondering what I was thinking by coming here.  Everyday I see something to annoy me and then something to make me smile.  My university might be lacking in certain resources, but there are squirrels and monkeys to make up for it.  I didn't get a good picture but there are monkeys up in the tree in front of the building where I work.

Whenever I go to the grocery store it's difficult to find very many fresh fruits and vegetables.  I asked about it and they said I have to look for the sellers on the street.  They push their carts around neighborhoods and shout.  The problem is, as soon as I hear the shouting I have to grab my money and run downstairs before they move on to the next street.  I'm happy I've finally been able to find fruits and vegetables.

Another nice quirk is the fact that auto rickshaws can be booked on Uber.  They are about half as expensive as booking a car on Uber, and they can weave in and out of traffic faster.  When they pull up I have to give them a 4-digit code to start the ride, then the map appears on their phone, and I have the option to tip at the end.  I never need to negotiate to avoid getting ripped off, or worry about a language barrier, or wonder if he is going the right direction. 

I thought there would be more cows, but so far I have only seen them in certain parts of the city, and usually hanging out in herds.

There are also a lot of stray dogs, but they stay out of the way and do their own thing.  There are always a few dogs sleeping around the building where I work, but they don't bother people.  On the other hand, I've been told not to look the monkeys in the eye or show my teeth because they'll get aggressive.  

Here is my office in the Environmental Science department.  The men have an office with two male professors and the women have a separate office with two female professors (now three since I joined).  They are all very friendly and helpful.  The four of them all get together before and after their lectures to drink chai together.  Chai is Indian tea, which is a sweeter and milkier version of black tea, and sometimes has spices in it.  I don't drink tea with them, but it is nice to see the camaraderie that they have.

One of the professors in my office had a birthday last week, and brought lunch for all the teachers and workers in the building.  They served Biriyani (rice with spices and vegetables) and had Chicken Biriyani for the few who are not vegetarian.  I'm still adjusting to the food and they said, 'Don't worry, we only ordered it medium spicy.'  Needless to say, I was adding extra white rice and yogurt sauce to mine and still couldn't take it.  My tolerance for spice is pretty low anyway, and I think they all got a kick out of seeing me squirm a little.  

I had to visit the International Student office to register with the Foreign Registration Office.  I didn't realize they had international students at MSU, but it makes sense because it is a pretty big university for the area.  There were students from Africa doing their registration, and I met a girl from Iran trying to work out her schedule.  I have also seen a few East Asian students around, but no other western/white people that I am aware of.

This weekend is special because my husband Gregg is coming!  We planned for him to arrive on a weekend so that I could come and meet him at the airport in Mumbai.  The flight from Vadodara to Mumbai is only one hour and about $30 each way.  

I decided to treat myself after the stress of finding an apartment and trying to settle in, so I came a day early and stayed at the Holiday Inn.  The Holiday Inn in America is not really considered a high-class hotel, but the one here is.  I even splurged and treated myself to room service, which I've never done before.  My chicken club sandwich with apple pie and ice cream was just over $20.  It was totally worth it.

Another reason I wanted to come a day early was to try to attend church in the morning.  There are two missions in India: New Delhi and Bangalore.  New Delhi has 4-5 branches and Bangalore has even more.  The new temple that was announced a few years ago will be in Bangalore.  Surprisingly, Mumbai only has one small branch and is in the New Delhi mission.  I found the address online and saw it is right next to a metro stop.  I also chose the Holiday Inn because it is on the same metro line.  The metro is clean and efficient, and like in Dubai, has a women-only car.

When I got off the metro stop I found the building where the church was supposed to be.  I wandered around because I thought if there is a church nearby, either I will see people who look like members, or the people on the street might recognize me.  Sure enough, the security guard saw me and kept holding up three fingers at me.  I eventually understood through broken English to take the elevator to the third floor.

It's amazing that even before I saw the sign on the door, I could feel the Spirit in what one would normally see as just another office building.  I went in and met some of the members.  The branch is a mix of Indians and a variety of other nationalities. 

The second counselor in the branch presidency introduced himself and asked if I would give the opening prayer, which I agreed to.  As I was talking with him, I kept noticing a tall American guy thinking he looked familiar.  I asked the counselor who he was and he said, 'That's Elder Christofferson.'  And then it hit me why he looked familiar!  I happened to come the week that Elder D. Todd Christofferson was touring around India and working on the new Temple in Bangalore.  Then he pointed out President and Sister William, the Mission President over the New Delhi mission and his wife (whom I had just met and had no idea), a guy named 'King' Husein, who is overseeing the construction of the temple and one of the early members in India.  I also met a guy named Dee Jay Bawden, who is a sculptor and just completed a sculpture of Joseph Smith for the World Peace Dome, which features statues of leaders from nearly every religion in the world.  If you click on the links you can learn more about what they are doing.  It was a very uplifting meeting and I had the feeling that I am meant to be here in India at this time.

I'm so glad I listened to the Spirit that told me it would be a good idea to attend church today!

Arrival in India!

 I made it to India!  The flight was long but everything went smoothly.  I was a bit concerned about entering with an unfamiliar visa (research/visiting professor visa) and making sure all my luggage arrived, but luckily there were no issues.  The U.S. Consulate in Mumbai had arranged for an airport pickup to take me to the Sofitel Hotel, which was pretty swanky.

Here is my first view of the city in the morning.  I have been to Mumbai before, but I stayed in a very cheap hotel and definitely did not get shuttled around like this.  

On Wednesday I was picked up by Simran, a woman I have been in contact with at the Consulate, and she took me around for all my orientation meetings and introduced me to the people who work in the Education and Cultural Affairs office.  They are very excited to have an English Language Fellow, and since the others were not able to get their visas renewed, I will be the only one for this year.  That afternoon I was taken to the airport to board my flight to Vadodara, the smaller city where I'll be working.  When I landed everyone was checking the news and watching the countdown to India landing the Chandrayaan 3 rocket on the moon, the fourth country in the world to land on the moon.  It is a great source of national pride for their space program.

In Vadodara I was taken to the Marriott hotel and crashed for the night.  I have had pretty bad jet lag so I fall asleep early and wake up early.  The next morning I met Ananya, another woman from the Consulate, who has been up here in Vadodara for the week meeting with university people and scouting out possible apartments for me.  She took me to the Maharajah Sayajirao University of Baroda, where my primary project will be to teach English to the Environmental Science graduate students.  I met my main points of contacts, Dr. Neha and Dr. Manthan.  They also introduced me to a few of my future students.  I'll be teaching the same students around 2.5-3 hours a day for the next 9 months.  They also took me on a tour of the college campus.  They have offered me the computer lab to teach in because it is the only room that has air conditioning, but I might just take one of the lecture halls even though it will be warm in there. Here is the building where I'll be working.

The next day we drove about 40 minutes to Parul University, where I'll also be teaching English to Environmental Science students, but just once a week on Fridays for two hours.  This will be my secondary project.  

On the way back we had a typical Indian traffic jam where buffalos were being herded down the main road.  

After a long day of looking at 6-7 different apartments, I finally settled on one that is close to the University. We quickly met with the broker (what they call a real estate agent) to sign and finalize the rental agreement.  The pictures all have two fingers because that was how I differentiated between the pictures that I took of each place we looked at.  

It's a spacious three bedroom apartment that came furnished.  Some of the places we looked at had amenities like a gym and swimming pool (which I was very interested in) but they were all further out from the city center.  In the end I decided I would rather not be dependent on calling a taxi anytime I wanted to go out.

I haven't been able to unpack yet because the cleaners still needed to come do do a deep cleaning.  The owner had arranged and paid for them to come as soon as someone wanted to rent it. Today as they were cleaning, my next-door neighbor stopped by to introduce herself.  They are a married couple from the Mumbai area with one son who just went to college down in Bangalore.  He works for the government so they have moved all around different cities in India and have been here in Vadodara for about two years.  She has already loaned me some kitchen items, told me about some good grocery stores nearby, and helped me translate with the cleaners.  Hooray for good neighbors!

I should have everything set up by the time Gregg arrives in just over a week.

If anyone wants to come visit, they are welcome to.  I have plenty of space and two empty bedrooms now!

English Language Fellows Training in Washington D.C.

 Back in November of last year (2022), I applied to the English Language Fellow Programs which is run by the U.S. Department of State and Georgetown University.  It is a prestigious program only open to Americans with Master's degrees and experience in English teaching.  After a lengthy application and interview process, I received an email saying that I had been accepted and matched with a project in Vadodara, India!  

I will be teaching English to students in the Environmental Science program at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and conducting some teacher training workshops for the local English teachers there. The program goes for 10 months, often with the option to extend to a second academic year.  Teachers can only do this Fellows program one time in their lives, so this is literally a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me.  

This past week they flew us out to Washington D.C. and put us up in the Hilton hotel for the Pre-Departure Orientation.  This was the first time doing the orientation in-person after Covid and it was an amazing week of training and networking with all the other fellows both new and returning.

My days were filled with meetings and workshops all designed to prepare me for my project in India.  It was fun to be in a room full of people from all over the country who do the same job I do, all going to various countries around the world.  

I am part of the South Central Asia region which includes everything from Kazakhstan to Sri Lanka (the yellow section on the map in the picture).  I am the only one assigned to India because the two people that were there this past year were not able to get their visas renewed, so they were allowed to extend their second year in a different country.  One will be going to Kosovo and the other will be going to Cote d'Ivoire.  I had a chance to sit down with them and get tips on living and working in India.  They were posted in different cities than mine, so I still don't know a lot of the specific details about my project, since this will be the first time a Fellow will be assigned to my university.  The training classes were excellent and I felt privileged to be part of such an intelligent and well-traveled group of people. 

In one of the sessions we met with the diplomat over the region and he spoke about the importance of soft diplomacy and the cultural exchange that happens in the fellowship program.  The U.S. wants to show these countries that there are alternative allies and ways of doing things that are not necessarily influenced by Russia or China.  As the largest democracy in the world (and one of the few in that region), India plays an extremely important part in that.  

We took a group photo and you might be able to spot me on the second row on the right behind the guy with the white shirt and tie and the girl in black.  I haven't found where it's posted online, so I just took a picture when it popped up on the slide show on the last night.

I also had a chance to wander around in the evenings and take in the sights of our nation's capitol.      

The Capitol building and the White House were beautiful.

As were the Supreme Court building and the Library of Congress.

The Washington and Jefferson monuments were fun to see.

On Wednesday during the lunch break I walked over to see the media circus and protesters in front of the courthouse where Donald Trump was being indicted.  There weren't as many protesters as was portrayed on TV.  Most of the people seemed to be tourists taking pictures of the courthouse like me.

I had some interesting thoughts and feelings as I watched the spectacle.  Ultimately I came away feeling gratitude that I live in a place where both sides have the freedom to protest and criticize the aspects of the government that they don't like, and where multiple media companies have the freedom to report on the events happening in our country without being subject to heavy-handed governmental restrictions.  I left D.C. feeling that despite all of our faults, the United States is a great country that has ideals worth sharing with the rest of the world.  I don't pretend to know more than the Indian people.  It was made clear to us that this fellowship is meant to be a cultural exchange more than anything.  In fact, I fully expect that I will get more out of this experience than I could ever put in. 

Next stop:  India!