The streets around me

PICTURES OF MY FLAT BELOW!!

Viacom. (Hello)
Sugama? (how are you?)
Suga? (happy?)
Sari... (Okay...)

I think I have decided how I will go about my blog entries. I am reading the most exhilarating novel, “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. This novel follows a fugitive felon who has escaped from an Australian prison and made his way to Bombay. Only to find himself pushed back into illegal activities, but not without also doing amazing good for the people of India by opening a free clinic in the slums. It is the transformation of his perception of India that is so enlightening. He starts out with the foreigner’s eyes of guilt and excitement, something I am experiencing now. Through the month then years he stays in India he comes to know the people of India and begins to understand who they live together with the traditions they share.

And so my thought is to start each blog entry with one of my favorite lines. While there are so many, I will choose the ones that I have underlined. I am only on page 300 of 1,000 so I think that I can go about this for a while. I do this so that I can not only remember of these lines for years to come, but also so that I can share them with you. This practice will also bring a theme to each blog entry, making for a better read. Knowing me I may add at the end some silly facts I have learned, we will see.

So to start the tradition I have chosen this line for the basis of the first entry:

" It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and 2 thousand mosque, and of hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers...each breath was an angry little victory." pg. 4

Chennai is a city of many; many sites, many people, many cars, many two wheelers, and many smiles. This is what is amazing through all the chaos of smells and people and sounds; it is always possible to find a glimmer of life in the purest form. I find it in the face of the many children or the colors of the many saris that contrast the skins they are warn on like egg shells to oil. The smells change in an instant but this does not take away from their potency. As I walk across the bridge to go to the market my nose and mind are over taken by the rancid smell of sewage, but this passes and quickly changes to the air conditioned breeze flowing out a corner store. Then again instantly a change to the smell of curry being cooked under out of a mobile restaurant with a line of people waiting for their share. Another change, quickly to the smell of one of the many small temples, the size of my studio flat. I have self titled them "fast food temples."

As the smells continue I am walking slower now for the heat as turned on me and humidity adds to the war I begin to fight. It has only been a few mins. out doors but I feel my Californian lungs beginning to close up. The heat creeps up on me for I am internally cooled from the lovely fanned room I resided in a few mins. before. As a tag team force the humidity and heat rain down on me and I begin to become conscientiously aware that I need a drink of water or just to slower. I remember this same war needed to be waged in South Africa. However in India you are surround by so many more people, smells, and exhaust, it take just that much more time to get used to it. If I am walking with a colleague I may mention the discomfort, the response I have continually gotten is "summer is coming to us, just you wait my dear, ja." Then with strained eyes I see the smile of comfort and curiosity. Will she make it through? Followed by a laugh that India is so well known for.

The smells and the heat continue along with the sights to see. From the five star hotels and house next to the shake and the shrines. People are in gorgeous saris and starch pressed white lungis along side those who clothes seem to only hang on their body with the glue of sweet and filth. But the faces are the same and the smiles are just as gracious. As a rickshaw passes slowly I see the drive with one foot folded under the other and his bear feet with the 10 years of road on its bottom. He looks up to me in a questioning manner, as I shake my head saying “vena (I don’t want)” and I receive a grin. I interpret it as "Viacom Madame, enjoy your feet. Hope they take you far and I hope one day I will come to you again when you are in need of a ride." I continue to stroll, an American crawl, to the local Nigri's market. No need for an Ipod for there is music blasting out of cars passing by and thumping out of the local stands as I pass by. Finally my feet bring me to the entrance of the market. I enter with curiosity of what I will find today to fill my stomach. The disarray of people allows one to just blend into the rapids and browse for hours.

This ends this entry....hope you have enjoyed...I did make it home that day after the hour walk and an encounter of a crippled on a skateboard yelling "hey Madame, HEY MADAM" as I scurried around the corner, out of rolling reach. (If you have seen the movie “Kids” you have the visual)

Fun Fact: Bollywood actors are expected to sing and dance and act all at once. However, only two actor in the business actually sing, the rest are dubbed over my someone else voices.
Viacom All (bless you goodnight all)

First three days!

OKAY...... So it has been three days in Chennai and I have a lot to tell!

Where I am living: Up until now I am staying with a friend of the bosses grand dad. He is an 80n year old man who looks like Gandhi and has already show me how to meditate, giving me amazing food to eat, read my palm(i will have a long life and a good job, but sometimes job is more important than love, ha), had his Friends over for drinks (a doctor and his accountant), taken about 10 million picture of me and with us together to show his family, i even taught him some things of the computer. it actually really reminds me of living with my grandmother for that summer. He is gone now for the night to go fetch his wife up north and will return soon. However tomorrow i will be moving to my own flat, i get to see it tomorrow to make sure it is okay and then move in. it is five mins walk tot eh office and near where other people my age live.

Work: I went into the office on Thursday and meet some of the people and was only there for 20 mins, then i went to look at flats with one of the guys there that is my age. we went to his friends house to hang out and they invited me to a concert on the 22nd...really excited.

Then today the hole office(80 people) went on a training day outing. we travel 2 hours south and i took some good pictures. we took two huge buses and for the south Africa girls it was just like going on the Zululand trip again. We eat breakfast going there and finally arr rived at an orphanage for mentally disabled children. we spent 2 hours on work things and presentations and at one point each group had to act out a scenario and have a quote for the lesson of the story. my teams involved a bank robbery and i was the robber, with a bandanna around my face and sunglasses on. Then you had lunch, after that we split into three groups. one played cricket with children, one taught them English and my group did yard work. i painted, which was actually fun. Everyone there was really nice and i think i will love working there. they really have fun!

I start Monday!

Chennai: the city is chaos and nothing like i thought it would be. the tallest building is 5 floors but there are nice places and big named companies. everything is on a smaller scale. so everyone can fit!! The roads are crazy and i have already almost got hit with a car, good thing i can run backwards fast. the people are amazing. so kind and helpful, i have never felt so safe in a foreign city. ever! you can walk at night with friends. it can be dirty and dusty, but i guess you get used to it. everyone honks and beeps to indicate that they want to change lanes or turn, no bleankers are used and there are no lines for certain lanes. the majority of people are on two wheelers(motorcycles) and that cause chaos.

On V-day i went to dinner with there German girls i meet and we all noticed family eating together and figured out the v-day is more of a family thing!

what i have learned:
- no health care
- high literacy rate(even in rural areas)
- women can't wear tank tops and long skirt are the best thing to wear
- some words: sari-the dress for women but also means OK, viacom- hello and good bye, sugama?- how are you?, Im fine- suga, podu- enough (for food and such)

one interesting thing that i will write about more later was that one man i spoke to said India was better off when the Brits ruled "it was safer and you had freedom, Gandhi gave power over too quickly and to the wrong people now there is corruption"

I think that is it for now but I'm sure i will think of other things to add....love you all and look out for an email for pictures!-- Kelly McCabe