Last Words on India

→ This post has been pieced together since my return to America and was finished sometime in the fall of 2009:

Man oh man. Where to start…
Returning to LA really made me realize how truly unique and fabulous my summer was. The Global Impact Program ended up having more of an impact on me than I ever could have imagined.



Culture Shock Upon Return

I went through the expected, “oh my goodness this country wastes so much” and “Could the American lifestyle be more excessive?”. But I also just could not handle LA. I was disgusted by women up to 50 and girls as young as 13 wearing clothes that showed more skin than an Indian man ever gets to see of his wife. It took me two and a half weeks to even wear a tank top again (in LA summer weather) and two more weeks to feel comfortable wearing shorts.
I felt a curdling inside my heart when I noticed the amount of make-up some women wear. I wore make-up once this summer (on a fellow participant Lena’s birthday). When I came back to school, just three days after returning from India, I wore make-up to the first party I went to. For my first few nights at school I completely conformed to life as I knew it at USC (dressing cute, make up, alcohol, etc), but soon realized that was just not who I am anymore.

I had a breakdown the day before classes started because I realized how much I had changed and was afraid that I would no longer fit into the life I had created the previous year at USC. As it turned out, my friends still like me regardless of my many changes of lifestyle and they even respect many of my decisions because I’ve kind of created a new way to live at USC that is different from what we all knew before. The description of an awesome night on the weekend no longer implies a loud frat party with an open bar. Instead we can spend two hours at our kitchen table eating quesadillas, talking with accents, while laughing, joking, and engaging in pure sillyness.



My New Outlook on Life

I have not figured it out to the point of any concrete form, nor do I think I ever will, but my experiences this summer sure changed my views about a couple of things.

Compassion: I would never want to live in a world in which people do not have compassion for one another. As the Dalai Lama his holiness explains in The Art of Happiness, genuine compassion is when you understand that every person has the “innate desire to be happy and overcome suffering” and when you do all that you can to help this happen to anyone – not just friends and loved ones, but strangers too (p. 92).
Upon my return I was overwhelmed by how cold everyone is to each other and by the negative outlook on life that the majority of the population has. I want to show strangers that we can all bring each other happiness and that every person in the world can and should be kind to each other.



Location: I am so lucky to be living my life. I do not have to run barefoot on the streets pulling at strangers pant legs to get some spare change. I do not have to work three jobs to pay my way through college. I have time to volunteer and play sports and I get to choose when and to whom I want to get married. These are just a few examples of the simple things that we often take for granted. Life is so much harder for people who live in other places, or in my case here at school, down the street in the community that surrounds USC. Inclusive of chemistry exams, knee injuries, term papers and sleeping problems I would choose to live my life any day.



Happiness: I truly believe that anyone and everyone can be happy – it is often mind over matter. I am not saying that we should all be happy all the time, because there are times when we need to grieve and times when small amounts of anger can be used as motivation, but overall, the world would be a better place if everyone could say they spend the majority of their life being happy. We can do this by cherishing what is good in life, and not taking it for granted. Cherish friendship and realize how lucky we are to be connected to and supported by other people. Be aware of laughter and smiles. In some cases it is true that a person will not have friends and family, but for the people reading this blog - remember these small things that you have in your life that are good, and give thanks to them by letting happiness overcome you in their presence.



Openness: The best way to achieve happiness in your heart is through openness. Accept people and situations for who they are and what they are. Trying to change someone, or being unhappy with where you are in life is pointless. See the good intentions in those whom you are surrounded by and the good that comes out of a situation.
As much as it is important to be open in the heart, it is important be open in the mind as well. Try new things and if it turns out you don’t like it, then fine, don’t do it again, but at least you will have experienced something and will be able to relate to someone else through that experience.

All in all, my summer was life changing and I hope these are values that will not fade in my mind, as the smell and sounds of India already have.

To anyone who has yet to see what life is like in the villages or cities of an underdeveloped country, I would advise you to find means to get out there as soon as your wallet can take you.

Peace and love,
Nina

Closure?

I wish I had written a cohesive blog post upon my return to America when my India project ended, but unfortunately I did not. So instead I would like to redirect anyone reading to my teammate Bronson's blog: http://changethroughbusiness.com/?p=61

His blog post pretty much encompasses every accomplishment of our project, but more importantly it captures every emotion I felt.

Since August I have been writing a 'how I've changed/culture shock' entry that I hope to post sometime in the near future. But until then, read Bronson's blog post because it is amazing!

7 Days of Giving

This is a really cool idea:
http://7daysofgiving.blogspot.com/

You all should read this blog and participate by doing random acts of kindness! I'm going to try!

An open mind is the gateway for learning

July 16, 2009

I wrote an email to a friend and it turned into an expression of many things that I have learned this summer, so I thought I would share it on my blog:

“I finally feel proud of myself for what I am doing here and it feels pretty good. I am just happy to know that what I am doing is actually making a difference and affecting the people here.

I can't say India is one of my favorite places, but this summer sure has taught me a bunch of life lessons. All the kids on my program are very different and that makes our group as a whole very special. We have business men and engineers, and environmentalists and "energy" believers. Because of the variety of personalities in our group, I have learned to mold my mind to be more open to new people and new ideas.

One boy on my program taught me that the only way to be truly content is to have unconditional love for everything and everyone. At first I thought this was ridiculous because there are people that I just don’t like, and don’t think its worth my time to put up with them - but I have decided to try to find the best in every person so that my life is full of love instead of dislike and I hope that this recognition of kindness can spread to those around me. I think this is an easy decision for me to make here, where I am basically only exposed to the same 20 people everyday, but once I go back to LA this life style will be much harder to practice. I would love you to help me continue to live like this by not gossiping around me or pointing out negative aspects of people to me (not that you do this particularly, but it was definitely part of my lifestyle pre-summer).

I have also come to realize that the ego is a pointless part of humanity and once we rid ourselves of it then good deeds will be done for the sake of good deeds instead of for gaining credit for something. I learned that it really doesn’t matter how or who gets something done, as long as it gets done – this is what brings happiness into the world.”

Writing this email not only helped me express myself and verbalize what is going on in my head, but it also made me realize how much I am truly learning this summer. My experience this summer doesn’t have to do with just one thing or another – providing clean water to poor people or teaching young children about health and sanitation – but instead it has to do with the network of how everything fits together. The people I have met, the new culture I have been introduced to, the work I have done, and spirituality that I have experienced have coalesced to form one hell of a summer for me.

A Feeling of Accomplishment

July 11, 2009
Today is the first day that I feel truly proud of what I am doing here in Hubli.

The education program that I have been setting up for the past five weeks finally commenced today. We have 17 volunteers from The Women’s College that are split up into groups to teach at four different primary schools. This morning each of the groups went to their respective primary schools and spent an hour introducing themselves and playing games with the kids to get to know them before they start teaching the health and sanitation curriculum next Saturday. I went with one of the groups and sat in the back of the classroom and watched.


The children’s faces had huge smiles for the whole hour that the five volunteers were standing in front of the class. The volunteers asked the kids to tell jokes, what their favorite hobbies are and made sure that the kids were respectful (all in Kannada of course, but I could still understand what was going on). When it was over the volunteers told me that the kids didn’t want them to leave and that the kids said they would be waiting for them next Saturday. The volunteers were so delighted by their experience.

I took the bus back to the Women’s College with the girls and I ran into some of the other volunteers and asked them how their mornings went at the primary schools. Luxmi told me that she had a great time. Only half of her group showed up, but she was fine with that because it meant that she got to talk to the kids more. Sarala, a volunteer from another group, could not stop thanking me for setting her up with the primary school she was at. She said that the kids were so cute and she just wanted to pinch their cheeks. The head master of the school asked if she and her group would come teach a class everyday of the week for them! Sarala and her group were all smiles and could not stop raving about their morning.

Seeing all of these girls so happy to be helping kids that really need it just warmed my heart. The kids need these positive role models in their life to inspire them to go to college and to show them that learning can be fun. The lesson plans have lots of games and interactive activities so that the kids get really into it. I can’t wait to watch the volunteers begin teaching during my last few weeks here. I can tell that they are really going to make a different in these kids’ lives.

Some Comments

Finally found some American-ish pizza! Yay for giving our tummies a little break from Indian food. At this restaurant, Snow Ball, we ordered pizza, expecting to receive what we got last time we saw "pizza" on the menu, which was some type of bread with some type of ketchup tasting sauce and a little bit of grilled peppers.


As a environmentalist, it is hard for me to live in a place where people do not have respect for their surrounding environment. I went on a run this morning past a lake and saw an awful lot of trash floating in brown water. I also had the pleasure of seeing two different people pooping in an empty lot and on the side of the road. I am going to add a lesson plan to our curriculum here about the health and overall benefits of respecting the place in which you live.

Back on the Bus

June 20, 2009

Today I had a meeting at KIMS College in Dharwad, the “sister city” of Hubli. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long so I brought along my i-pod and hit play on my “Bus Ride to Tel Aviv” playlist from last year. When I lived in Holon, the bus into Tel Aviv took up to 40 minutes and I commuted at least twice a week. The tunes flowing into my ears made me nostalgic of my year in Israel. I remember countless bus rides that took me across the country, from one body of water to another or from one city to the next. I learned to love these bus rides and took advantage of enjoying the constantly changing scenery out my window. Yesterday I kept my eyes glued to the side of the road liked I learned to do last year. I was absorbing all that I was seeing and learning about the area in which I currently live. I watched as we went through little slum areas into blank green fields, past fruit stands and tailoring shops. My ear buds kept the cacophony of horns and whistles from the city out of my ears and allowed me to peacefully enjoy 45 minutes of India.

Dharwad is beautiful. There are more trees and less trash than in Hubli. As we walked through part of the 700 acres (!) of the KIMS college campus, we were happy to see large clean buildings, a myriad of tree species, and trash cans (public trash cans are oddly hard to find in this country). Out of the forty or so college students we presented to, we successfully recruited seventeen volunteers and three Volunteer Leaders to teach our health and sanitation curriculum at a primary school during the coming year. Getting twenty volunteers to sign up is fabulous news because we were only expecting about ten! Volunteering in India is not popular like it is in America; it’s not a resume builder here. This is quite unfortunate because there are so many people in India who need help. Because we were only expecting 10, we might have to find a second primary school in the Dharwad area for the college students to teach at, which is definitely not bad news!

I had a great Saturday and am looking forward to my one day off per week – Sunday Funday baby!


Boys we met downtown who were playing cricket in an alley way. They tried to teach us the rules of the game in broken english and invited us to play with them!


Girls who I hung out with while we watched the boys play cricket.


Cows are everywhere and they are BOSS - they can chill in the middle of the street and no one will touch them. I saw one hanging out right in the doorway to a store downtown, completely blocking the entry way, but he is a cow, so it doesn't matter. :)