Lost in India

Just when you'd given up on ever hearing from me again--oh-ho, what's this? Just a little summary of a few events of the last couple months. I could blame all sorts of things, from a the burgeoning bureaucracy in India that prevented me from getting Internet at home until just a week or so ago, or the burgeoning bureaucracy of the State Dept. that caused me to spend a lot of time filling out forms before moving overseas, but the buck really stops here, at least for now.



Since I last made an entry here, I lived in Washington, D.C. another two months learning about the laws on immigration and how we're expected to apply them. It also involved a lot of happy hours with friends from my Monterey days, and a few trips to the Midwest for a wedding and visits to families. I even got to a July 4th Family Reunion in the Ozarks and got reacquainted with cousins. After four days of exploring New York City, I headed off to India, finally.



But it's great! Really!

And Chennai has been great so far, once I got over the traffic that functions on the premise of "I'm bigger than you, so get out of the way when I honk", the contrasts of glitzy corporate housing developments against the makeshift shops and homes made from lean-to's along the waterways, and the idea that anything works according to my assumptions. It is definitely warm here, but I missed the really hot season, and it's quite tolerable (I turned off the AC tonight, and --shock-- have the windows open), and I can escape to air conditioning any time I want--at home, at work, into a car, etc.
Living here means my lifestyle has changed dramatically in a few key ways. First, I have domestic staff. My maid/cook is a sweet woman exactly my mother's age who irons my underwear (I asked her not to) and makes a chicken curry so spicy, my nose runs uncontrollably after the third bite (she claims that's the mild version). I even have a driver, though I'm still working on getting a car--not quite a globalized process, even if Chennai is known as the Detroit of South Asia. I work for the U.S. Government, not the most laid-back of employers, so you'll never see a photo of my house on here, just one example of erasing the line between work and private life. And I'm living in a place where my skin color makes me immediately known to everyone here as Someone Not From Here. This has the disadvantage of being stared at unabashedly by children and taxi drivers (who slow down next to me when I'm walking somewhere--non-Indians notoriously overpay them). But it also gives me a feeling of "if you can't beat'em, join'em", which is helpful for getting me to explore. So, I already took a day trip to the temple city of Kanchipuram and a 5-day getaway trip to an island off of Malaysia.


You won't be surprised to hear that everyone at work has been helpful and friendly. South Indians for the most part are courteous and shy, and even the meanest of scowls dissolves into a toothy smile with a simple greeting of "Vanakkum." Even if that's just their way of placating the moneyed Western visitor I don't mind. As I used to explain to my German friends, sure, in the U.S. your cashier or waitress or bartender may not genuinely hope you have a nice day, but just hearing it makes life a little nicer, doesn't it? I try to remember as the next applicant approaches the window, saying they are going to see the places. I've already processed over 200 visas. Woohoo! Only 15,000 to go.


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