Today, I had two major encounters with the wildlife of the Indian Himalaya.

I decided to eat breakfast in my studio today. I have some cereal and milk (I'm still not quite sure what "toned" milk is, but it tastes fine), and a little mango juice in my room for snacks. Woodstock has generously provided me with a set of dishes and silverware, so I have a neat little set-up if I want to eat a meal myself. (If you add more than two people, it's a BYOSilverware situation.) I got my cereal ready and went to get myself a glass for juice. I opened the cupboard, and saw this:

My Indian (spider) in the Cupboard!

Oh dear lord. This is not the biggest spider I could possibly find (often they come as big as a person's hand- or face), but it was still a shock. I looked at it for a time, quietly got my glass and closed the cupboard. I went back to get a picture, and then ate my breakfast. I readied myself for the day and started the walk to school.

The path from my house to Tehri Road is rocky and pretty wild, so it takes quite a bit of concentration to avoid falling. There are also many plants and wet spots, so creepies tend to reside there. Because I was wearing my sandals, I tried to be very conscious about avoiding vegetation and slippery spots. I even checked my feet and my ankles after the path to make sure I didn't have any undesirables on me. I was halfway to the quad when I felt something strange on my foot. It was another leech, and it was wriggling around, suctioned to the bottom of my foot. "NOOOOOO," I screamed as I hopped to the side of the road. This was not something I was going to put on the back burner. I took my shoe off, then hurriedly unzipped my bag to retrieve my container of salt and attempted to salt the creature with one hand. Imagine my horror when it stuck to my finger with its other end! I had a ghastly realization that leeches have a mouth on either end of their bodies. Frantic, I shook my hand to get the nasty thing off me, but it didn't work. I hopped over to a road-side fence (remember, I had a shoe on only one foot), and banged my hand against the fence to get the leech to relinquish its grip. That worked, and I stood for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to calm myself down. The whole ordeal took only about 10 seconds, but I found myself emotionally exhausted at only 8:25 in the morning.

What a day.


Update: I didn't look in the cupboard again until I came back after the staff retreat, and the spider is still there.

5 Things I Have Learned While In India

1. Flashlights are called "torches" here.

2. The weather changes in minutes. It can be partly sunny and dry when you first look out your window, and then the cloud will roll in and you'll have moisture droplets in your hair. It's crazy! Sometimes there's only about 20 or 30 foot visibility because the cloud is so dense.

3. IST. This is technically known as Indian Standard Time, but is lovingly referred to as Indian Stretchable Time. Schedules are followed to a point, but if something has to wait, then it has to wait. I've found this at Woodstock, in the bazaar, and on the road. You have a destination and a timeline, but if there are goats in the road, you just have to wait it out.

4. Leeches. They are a fact of life here. The knowledgeable Woodstocker knows to carry a torch (see no. 1), an umbrella, and a small container of salt in their pack. Leeches are everywhere in this wet weather, so it's prudent to always check your ankles and lower legs after walking somewhere with even the slightest vegetation or puddles. I got one on my foot yesterday. I put some salt on it and it detached and died.

5. The school. It is incredible so far and the kids and other staff members haven't even arrived! The ideas presented in the new staff orientation have been inspiring, the setting is stunning, and I can't wait to get started in the music classroom! This is an amazing place. I'm really fortunate to be here.

Alright, let's get settled.

I've been in India for approximately 4 days. During that time, I've gone to bed before sunset and awoken before dawn (thanks, jet lag), vomited once (only once!), travelled by plane, train, and bus, and eaten some really good Indian food. I've also made a bunch of friends, went to the bazaar, took some trippy anti-nausea medication, and killed a spider the size of a quarter in my apartment. It's been busy.

New Delhi
I arrived in New Delhi at 2 in the morning and it was 30 degrees Celsius (that's upper 80's in Fahrenheit for those not using the metric system). It was 30 degrees at 2 in the morning. Plus the humidity. Gah.

The hotel was cute and lemon-themed. I met a bunch of people, slept most of the time, and ate some Indian food.

They took the lemon theme very seriously.

An unexpected thing the guide books forgot to mention:
the light switches operate opposite the way they do in the States.
It was really confusing for a time.

The Journey to Woodstock
After a day just hanging out in the hotel, we left for the train station at 5 AM (I had been up since 2, so it wasn't a huge deal). Again, super humid and hot, even that early. A couple people in the group felt sick with the heat/jet lag/culture shock, but I am proud to say that I did fine all the way to the mountain. The train car was air conditioned, which made the windows fog up on the outside, which was terribly frustrating for those of us who hadn't seen Delhi before! I spent my time with a group of five ladies and we chatted and played cards for the ride. We were incredibly loud the whole ride, so I feel bad for the Indians riding the train with us. Seriously. We were totally obnoxious.

Making friends on the train!

This was what I saw when I turned around in the bus.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

We arrived in Dehradun, a town at the base of the mountain range. We had lunch (I had chicken lazeez and a sweet lime soda), then boarded a bus to go up the mountain. I had been advised to take an anti-nausea pill for the trip, so I did. Once I found out that it worked by inducing sleep, though, I instantly regretted it. I react pretty badly to sleep medication, and besides, I wanted to see the trip up the mountain! So I kept myself awake. That worked well until I had to get off the bus and talk to people. I found myself in a sort of medicinal out-of-body experience: I was dizzy, my coordination was affected, my concentration was completely shot, and my speech felt slurred. It was terrible! I had wanted so badly to make a good impression my first time on the mountain, and I couldn't remember anyone's name or answer questions well. I felt completely overwhelmed. I finally made it to my apartment (which is super cute, by the way!), and fell asleep on my mattress. I woke up at 5:30 the next morning without my luggage, any internet, or any idea of what to do or when to do it.

Don't Worry, It Gets Better
My situation sounds fairly helpless, and it was, but Woodstock has this amazing way of pulling together and getting you on your feet. The next morning, my neighbor (a fellow Ole!) invited me over to watch a movie (she was also up early because of jet lag). As soon as the movie was done, my luggage arrived! Soon after that, someone came to connect the gas line to my stove! People just have a way of showing up when you're not expecting them, which is wonderful and serendipitous. (We'll just have to see if they show up when I actually need them...)

I've just completed Day One of New Staff Orientation, and I feel great about it. This was a wonderful decision for me, and I feel very settled in already. The staff are welcoming and kind, and I can ask someone just about anything, including poop and/or vomit, and they will be happy to help. There's a scrappy, DIY, been-there-done-that kind of attitude about this place, and I think I'll fit right in.

This is Mussoorie, when I went to the bazaar.
It takes about 20 minutes to walk there from Woodstock.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the view from my front door.

I'm in India!

Just a quick update. After 20+ hours of travel, two plane rides, a three-hours layover, and a lot of sitting (ugh) I am finally in New Delhi! I got to the airport at 2 AM Delhi time, met some Woodstockers, and got to my hotel. Now that I've got some breakfast in me, I'm ready to sleep again. Pictures and other things coming soon.

Wait, you're going by yourself?

Once I found out I was going to India to student teach, I was incredibly excited. Obviously. I've wanted to do this for three years, and it was finally happening! So I began to share the news with people. My college buddies were overjoyed; they'd heard me talk and talk about this opportunity, so they were probably exhausted by my chatter. In addition, I have several friends who have studied abroad in India and absolutely loved it. When I told people my parents' age, however, I got a conversation that went something like this:

Old Person: So, what's new?

Katherine: EXCITING NEWS! I'm going to student teach in India!

OP: How wonderful! So you're going with a student group?

K: No, I'm traveling with myself.

OP: ...but you're going with friends or something, right?

K: Nope! Traveling solo.

OP: Wow....that's so....well, look at you....

Almost every time I told someone I was traveling solo to India, they either put on their authority face and lectured me about the dangers of women traveling alone, or they hid their disapproval of my life choice with some Minnesota nice and a lot of filler words. Every once in a while I would find someone who was genuinely happy, not just that I had got into this particular program, but that I was making the decision to travel with myself. I found those people to be few and far between.

This kind of reaction has accompanied me through various life choices: "You're going to school for music? What kind of job opportunities are there?" "Oh, you're going to shave your head? Wow, um, good for you." "Uh, you're a feminist? Well, that's nice." It's never really deterred me from pursuing what I feel is worthwhile, but it can be a bit frustrating in high frequency.

I can understand a person's hesitancy when they hear about a woman traveling solo to a developing country. (Notice that I haven't said "traveling alone." It might seem a small difference in semantics, but it has proven to be a big difference in mindset.) India is a large country with a very different set of cultural rules. It is bound to be a difficult and overwhelming place to travel, even without taking into account the awful incidents of rape and sexual assault that have been brought to international attention by the media over the past year.

Given these highly publicized events in India (and all over the world), many people have said that it is simply unsafe for women to travel by themselves overseas.

Bullshit. (Excuse me.)

Instead of expecting women to stay inside their homes so they can be "safe", let's talk about the fact that most violence against women happens in familiar neighborhoods. Let's talk about the fact that it is much more likely for a woman to be raped in her own house by someone she knows than on the street by a total stranger. I'm certainly not trying to downplay the horrific nature of sexual violence, wherever it occurs, and I'm not trying to say that there isn't risk in traveling, but we are asking the wrong questions. The question is not "should women travel independently?" The question, rather, is "why do people (most often men) feel they can transgress upon other people's (most often women's) personal autonomy?" And also "why is rape still happening?" And finally "what can be done to change it?"

Let's also talk about the fact that the world is an AMAZING PLACE with incredible cultures, sights, foods, and people. A great number of people (I'll say the majority without having hard statistics to back me up) live in this world without going through any major trauma or violence. They live in this world and they are beautiful and unique and just waiting to meet other people! There are wonderful human connections and musical instruments and theatrical performances and gorgeous crafts and trees and temples and canyons out there and I'm not going to miss out on that just because I have a vagina. And I'm not going to be apologetic about it.

While I researched for this trip, I found some absolutely wonderful resources, some suggested to me by friends and professors, some found on a Google search. Here are a few blogs devoted to the solo woman traveller:

http://travelingwhilefemale.blogspot.com/

http://floratheexplorer.com/

http://www.dangerous-business.com/getting-started/

http://breathedreamgo.com/

I have found these blogs to be wonderful sources for advice and anecdotes. They are a breath of fresh air from the stifling cries of sexist negativity that surrounds this decision I'm making. They remind me that, even though I travel with myself, I never travel alone.

East Coast, baby!

I spent the past week travelling. Not to India (yet), but to Chicago, New York, and New Haven in a sort of pilgrimage before I leave the country. I planned the trip several months ago after I found out that I was, indeed, going to India, and I needed a way to say a goodbye to all of my friends on the east coast. I've always been pretty dramatic about goodbyes, so why not a cross-country train trip, a week in the Big Apple, and a whirlwind party weekend in New Haven?

While on this trip, I learned a lot about the hospitality of strangers, the effects of box wine on a 20-hour train ride, how much a body can actually sweat during the night (answer: buckets), and what it feels like to get hit on the side of one's body with hot potato soup. I also learned a thing or two about soulmates.

Since graduation, I've been thinking a bit about soulmates. Who can be considered a soulmate? What are the criteria for official Soulmate Ranking? I realize that the category is rather amorphous, so I've been developing my own working definition with the help of several good friends. The dictionary definition is as follows:

soul mate (also: soulmate) noun
a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner

So that's fine. It's a succinct definition. I feel it is lacking some important details, however.

soulmate
a person with whom one can pick up exactly where one left off, with no adverse effect

a person whose presence makes one feel like the world has been shifted back into its proper place

a person who makes one feel loved, cared for, and comfortable, yet still challenged

a person who encourages growth

I feel so lucky to have so many of these people in my life, and I feel so warm and full of life having spent time with them this past week. Make no mistake, I'm physically exhausted and totally dehydrated (thank you, New Haven), but I'm filled up spiritually and emotionally. I reconnected with people I love, and no amount of time or distance will thwart or dissipate that connection.