Marriage and Dating...What Can I Say?

Yes, I doing marriage and dating as my blog topic today, but for a really good reason, I promise.

So, as you should all know by now, I'm in India. Without my husband no less. Now there are two more girls that are also without their husbands. For the last bit, there is a married couple here that are here. Now, so we have three single members, a girl with a boyfriend, and all the rest of us who are married. My research deals a lot with marriage, as I am studying marriage traditions of the castes here and so this will sometimes lead to my informants telling me about how they met their prospective husbands/wives. Something that you should know about the culture of India is that there is no socially sanctioned form of "dating" here. Like, you do not date. That is not what you do in order to decide if you want to marry someone. Your parents will arrange who you will marry, and for the most part, you will not know who that person until you are married.

So, Oliver, one of the single guys here, we've been teasing about having Rajalakshmi match him for a Hindu marriage while he is here. We only do this because we get such a great reaction out of him and he'll play along with it too, it's great! Anyway, as we were doing this today, the subject of dating came up and then Westen started asking Rajalakshmi about how love marriages came about, so I got called in to handle this part of the subject, due to my previous research as well as the few interviews that I got before I changed my subject. I'll have to say...no matter what I said, they were confused on how people got to know each other before they got married, especially with love marriages. But I explained to the best of my ability, and they seemed intrigued by the idea that there was no dating here in India. It's socially forbidden to do so.

Comparing this idea to what it is we do in America, it is two VERY different worlds of love. Here, in America, we date, we hang out, we do so many things! just to find the one person that we could find that we could picture ourselves living with the rest of the our lives. It's an interesting concept, when you think about it. We, as humans in America, do these strange activities with other members of our own species in order to figure out if we want to, basically, mate with them. In India, the parents choose who you will mate and then the deal is sealed. Done and done. There's not a big fuss made out of it, they agree to the marriage and the marriage is set and then they get married.

I know that this may seem like a strange topic for today, to reflect on marriage and dating. Forgive me though, with me missing Richard as well as talking about marriage and dating and then having several girls here without their husbands and then a married couple. All on one trip. Marriage and dating comes up a lot with us.

Talk to you soon,
Ashley

Temple Complex, Construction, and Holy Crap! I'm 22 years old... O.o

So, I need to write about two adventures today, so that I'm somewhat caught up in my telling.

So, yesterday, we were actually allowed to go to a temple complex. It's basically a place where there are a lot of

shrines to many of the Hindu gods and goddess. It was interesting to visit and to participate in some of the receiving of the blessings as well as spiritual in it's own way. I may sound slightly condescending when I say it like that, but it's true. All religions have a piece of the truth, and I could definitely feel it in that complex. It was just kind of cool to see how much those that were with us, like Krishnayya-garu, Sallaja, Siddu, and Mahdu, how worshipful they were, even if the ritual there didn't make sense to us. It made sense to them and they believed it with all their heart. It made me look at the way that I worship my own religion. Am I as diligent as I should be? Or can I do better in my own worship to God? Wow...that's deep, even for this blog.

Anyway, that was yesterday, not a lot happened after that. I got my first interview actually. So that was good, I just need to transcribe it and set it down on paper...electronically at least. :)

And today was actually a pretty relaxing day. We had breakfast and Telugu class like always, but the health students actually had a trip to a government hospital planned today. As I had my first interview yesterday, as well as some other transcripitions that I needed to get caught up on, I had decided to stay behind. But I wasn't able to get much done, for as soon as I came back to my apartment to work on my laptop, the power here went out. And it stayed out for about three hours! I only had a few minutes worth of time on laptop, so I could only get a few minutes written up as well. I soon shut down my laptop and just read a book on my Nook for the next few hours, hoping that the power would come back on but it didn't. I soon go hot enough to just go outside where there was a breeze at least. It was at this point that I started to watch the construction that is going on across the street from my apartment. It was actually quite interesting to watch and compare it to American forms of construction. For one thing, the majority of the the mixing of the individual parts of concrete are done by hand. They have huge piles of gravel and sand piled in the streets and they cart about 3-4 boxes of both into the concrete mixer a long with a bag of the concrete binder. This then has water tossed into it as it's being mixed. All of this is basically being done by hand. Once it's mixed enough, it's dumped into a bin that would then take it up to the top floor, where they are laying the next floor of the apartment building. What is also interesting to note is that the workers are allowed to work in short skirts and men's button up shirts for the women, and t-shirts and shorts of the men. No one in the higher castes are allowed to do this. It's said that the more skin you show, the lower your caste, as that means you perform manual labour. It's part of the reason we're not allowed to wear shorts here. But to my reckoning, the lower caste have the better part of the deal when it comes to heat. They're at least allowed to wear shorts. I'll hopefully be able to get pictures tomorrow. I was stupid enough to not take any today while I was observing...

After I watched that for a while, I then headed to the house to read John Adams a book Oliver lent me to read about the life of John Adams, obviously, the second President of the United States. It's really interesting, but I'm having a hard time focusing on it. This was around the time the others came back, in which we then had lunch and just lazed around for about an hour. Luckily the power came back on, so I was able to plug in my laptop to charge for the afternoon. After we had all eaten and relaxed, it was time to go out and purchase food for my birthday dinner. My friends here, the health students, helped me celebrate my birthday today. It was nice to have someone to celebrate it with, as I can't be with you this year. But yeah, we went to a grocery store to pick up cheese, salsa, and corn for Navajo tacos, and then we went to a bookstore. That was part of my birthday wish: a bookstore and chocolate cake. Once we got back, I started reading one of my new books, called The Temporal Man by Micheal Crition. It was really interesting. I wasn't really allowed to help with my dinner, which was kind of nice. Kendra, Jamie, Oliver, Westen, and Lizze all helped cook Navajo tacos for dinner. And Krishnayya-garu had gotten me a chocolate cake! All in all, it was a pretty good day. :)

Talk to you soon,

Ashley

P.S. I'll post pictures from my birthday soon, promise!

Money Changing and Driving Like an Indian

Yep, that was my adventure yesterday. I had to exchange some dollars for rupees so I went there Indian style. Hanging onto the back of a moped and lots of honking in traffic. It was really kind of fun actually. I was riding on the back of Dr. Nuckolls's moped and something that I noticed as we were driving to the bank was that people here honk differently. Let me explain. People in America honk to say "move out of the way moron!" whereas people here, for the most part, honk to say "I'm here, don't hit me." It's more of an alert system then a show people how pissed off you are system.

And changing money was really interesting. I had to fill out forms, show them my passport, give them my bills, they gave me a brass token, I then had to take the brass token to a teller and he would give me money. So a lot longer process to exchange money here than in the United States. But there was air conditioning in the bank, so I was okay with that. :)

I also met my first contact yesterday for my research project which is great! I was able to meet and talk to him as well as get a lot of information to start off. I'll be meeting with him later in the week in order to keep talking to him as well as others that he, and Krishnayya-garu, have thought of that I can talk to. So I'm off to a great start.

So yeah, that was my adventure yesterday. I'll have to see what today brings!

Talk to you soon,
Ashley

P.S. I'll upload pictures as soon as possible! Promise!

Holy Crap! Guess Where I Am????

Yes, if you guessed INDIA! then you are correct! I am officially in India and I have been for about two days now. And let's just say that a lot has happened in the past two days...well, five days, if you count the days that I traveled.

So on Thursday, May 8th I left Provo, UT and stated my journey that would eventually land me in here in Vizag, India. I first went to Chicago, where I would catch a 15 hour plane flight to Hyderabad, India. But I first had to spend the night in Chicago. Let's just say that I wish I had taken my husband's advice and stayed in a hotel for that night, but I am stubborn and didn't. I didn't sleep much that night and so was very tired. Once on the plane, I figured that I would sleep once I was on the plane....NOPE! I watched four movies, ate three airplane meals, read my book, napped some, and looked out the window. Not necessarily in that order either.

After we landed in Hyderabad, I again had to wait over night in an airport for the plane that would take me to Vizag. That wait wasn't as bad, as it was only for a few hours, but I had a desperate need for sleep...I really needed sleep, but I didn't. I stayed up and finished my second book, The Book Thief. Now that was a good book. And the plane ride to Vizag from Hyderabad was only about an hour, so not too bad at all. But my first day in India was May 11th. It took me three days to get to India, but I got here safe and sound. And once I got over the fact that I was in India, it was pretty great actually. I think I'm going to love it here, but when the time comes, I'll be excited to go back home.

But my first day in India was May 11th, Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day Momma!!!

I was able to borrow Dr. Krishnayya's, the professor here that helps with the India Study Abroad program, phone and call home. As I didn't want to use all of his minutes, I just called to say hi and that I had made it to India and to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day. I really hope that she did have a good one. After that, we had lunch and while the others went to church, I went back to the apartment and slept. I slept for about 5 hours as when I woke up, it was time for dinner. As the staff that helps out with the program doesn't work on Sundays, Dr. Nuckolls took all of us out to eat at a nearby restaurant.

But before we went out to eat, we actually went and participated in a Krishna temple ceremony that was happening down the street. That was interesting actually, there was a lot of singing by the men, we walked in a circle around the shrine, we then drank holy water and had some sort of rice pudding and a type of rice called Tiger's Food. The last part was my favorite, but that was because I was hungry.

Now the food at the temple and the restaurant was excellent! I love the food here, it's spicy and it's also healthy. I'm pretty sure that this will most likely be the time when I'll eat the healthiest food. After we ate we headed back to the apartment and I promptly feel back asleep. Didn't wake up till about 6:30 this morning.

Now today, we had our first Telugu class. What struck me as most interesting about that was that it behaves a lot like Navajo. Just let me explain, and you'll understand. Navajo is a tonal language; Telugu is a tonal language. Navajo uses a single word to describe something, like "younger brother" for example; Telugu also uses a single word to say "younger brother." I think I'll have an easier time with Telugu that I thought I would.

We also went out shopping as I needed native clothes and it just gives us a chance to get to know our translators. As soon as I learn to spell their names correctly, I'll tell you. I also got some really pretty clothes. Once I have pictures, I promise to upload them so that you can see how beautiful they are. If that's one thing a fashionista would like about India, they have wonderful and admirable clothes here.

And now I'm in an Internet cafe writing this blog entry up. I hope this gives you a slight idea of my life here.

Talk to you soon,
Ashley :)