December Recap: Winter Break & 2018 Reflection
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! During this season, although the majority of the population is Hindu, following with Islam, the Christmas holiday is still celebrated, of course on a smaller scale. Many malls and shopping centers shined the Christmas spirit with beautiful designs and decorations. I also went to the local Catholic Church a week before Christmas and celebrated there. It was an interesting experience to see the similarities yet differences of Christmas celebrated in India, especially as Christianity is a minority religion here.
On Christmas Eve, the exchange students hosted in Delhi met up at the chapter president's house and did the traditional Christmas festivities such as decorating a Christmas tree, singing Christmas carols, and sitting around the fire. It was also a fun experience comparing our Christmas celebrations with the American YES students hosted around India, as well as the other Delhi exchange students, coming from Finland, Italy, and Belgium. As well as the different traditions of Christmas we shared, most also said that for them it really didn't feel like Christmas because it wasn't cold enough. Coming from Hawai'i and thinking that India would only be hot, I thought they were crazy as it almost reaches freezing at night! On Christmas morning, we fed those in need Maggi, which are Indian instant noodles. [Last video last in the slideshow below]
A couple days after Christmas, I was in bed when my host family called me and told me that tomorrow I need to wake up at 5 am and pack my bag as we will be going to Rajasthan - the desert state of India. We eventually left the house around 8 am and made our way to Rajasthan. Our first stop was to Bhangarh Fort. The legend says that the fort is haunted by a curse of the fort's destruction. After the curse, the fort was eventually invaded by the Mughals, leaving no inhabitants behind. Because of this, everyone arrives after sunrise and the fort is vacated by sunset. I was the only foreigner there and understood someone pointing out my presence in Hindi. Of course, the remark was obviously normal, but as this once foreign land is now considered my home, hearing it was kind of bewildering, especially because I was with my Indian host family.
After this, we then stopped at the Mehandipur Balaji Temple, also in Rajasthan, on a Saturday, a special day of worship at that temple for the Hindu God Hanumanji. I had no clue where we were going or what we were doing down this alleyway full of people in the middle of nowhere off of the state highway. We entered a tight parking and walked down a road for a mile with shops lined along the road, full of different types of temple offerings. When we approached the end of the road, I saw this building, with hundreds of people surrounding it, with TVs to show the mass crowd what was happening. I was still lost as it was dark and there were so many people. We gave our shoes to someone to safeguard, and that's when I realized the building was a temple, but not sure what its importance was with all the people here. My host family spoke to someone and he showed us a back way behind the temple to avoid the crowds in the front. I was in the back because I had no clue what was going on and was getting it on tape. I was following my host mom and sister and we lost the guide with all the people. Right as we realized we were split, we approached the outside of a room with people pounding themselves on a wall, hanging upside down, making loud noises, and heads swaying. I thought we were lost and took the wrong turn, not knowing this was part of the temple, I was terrified. Little did I know that this was part of the temple, we were on the correct path, and that we hadn't lost the tour guide, but he was just walking at a faster pace than us behind, all of which I figured out afterward. We then entered the temple, and then everything finally made sense. We passed the idol worship, and then followed the path with TONS of people, and then entered the loud room with the swaying heads etc. and from being terrified, I actually found it very interesting and applauding. My host mom explained to me that people who want to get rid of their negative energy do it at that temple, in those specific ways. I found that so cool as the religion also focuses on spirituality, and have a specified place to literally get rid of your negative energy. This was my host family's first time at the temple too, so it was also new to them too. Our feet were wet with a mixture of sewage water, cow dung, and spit, so we went barefoot for a while.
Around 6:30 pm we leave the temple and with my minimal Hindi, I understood "Agra" in their conversation, where the Taj Mahal is, but I didn't believe that we would be going then since Agra is pretty far from where we were, in the state of Uttar Pradesh and we were in Rajasthan. But then the GPS was set, and we were on our way. Around five minutes after we departed the temple, we ran over something on the road. It seemed like a cardboard box to me, but actually was a brick, which in turn pulled us over for a flat tire. Luckily we had a spare tire in the car, and after 15 minutes, we were back on the road to Agra. After a while of driving, everyone was getting tired, especially my host father who's been driving the whole day, once we approached a city, we found a hotel and asked if there were rooms vacant, and there were, so we decided to stay there. This was definitely an experience staying in an Indian hotel in the middle of nowhere, as I've never stayed in a hotel in India other than at the beginning orientation, where it was catered towards Western tourists. After we ordered from the Punjabi restaurant inside the hotel, we went to sleep. The next morning we woke up and nearby there was a historical site called the Fatherpur Sikri Fort. It was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1571, founded by Akbar the Great. On the grounds of the fort, among many things, there is a burial ground and a mosque. We went into the Tomb of Salim Chishti, a Sufi saint. Inside, it was custom to cover the tomb with a cloth, and then we also tied a strip of yarn thrice onto the walls of the tomb, making three wishes, a perfect occasion for the new year! We tried continuing in the park, but as I am a "foreigner" I had to pay the foreigner price, and my family said that I rather save my money for the very expensive Taj Mahal.
After going back to the hotel to eat breakfast, we headed to Agra, to visit the Taj Mahal. As I was a foreigner, I had to pay a good 1300 rupees ($18.50) compared to the 60 rupees Indian national ticket. I was upset as I have become really money conscious in India, ignoring the currency exchange rate and thinking in terms of rupees as I've rarely ever paid for ANYTHING at 1,200 rupees. I wanted to show my FRRO as I had done previously and got the Indian fare, but due to the number of people, it was just not worth it. Plus with my foreigner fare, my family and I skipped the LONG line, was given water and shoe covers, and lastly was able to visit the inside for free, and not pay 200 extra rupees. Although, I would rather pay for all of those things separately with the Indian ticket as it comes out much less. Anyways, it was amazing. A true wonder of the world! The inside was the Mughal architecture with the dome ceilings, ALL made from white marble. On the way back to the car, we took a horse cart. It was my first time but I did feel bad for the horse as cars were honking at it as it was on the road. There is also the Agra Fort next to the Taj Mahal, but since we were so far from home, we decided to hit the road!
For New Years, my host mother asked if I had any invitations since they were tired due to arriving home late the previous night from the trip and might not celebrate New Years, and if they did, it would be a last minute plan. In the middle of my way to an invitation, problems arose with the plan, so I decided to turn back to not ruin the last night of 2018! I made the right choice since my host family turned out to celebrate it. The whole building came together (three families), with two different dishes: pakora & idli and sambar. We sat around the fire as it was cold, then went inside and ate in front of the Indian Movie Awards on TV, and then cut a cake. Everyone left by 11 pm, but we still stayed up until midnight to wish each other a happy new year!
New Year Cake and my host mom and neighbors making pakora (fried vegetables in besan flour).
With 2019 starting, I think that a reflection of my experience thus far would compliment the end of 2018.
Wow, 2018, what a year! The beginning of 2018 was just as always, living my life on a small island, content and satisfied with my life. I figured out in March that I'd been accepted to YES Abroad, receiving India as my placement. Taking two APs in tenth grade, I look back in disappointment as I realize how little effort I put into these classes. During the summer, I was blessed to visit the whole family after a while of not traveling to France now that my grandma lives with us, as well as witness my cousin getting married! Once returning from France, I was home for around three weeks until I left for India. I met so many amazing like-minded people in Washington D.C. for the YES National PDO, as well as got a taste of what my year would be like. Now looking back, I was really delirious, not realizing what I would be going through the next ten months. I had NO expectation at what this experience would really be but moreover knew that I wanted to change my environment, find myself, and just leave home. Being caught up in the moment, I didn't realize how hard it would be. I didn't realize what it actually feels like to leave your comfort zone, and not just temporarily, but get used to it as this is your new life. All by myself. I didn't realize how hard it would be to be by myself. I do have many people along with me in this journey, the people I've met in the US or India on the same journey as I am, or the people who are involved with my journey such as my host family and friends. But I didn't realize how this experience would be a personal challenge for me in terms of how everything that I've been familiar too, would be gone, in just a fifteen hour plane ride, and that I'd have to restart my life by myself- more or less - from scratch in a totally different thus difficult environment. With this, I have completely changed as a person. Every single aspect of me has changed. Sometimes thinking this, I get scared, and ask myself if I really ever wanted this change after all? But when I take time to reflect on how much I've changed, I realize it's not just a change, it's a positive transformation, it's growth, among many things. Although I've had many hardships in my exchange, I've told myself that I'm happy it happened as I grew and learned from it, even if I didn't believe it and wish it didn't happen. But now as everything is settling, I realize that I truly am happy that I faced those hardships that I wish didn't happen, as I ACTUALLY did grow from it. I've also learned negative things in this experience. Especially that I've become overly critical of myself in almost every aspect of my daily life. I give myself high expectations, and if/when I don't achieve them, I am really harsh on myself. I used to thrive in this type of environment back home when my mother or school was putting pressure on me. But being by myself, I've took the traits of my mom and am doing her job: always being strict and harsh so I can achieve more. Being in a different environment and lifestyle is really challenging, and inflicting myself with this pressure made it so much harder. Plus when someone is critical of me, either in India, or my family back home, what they say really goes to the heart and adds to the - for a lack of better words - dissapointment in myself. This has been a challenge when talking to my family back home as I'm really doing my best and am already critiquing myself enough, and sometimes I just want to talk casually since I miss them, and not always about something specific that I should or should not do. An exchange is difficult and everyone learns from it. I realized how fortunate I am and how I've have become so grateful for everything and more importantly, everyone I have, both in India, Hawai'i and now, across the world. There have been relations that have been formed, as well as the relations that have gotten much closer due to distance. Personally, I also learned tremendously about myself, more than I had ever anticipated when going on this journey "to find myself". I do not think that I found myself yet as finding oneself doesn't solely happen in a short ten months, but finding oneself is the journey of life. Living this experience transforms the person you once were, while also learning a lot about ways of life and people: how you want to approach your life, and what type of people you want to approach life with. For 2019, my sole new year's resolution is to just live my life the best way possible, as that one resolution covers all the goals I have for myself this year. And lastly, I also need to keep in mind that if I don't achieve any of these goals by the end of the year, it's totally okay and meant to be.
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| Christmas Eve Dinner: Street Food! |
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! During this season, although the majority of the population is Hindu, following with Islam, the Christmas holiday is still celebrated, of course on a smaller scale. Many malls and shopping centers shined the Christmas spirit with beautiful designs and decorations. I also went to the local Catholic Church a week before Christmas and celebrated there. It was an interesting experience to see the similarities yet differences of Christmas celebrated in India, especially as Christianity is a minority religion here.
On Christmas Eve, the exchange students hosted in Delhi met up at the chapter president's house and did the traditional Christmas festivities such as decorating a Christmas tree, singing Christmas carols, and sitting around the fire. It was also a fun experience comparing our Christmas celebrations with the American YES students hosted around India, as well as the other Delhi exchange students, coming from Finland, Italy, and Belgium. As well as the different traditions of Christmas we shared, most also said that for them it really didn't feel like Christmas because it wasn't cold enough. Coming from Hawai'i and thinking that India would only be hot, I thought they were crazy as it almost reaches freezing at night! On Christmas morning, we fed those in need Maggi, which are Indian instant noodles. [Last video last in the slideshow below]
A couple days after Christmas, I was in bed when my host family called me and told me that tomorrow I need to wake up at 5 am and pack my bag as we will be going to Rajasthan - the desert state of India. We eventually left the house around 8 am and made our way to Rajasthan. Our first stop was to Bhangarh Fort. The legend says that the fort is haunted by a curse of the fort's destruction. After the curse, the fort was eventually invaded by the Mughals, leaving no inhabitants behind. Because of this, everyone arrives after sunrise and the fort is vacated by sunset. I was the only foreigner there and understood someone pointing out my presence in Hindi. Of course, the remark was obviously normal, but as this once foreign land is now considered my home, hearing it was kind of bewildering, especially because I was with my Indian host family.
After this, we then stopped at the Mehandipur Balaji Temple, also in Rajasthan, on a Saturday, a special day of worship at that temple for the Hindu God Hanumanji. I had no clue where we were going or what we were doing down this alleyway full of people in the middle of nowhere off of the state highway. We entered a tight parking and walked down a road for a mile with shops lined along the road, full of different types of temple offerings. When we approached the end of the road, I saw this building, with hundreds of people surrounding it, with TVs to show the mass crowd what was happening. I was still lost as it was dark and there were so many people. We gave our shoes to someone to safeguard, and that's when I realized the building was a temple, but not sure what its importance was with all the people here. My host family spoke to someone and he showed us a back way behind the temple to avoid the crowds in the front. I was in the back because I had no clue what was going on and was getting it on tape. I was following my host mom and sister and we lost the guide with all the people. Right as we realized we were split, we approached the outside of a room with people pounding themselves on a wall, hanging upside down, making loud noises, and heads swaying. I thought we were lost and took the wrong turn, not knowing this was part of the temple, I was terrified. Little did I know that this was part of the temple, we were on the correct path, and that we hadn't lost the tour guide, but he was just walking at a faster pace than us behind, all of which I figured out afterward. We then entered the temple, and then everything finally made sense. We passed the idol worship, and then followed the path with TONS of people, and then entered the loud room with the swaying heads etc. and from being terrified, I actually found it very interesting and applauding. My host mom explained to me that people who want to get rid of their negative energy do it at that temple, in those specific ways. I found that so cool as the religion also focuses on spirituality, and have a specified place to literally get rid of your negative energy. This was my host family's first time at the temple too, so it was also new to them too. Our feet were wet with a mixture of sewage water, cow dung, and spit, so we went barefoot for a while.
Around 6:30 pm we leave the temple and with my minimal Hindi, I understood "Agra" in their conversation, where the Taj Mahal is, but I didn't believe that we would be going then since Agra is pretty far from where we were, in the state of Uttar Pradesh and we were in Rajasthan. But then the GPS was set, and we were on our way. Around five minutes after we departed the temple, we ran over something on the road. It seemed like a cardboard box to me, but actually was a brick, which in turn pulled us over for a flat tire. Luckily we had a spare tire in the car, and after 15 minutes, we were back on the road to Agra. After a while of driving, everyone was getting tired, especially my host father who's been driving the whole day, once we approached a city, we found a hotel and asked if there were rooms vacant, and there were, so we decided to stay there. This was definitely an experience staying in an Indian hotel in the middle of nowhere, as I've never stayed in a hotel in India other than at the beginning orientation, where it was catered towards Western tourists. After we ordered from the Punjabi restaurant inside the hotel, we went to sleep. The next morning we woke up and nearby there was a historical site called the Fatherpur Sikri Fort. It was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1571, founded by Akbar the Great. On the grounds of the fort, among many things, there is a burial ground and a mosque. We went into the Tomb of Salim Chishti, a Sufi saint. Inside, it was custom to cover the tomb with a cloth, and then we also tied a strip of yarn thrice onto the walls of the tomb, making three wishes, a perfect occasion for the new year! We tried continuing in the park, but as I am a "foreigner" I had to pay the foreigner price, and my family said that I rather save my money for the very expensive Taj Mahal.
After going back to the hotel to eat breakfast, we headed to Agra, to visit the Taj Mahal. As I was a foreigner, I had to pay a good 1300 rupees ($18.50) compared to the 60 rupees Indian national ticket. I was upset as I have become really money conscious in India, ignoring the currency exchange rate and thinking in terms of rupees as I've rarely ever paid for ANYTHING at 1,200 rupees. I wanted to show my FRRO as I had done previously and got the Indian fare, but due to the number of people, it was just not worth it. Plus with my foreigner fare, my family and I skipped the LONG line, was given water and shoe covers, and lastly was able to visit the inside for free, and not pay 200 extra rupees. Although, I would rather pay for all of those things separately with the Indian ticket as it comes out much less. Anyways, it was amazing. A true wonder of the world! The inside was the Mughal architecture with the dome ceilings, ALL made from white marble. On the way back to the car, we took a horse cart. It was my first time but I did feel bad for the horse as cars were honking at it as it was on the road. There is also the Agra Fort next to the Taj Mahal, but since we were so far from home, we decided to hit the road!
For New Years, my host mother asked if I had any invitations since they were tired due to arriving home late the previous night from the trip and might not celebrate New Years, and if they did, it would be a last minute plan. In the middle of my way to an invitation, problems arose with the plan, so I decided to turn back to not ruin the last night of 2018! I made the right choice since my host family turned out to celebrate it. The whole building came together (three families), with two different dishes: pakora & idli and sambar. We sat around the fire as it was cold, then went inside and ate in front of the Indian Movie Awards on TV, and then cut a cake. Everyone left by 11 pm, but we still stayed up until midnight to wish each other a happy new year!
New Year Cake and my host mom and neighbors making pakora (fried vegetables in besan flour).
With 2019 starting, I think that a reflection of my experience thus far would compliment the end of 2018.
Wow, 2018, what a year! The beginning of 2018 was just as always, living my life on a small island, content and satisfied with my life. I figured out in March that I'd been accepted to YES Abroad, receiving India as my placement. Taking two APs in tenth grade, I look back in disappointment as I realize how little effort I put into these classes. During the summer, I was blessed to visit the whole family after a while of not traveling to France now that my grandma lives with us, as well as witness my cousin getting married! Once returning from France, I was home for around three weeks until I left for India. I met so many amazing like-minded people in Washington D.C. for the YES National PDO, as well as got a taste of what my year would be like. Now looking back, I was really delirious, not realizing what I would be going through the next ten months. I had NO expectation at what this experience would really be but moreover knew that I wanted to change my environment, find myself, and just leave home. Being caught up in the moment, I didn't realize how hard it would be. I didn't realize what it actually feels like to leave your comfort zone, and not just temporarily, but get used to it as this is your new life. All by myself. I didn't realize how hard it would be to be by myself. I do have many people along with me in this journey, the people I've met in the US or India on the same journey as I am, or the people who are involved with my journey such as my host family and friends. But I didn't realize how this experience would be a personal challenge for me in terms of how everything that I've been familiar too, would be gone, in just a fifteen hour plane ride, and that I'd have to restart my life by myself- more or less - from scratch in a totally different thus difficult environment. With this, I have completely changed as a person. Every single aspect of me has changed. Sometimes thinking this, I get scared, and ask myself if I really ever wanted this change after all? But when I take time to reflect on how much I've changed, I realize it's not just a change, it's a positive transformation, it's growth, among many things. Although I've had many hardships in my exchange, I've told myself that I'm happy it happened as I grew and learned from it, even if I didn't believe it and wish it didn't happen. But now as everything is settling, I realize that I truly am happy that I faced those hardships that I wish didn't happen, as I ACTUALLY did grow from it. I've also learned negative things in this experience. Especially that I've become overly critical of myself in almost every aspect of my daily life. I give myself high expectations, and if/when I don't achieve them, I am really harsh on myself. I used to thrive in this type of environment back home when my mother or school was putting pressure on me. But being by myself, I've took the traits of my mom and am doing her job: always being strict and harsh so I can achieve more. Being in a different environment and lifestyle is really challenging, and inflicting myself with this pressure made it so much harder. Plus when someone is critical of me, either in India, or my family back home, what they say really goes to the heart and adds to the - for a lack of better words - dissapointment in myself. This has been a challenge when talking to my family back home as I'm really doing my best and am already critiquing myself enough, and sometimes I just want to talk casually since I miss them, and not always about something specific that I should or should not do. An exchange is difficult and everyone learns from it. I realized how fortunate I am and how I've have become so grateful for everything and more importantly, everyone I have, both in India, Hawai'i and now, across the world. There have been relations that have been formed, as well as the relations that have gotten much closer due to distance. Personally, I also learned tremendously about myself, more than I had ever anticipated when going on this journey "to find myself". I do not think that I found myself yet as finding oneself doesn't solely happen in a short ten months, but finding oneself is the journey of life. Living this experience transforms the person you once were, while also learning a lot about ways of life and people: how you want to approach your life, and what type of people you want to approach life with. For 2019, my sole new year's resolution is to just live my life the best way possible, as that one resolution covers all the goals I have for myself this year. And lastly, I also need to keep in mind that if I don't achieve any of these goals by the end of the year, it's totally okay and meant to be.
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