As a white female, going out of the house in India is kind of scary- people stare at you, take photos, follow you around, ask you for money, constantly try to start conversations with you. You can try and reduce the problem by dressing in Indian clothing and not making eye contact, ever, but nothing can completely stop it. In my first week, I found the whole thing so intimidating that I would never go out alone, and even if I had been in a group, after a full day of this treatment I usually had to lock myself in the bathroom and cry for a while because it made me so anxious.
I was the same way when i first started working at the Big Kumara- I just wasn't used to that level of people aggressively hitting on me; and I had to run off and cry a few times a night to handle it. But after about a week of working there, I adjusted and managed to deal with it, and I'm kind of getting to the same point here.
I've slowly been trying to increase my comfort zone of going places alone- first the corner store to buy bottled water, then the supermarket, then the post office, and today- a mall on the other side of town for Subway!* Yay me!
I don't really like going places alone, I have no sense of direction**- when my dad tells me to take the compost out at night I tend to stare at him blankly and say, "But... it's dark." So I feel very grown up and self actualized that I'm kind of managing to find my way around here. Here's hoping I can keep it up, because I somehow need to get from here to Kathmandu in October, and I have a feeling it's going to be a little more challenging than today's sandwich wrangling excursion.
* I am officially sick of Indian food, and since I've been ill I've decided that gives me the right to coddle my digestive system with western food for a few days. Delicious, non lentil-based, western food.
**The real winner for no sense of direction in my family is my mom, though. She frequently gets trapped in shopping malls and on a recent camping holiday in Australia refused to go to the bathroom by herself for fear of never returning.
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| My girl Lilo knows how it is. |
I've slowly been trying to increase my comfort zone of going places alone- first the corner store to buy bottled water, then the supermarket, then the post office, and today- a mall on the other side of town for Subway!* Yay me!
I don't really like going places alone, I have no sense of direction**- when my dad tells me to take the compost out at night I tend to stare at him blankly and say, "But... it's dark." So I feel very grown up and self actualized that I'm kind of managing to find my way around here. Here's hoping I can keep it up, because I somehow need to get from here to Kathmandu in October, and I have a feeling it's going to be a little more challenging than today's sandwich wrangling excursion.
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| This is a photo I took of some Indian guys taking photos of me. I'm pretty much like Megan Fox over here. |
* I am officially sick of Indian food, and since I've been ill I've decided that gives me the right to coddle my digestive system with western food for a few days. Delicious, non lentil-based, western food.
**The real winner for no sense of direction in my family is my mom, though. She frequently gets trapped in shopping malls and on a recent camping holiday in Australia refused to go to the bathroom by herself for fear of never returning.
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