Culture Shock…only the beginning

I just finally got good enough internet access again that I can access my email! So this will be a rather long post since I couldn't post the last few days.

To catch you up, I'm in Thrissur, Kerala now, where I'll be for the year working with ESAF Microfinance. I arrived on the 28th and am staying at the Hamara Hotel, a newly built 3* hotel that's still in process of getting things up and running (i.e. the phone for instance in the hotel room can only call to the front desk and cannot call out, not even locally). I'll be here for another two nights and on October 31st, I move into a women's hostel very close to the ESAF office and start my very first work day with ESAF. It's going to be a BUSY day from what I can already tell. I will be sharing a room with two other women from the office, which I think will be a good thing because it'll help me connect with more people and get a chance to know the city more intimately. Once I'm ready, I will be able to look for my own apartment close to the office.

Kerala really is a beautiful state just as everyone has told me. The aerial view from the plane was gorgeous. Tropical trees and plants cover the land. You’d think a brontosaurus might emerge from the trees at any moment. I say town because compared to Bangalore, which is a big metropolitan city of about 8 million, Thrissur has much more of a town feel with a population of about 300,000. Thrissur district has a population of about 3 million but Thrissur itself is about 300,000.

I know I've only been in India a few days total, but I feel like my internal bag that I fill with all the new things I'm learning and observing is over filling today. I am learning patience at a level I did not even know existed. Not even having been here for a week, I already know India is a place where you truly learn to go with the flow and you can't freak out about the inefficiencies because they're a part of daily life here. It’s nothing like I’ve experienced before which is good but wow, it sure is something you can't prepare for. All the people I've met so far have been friendly and hospitable, which I'm truly thankful for. I'm very much the type of person that not only enjoys but needs to connect with others in order to feel rooted so it feels good getting to know the local people. My culture shock is more so a combination of all the new things I'm learning and observing coupled with all of the inefficiencies where I expect efficiency. I know it's ridiculous to have expectations (more so expectations I didn't know I had) in a place that is completely different from what I'm used to or have even experienced, but my walls are slowly breaking, which is a good thing. I think this is what culture shock is, right? It's just not possible to avoid the initial stages of being overwhelmed, which I know comes with part of the package of moving to a new country (and probably heightened by the fact that I'm here physically alone...at least for the time being until I start getting to know more people). India really is a whole new world!

Considering my very full bag, I literally cried with joy today when my computer finally started working properly again. It had temporarily lost all of its sound so I couldn't run any applications that involved sound and it also kept freezing up. Because this computer is currently my only way of contacting anyone in addition to doing work, it threw me in for a panic. If you have ever seen the show the IT Crowd, it really does work to turn it off and on again and off and on again and off and on again :) So things are back up and running and writing this post has helped calm my nerves.

I finally got to briefly meet the ESAF staff today, which was great! I felt energized after meeting them. We went to town hall, which is in the center of Thrissur where ESAF was holding a conference congratulating three new board members who were recently elected. The room was filled with women from different self-help groups (micro loan borrowers) from ESAF. It felt surreal to be in the room with all of the women knowing that I get to be a part of helping them (and others who suffer from energy poverty) gain access to cleaner, safer, and more affordable efficient sources of energy. We’ll be looking at water purifiers, efficient cook stoves, LPG stoves, and solar lighting systems. This is will be a challenging project indeed. I'm ready to dive into the work with the ESAF team to get this project up and running with legs!