I Stand Corrected, Confused, and Humbled

You might think that I'm going a little crazy...well the truth is that I probably am a little :) It's been a roller coaster of a week with work and cultural frustrations. I feel like the ground is coming back under my feet, but is this what we call finding middle ground because it sure is exhausting.

So it was my "Friday" today. I work Monday through Saturday and have been looking forward to a weekend of spending it with friends in Kochi. To get to Kochi, I normally take the train down and then a bus. A friend from work usually accompanies me because he travels along the same route. Today, we were fortunate and caught a ride from another colleague who dropped us off in a nearby city where I was able to catch a direct bus....and do you know where we sat??? The back of the bus! Yes, the back! When I first got on the bus, I immediately went to the rows reserved for women thinking my friend would sit in the back. Instead, he says that we can sit in the back of the bus so that we can sit together. Completely puzzled by this, I asked him if he was sure that was ok. And he said, "Yes Yes. Come." The bus was fairly empty so there were plenty of seats open. We sat down and I honestly felt a little uncomfortable, like I was breaking a rule or something. I explained to him what I thought I had learned about riding the bus along with my observations and he explained to me that women can actually sit anywhere in the bus but the front row seats are reserved for women only. What?! I explained to him that the whole time since I've learned to ride the bus I thought women could only sit in the front. And yes...that's true...only women are allowed to sit in the front, but they can also sit in the back. The first time I rode the bus, I was directed to the ladies section, and all the ladies were sitting in the front, none in the back and this has been my experience since then. Also, from my observation, on many of the buses I've seen, you don't actually see many (if any) women sitting in the back of the buses. Majority of the time they only sit in the front, unless the bus is fairly empty and/or they are with someone they know. Seeing a woman sitting in the back of the bus is a little bit like seeing a yellow cherry in a bowl of all red cherries. It sticks out. So today's new learning is that women CAN sit anywhere in the bus and the front is reserved for women only, but they choose to sit in the front because it's safer or easier? Now I really don't know.....

After this experience today, I've learned my first anecdote to my cultural frustrations, question the frustrations! And don't ask just one person, ask a few to confirm and get a better understanding. Let the questioning begin :)

As I am learning more and more about Indian culture and this is probably true for any culture is that it is layered with complexities. Even when I thought I had learned and I thought I knew, it just wasn't what it seemed.

Here's to a good weekend and another humbling experience.......

And by chance, we ended the evening tonight by watching Gran Torino. Good timing I would say!