My First Week

Although, I was here only for a week, I feel like i've been here for much longer and have met so many cool people. We are about 15 or 18 interns here and most of us after a week or two in Chennai are leaving to different states around India for the projects. I have made few good friends already and feel very comfortable in this huge and polluted city. Some people are staying in Chennai till the end of their internships. I am glad I am not one of them.

My third day in India was an incredible day trip to visit couple livelihood projects of Hand-in-Hand, local NGO. We got to see cool villages, meet local inspired Self-Help-Groups (SHGs) and visited Kanchipuram, famous silk-weaving town in Tamil Nadu. It was a first time I saw monkeys crossing the street in the middle of the busy town, a first time I got to try on a beautiful silk sari, a first time I sang in Russian in front of thirty Indian school children, and a first time I tried to eat rice with my hand. I also made two new friends on that trip, cool x-pat McKay (who actually organized the tour), and his fun friend Laura.

On my fourth day, 15 of us rented two SUVs and went on a day trip to the beach in Puducherry and Mahabalipuram, world heritage site of monolithic stone temples and carvings. Puducherry or Pondicherry is a smaller "french" town with a touristy feel (first time I saw white non-intern people in India). We went to a shrine where Ghandi used to teach, had some non-Indian French food, hung out on the rocky beach fully clothed and visited some incredible temples. Then back to smoggy Chennai.

For a first week all interns lived in the dorms at IFMR (Institute for Financial Management and Research), but then they gave us an apartment. It’s so posh; I have a hard time believing I am in India when I wake up in the morning. First of all, we have AC! So nice not to wake up every morning soaked in sweat and eaten by mosquitoes. Considering that malaria and dengue are pretty common here, it’s a good feeling. Second, we got a kitchen and a huge incredible living room, surrounded by couches. And third, there is a nice pool and a little rusty gym in the building. My third day I almost got hit three times by cars on the way for a jog to a track at the nearby college campus. Not having to risk my life to exercise is well worth it.

Fine, I gotta vent. My least favorite thing about this country (and any other developing overpopulated country) is low value of human life on the road. Pedestrians have no rights, I feel like here they have less rights than cows. For some reason Indians do not believe in cross walks, side walks or stop lights (but no one obeys those even if they do exist). Crossing even three-lane street in Chennai is unbearable task at certain times of the day. One billion population is not a myth. And imagine all these people in a hurry trying to get places riding some kind of vehicle type object, like rickshaws, cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles who will not stop nor slow down when you attempt to cross the street in front of them. Sometimes it even feels like they try to aim for you. But I am not alone in my irrational fear of crossing streets here.

Few days ago I ventured out during rush hour to a bank. Although I attempted to hire a rickshaw, I ended up walking all the way there. No one was willing to drive me in this crazy traffic in the direction I was going. All the drivers told me that I would get there faster on foot (which wasn’t a point, I was afraid of being run over). At one crazy corner I attached myself to few Indian guys and started weaving through the traffic with them. We got half way, and then there was a break so I went for it, alone. I made it to the other side and looked back. One of my Indian crossing companions was trapped on the divider with cars, motorcycles, buses and rickshaws closing on him. Few blocks down the road I looked back and he was still there. It was relieving to see that even locals are paranoid to jump into this moving chaos of driving objects accompanied by constant honking.

On the other hand, it was a pretty eventful week.