heureusement

Bandh

No one was allowed on to or out of the campus yesterday so the leaders of our program had to sneak in the back entrance for academic orientation. I heard some people jumped the fence. To find where classes are we need to show up to the building and ask where the department office is. Then we need to ask where the class is. Then we need to hope that the professor actually shows up. Then we need to ask our classmates where we can find the course materials. To add to the confusion, everyone may or may not have started classes already. I’m probably not going to be able to go to two of the classes I wanted to shop for today, Caste in Modern India and Ecological Anthropology because I have to register with the police department. This apparently will take a long time….

Orientation was the only activity for the day. Everyone is starting to get stir crazy and disgruntled because there is nothing to do. We still haven’t even been to Hyderabdad. Even if we could get off the campus, the bandh was on yesterday in the city. Transportation and public places were totally shut down and 900 people were arrested for being out. Of course it is an exciting time to be in the area but it also means that all of our plans have been canceled indefinitely. We were told not to get our hopes up for travel and to focus on our academics this semester; we’ll definitely return to India in the future….. :-(

Afterward I just hung out with people on the roof for the rest of the day. I met Ahmed from Yemen and TJ from Guiana who are international student downstairs. Ahmed says that people like to go into the brush and light things on fire for fun on campus. There was a 12 animal dog versus pig fight across the street over rights to the garbage pile. Ahmed said his Russian friend wanted catch a pig and eat it last semester. Another one of his friends ran into a pig with his bike.

Watching cricket from the roof. There are at least three cricket games going happening on campus at any one time. We can learn to play if we want!

I also gave out my New Jersey pins to the kids in the program and the SIP leaders. I had some left over so I gave them to the staff in the Tagore house. The cleaning ladies seemed very entertained. I explained that New Jersey is like Andrha Pradesh. They found this HYSTERICAL. They also gave me the Indian head nod which apparently can mean anything. See an example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVYc54od9fg&feature=related It’s very strange how often they clean the floor here! Mopping in the morning and sweeping in the afternoon. EVERY DAY. And yet there is garbage everywhere on the campus…. very strange.

Oh so clean floor.