Brain mumbles

Well, my bag’s more or less packed now apart from the odd toothbrush and so on, but I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly feeling prepared. I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve travelled all over the world, but this is the first time that I don’t really have any idea about the culture I’m about to dive into. Here are a few of the big questions that are going round in my head before I set off:

As a liberal feministy type lady-person, how do I react if I find myself (or see someone else) in a situation that I’m not ok with? I don’t mean the big stuff; I’m talking about not being included in a handshake or something like that. Now, UK-dwelling me wouldn’t take that crap from anyone and would insist on an explanation and apology, but how far should ‘cultural differences’ temper that reaction? Do I let it go, because ‘that’s the way it is’ or do I cause a minor cultural incident? After all, I’m not going in order to try and create a feminist revolution because a) that’s not my place, and b) ladies like the Lucknow Red Brigade (http://red-brigades.blogspot.co.uk/) and many other organisations (I won’t give you a lecture on the history of Indian feminism here, tempting as it is) are doing a top-notch job - Go Team! But still... everyday sexism is not ok... Hm.

Then there’s personal space. I love working with people, I wouldn’t be going to do this if I didn’t, I also need my me time. Just to be on my own, read, write, whatever it is, just doing it away from other human beings. How do I explain that without being rude? Or do I just try and swallow my ‘piss off, world’ days and try not to explode? And with that goes independence. At 22, having lived away from home for 4 years, I’d consider myself a pretty competent human being at the whole ‘life’ thing. I don’t need my room tidying, or my socks washing and I love being at the helm in the kitchen. But I’m going to be a guest in somebody’s home for quite some time... so, I think I should probably ask to help out when there’s cooking or washing being done or whatever and hope that that gets taken the right way.

Well, I guess all this stuff will become clear in the coming weeks and months, I’ll let you know what I find out.

The Suitcase Squeeze

Now that my passport is finally back with me, it’s time to start thinking about packing. And it is going to take some thinking, as I’ve got 6 months worth of weather to pack for and (girlie wurlies of a nervous disposition look away now) only 15kg of luggage allowance. So I can forget hairdryers, straighteners and all that nonsense, and stick with the basics. I’ve been looking at various packing checklists and this is what I shall shortly be attempting to cram into a small suitcase and some handluggage (I’ll warn you, it’s a long and not particularly interesting list):

A few cotton skirts and baggy trousers

Loose cotton t-shirts

What I like to call my portable mosquito nets, loose, long lightweight tops to chuck over anything else

Cotton undies (skimpy thongs and frilly frenchies can stay well at home!)

Cotton socks (are you getting the theme here? Keep it breathable)

Lightweight but warm jumpers – layers, people!

Sandals

A pair of more robust trainers

A small bag that can be kept close to the body with vital things in

Bug spray (Jungle Formula Max – it may melt plastic, but my mozzie bites swell up like Malteasers)

Bite relief stuff

Suntan lotion

Soap

Painkillers

LOTS of Immodium

STERILE First Aid Kit (These are pricey, but they come with needles and syringes so should I end up in hospital I can be sure that the materials used in my treatment are sterile)

A small but unbelievably bright torch

Malaria tablets (Most areas in India are fine, except the bit I’m going to at the end. Typical.)

Water cleansing tablets and a filtering bottle to be super sure

Hand sanitiser

LADIES – This one’s important: Contraceptive pills. This isn’t because I anticipate bonking my way across the country, but it’s a tip I’ve been given by quite a few other girls – in areas where sanitary products are difficult to come by, it’s easier and more hygienic to just put a stop to the whole lady eggs process for the duration of your trip.

Then there’s what my brother refers to as ‘The Blue Folder of Doom’, a vital weapon my Dad will pull out at the slightest sign of bother and produce a magic piece of paper to fix the problem. My magic papers include:

Contact details of everyone imaginable

Insurance documents

Airport hotel booking confirmation

Plane tickets

Copy of Visa documents

Copy of passport

Not the most thrilling of blog posts, I know, but it just might be useful to you one day. The next one should hopefully be from Udaipur!

Vaccines

For some reason, not dying from a horrific exotic disease is really expensive. Really, really expensive. The value of my blood has definitely gone up majorly in the last couple of years with all the bonus antibodies it’s got pumped into it (and yet I still can’t shake this annoying cold...). If you’re going on a trip anywhere outside Europe, they definitely need to be in your budget pretty early on, because it could be a nasty surprise. Once you’ve got them, the majority last for 10 years or so, but keep track of them! And make sure you think about them in advance, most need a course that could take a couple of months.

Let me run my private collection by you:

Typhoid (1 x £40)

Hepatitis A (1 x £52)

Hepatitis B (3 x £43)

Hepatitis C (got at school)

TB (got at school)

Rabies (3 x £55 and it doesn’t even guarantee you won’t get rabies)

Japanese Encephalitis (2 x £89 – this one is recommended but not necessary, but given the choice of cake or debilitating brain damage/ death, I pick cake)

                Malaria tablets (varies depending on where you’re going and how much hallucination you’d like)

Wow. I had never actually seen all that money in one place before. I’d better have top notch blood.

Learning the lingo

We Brits have a hugely embarrassing reputation for monolingualism but *NEWSFLASH*, you don’t have to follow the crowd! You can make all the excuses you like for not having good enough lessons at school or whatever, but at the end of the day, it comes down to laziness. Yes, I said it and I’ll say it again – LAZINESS.

If you want the full immersive experience of another culture (and why wouldn’t you? If you’re looking for 5 star hotels, find another blog.), you need to speak the local language. Even just a few phrases, the real basics – you can pick those up on the plane. But where languages are concerned, I want to go the whole hog. Plus I’m going to be in a pretty rural area, so it’s going to be somewhat necessary. So, about 5 months ago, I bought myself the Rosetta Stone Hindi kit and set to.

                I swear by Rosetta Stone. Yes, they’re pricey (but hang around for an offer before you buy, they come around quite frequently), but I do 15 – 20 minutes work a day and already I can do past, present, future and conditional tenses. Sure, my vocab’s not great, but I reckon I can deal with everyday situations, provided that the other interlocutor doesn’t get too chatty. What I can’t do, however, is write. That’s going to take a bit more work and a patient tutor.

                Hindi is not considered a ‘hard’ language. It may appear to be a load of squiggles, but remember, once upon a time the latin alphabet was a load of squiggles to you, and you’re obviously coping with it pretty well. It’s not like Chinese, Korean, Arabic etc. in that you have to start totally again with the basic concepts of what language is, rather it is an Indo-European language and therefore related to our own. You’d recognise verb forms, direct and indirect objects and so on, and of course words like टेलीविज़न (television), plus it’s more or less phonetic, once you’ve deciphered the squiggles. I wouldn’t recommend it as your first foreign language, but if you’ve mastered something European and you’ve got the knack of language learning, then there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a go.

Visa Chaos

Sooo... visas. We need them, but they're a lot of hassle. I seriously had no idea quite how much hassle. Let me just run you by the kerfuffle so far:

Approximately 6 weeks ago: I sent off all the bits and pieces (including £300, bleurgh) for an Employment visa.

3 days later: All my paper work was sent back to me, with a note telling me to start again and apply for an Entry visa, especially for internships. I then spent a week fighting for a refund on the non-refundable Employment visa, with success. Yay! (Tip, don't take that rubbish lying down, of course they can refund you.)

10 days later: I finally have all the various bits of paper and letters from Asha Parivar to support my Entry visa. Success, surely?

... silence from Radio Visa... The High Commission phone continues to ring... it costs me 95p per minute each time I call VFS (the pre-screening company)...

Last week: Oh wait! You DO need an Employment visa! Please resend us all the things you've already sent us, plus a load of extra stuff! *Cue tears of frustration*

Today, with two weeks to go... I haven't seen my passport in weeks. They have all the required documents, but haven't confirmed that they have. Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhka\wryn;o\iewutorthakjdshfn\skjt.

Watch this space for if I actually make it or not.

In the beginning...

Before launching off on how everything's going, I should probably tell you a little bit more about what I'm doing, and why.

On the 2nd September 2013 (visa permitting... more on that later), I shall be jetting off to India for 6 months. I'll be spending the first three weeks with the DAAN Foundation (daanfoundation.org) in Udaipur, doing a Cultural Exchange. After that, I'll move to Lucknow for the next four months to work with Asha Parivar (ashaparivar.org), a charity who works to ensure that the government's Welfare Programmes are carried through to grass-roots level. For the last two weeks, I'll be travelling up to Assam with my parents.

So, why am I doing all this?

Aside from working with two very good causes, there are a few reasons for doing this trip:

1) I've spent the last 4 years studying Indian pre- and post-colonial history (with an emphasis on gender studies), so want to go and be part of post-colonial development in action.

2) I come from a pretty colonial background and want to firmly bring it to a close. My mum was born in India when my grandparents were living out there and had the whole servants and ayah shabang. My great-great-however many times grandfather was Pretorius, who founded Pretoria in South Africa and so I imagine was pretty instrumental in a lot of shizzle that went down there. I'm not ok with that.

3) I'm a linguist and fancy learning something non-European, and the best way to do that is always in situ. That means living and working with local people, so why do not do that while doing something worthwhile?

So, I'll be doing my best to keep you updated with what goes on up to and during my trip!