Getting Worn Down

Trip Start Oct 11, 2009

Trip End Jan 11, 2010

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Where I stayed

Intern Accommodation at Ranjit's House

(Jalandhar hotels)

Flag of India Naryala, Punjab, India
Monday, November 30, 2009

The period after the Chandigarh trip was a turning point in my internship. I was becoming fed up with all of the crap that I had to deal with every single day. A normal day consisted of waking up and wondering what was going to go wrong today. It was pretty standard to not shower for days because it was by now too cold to use the ice cold tap water, and the power cuts meant that you had to get lucky if you wanted to heat up a bucket of water with the electric rod. Power cuts also inhibited our ability to do laundry, so I was constantly wondering if I'd have enough clean underwear to last me. Clothes took days to dry too as the sun disappeared and the fog set in. The internet stick was always breaking so we had patchy internet at best. I also had my wallet stolen out of my backpack while I was wearing it, and after multiple phone calls to VISA and my bank, neither were able to send me replacement cards, leaving me with a dwindling cash supply and no means of accessing my bank account in India. It took a month, but my parents were finally able to wrangle a debit card out of the bank for me.

And the men were really starting to get to me. Imagine that wherever you, every single Indian man is staring at you. Actually it's more of a glare, it's ridiculously creepy. I was really bothered by it when I first arrived, but then I somewhat got used to it. But after the experience with the drunk man wanting to sleep beside me in Chandigarh, I couldn't handle it anymore. I got really angry at Indian men in general, how dare they stare at me like that all the time? I know that they say bad things about me too that I don't understand. And I know that they perceive white women as all being prostitutes. Sadly, I was treated that way, and even had a highly educated Indian man ask me if it was true that white women are all easy. Wow.

I also had an incident on the bus from my village to the city I worked in, Bhogpur. The village drunk was sitting in front of me and was apparently saying some really nasty things to me in Punjabi. Luckily, the bus conductor came to my rescue and began yelling at him and threatening to throw him off the bus. The rest of the people on the bus all started yelling at the drunk idiot too. It was nice to see them defend me like that, especially the bus conductor...my hero!

My work situation had become pretty tense too. Renee had arrived to take over the language school from me so I could start working in the village and setting up social programs. I thought that Jinder would help me by introducing me to people in the village and at the school. Of course Jinder did nothing to help me. She continued pretending like I was her employee, demanding to know when I was going into the language school, why I wanted to leave early, why I wanted to work in the village...and generally giving me grief about everything. She would blame me for everything, when she paid us visits at our accommodation, of course I was responsible for why the entire place was too dirty, why hadn't I cleaned the kitchen? And why had I wasted 2 months not learning Punjabi when Renee had started to learn within her first 2 weeks, Renee had excellent Punjabi, I had bad Punjabi. I was just a wee bit busy working for her language school from 9am until 6pm. And then having to cook and clean, while trying to find time to shower and do laundry while the power was on. I didn't have a mother and virtual Cinderella in the form of my brother's wife to do all of the cooking and cleaning like her.

Finally all of the interns arrived and there were 4 of us living in my village, along with 2 in Mani's village. Mani needs an introduction here. He became another social entrepreneur with Harjit and Harjinder, but he wasn't like them. He was friends with Harjit, but he was a really great guy. His heart was in the right place, and while Jinder reduced me to tears on a frequent basis, he went out of his way to talk to me and see what was wrong and what he could do to help. He was a huge help and a really great friend, I'm glad to have met him.

After getting nowhere with my plans to start things in Naryala, I finally had a huge emotional breakdown in the language school. Jinder didn't care, but Mani was the one that talked to me about it. I told him that I didn't come to India to work for the language school and that Mr. B has promised that I could start things in my village, but there was nobody to help. So Mani said he would talk to Mr. B with Jinder, and make a plan. The plan was that Jinder was supposed to help me, but she never did, so I had to contact Mr. B myself and tell him that I needed help or nothing would ever happen.

Two weeks later, Mr. B got his act together and said he would come to Naryala and introduce me to people at the school himself. He made good on his word and he showed me and Michael around, and introduced us to the teachers. The teachers were all very friendly and welcoming. They seemed excited about our plans to start an After School program for the children, and we thought it would be a good place to build a foundation for other programs in the village.

The deal was that I would work in the village every day, and one other intern would stay back to help me. I was the only one that wouldn't need to teach at the language school, all of the other interns were needed there. This created a huge rift between myself and Jinder. I was no longer helping with her language school, and I think she saw me as an expense now, despite the 1.5 months I put in helping her with no compensation or thank you. She was probably also angry about me bringing in Mr. B, and pissed that I actually stood up to her and wouldn't let her order me around like everybody else.

So, 2 months into my 3 month internship, I was finally able to start working on what I came to India to do.