How do foreigners who have settled in India feel about India? This question is only for foreigners.

How do foreigners who have settled in India feel about India? This question is only for foreigners.

Unexpected: When my parents first told me that we were moving to New Delhi, India, I was eight and never read the news, didn’t read much nonfiction, and hadn’t really talked about India before. Sure, I knew it was a country far away, there were many people living there, and it was very poor. That was about the extent of my knowledge. I had thought that it was a vast desert, like Africa, and that we might have to live in huts when we got there. And wear saris and eat a ton of spicy food. Imagine my disbelief when I hopped off of the airplane, after a 14 hour ride, I might add, and saw a bustling city. When we arrive it was at night, and I was very tired, so on the taxi ride home I wasn’t looking at the windows or trying particularly hard to observe my surroundings.

Waking up the next morning, most of what I could hear was the loud traffic, telling me that there were actually cars, there were tall buildings, it was a city, and people had places to be and things to do. I was a pretty ignorant eight year old.

Discombobulating: Ah, one of my favorite words. I have been trying to sneak this into one of my answers. Anyway, back to my point. There were so many differences between my cozy house in an American suburb and the small, cookie cutter, sterile townhouse in a compound smack dab in the middle of one of the most populated cities in the world. Population of New Delhi: 22 million people. Well. When we first got there, after a half an hour ride or so from the airport, we had to go through security to get in. Whoah. Everything felt so strange. They checked our bags and we walked through a metal detector, the whole shebang. Then we were driven to our new house, Apartment 52, and dropped off with a goodbye and good luck from our sponsor family who themselves live only a block away. The fridge was empty except for a plate of cookies, which was nice but the fridge at home, that I was used to, was always sncked with foods and leftovers and ingredients for future dinners. Same with the pantry. When we got upstairs, we immediately picked our rooms (I got the one with the bathtub!), and tried to go to sleep. The sheets were scratchy and my pillow was scratchy and my back was scratchy from a bug bite I had and everything just felt ugh. I was gross from not showering in over a day. I wanted to cry. My friends were thousands of miles away, my parents equally cranky from the flight, and the house was stocked with mahogany embassy furniture that made everything seem darker and gloomier than it really was. That night was one of my most discombobulating times. Then the next day, when I woke up, the reality of what we had done sunk in. Like it was tied to an anchor. We had literally flown in a huge metal plane over a huge body of water, to leave it all behind for some stupid job my mom got. That is what I was thinking that first night and morning. I know I seem sour about it, and trust me India was one of the best experiences of my life, but to my poor eight year old soul everything around me was changing. What was I supposed to think? Along all three years I would have new experiences that would confuse me and discombobulate me (see how I’m trying to use that word as much as possible), but I think that it was worth it. The good experiences far outweighed the bad ones.

Maturing: Over the three years in India I think I matured a lot. Not that I would not have had I stayed back in the U.S, but I think it made the process go faster. When we’re in a taxi cab, on the way to the mall or a sleepover, and you see the poverty on every street corner, it makes you think. Did I really need that second cookie I just ate? Did it really matter if I just painted my nail and it had begun chipping already? Did it really matter that my Town Hall took two days to upgrade and my parents wouldn’t let me buy the gems to make it finish early? The most sad thing that happened to me was when I was coming back from a birthday party of a school friend, a goody bag in my lap. At a stop light I heard a little tap on the window. It was an obviously malnourished, young, Indian girl who was asking for food or money. Because there was some candy in the goody bag I had, and I didn’t want it, I gave it to her. Her eyes lit up and she dashed a few meters away to her (presumed) brother to share the candy with him. I had learned it was better to give food than money because they could eat the food right away and not worry about a crime lord stealing it from them (they use younger kids to guilt people into giving them money). Suddenly I heard another knock on the window. The little girl dropped the candy on the dirty sidewalk and was wondering if I had more. I felt awful that I didn’t have anymore on me. She walked away in disappointment. When I got home I cried, not for me, but for the little girl. I’m crying right now too.

Additionally, living in India taught me that sometimes you just have to suck it up and deal with the situation. Of course when you are a kid it’s easy to find stuff to whine about, but in India it becomes so much more easy. If we went sightseeing, it was always hot and sometimes I was thirsty and it was probably going to be boring. Whining to my parents didn’t fix that. But afterwards, if I told them that I hadn’t liked it, they would say okay and trying to make sure we didn’t do something like that again. They took my opinion more seriously if I said it as an adult. I remember this one time, we were vacationing somewhere in India and had decided to sight-see at this very, very old Indian fort. I had to go to the bathroom, so my mom and I separated from my sister and father and walked down the road until we found a restaurant. I’m using that term loosely, here, ladies and gentlemen. It was disgusting, and I don’t want to go into to many details, but basically there was a “bathroom” next to it. Literally feet from where they were making the food. My mom looked me right in the eyes, and told me that if I went to the bathroom there, because there were no other options, she would give me some (it was a very small amount) money. Well I ended up going and all was well. If you don’t act maturely during those situations then you’re screwed. I could have complained and whined and made a big stink to mom about it, but I didn’t. One of the most unpleasant things about India was that whenever we did something in a village or more rural place (like when we saw historical sights), the bathroom was almost always a hole in the ground. That's one of the things I just don't get about India. I never got a hang of the “squatting” thing and it was uncomfortable. Also, no toilet paper! My mom carried a role around with her to most places, because you never knew.

Some other little things I noticed/experienced:

• In the winter the air was horrible because many people were burning trash to keep warm. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I had to wear a mask when I walked to school, and recess was canceled because they didn't want us running around in that. Guess what we did in place of recess…math time.
• At the market, there were some really nice shops sandwiched in between some really not nice ones. They would sell luxury items, but the shop was narrow and small. I found it bizarre.
• Sometimes when I was walking to school or a place near the embassy, I would see a motorcycle that had a whole family in it. I made a game out of how many people I could see on one motorcycle. My highest was seven people, two adults and five children.
• Wow, it was hot in the summers.
• Real beef was not common. At ACSA (a big gathering place in the embassy with a restaurant, pool, bowling alley, etc.), they made “beef” but everyone knew it was water buffalo. The first year I only had it once when we get to a very fancy restaurant for my mom’s birthday. I know it's for religious reasons so I didn't mind.
• Another thing was that like beef, ice cream was rare in the commissary, so we had to make our own. It was fun but it took an hour to chill before we ate it, and because we always made chocolate ice-cream and our mixer wasn't very good, cocoa clumps were abundant. The cocoa clumps were super bitter and unpleasant to eat, because they were unsweetened.
• Most of the people we encountered spoke some English. It wasn't hard communicating with people in India as I had thought it would be. I think it's because when the British ruled India, they made people learn English. Also, English is so widespread that people might think it's a good language to know.

A couple of the many wonderful things I experienced in India were:

• The Taj Mahal. We drove about two hours to go and see it, and it was totally worth it. From our hotel room you could see a small bit of it from the distance, which was cool. It was very grand and beautiful.
• My school. I attended AES, the American Embassy School. The teachers were great and the way the curriculum was presented made it easy to learn. A+ school.
• The holidays and festivals. While I didn't religiously celebrate any of them, I still enjoyed celebrating them because they were colorful and cheerful. Everyone was spreading their joy and it was fun to be a part of it.
• The monsoon season! While there were some downsides of this, I loved dancing in the rain! Rain also makes everything cozier.
• Train travel. In the United States I've never travelled by long distance trains, just the ones where you only board it to ride a train and sometimes I ride the subway.
• Good music. I couldn't understand it but the beat was fantastic and Jai Ho was always playing.

Overall, my experience in India was incredibly amazing. It opened my eyes to different cultures, viewpoints, and all types of diversity. The friends I made there I still occasionally FaceTime and Instagram everyday, which is nice. Because everyone at my school was there temporarily, they are spread out all over the globe now. My name is carved on a wall in the peace garden there, along with many other families who paid to have their names etched on there. I learned how to knit, play soccer, bake, and hail a taxi