Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye is no fun. I don’t like it one bit. And I’ve had to do it a lot lately as I’m heading back home after my ten months of living in this place. But here’s the secret: the fact that saying goodbye is so difficult is evidence of the relationships I’ve formed and the love I’ve found for this new city and the people in it. These things are worth every last bit of the pain that comes along with goodbye.

Part of saying goodbye is taking the time to remember what I’ve experienced over the last ten months. Let me share with you some of those things that I did in my last few months in India.

Retreat

For our yearly office retreat, we drove a couple hours south of the city to a picturesque resort on a mountaintop. The air was peaceful and the scenery was stunning, and a very welcome break from the dust and noise of the city. We spent a wonderful weekend playing cricket, swimming in the pool, eating good food, dancing and celebrating and resting together as a team. It was a well timed break from our daily routine.

The Administrative Team

The Interns 

Monsoon

The rainy season came, and it came hard. To be honest, I had never really understood the Biblical account of the flood. I wasn’t able to imagine how simple rainfall, in any amount, could succeed in flooding anything. Well, now I know. If it rained as hard as it did those first few weeks for 40 days straight, I have no doubt that the earth could easily be flooded. Rain makes for a good adventure on our commute to work, as well— with more rain, the demand for covered auto rickshaws skyrockets. There were a few days where we thought we might have to walk to work in the rain (fortunately we were rescued by a timely rickshaw a little ways into our walk).

Here's a video of my commute home from work during monsoon. Turn on your speakers-- this rickshaw came with it's own soundtrack.

Bollywood

On one particularly rainy day the weather was so bad that even the local trains had been shut down, and our office was sent home from work early. As my roommate and I headed toward the elevator of our apartment complex, we ran into our neighbours on their way to see a movie. An example of Indian hospitality, they invited us to join. We had just been wondering what to do with our free afternoon, so we said “Sure, why not?” It was an excellent decision. We saw “ABCD2” (imagine an Step Up), a movie produced by Disney but spoken entirely in Hindi. Being a Disney movie, the plot wasn’t too hard to follow. But any movie in a foreign language with no subtitles is hard to follow for almost three hours in a row!

Here’s the trailer. Like the movie, it’s much longer than necessary and full of excellently cheesy quotes.

Some Thoughts

When I see you in person, it’s very likely that you’ll ask me “How was your trip?” and I’ll say “It was great!” And then the conversation might start to head toward a standstill. I know you want to hear about my time in South Asia, and I want to tell you. But my trip wasn’t just a vacation, it was my life for the last ten months. I can’t summarise all the details, joys, heartaches, and laughter of my past year of my life in one minute any more easily than you can. So I need some help from you. I’ll need to be asked some questions.

Since I’ve returned, I’ve been asked many questions about my trip. The best questions are those that make me recall and describe specific details of my life. It’s those details I want to remember and share with my family and friends, because it’s those details that defined my life for the past ten months. So ask away— ask me about the smells, the sounds, the textures, the language, and the tastes. Ask me what I ate for breakfast, where my favourite shopping spots are, and what I liked to do on a Saturday night. More often than not, those questions lead to stories that I wouldn’t have otherwise remembered to tell you.

The next best questions are those that ask what I miss. What did I miss the most from home while I was there? What do I miss now that I'm home again? What won’t I miss? I’ll answer some of these for you here. I missed blending in and Chipotle and thick blankets. I miss my friends and my apartment and rupees and friendly bhajia-walas and chai on the roof. I don’t miss pollution and not having cheese. There are many, many more answers to these questions. And I’m looking forward to telling you more about them in person!