Tuesday, October 19, 2010: Just Dance!

On the last night of our stay in Ahmedabad the students from Gurjarat University’s Communication and Journalism department honoured us by celebrating Diwali several weeks early so that we could partake in the festivities. The celebration was an amazing experience, and I feel truly privileged to have been invited to join my new friends in this celebration. Several hundred people turned up, and many were dressed in very ornate and beautiful outfits. Our hosts showed us how to dance, encouraged us to mingle, and in general went out of their way to make us feel welcome.

The students from Gurjarat University went out of their way to make me feel included in the festivities. While my enthusiastic but frequently failed attempts to perform the appropriate dance moves elicited stares from people watching or passing by, the students went out of their way to create an environment in which I felt able to step outside my cultural comfort zone and take chances that I otherwise would not have felt comfortable doing. This feeling of inclusion was a relatively new (and decidedly welcome) experience for me as I had spent the majority of my time in Ahmedabad trying to either understand or work through situations which made me feel uncomfortable.

The Diwali celebration also gave me the opportunity to interact with the students on a very different level from the ritualized welcome we received during our first meeting. This time, the students seemed less reserved and more willing to approach me and engage in conversation. This was a welcome change because it allowed me my first opportunity to interact with people my age from a position of equals, rather than as an honoured guest. It offered me the unique opportunity to get to know many of the students and learn a great deal about their histories, their stories, and, ultimately, who they are. It also allowed me to find out how I (and my classmates) were viewed, and offered me the chance to establish a series of contacts and relationships that would travel back with me to Vancouver.

Ultimately, it was the intimacy of that night that made it such a wonderful experience. Gone were my hesitations about who I should be and what role I should place, replaced instead by a sense of familiarity and comfort in interacting with my new friends. I wish that there had been more opportunities on the trip to develop closer bonds with the people I had interacted with. However, I am truly gratified to have had the opportunity to meet and interact with the students of Gurjarat University as a fellow student rather than as a cross cultural curiosity or honoured guest. It was this feeling of personal comfort and inclusion that allowed me to relax and be myself without constantly questioning my cultural aptitude or behaviour, and ultimately made my final night in Ahmedabad the most memorable of all.

Monday, October 18, 2010: Group Recap

The group of students that visited the Centre for Environment Education spent an hour on the last day discussing our experiences and providing feedback as part of a self-evaluation session. This was a great opportunity for all of us to share our personal views of what we had experienced during our time with CEE, and brought together a number of different perspectives on a shared series of events.

For me, this group session offered a unique opportunity to hear and understand the perspectives of my (somewhat goofily posed) colleagues. As I have noted throughout this blog, one of the key issues I kept running into was a sense of uncertainty about what I had experienced and how those experiences could (or should) be interpreted. The group discussion was particularly valuable for me not just because it allowed me to hear my colleagues’ thoughts on our various experiences, but also allowed me access to additional perspectives which in turn made it easier for me to interpret and understand what I had experienced.

Central to this quest for self understanding was our discussion surrounding how we had first perceived and later experienced our roles at CEE. Prior to our arrival in Ahmedabad I didn’t really know what to expect (as those of you who kept inquiring as to the nature of my work in Ahmedabad before I left rather quickly learned). For the most part, I naively believed that I would be helping CEE with project implementation or providing communications assistance for one of their programs. While my experiences at CEE have since taught me otherwise, it was interesting to note that of a number of other students experienced similar uncertainty about their roles prior to our first day working with the Centre for Environment Education.

When discussed amongst our group we found that our role ambiguity contributed to the sense of unease and uncertainty that we experienced when visiting CEE. While I was eventually able to define my role within this context as that of an open-minded (and probably overly inquisitive) student researcher, it was reassuring to know that I wasn’t the only person who had experienced a period of confusion over the role I would be playing at CEE. By sharing experiences and using my fellow students as a sounding board I was able to better understand the role ambiguity issues that had been plaguing me during my time at CEE. I was able to gain support and confidence from the knowledge that I wasn’t the only person who was confused about how I should have defined myself while learning at CEE, as well as a sense of reassurance that the role ambiguity (or identity crisis!) which I experienced in Ahmedabad was common for inter- or cross-cultural researchers in new and unfamiliar places.

Saturday, October 16, 2010: Forced to Play A Part?

During our stay in Ahmedabad the restaurant at the Lemon Tree Hotel quickly became the perfect impromptu meeting spot. There were always a few classmates in there, and it represented the perfect opportunity to get caught up with each other and swap stories. It was also the perfect zone for cross-cultural interaction as I found myself conversing with the staff there at least twice a day. However, the preconceptions held by the staff with regards to their role (to serve) versus ours (to be served) brought a level of formality to this relationship that I found decidedly uncomfortable.

The experiences I had in the restaurant are of interest first and foremost because my interactions with the staff provided me with a window for how they viewed us. Arriving in Ahmedabad as an adventurous, open-minded, interculturally-prepared (and highly naive) masters student I had hoped to be able to interact with the Indians who I encountered as equals. However, the norms of the Indian hospitality industry seemed to limit the success of my overtures. Whenever I tried to hold conversations with staff members (both at the front desk and in the restaurant) I was consistently unable to avoid being addressed as “sir” or “mister”. Similarly, the staff always seemed shocked and would behave uncomfortably whenever I asked them how their day was going or held a door open for them.

Although I was eventually able to hold conversations that could (perhaps generously) be classified as informal, I found my initial experiences with the staff to be both frustrating and stifling. These emotional responses were heavily rooted in how I tend to act (and perceive myself) when I travel. I don’t enjoy being waited on hand and foot, and I find the presumption that I (as the customer) am superior to those staff members who provide me with services to be both contrived and ludicrous. I far prefer being able to carry my own bags, hold informal and off the cuff conversations with staff members, and to be able to avoid the pretence of arrogant superiority when I’m staying at a hotel. As a result, the refusal of the staff to allow me to interact with them on an informal level was tremendously frustrating because it made me feel as though I was being forced into a role that I had absolutely no desire to play (that of the privileged white traveller), and that my every instinct told me was at odds with the preparatory work I had done on inter- and cross-cultural relations prior to the trip.

While I was eventually able to convince the staff to treat me in a (slightly) more informal manner, they still at times seemed uneasy doing so. By coercing them to behave in a manner which I found more comfortable with I wonder in hindsight how much discomfort I caused for them just to make myself feel a bit better. My overarching concern is that that I may have abused my role as a (white, privileged) traveller for the sake of my own comfort; inadvertently and ironically disregarding my desire to behave in a culturally sensitive manner by trying to interact with staff members from the position of an equal rather than through the role that I seem to have been assigned by the staff at the Lemon Tree Hotel.

Friday, October 15, 2010: Drinks, Anyone?

The trip to the CEE field site earlier that day had left me feeling exhausted. After taking a quick nap my flagging energy levels had recovered enough for me to venture upstairs for a beer with several of my classmates in one of the hotel rooms. While this picture hints at a gathering reminiscent of any small scale university party, it isn’t able to capture the important caveat that Gurjarat is a dry state – no alcohol is available for consumption by locals, and foreigners must perform the equivalent of a bureaucratic scavenger hunt in order to obtain libations.

                                                               

This marked difference in what the local government mandated as acceptable behaviour for locals versus foreigners brought me back to earlier questions of self identity and difference. The “no liquor for locals” policy clearly demarcated a difference between the inhabitants of Gurjarat who were forbidden from (legally) consuming alcohol, and tourists and travellers that could, with the correct amount of bureaucratic wrangling, gain access to special government controlled stores which sold liquor at a tremendous price mark-up. By embarking on the process to obtain alcohol, I was engaging in a behaviour which reinforced a state of exception that clearly separated me from the inhabitants of Gurjarat.

My ability to consume an alcoholic beverage in the presence of my peers (an act which I unquestioningly took for granted back home) served to reinforce my identity in India as a white, (comparatively) wealthy traveller for whom all sorts of exceptions and luxuries forbidden to the residents of Gurjarat were available. This realization prompted an uncomfortable disconnect between the way I had hoped to behave in Ahmedabad (as a traveller who is culturally sensitive and aware) versus how my behaviour framed me in the eyes of Gurgaratiis (as a privileged white traveller to whom exceptions were afforded). It was also fundamentally at odds with my desire to not be identified by the people of Gurjarat as a wealthy, privileged white person – an image I had tried hard to avoid through culturally appropriate dress, behaviour, and language use. This event helped me to realize that no matter how hard I tried to immerse myself in local culture and behave in a manner consistent with local norms, a combination of factors (such a skin colour and socio-economic status) would continue to reinforce my status as an outsider. 

Friday, October 15, 2010: At The CEE Project Site

Having the opportunity to visit the Centre for Environment Education project site located in the Little Rann of Kutch was an amazing experience. We had spent the past two days at the CEE campus meeting with the program’s departmental directors and executive staff, and this trip gave us the opportunity to view firsthand some of the work that CEE staff were doing in the field. It also represented an opportunity for us to see the communication approaches used by staff to ensure that stakeholder groups were kept interested and involved in the numerous projects that the field site was piloting, such as the use of organic fertilizers and pesticides as well as other sustainable and environmentally friendly farming techniques.

While I had a rough idea of what to expect because of the briefings we had been given by head of the rural programs group the day before, I was still completely unprepared for the extent of CEE’s operations in Kush. Established in the wake of the 2001 earthquake, CEE had begun by offering humanitarian assistance and then gradually developing educational initiatives which aimed not only to help farmers preserve their land and maximize production but also to combat poverty through education for women and children.

Most importantly, the visit to the CEE project site and the passion and enthusiasm displayed by the staff I was able to interact with convinced me of the commitment and dedication of CEE to bringing about a paradigm shift in the way Indians thought about the environment. Perhaps I developed a bit of cynicism after finishing the pre-trip readings on organizations that were overly bureaucratic and focused too much on artificially imposing solutions rather than actively engaging with local stakeholders to resolve issues.

This lesson reminded me of the danger of judging or conceptualizing an organization as a whole after only seeing a very small part of that whole. While my role in India as a student researcher necessitates a large degree of observation, experience, and analysis, I need to be more cautious about leaping to conclusions on the basis of limited or incomplete information. To do otherwise is to risk not only arriving at the incorrect conclusion (the bane of any academic researcher), but also to do a disservice to the critical work that organizations such as CEE perform in ameliorating the lives of millions of Indians across the country. Humbled by this reminder and impressed by the ability of the CEE project site to accomplish so much with a limited staff and restricted resources, I hereby resolve to remember that my role in India is to observe and learn...not to pass judgement based on shallow observations.



Friday, October 15, 2010: Pit Stop

Today we were up at 5:00 am to catch a bus to the Centre for Environment Education’s (CEE) field site located three hours outside of Ahmedabad. While the bus ride was long, it was largely uneventful, apart from the occasional near death experience (to which I’ve become disturbingly comfortable with since arriving in India). About two hours into our journey our driver decided to pull into a small rest stop to have a break, and we decided to get out and experience what India was like outside of the city.

The reaction that we received upon unloading from the bus was markedly different from the reactions that my presence had provoked thus far in Ahmedabad. The majority of the people at the rest stopped what they were doing and stared at us when we disembarked, and continued to do so until we had boarded the bus and departed nearly half an hour later. There was also intensity to the stares that struck me as different from the idle curiosity that I seemed to provoke in Ahemedabad. While I would not characterize these gazes as overtly hostile, I was definitely struck by the feeling that I was perceived not just as an outsider or a curiosity, but as an interloper or someone who didn’t belong.

Perhaps the clearest indication of this sentiment was demonstrated when many of the individuals who had been relaxing and snacking in the comfort of the rest stop decided to pack up and leave shortly after we arrived. This passive-aggressive response to our arrival made me acutely aware of the fact that I didn’t belong. This was a new sensation for me. Over the past week in Ahmedabad I had received a number of curious stares, but never felt as though I was intruding into the lives of other people. On this trip, however, I was struck by the sense that in leaving the city I had become a sort of invader, somehow disturbing and disrupting the normalcy of daily life for these people.

This experience caused me to question the extent to which I had managed to internalize what I had learned prior to departing for India, as well as my efforts to become both culturally sensitive and aware. My loud and boisterous behaviour, in sharp contrast to the quiet demeanour of many of the other patrons at the rest stop, likely did little to mitigate the impact of my presence as an outsider in this new location. In addition, the sheer weight of our numbers likely magnified the affects of our presence there. This realization has prompted me to be much more mindful of the manner in which my presence as an outsider can affect others, and to remain cognizant of the fact that the manner in which I behave can and does have consequences for how I am perceived.



Thursday, October 14, 2010: Happy Birthday to YOU!

During my time in Ahmedabad I was both divorced from my usual surroundings and accompanied by a group of people who I had barely gotten to know in the first residency. The combined influence of these foreign environs and unfamiliar group dynamics had left me questioning myself both as an individual and in relation to the broader group of students. This experience was an unfamiliar one for me as my behaviours back home are so entrenched that I rarely stop to think about how they define me as a person. In contrast, my time in Ahmedabad took me far enough outside my usual surroundings that I was forced to take a much closer look at how I defined myself.

October 14^th was Melissa’s birthday. In order to make sure this moment was a memorable I corralled several students and we set off to the Brown and Happy chocolate shop in search of a birthday cake. We found two delicious chocolate cakes which we brought back to the hotel, and surprised Melissa with a barely in-tune but highly energetic rendition of “happy birthday to you”. Everyone seemed a little more relaxed after partaking in this ritual (which I suspect reminded us all of home). What I found most interesting about this experience was the manner in which it served to reinforce my sense of self-identity. Interestingly, I found that this reinforcement of self was not a result of the ritualized birthday celebration itself, but rather an outcome of the process that led up to it.

When travelling in unfamiliar places and with unfamiliar groups people often have the opportunity to reinvent or redefine ourselves through our interactions and behaviour towards others. While I could name other such examples throughout the trip, the birthday cake experience was particularly memorable for me because it represented the first time I made a conscious choice to define my identity in India in parallel to how I defined myself within my usual surroundings: as a person who was thoughtful, considerate, and cared about ensuring that others were able to have the best experience possible. This moment, in turn, provided a self-reference point for my behaviour for the rest of the trip, and allowed me to construct a role to play within the group dynamic.

Thursday, October 14, 2010: University Formalities



After we had been welcomed and given a chance to interact with the communication students at Gurjarat University we were led to the main university building to meet the administrators. We were once again welcomed as honoured guests, although the atmosphere was far more formal than our earlier welcome ceremony had been. In contrast with the interest and curiosity exhibited by the Gurjarat University students who had crowded around us when we first arrived on campus, this ceremony was conducted with an air of detached interest, as though the welcome ritual was being performed out of necessity rather than a sense of genuine curiosity about who we are.

The meeting with the administrative staff of Gurjarat University provided me with my first look into the nature of hierarchical power relations within university culture in India. The extremely cold air conditioning in the room spoke to the importance of those who used it for their meetings. We were also provided with ice cream and cold bottled water, luxuries (like the air conditioning) that were not available in the Communications classroom where we received our initial reception. The chair used by the department head was considerably taller than the others, providing a visible reminder of his power and status compared with everyone else at the table. Behaviour also appeared to be affected by this highly formalized system of power relations. When one staff member began to monopolize the microphone, other staff members gave him increasingly less subtle cues that he should share the floor with his (hierarchically superior) colleagues.

The formalized and ritualized nature of this setting pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Much of my discomfort came from the very clear realization that I was in a space which was governed by complex rituals of power, status, and behaviour that I knew absolutely nothing about. To date, my interactions with Indians had been predominantly from the position of a white, privileged traveller. While I was not exactly comfortable with my position in these interactions, I had begun to grasp the social rules, norms, and cultural cues which underscored interactions of this nature. The formalized interactions that occurred in the conference room at Gurjarat University were so beyond me that I felt completely unable to participate effectively, a feeling which made me nervous, anxious, and uncomfortable, and left me struggling to define my role within the context of this new and unfamiliar environment. I don’t believe that I experienced much success in this regard, but the nature of my profound discomfort forced me to look more closely for cultural and behavioural clues than I might have otherwise, and provided me with valuable observations of power relations within a formalized university setting in India.

Thursday, October 14, 2010: Welcome to Gurjarat University

Today we visited Gurjarat University to meet the students enrolled in their Masters of Communications program. The welcome we received was incredible. The students lined up to meet up to meet us, blessed us, presented us with flowers and sugar as we arrived, and filmed the entire event as though we were visiting dignitaries. It was easily the warmest and most heartfelt welcome I received during my trip to India, and one which made me feel instantly at home amongst the university students here.

As wonderful as our reception was, I also found that it triggered an internal struggle over my role as a student visiting a foreign university. The welcome I was given was both warm and heartfelt, and made me feel truly welcome at Gurjarat University. It was nice to be in a familiar environment (a school), surrounded by students whose learning interests paralleled mine. At the same time, however, I felt a sense of guilt and unease at the time and energy which the students and staff had so clearly put into preparing for our arrival. The resources and effort required for such an elaborate reception must have been tremendous, and I felt uncomfortable not knowing what I could offer in return for their amazing generosity and hospitality.

Upon reflection, I feel as though my initial discomfort with the lavish welcome we received was deeply rooted in how I (mis)conceptualized my role as a masters student in India. As student researchers, I had believed that I would be the one doing the observing, rather than the other way around. Instead, the friendly curiosity of the Gurjarati students thrust me into a role that I was not mentally prepared to play – that of a cross-cultural curiosity. Rather than being able to operate from the background, I (along with my classmates) were thrust into the spotlight and given a VIP welcome. This turn of events (for which I was admittedly ill prepared) left me in the uncomfortable position of trying to reconceptualise my role within this meeting on the fly, while also trying to reconcile the incredible treatment that we were given with my discomfort at having so much time, energy and attention lavished on me for no readily apparent reason. Ultimately, my decision to go with the flow and interact with as many students as I could allowed me to make a few new friends and once again find a certain level of comfort in my surroundings.   

Thursday, October 14, 2010: Define "Safety"

The most popular form of transportation in Ahmedabad is the ubiquitous tuk-tuk. Everywhere I went in the city hordes of these tiny green and yellow contraptions could be found haphazardly navigating traffic, horns frantically blaring as though the noise had the power to physically shield the vehicle from harm while the drivers brazenly cut off vehicles five times their size. A combination of factors, such as their sheer numbers (which meant I never had to wait more than 30 seconds for transportation), the price of a journey (most trips cost around $1.00 Canadian to reach my destination), and the friendliness of the drivers (many of whom were able to teach me a thing or two about inter-cultural communication despite knowing little or no English) ensured that I spent the majority of my trip to Ahmedabad wedged in the passenger compartment of these motorcycle/wagon hybrids with only my fellow students to cushion me from any accident that may occur.

There was only one small problem: I found the tuk-tuks to be terrifying. At the centre of this profound discomfort lay my assumption that Ahmedabadis were terrible drivers whose ignorance or wilful disobedience of traffic rules was repeatedly and harrowingly endangering my rather precious life. The complete lack of regard which the drivers had for anything resembling Western traffic regulations left me cowering as vehicle after oncoming vehicle would pull into our lane and race towards us, only ducking back into the proper lane just in time to avoid a seemingly inevitable head on collision. During my first few days all I could do was force myself to hang on for dear life and pray.

Riding around in the motorized equivalent of an open-sided tin can for the first few days did nothing to bolster my sense of anxiety. However, it did provide me a unique vantage point from which I was eventually able to reconcile my anxiety and discomfort with the realities of motorized travel in Ahmedabad. The more I watched the movement of traffic from the back of the tuk-tuks, the more I became aware that the traffic itself was alive, weaving and flowing in organic rhythms that had initially been incomprehensible to me. What I had first interpreted as total anarchy when compared with patterns of vehicle movement at home instead gradually morphed itself into a vibrant art form before my jaundiced eyes. Where I had previously heard only noise I now realized that the different horn tones represented a unique language used to communicate one’s intentions to other drivers. The hap-hazardous passing behaviour now seemed perfectly choreographed to maximize traffic flow while skilfully avoiding potential collisions. By detaching myself from my ingrained (Western) beliefs about vehicular movement I was able to not only gain a greater understanding of the complex rituals that turn traffic in Ahmedabad from hopeless anarchy to organized chaos, but also learnt a humbling lesson about the dangers of making assumptions on the basis of my own Western ideals. Oh, and I learned to enjoy tuk-tuk rides too!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010: Tranquility Now!

Following the presentation and a meeting with several of the Centre for Environmental Education’s (CEE) project heads we were given a tour of CEE’s main campus located in the heart of Ahmedabad. The campus was a sharp contrast from the city. Everywhere I looked there were tall trees, lush vegetation, and beautiful fields of green grass. The sound dampening properties of the verdant greenery made it hard for me to believe that we were still surrounded by the city on all sides. The peacocks, monkeys, and other animals further contributed to the illusion that we were deep inside a tropical rainforest rather than at the heart of such an overwhelmingly busy city.

The change in environment was certainly a welcome one for me. My sense of self-identity was already perturbed by the urbanized nature of my daily surroundings, so being able to escape from the buzz of city life gave me a few welcome moments to refresh and centre myself. The tour very much provided me with a touchstone for home: the smell of the vegetation, the whisper of a cool breeze rustling through the leafy canopies, and the relative silence of my surroundings provided me with a sense of peace and tranquility that I thought would have been impossible to find within Ahmedabad. It was very much a touchstone moment that linked me to home, and served to brighten my mood considerably for the rest of the day.

The contrast between the natural surroundings of the CEE campus and the daily hustle and bustle of life in Ahmedabad also forced me to acknowledge how alive and vibrant both worlds were. Coming from the West Coast, I generally restricted myself to using the descriptor “alive” when speaking of the natural environs that surrounded me. However, the jarring contrast between the CEE campus and the streets of Ahmedabad forced me to broaden my horizons and acknowledge that the city too was very much alive. It lived, breathed, and had its own unique pulse and rhythm. While I still found the city to be somewhat overwhelming, I found that this acknowledgement allowed me a degree of understanding (and with it, a certain respect) that I hadn’t felt for Ahmedabad before.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010: Personal Shifts and Development Paradigms

My orientation at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) began with a presentation by the head of the organization. While the content of the presentation was both highly informative and quite valuable within the context of our class work, what captivated me the most was not the information itself but rather the effect that this presentation had on the way I identified with development communication.

During my undergraduate degree in Political Science I was highly interested in issues of international development. However, much of my knowledge of development communication and the work done by non-governmental organizations up until this point was predominantly theoretical in nature. Most of the literature that I had read stated that non-governmental organizations would enter a country, identify a need or problem area, come up with a solution, implement that solution, and then leave. This was an approach that I came to identify quite heavily with during my undergraduate studies, and it formed an integral part of how I conceptualized and identified with development issues. In contrast, the approach outlined during this presentation was very different. It spoke of the need to identify problems in conjunction with local stakeholders. The problem solving and implementation stages were identified as stages of collaboration rather than unilateral intervention. This approach, which centred upon listening to stakeholders and facilitating two-way communication between all involved parties drastically changed the manner in which I perceived development – from a product driven approach to a process driven one.

The
 presentation was invaluable for me because it not only challenged these deeply held assumptions, but also forced me to re-evaluate what my role in development should be. Under my existing paradigm I had visions of a job that involved jet setting around the world, finding people with problems and creatively solving their difficulties for them. Instead, his presentation served as a reality check, forcing me to understand that it was not possible (and indeed quite arrogant) to believe that I could approach a problem as an outsider and offer people a solution which would magically solve their problems. While these lessons had been alluded to in the pre-residency readings, I felt that the presentation given by the director of CEE really brought the point home, and ultimately helped me to change the way I identified and conceptualized my role within a development context.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010: What Hat Am I Wearing?

 

When we arrived in Ahmedabad I found out that I would no longer be working with UTTHAN, the non-governmental organization (NGO) to which I had been assigned at the beginning of the course. This was both disappointing and nerve-racking as it meant that all of the research that I had done in preparation for my work with UTTHAN was effectively useless. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, however. With my UTTHAN placement no longer available, I would instead be spending several days at CEE, India’s Centre for Environment Education.

I was admittedly nervous about this proposition. This situation not only challenged me sense of identity (Who am I within this unfamiliar context? How should I behave? What role am I supposed to play?), but also left me discomforted and confused about what exactly my role would be there. Cultural sensitivity and the importance of behaving as travellers rather than tourists had been drilled into us from the start of classes in October. A large part of my unease stemmed from an inability to properly understand how to best play this role within an organization that I knew nothing about. I didn’t want to come across as a blundering or culturally insensitive tourist, but at the same time I also wasn’t sure what CEE’s expectations of us would be either. In other words, I just didn’t know what hat to wear!

This experience reinforced my preference for entering a situation armed with background research and an understanding of what role I should be playing. At the same time, however, being forced to enter into this situation with no idea about what to expect and no clues about how to behave forced me to re-evaluate my ability to react spontaneously and to improvise. Not all (or even most!) experiences in life are scripted. By being forced outside of my comfort zone I was able to experience, understand, and manage my discomfort at going in to this situation blind, providing me with a valuable opportunity for personal growth and understanding that I would not have experienced had everything gone according to plan. Above all, this experience forced me to realize that my time in India (regardless of whether or not we are working on specific academic tasks) is an opportunity for me to learn and develop not just intellectually but also emotionally. Keeping this lesson in mind, I’m going to make a conscious effort to push my comfort envelope and see what learning experiences come from going beyond my zone of security. Sometimes not knowing what hat to wear can be the most valuable experience of them all.

 

Tuesday, October 12, 2010: Busy, Busy, Busy!

By the end of the second day I was beginning to become more agitated and on edge; a clear departure from my usually cheery self. After spending the evening thinking about it, I realized that these feelings were rooted in a profound sense of discomfort with the city of Ahmedabad itself. These feelings were not inspired by a sense of threat or lack of safety, but rather by the sheer level of activity that kept Ahmedabad buzzing from the early morning through to the late hours of the night.

Honking horns, jostling pedestrians, and traffic congestion were constant. The continuous cacophony was not only overwhelming, but impossible to escape from once I left the confines of the Lemon Tree Hotel. Having grown up on the West Coast, my sense of identity is heavily anchored in nature. I love to swim, to ski, to jog...to visit the beaches, mountains and forests that I have long taken for granted as an integral part of my daily life. Suddenly being removed from the comfortable natural surroundings upon which I had premised so much of my life left me with a distinct sense of disquiet. While I’ve lived close to cities, I’ve never enjoyed living in them. The noise, the traffic, and the massive volume of people are all factors which combine to keep me from urban centres. And now, for better or for worse, an integral part of my self-identity (me as someone who needs quiet moments and lots of beautiful scenery to stay relaxed, composed, and centred) felt as though it was under attack by the sharply contrasting surroundings of Ahmedabad.

In this regard, I found that travelling as part of a group of students definitely helped. Being part of this group gave the opportunity to find common ground with others who were feeling similarly overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of this overwhelming city in which we now found ourselves. By sharing our discomfort with being away from the relative quiet of home (along with our experiences in surviving the overwhelming congestion and noise that characterized Ahmedabad!) with each other I found that I was able to reach an uneasy compromise between my dire need for inner peace and emotional stability and my desire to immerse myself in all that Ahmedabad had to offer. I just hope that it lasts the trip.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010: Brown and Happy Chocolate Shop

As I became more familiar with our immediate surroundings my comfort level at embarking on excursions that led farther from the comfort zone of the Lemon Tree hotel grew, or so I thought. By the second day I had joined up with a group of fellow students to explore the retail outlets located in the area. The shops I discovered represented an interesting mix of Western and Indian styles. I noticed that there were several key difference between India and Westernized retail outlets. Stores that sold Indian apparel were frequently understated and somewhat difficult to find: they occupied smaller, less visible locations that the more ostentatious Western clothing stores, each of which could fill a large lot. I found that stores which sold Indian attire also lacked the trappings of wealth (such as guards, valet parking, frigid air conditioning and vastly inflated prices) offered by the retail stores that sold Western goods.

This sense of difference was underscored by our choice of rest stop. While walking along a strip of Westernized boutiques and jewellery stores we noticed a small chocolate shop and decided to stop for a break. The differences between this establishment, called Brown and Happy, and other Indian coffee shops I visited during my time in India were immediately apparent. Brown and Happy featured frigidly cold air conditioning, a beautiful interior design of dark hardwoods, as well as a menu and signage that were written exclusively in English. While my immediate reaction upon entering this peaceful, Westernized zone of exclusion from the chaotic surroundings of Ahmedabad was one of relaxation and serenity, my later reflections on this experience were more unsettling.

First, my trip to Brown and Happy made me question my role as a student who was interested in exploring the local culture. Rather than immersing myself in all the Ahmedabad had to offer, here I was instead sitting inside a zone that was clearly reserved only for the most wealthy and privileged of Ahmedabad’s inhabitants. The decision to stop here, in a familiar place in a decidedly unfamiliar city, forced me to question both my comfort level with experiencing the unfamiliar, as well as the manner in which my role as a white, privileged traveller affected my social status (and my experiences) within India. Ultimately, the marked dichotomy of physical comfort and intellectual discomfort that arose as a result of this experience has forced me to be more cognizant of how the choices that I make here both impact the types of experiences that I have, as well as the manner in which those choices reflect on me.

Monday, October 11, 2010: Departing the Lemon Tree Hotel

This photograph was taken from in front of the Lemon Tree Hotel on my first morning in Ahmedabad. As we prepared to depart the hotel I was stuck by trepidation and anticipation in equal measure. In some ways the hotel represented a comfortable sanctuary from the rest of the city. My classmates and professors were there, my belongings were there, and the friendly staff made the Lemon Tree Hotel feel like a home away from home. At the same time, however, the hotel also felt confining and constricting, a cloister which isolated me from the hustle and bustle of the city which lived and breathed just beyond the front gates.

These mixed feelings hit home especially hard on the first day because I didn't know what to expect when venturing out into the city. I didn't know if people would be friendly or hostile, how I would be viewed by locals, or in what manner I should behave to minimize cross cultural friction. If anything, all of the pre-residency readings and preparation work that I had done with regards to cultural sensitivity and how to interact with Indians only served to heighten my anxiety because it increased my awareness of the awkward inter-cultural position that I found myself in. All of these questions about who I was and what my relationship would be with Ahmedabad's inhabitants left me questioning both myself and my identity as a tourist/traveller. How would my interactions with other people affect not only my views of them, but also how I viewed myself? Would I have to alter some fundamental aspect of who I am in order to develop closer relationships with the people that I would meet?

This quick photo break prior to heading out into the city not only provided me with  my first reflexive photo-diary entry, but also allowed me to ground myself in familiar surroundings while taking a few moments to try to reconcile these competing emotions. While no clear cut answer came, I found that this period of discomfort to be of particular value because it forced me to question my identity and role as a tourist/traveller in a place not where I was very much a cultural other. Similarly, by acknowledging my discomfort, I forced myself to push my boundaries and open myself up to experiences that I might not otherwise have recognized or become involved with had I stayed within my comfort zone from day one.