Just as if I were at home on a vacation to some exciting destination, such as San Diego, Minneapolis, Dubuque, even Pembine, Wisconsin, returning to wherever I am calling home at that moment can be quite difficult for me. It is not the idea of home that creates this melancholy feeling, but rather the idea that I am leaving something new and fascinating, only to start back into the same, familiar routines. Life is like that. Although, a thirty-three hour plane trip away, Chennai felt like that home I was going back to after having such a great excursion in Kodaikanal and Madurai. It is interesting that I am already considering certain things “routines” and “familiar” about Chennai, certain things that no longer seem as new and exciting. They are becoming habitual, just as I was at home.
It was a good thing to start off the beginning of a routinely week with an exciting trip to the cinema or movie theater, only to see the famous, worldly Harry Potter. I surprised myself with the amount of excitement I had looking up to the movie. Like I mentioned in a previous blog, the theater I had been to is much better than any in the States. Many of us were looking forward to that time in which we could sit in a lounge-like-chair, eat nice, buttery popcorn, and be completely immersed in a different, fantasy world, with an intermission to only make the experience longer and more enjoyable. Never has the movie theater been filled with so much discussion and excitement about what was happening in the film and what was yet to come. The movie finished to be followed by a typical journey back in a rickshaw and train ride.
The days that followed the movie this week have been the start to my normal weekly schedule. Classes, or “papers” as they are called here, are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with field placements on Tuesday and Thursdays. Classes are in similar formats to that in the United States. Nonetheless, here, each class is at a different time depending on the day. The Social Work department here at MCC is quite phenomenal. All of my classes and such are within that department with the MSW program. To me it is remarkable how close the twenty to twenty-five students are to one another. They have most of their classes together, plan many outside class activities, have a weekly prayer group, and are currently organizing an international conference regarding the Millennium Development Goals to be held on campus. The professors are also fantastic. A pretty equal ratio of men and women make up the faculty, all of varying ages. My favorite part of the week was in the presence of my teacher of Social Legislation and Policy in India. It was a joke that made me laugh as well as the rest of the class. He was quite happy that the foreigner laughed and understood his joke. The joke was one regarding the Indian culture and the use of the left and right hands, and how those uses should not be interchanged in specific cases. Who would of thought a person would quickly replace his right hand with his left when it was about to get chopped off?
Other than class, my field placement has started this week! I am working outside of the city, a beautiful train ride plus rickshaw ride away. The two days of placement have not been extremely eventful, but have really participated in my education for the week. Being surrounded by greenery, a few hills, and palm trees, with grazing cows and a breeze is a nice change of pace from the honking horns, vehicles all over, and the auto rickshaw drivers approaching you for business. There are a few villages to visit which are much different than a rural community in the States. It has been a week of mostly shadowing and translating from Tamil to English. Nonetheless, the excitement I bring to children in a one-room schoolhouse is irreplaceable. It is incredible how much they would like you to sing to them, or how much they would like to practice their English, or how excited they are to see you drive past them on the street. It was a bit challenging to travel to and from, but it was one-hundred percent worth the minuscule struggle.
As difficult as it is to return home from a trip, it always has its advantages. As soon as the routines do start, it is quite easy to forget those feelings only to be thankful to be in one’s own bed, with familiar pictures of friends around, friends asking you where you were and how it was, and even the idea of having lessons with classmates again.
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