After preparing for a couple days before all the students arrived, the South Asian students presented on their cultures for the international students. You can read more here, and see a few student interviews here, beginning with Olga!
Monica
Mohammad
Rohini
Kultwisiso
Shilpi
The past week has been a whirlwind of adventures and lessons. We’ve been hosted here for our daytime activities by the SITA center, where other international (college) students come to learn, and I’m very interested in studying here in the future. I’ve had some good chances to talk to people around the city, and learn a bit of Tamil, the language in the state we’re currently in (Tamil Nadu). We’ve taken Bollywood and yoga classes, and had several hugely beneficial lectures and discussions.
One of the things I enjoyed most about our stay in Madurai was the chance to stay with a host family. Our family let us into their homes without hesitation, and treated us wonderfully. We experienced a bit of what daily family life is like in an Indian home, eating delicious home cooked Indian food, watching Indian movies (as well as American ones) and also having interesting conversations with all three of the family members there (the father is the only one not pictured above). Although we weren’t the first American guests the family had had, I think we all learned from the chance to spend time with one another, and honestly 4 days was much too short.
The moments I spent in Madurai this week, I will be taking home with me. My host family meant a lot to me. Their little girl Aaradhna was amazing. When I was at some of my low points on this trip, I was just so glad to go home to see Aaradhna. It felt really nice to have a family, who you have never met in your life take care of you so well. I’m going to miss them so much. I know there are going to be times on this trip that I’m just going to wish that I was spending time with them instead. Most importantly I would love to go home to my own family, to my person.
A couple days ago, we were given the opportunity to speak with a man named Henri Tiphagne, who is the executive director of a large human rights organization called People’s Watch. I’m extremely honored to have taken part in the lecture/conversation, and I’ll certainly remember his words for a long time. But in all honesty, it was a bit frustrating. Henri told us much about the difficulties of the state of Tamil Nadu that we’re in, as well as the whole of India, and he gave us several specific stories that were very heavy, although most had good endings. Everything he said was full of passion, and I felt a huge amount of respect for him just seeing him talk, but the realities he spoke about left me feeling rather helpless. I felt helpless not just about what has happened and what is happening here, but about my inability to have a significant effect on any of the overwhelming number of problems in my community, let alone the world. Regardless, he nailed several important points into my brain: even if I don’t feel like I can cause a noticeable or significant change in the world, that doesn’t mean I should stop trying, and it’s okay to be angry, because that’s the first step towards truly wanting to make a change.