I hit my first wall of feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. When I went to bed last night all I could imagine was hiding under the covers and crying for the rest of my life. I really couldn’t bare the thought of getting up and facing the world the next morning, but I did. It wasn’t too bad. It was actually a lot better than yesterday.
You might wonder how this happened. First of all it’s normal. Everyone who moves to another culture has their good and bad days. It wasn’t like anything bad happened. It was just the tension of adjusting to life here.
I get around by auto rickshaw for the most part. The problem is the drivers like to cheat everyone but most of all foreigners. Over time I will know how much it is suppose to cost to get to different places and be able to haggle down the price but I will never be allowed to pay the fair rate. This is a reality that can be frustrating especially when you’re not in the mood to argue and don’t have enough language to haggle.
Getting around and doing anything is exhausting. One must realize that you will never accomplish as much as you did back home in any given day. Things happen at a much slower rate here. The fact that I went to language school, studied at a café, recharged the minutes on my mobile, picked up clothes from the tailor, and went and picked something from the office is a lot to do in one day. It took me about 7 hours to do all these things. I only traveled about 10 minutes from my house.
The other thing that hit me was my loss of immediate contact with friends. I just really want to pick up the phone and talk to some friends. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon here but it’s 3:30 in the morning for my friends. I don’t think they’d appreciate that.
I have another friend whose family is dealing with a health crisis. This friend and I were family to each other when we lived in the States. She is actually only 2 ½ hours different in time but we cannot seem to get a good, reliable, or affordable way to communicate. It kills me not being able to be there for her.
Learning a language has its ups and downs. It’s fun when you are getting it but it’s a headache when you’re not. Whether it’s going well or not it still makes your brain hurt. I’ve been trying to catch up on 3 weeks of language school. My brain is about to pop. Hindi is consuming my life. No matter how much I feel like I’ve accomplished when I venture out and start trying to communicate I realize how little I really know.
I have to keep intentionally reminding myself of the successes I’ve made. I made it to the office without getting lost. I made it back home and gave the driver directions the entire way (I had to convince him I knew the way first). I’m not sure if I should be proud of this but I was able to get the rickshaw driver to take me and refuse the others that were waiting before me (there’s no cue here, it’s who can convince the driver you’re the better deal). I was white and willing to pay more so I won. I guess I used my frustration of being cheated to my advantage. I found the tailor and a place to recharge my phone. I have made some progress in identifying the letters (especially the vowels) and sounding out words. I literally have to name these things to compensate for all the negative that I could focus on. It’s an everyday battle.
