Lessons Learned

Earlier this week we had dinner with Dave’s mom who was visiting from the States.  After we mentioned that our year in India is quickly wrapping up, she asked us the second most stressful question we could be asked right now: “Have you learned a lot since you’ve been here?”

Cruisin' sari-style

(Obviously, the most stressful question is, “What are your plans after the fellowship?”)

But this learning question, that’s a good one.  It’s one that has been rolling around, billowing, in my head for a little while.  There are lessons learned... there must be skills and cultural understanding and perhaps even life lessons gained... there must.

But maybe those can’t be fully realized just yet.  Maybe it’s still too soon to know those lessons.

There are some other things – more concrete things - that I have learned, though...

Some surprising things I never would have thought I would learn in India:

• How to ride on the back of a scooter/motorcycle (and love it, even in a sari)
• Why people want to ride motorcycles: because they are awesome
• How to make a killer chocolate rice pudding (which is my new comfort food of choice)
• How to make a scene. (If you are even slightly creepy, I will yell at you loud enough for even the old men nearby to take notice.)
• How to make a perfectly fluffy frittata on a stovetop
• How to use iTunes

Beauty from my semi-equipped kitchen

Some typically Indian lessons that I didn’t know that I would learn:

• How to make coffee in an Indian coffee maker (aka South Indian filter coffee)
• How to use a squat toilet like a pro
• How to drink out of a communal water bottle without touching my lips to the rim
• How to cross the road
• How to eat a cup more of rice (even though you didn’t ask for seconds and you are so full you think you might explode)

All of those other things I might have learned, they will become more apparent after some time, I'm sure. Perhaps we'll talk about them over a glass of wine some time this summer. Perhaps.