Driving in Chennai

Hey!!!! If I had written this two or three days ago, I would have talked about how overwhelmed I felt by everything. Not overwhelmed in a terrible, anguished way, just a lot to take in all at once. Mainly, adjusting to the heat is the most challenging part. 90-100 degree days with so much humidity and no air conditioning is quite an intense adjustment process to say the least. One quickly learns a number of things: 1) sweating is a natural part of life 2) conserve energy! the less you move, the less you sweat 3) sweating is a natural part of life. Once you're used to it, it really isn't that bad.

One of my favorite parts about these past few days has been just riding through Chennai and seeing the city and the people. It's so lively and chaotic compared to any American city. In terms of driving, the Indians say, "Nothing in India is a close call because everything is a close call." That definitely describes Indian driving. There is definitely a system to how they do it, but it's not immediately apparent to Western eyes. The difference from driving in many Western countries is that there is much more diversity in the kinds of traffic. People travel by car, by auto-rickshaw (which are three-wheeled taxis that 2-3 people fit in), by bicycle, by motorbike and by walking to name a few. Many of the shops and stalls are right at the street level as well creating even more congestion. All of this traffic is together in the street, making for much chaos. It is customary to honk at someone as you are passing them, not rude like in the US, so horns are going all over the place. This would probably not seem so different to me if I'd grown up in a big city, but after spending much of my life driving on the highways and country roads of Michigan, its a big difference!

India's train system is among the best in the world in terms of efficiency for the number of people who use it. I got 12 super cheap passport photos taken because I needed one to get a monthly train pass. (And now I have 11 more passport photos, yay!) I ride in the Ladies Car (since I am a lady). There are also the general cars that anyone can ride on. Anne was telling me about this whole system of etiquette between men and women in public and not touching at all when sitting next to each other or meeting eyes, and it was way easier to just ride with all women where all those rules don't apply. She said, "Don't worry if you mess up, they'll excuse you because they know you're a foreigner" but I don't want to be excused for that. I should know the proper way to act.

Since being here, I think I have seen maybe 3 other white people (and a few of those were in the airport) besides Anne and I. It motivates me to know even better what the correct, polite things to do are so that I don't appear the tourist even more. People here are really friendly and straightforward and willing to help you out though so I've felt really welcomed even though I stick out so much.

We're leaving soon to go to the college. I'll have to write more on that later,