Thoughts on a Tuesday

This is a rough cut, some thoughts thrown together about the past few days and the next few days… didn’t have much time to work on it but it gives an idea of what’s going on and where my head’s at.

Work is going slowly. Each day I arrive at 10 a.m. and for the rest of the time I never know what I am going to do. So far I’ve been able to help with a few proposals, proof read a few other documents, and read a substantial amount of literature so that I add nuance to my understanding, but as we get started in the beginning things are very unclear and I have no projects. At the moment, just a week in the office, I don’t expect anything else but I am trying to think about my time here and how I can begin a conversation that will result in a clear understanding of what is going on within the organization over the next months, what I will be expected to do, and by when. Thus far I have been surprised by the lack of enthusiasm over my presence in regards to the work we are doing. People at the office are very happy to have me here and we talk often about our homes, favorite foods, and the lot, but I have not been inundated with questions or requests. Compared with the other experience I have in the developing world, admittedly very little, people were much more deferential in the work setting, assuming and expecting an expertise in any and all areas. Maybe these expectations will come, maybe they won’t, or maybe there just isn’t that much work, but my bluff had been called, arrived with the expectation that I would be doling out cure-alls within hours on any and all issues but instead, and rightly so, being treated like the little man that I am.

Part of this has to do with my age, and part of it has to do with confusion over what I studied. My colleagues, flat mates, and the other people I’ve spoken with about my background don’t understand what qualifications I have. In part they are right, I don’t really have qualifications. I have a few clues to guide and a small amount of experience, but I don’t really have a background. But, that is not what they don’t understand. They don’t understand the crossing over of fields, that I could have studied anthropology but that I am here working on documentation, workers rights, web design, etc. Why aren’t I doing anthropology? Liberal arts as a concept, as an idea for career preparation, that you read a lot, write well, and think critically is anathema to the dogmatic thinking of professional development and the immediate connection between a track of studies and the field of work one will enter. Each discipline within the liberal arts canon exists here but not as a part to a whole, a whole itself, geographers becoming map makers and English students writers. Surely this rigid view does not hold up across the boards, some of the most prolific contemporary Indian minds are hybrid thinkers, but they are the exception. People I met do what they studied and can’t understand why I am here or how I am doing differently.

Yesterday I bought a bicycle. It is a beast. Made in China out of the heaviest steel in the galaxy, it is the quintessential bike of the ‘developing’ world. Kenya had the same bikes. Exactly the same. Big, heavy, designed for work. A kick stand that lifts the whole back wheel of the floor in case you want to exercise in your home. I am glad to have it because it affords me a basic level of independence for personal transport. This city is too sprawling to really rely on it as a way to get around, but I can commute to work, get to shops, and explore at a faster pace. I am very happy to have it.

This morning woke up, went running, showered, read the paper, and biked to work. It felt like a very adult routine, a routine I expect to repeat for the rest of my time here. So too is it a routine that frightens me and is making the transition to this new place very difficult. Living in India, part of the developing world, has made me rethink both of these words. India is a confusing place with more diversity and disparity between classes and cultures than anywhere I’ve ever been, and sitting in a glittering mall makes thinking of it as a developing place difficult. Attempting to understand these issues will continue no doubt. Compounding these baseline thoughts is the thought that I am no longer in college, I am not here on a summer fellowship, I don’t get to return to Never Never Land. Riding my bike this morning I was singing to myself, and so too am I not sure that I want to grow up. This is the issue that has been most difficult to deal with in the last week. I can’t leave work early if I am bored and go play sports or meet friends for a drink. I am not in college and life is before me, a life that will mean certain things and I don’t really know what those things are exactly and of course much is in my hands to control but I have to pay rent, be at work on time, do things that I don’t like, produce results, work in situations that are not ordeal. All of these questions are questions that recent graduates face but facing them here makes them a little more harsh because I am so far out on my own, facing that same conversation on development and India in the context of the exploration of my post-college, young adult self.

Last night India beat Pakistan in cricket in the finals of the World Cup. It was a great match that went down to the wire and the moment India won I thought our apartment was being fire bombed. Everywhere people swarmed the streets, set fireworks, cheered, and danced. It was a joyous day for India and a fun time to be here.

Checking my email this morning, I feel very distant from my life. I packed my suitcase 7 weeks ago and supposedly brought my life with me, but my heart, my answers to peoples questions about where I’m from or where I went to school, those emails, my nights, are not convincing of that fact. I know that I am new here and it takes time to build community but so too do I know that my dear friends and family are at home or somewhere and many of them are going through times of great transition and uncertainty and it would be nice to be there for them.

On Thursday we are going for a site visit and then there is three days of training over the weekend. Those days should keep me busy, my mind active, and teach me a lot about what is going on.