Friday, October 29, 2010

Getting Adjusted

I haven't really talked much about being home. It's been almost 2 months! I really don't know where to begin. I have all of these feelings in me that I have difficulty expressing. People here often ask me, “how do you feel about being home?", "isn't it good to be back home?" or "I'm just glad you're back in the U.S.". Most don't ask or really care to listen to the experiences we had there. It's mostly our expat friends who want to know more. It seems like most of our family and some of our friends just care that we're back in the "good ole U.S.A.". And sometimes that makes me lonely but yet also makes me feel loved.

It's hard to express the bitter sweet memories of living in and leaving India. I mean, hell, we've trekked in the Himalayan mountains on the West and East side of India, went to a Ashram, was hugged and kissed twice by the hugging Saint Amma, scuba diving in the Sri Lanka and in the Maldives, wondered through several temples, Monasteries and saw their high leader in one of them, saw the 2nd and the 3rd highest mountain in the world, was on the highest motorable road in the world, road a yak, elephant and a camel (several times), sent flowers of wishes in the Ganges River, saw the Taj Mahal, went to a baby puju in a hindu temple and was sang to by the women choir, went to countless temple celebrations and that's just a few of the things we did while living in India!

Yeah, we didn't like a lot of things in India. The loud noises of everyday living, the zillions of people everywhere, the daily loud honking of the cars, mosques, temple celebrations of loud M80 fireworks. We didn't like people constantly trying to get money from us. We didn't like having no friends but was invited to their weddings. We didn't like walking down the street and the smell of urine, trash and the burning of trash. It seems like everything was dirty there. Electricity was off a lot. Little air conditioning and it was around 90 degrees most of the time. We didn't like that we couldn't get much western food and that things were expensive there. And those are just a few things we didn't like about India.

Do I like being home? Yes. Do I miss India? Yes. Would I live there again? Maybe
Our experiences out weigh the bad.

2 comments:

Tracy said...

I can TOTALLY relate..totally.
I understand the bad and the good and how it's a pull/push with India...
Hard to explain of course unless you have been there and experienced it. It is a Love/Hate relationship. But it seems in the end it Always draws you back...
You can Forever talk to me about it!! I never tire of hearing about India..the country that I SO love!!
Love to you as well~~

Angela said...

XOXO!