The Final Days

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I can say about my last week in Hazaribag. The pressure to accurately and meaningfully sum up my time here, and especially the last part of my time here, has given me writer’s block. I feel like nothing I could say is adequate. So here are a few attempts.

These are some of the most memorable moments from my time in India:

1. killing an army of cockroaches one of my first nights in my flat and then eating the only meal I could prepare with the few ingredients I had—scrambled eggs—and trying not to cry
2. Helen and I talking and Helen saying that something or other was “So hard!” and the driver saying “SOHUR!” and Helen agreeing, “So hard!” and me cracking up because Helen thought the driver was trying to speak English, but his name is Sohur and he thought she was trying to say his name
3. Going on the field visits to Bodh Gaya and suddenly and unexpectedly ending up at the Buddhist temple, which is the most beautiful and peaceful religious place I have ever seen. Sadly, someone bombed it three days later, but fortunately no one was hurt and the damage was minimal
4. Going to a “pub” in Kokata that turned out to be a funky family restaurant with booze and karaoke
5. Rita Auntie showing pictures of Jeff to everyone she introduced me to and saying, “Good couple”
6. Hiking to a waterfall with Satish
7. Spending the day on a houseboat with new friends in a beautiful place
8. Falling off my bike into a mud puddle
9. Having armies of children wait for Helen and me to bike home from work and then run after us waving and yelling, “BYE BYE!” at the top of their lungs
10. Many lovely conversations with colleagues at the office about India and culture and poverty and hierarchy and caste and gender and so on

And here are some skills I picked up:

1. Identifying the type of vehicle coming up behind me (bicycle, bicycle rickshaw, auto rickshaw, motorbike, car, bus, truck, tractor) firstly by the sound of its engine and secondly the sound of its horn
2. Blinking dirt out of my eyes quickly and without using my hands (while biking)
3. Riding on the back of a motorbike on bumpy, potholed, muddy, animal-filled streets
4. Riding a bicycle on said streets, avoiding the puddles and potholes and little baby animals and children and sleeping dogs/cows/goats
5. Making grilled cheese sandwiches by the light of a headlamp
6. Showering in cold water when it is not hot outside. And when it is hot outside.
7. Sleeping on a rock-hard bed
8. Doing laundry by hand in a bucket
9. Buying foods from small local vendors who do not speak English
10. Expressing myself with words that are easy to hear and understand for people who are not used to my accent, and listening and repeating what people say to make sure I understood them when I am not used to their accents

Meghan, who came here as an intern in 2009 and has come back several times since then, got into town while Helen and I were in Kerala. She has been showing us around, taking us to meet some great people, and talking to us about why some things here are the way they are. In a way, I feel cheated that I’m learning all this now. Seeing how comfortable Meghan is here (she even speaks reasonably good Hindi) has been contributing to the feeling I would have anyways that I should have spent my time differently/better. If only I’d asked the right questions or been more bold about exploring, maybe I would have learned more.

It’s weird, preparing to leave. A week ago I was ready to step on the plane at any moment and leave everything behind. Now, I’m not so sure. Being at this transition point, I feel odd. When I left Senegal after six months, I was pretty positive I would come back. Here, I’m not. There’s not a lot in Hazaribag, it’s hard to get to, and I have no idea what the next few years will bring for me. Plus, I’m much less comfortable living here than I expected to be. Having a study abroad orientation and living in a city meant that I learned Dakar very quickly, and the lack of those things has made it much harder for me here.

Still, I don’t like the idea of leaving the people I’ve met here and never seeing them again. I know when I get home I will get caught up in the busy life I lead in the US. I know I won’t be reading 2+ books per week, and I will spend my free time very differently. I’m excited about the things I have coming up in the US, but it seems very surreal to me. How do I get really enthusiastic when I don’t believe it will actually happen? I really just can’t imagine what it will be like to get home.

Tomorrow at 7:30 in the morning I leave for Ranchi. Helen and Meghan and Anand and Vinay ji will come. I’ll see if I can make the last changes needed for the annual report at the printer’s office (technical problems and other people’s inability to meet deadlines have caused this project to drag on beyond what I imagined possible), and if not, I’ll finish it in the US. We’ll have lunch, and I’ll go to the airport.

Monday night I’ll spend at a nice hotel in Delhi. I’ll leave around 2:30 in the morning to catch my 5 am flight to Abu Dhabi, then I’ll have 2.5 hours in the airport there, then 15 hours to Chicago. Jeff will pick me up, and we’ll…drive off into the sunset? I can’t even imagine that far in advance. Everything seems impossible about it.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.