For those who have been interested, sorry I haven't written. I guess I haven't known quite what to write about. I feel such a mix of emotions now that I am here. Here in Chavadi Pudur, a village outside of Coimbatore. I am happy to be here, but at the same time taking bucket showers, washing my own sweaty clothes, dealing with the intervals without power, and sleeping on a thin mat next to five other girls on our cement floor reminds me that most people don't stay in this field study program for more than 4 months.
Yet, eating lunch off a banana leaf with my hand, spending the evening on the veranda chatting with Matthew and Jeeva, and watching the village take a little longer to rise this rainy morning makes this place feel a lot like home.
While I spent the first few days getting everyone settled in—taking people on walks around the village, spending the day showing David Shanti Ashram and the city I have had time to reflect. It's the beginning of 6 months of thinking—thinking about some weird mix of Indian life and culture in comparison to my own, as well as a deep reflection on my self, my past, my future. I come to new ideas, revisit old ideas, settle deeper into some opinions, and begin to question other opinions I always took for granted. The simplicity of life and yet the complication of living in an Eastern world leads to some great think time I don't get in the US.
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5 comments:
I'm quite intrigued as to the content of these questions and opinions that are or are beginning to change and so on. I hope that you will feel free to share some of these thoughts as the months go by.
Pretty much I love you a lot. Thanks for sharing - I had a really good visual image on these last two posts that are probably not at all what it looks like in real life.
Liann, I love you and I'm really quite sad to not know when the next time I'll see you is, but I'm so happy for you! There's no denying that it's tough to make a decision to do something like what you're doing and that whenever you do you always have some doubts and feel a little lost sometimes. But at the same time all of it meshed together makes something amazing. Aye - sorry for waxing philosophical but, I just love you! P.S. I removed my previous comment because for some reason I called you Deanna instead of Liann!
These questions and opinions, are they related to your original research questions you had the first time around? I just want to reiterate what the gentleman :)on May 13 commented, I hope you do feel free to share some of these thoughts as the months go by. A little reflexivity is always enlightening I think.
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