The Journey

My internship experience starts at the departure gate at Newark International Airport the evening of September 1st. I hurry toward the area marked 34B a couple of minutes after boarding was scheduled to begin, having taken a short detour to buy a South India guidebook at the last minute. The gate is spare. No chairs; just a desk, a roped off area in front of the door, and a crowd of a couple hundred people standing around in no particular order. Nobody seems to know what is going on, and neither do I.

I’m on my way to a site in rural south India to work as an intern for an environmental NGO called Vanastree. Life in Oregon, where I’m in my last year of studies, had gotten a bit too comfortable, and I needed some practical learning credit anyway. I spent last winter break combing through internship and volunteer opportunities in developing nations and eventually settled on this one. Combined with my love for travel and the thought of ditching textbooks, midterms and apartment life for three months, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to stretch my wings one last time before graduation.

Back at the airport gate, a couple of Continental Airlines representatives finally show up. The ticket-taker encourages everyone to form an orderly, single-file line to facilitate the boarding process. Everyone ignores him completely. I shove my way on.

Non-Indians boarding the plane: Three.

I hope this episode is somehow indicative of what I should expect over the next three months. I’m having fun already.

Ten hours later: Still on the plane. Have been watching nonstop Bollywood films and Ellen Degeneres on my personal video screen. Just dozed off when, for some inexplicable reason, somebody made the following announcement: “Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It is time to wake up.” According to the screen, there are five hours of flight time remaining. This announcement is followed by nothing happening and no passengers except for me actually waking up.

Eight hours later: “No female guests.” That’s the first of a long list of rules posted above the reception desk at the dingy Hotel Satellite in Mumbai. Perhaps because it’s midnight, or perhaps due to the three or four increasingly peeved phone calls I made to the hotel asking them to send a driver to pick me up from the airport, the receptionist, a kindly old man, ignores my unintentional breaking of the first rule. I sign the log book, get a bottle of water, and bolt myself into the tiny room.

Eventually, I doze off, listening through one ear for intruders. I’d received plenty of warnings about traveling alone as a woman to India’s biggest city. I needn’t have worried about falling into too deep a sleep: a couple hours later, the marching and firecracker explosions begin.

It’s the week of the celebration of the Hindu god Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity of wisdom and good luck. Hindus will party for Ganesh for up to two weeks, leading small parades through the streets with clay Ganesh figurines, throwing colored powder, pounding drums, dancing and generally carrying on. Finally, about 6 am, one of the processions comes down the street right outside my room and I see no better option than to grab my camera and head outside. It is a small but enthusiastic group, and everyone in the area comes out to watch the brightly colored spectacle in the otherwise grey and drab street.

Nine hours later: After flying out of Mumbai, I’m sitting outside the tiny, deserted Hubli airport, about 200 km from my internship site. A warm breeze gently sways the coconut trees lining one side of the empty parking lot. Birds sing cheerfully and the sun is blinding.

It’s a nice spot, but there’s a problem: All the suited executives on my flight have taken off in taxis. Nobody seems to work inside the terminal. Corralled inside my circle of bags, I’m saying the first of many prayers I’ll say India that things will work out: Please send the driver soon. I have no idea what to do if the driver doesn’t come. Please send him soon.

I re-check the email I’d printed off with the name of the driver and my expected arrival time. Then I look at my watch and realize that I’ve arrived early. According to the piece of paper in my hand, I should have just touched down thirty seconds ago. Relaxing a bit, I lean back onto my suitcase. Five minutes later, a tiny van pulls up and Mushtaq, who will become a familiar, quite punctual, face in the next several weeks, hops out. Willing to go anywhere he might take me, I pile my stuff inside the van and get in the front seat, noticing a pink sticker on the side mirror reading “smile”. It’s an order I can’t resist following.