Ugh...

So, I must say with all honesty that although I am doing my best to keep my head up and my heart in check the homesickness is still blighting my body to a certain extent.

Lately, each day has been a bit of a roller coaster of emotions ranging from apathy to anger to love. My rickshaw driver, who had been such a life saver to me and eliminated part of my life which was very aggrevating (nogotiating with rickshaw drivers) has gone completely AWOL and today showed up at my door demanding money. I asked him where he had been for the last week and he told me he had been too sick to call (and also apparently too sick to even tell his sister who is our maid that he was sick). However, he was apparently NOT too sick to walk to my apartment and demand money. As you might have guessed, this did not go over well. I told him that if he could manage to get to my apartment tomorrow I would pay him then.

I have decided to buy a moped. The rickshaw drivers and me are like oil and water - perhaps both of us are a bit too unwilling to let go of our money :). I guess, if nothing else I have to admire their gumption. Honestly, anyone who can out-stubborn me deserves a medal. They are little shits! If only we could create some sort of team - they drive one hell of a bargain.

Then there are the moments like last night where the rickshaw driver taking me home got lost and what should have taken about a half-hour took 1.5 hours. At first I was angry (rickshaws have that effect on me!) and then, eventually, I just started to laugh and the driver just turned to me and threw his hands in the air and we just both laughed together. Of course, he then proceded to demand way more money than he deserved and I gave him the money on the meter and walked away...but we HAD our laugh!

More than anything, I keep reminding myself that the world is not centered around me. Rather, the world is how I choose to perceive it and as long as I can control my perceptions and remind myself that what is happening is largely not about me...I will be okay. After all, it is these very experiences which will allow me to see the world through a new lens - one which is about being a minority in a country where the rules of engagement are so very different then what I understand and appreciate. But, good lord, this is so very hard.

There are those moments of increadible lightness when I see an infant laying in the dirt by the side of the road while its mother is begging at my feet and I know, with infinite certainty that these experiences will change my life forever. That my perceptions of need and dignity and sanctity of life will forever shift to include the realities of these people - and appreciate my own much more.

If nothing else, life is about experience. It is only through experience that we can grow and understand and realize that the world is spinning vastly outside of our control - that the very most we can do is hold onto what we value and integrate that into what we see. My greatest success will be to learn through these experiences rather than to conquer them.

So, perhaps what I am struggling with the very most is this element of surrender. Of understanding that in order to survive I will have to recognize that India is not about me; rather, it is about how I perceive it, how I sift through the daily barrage of experiences and sensations and disappointments. I am learning but perhaps not as gracefully as I would like.

At the end of the day I remind myself that I chose this: the struggle and the bliss. And I also remind myself that by choosing this some part of me, conscious or not, knows what is best for me, what will bring me closer to the type of person I imagine myself to be.

I am moving closer to consciousness as we speak.
Rickshaw drivers beware!