Orientation:

Now I mentioned previously that I came to India with an organization known as IAPA. This past week IAPA provided an orientation that taught all the U.S. volunteers about Indian culture and also served to get us acquainted with our counterparts (CP’s) who will act as translators as well as fellow teachers when we go out and start teaching the IAPA prevention curriculum. The days have been pretty long—we were at orientation by 9 or 9:30 and were typically not done until 4:30. Either way…we learned a lot and personally, I had a lot of fun.

So my counterpart’s names are Poovendan and Yogi.

They are…interesting.

Poovendan- I think everyone has known a Poovendan at some point. He’s a very nice guy who happens to be overly enthusiastic and astoundingly excited about everything. The guy has this painfully huge smile stuck on his face 80 percent of the time…and apparently, he just loves American girls. Wonderful.

However, he’s been in IAPA for three years…so my teaching group has one of the most experience CPs…and like I said, he genuinely seems to be a nice guy.

Yogi- Yogi seemed nice, but I recently found out that he has a fascination with my hair and that he apparently thinks that it is okay to go ahead and stroke the back of it when he walks by me. I made sure that this would not happen again with a little help from an intimidating new volunteer friend, Raju. Yogi is now learning to respect my personal space bubble. (A very special thanks to Raju for helping me out!)

Each day of orientation started out with a Tamil lesson…and let me tell you it has already come in handy! We’re learning basic stuff like the following:
“My name is…” En paer…
“Where is the bathroom?” Toilet Enga?
“How much?” Evaluh? 
and a my personal favorite to yell to the auto (small taxis) drivers “Go faster!!” Vegama Ponga!!!

Speaking of autos…we are taking them almost everywhere…it’s just been a little difficult to catch a bus and get to orientation on time. So, all 22 of us stuff ourselves into 5 autos and get ourselves entrenched in  widespread games of….are your ready for this?….auto tag. If you think that this sounds awesome, it’s probably because it is.

Back to orientation.

In regards to Indian culture, we have also been learning about basic Indo-American relations, the history of Indian people, how HIV/AIDS came to India and the United States, and cultural norms and practices. One of the most fun things that we did were two mock weddings—a Hindu wedding and a Muslim wedding. There internet is slow, but I’ll post more pictures as soon as I can. They’re adorable!

We also went on a scavenger hunt with our counterparts…each of us diving up into our teaching groups and given varying lists of tasks to complete. I rode my first Indian bus! It was an sweaty, smelly adventure…but I loved every moment of it…it was just new, and different and surprisingly really fun.

Our group technically came in second for the scavenger hunt…but we had to wait for Poovendan who had run off on his own to take a picture of an auto and had subsequently lost the rest of us for a good ten minutes. During this timespan, another group—complete with all their members—were able to sneak by and steal second. I have a lot of great scavenger hunt pictures too…again, I’ll post as soon as I can. I apologize for the bad internet connection!!!

The last day of orientation was by far the longest…but I felt it was the most interesting. One of the community groups that IAPA works with sent two representatives to come talk to us about the work that they do. They were specifically with the MSM group in India—the gay population—teaching them about HIV, how it is spread and how to seek treatment if they are infected. These men are by far some of the most harshly outcasted individuals in the entire country. Two of them spoke to us about there personal lives—the hardships the faced growing up and the hard ships they face now in a society who’s attitude towards homosexuals makes many conseratives in the United States look like sweethearts. It’s still against the law to be gay in India…although there is some amount of support that are challenging this sentiment. Still though, there is an overwhelmingly anti-gay attitude in India and I was definitely touched not only by their stories but the strength they have to openly state their sexuality.

The next week we will be visiting more IAPA’s side projects…so I’ll many, many more stories to tell!