Facing the Arabian Sea at Marine Drive, I could taste the salty water on my lips and feel the strong sea-wind play with my hair while I tried to keep my feet firm on the ground. The dark clouds, thunder and the grim sky were ready to push me into a deep abyss of aggravation but nothing could have possibly angered me on the 26th of July, 2005. That was the day I was granted a visa to visit the United States of America as a cultural exchange student.
Despite the floods that wrecked havoc in Mumbai that day, I was ecstatic. I was going to a country which most people only dreamed of, a country where every man was welcomed, where one could start over and where one could enjoy life.
At sixteen, I was the youngest member of my family to take up this adventure. It was my first trip out of the country and it was without any parental supervision. It was as good as a dream for me until I boarded that plane, which took me thousands of miles away from home.
I encountered my first bitter experience with an American at the immigration department when the official at the desk humiliated me in front of numerous passengers because my phone rang while she was feeding my details to the computer. “You people can’t read, eh? No cell-phones” she pointed to what she thought was a sign in her cubicle. And I can bet my right hand on the fact that there was no such sign in there. She threatened to revoke my visa and send me back on the first flight. I was scared, so did not argue.
Not too keen on experiencing any other glitches on my journey, I followed every sign cautiously, every order wisely. And at baggage claim, I saw my ‘host-mom’ waiting for me. Dawn Byerly, she was my host mother in America and her husband David was my host father. While David worked at a factory nearby, Dawn worked from home for Gatorade.
I was given a room with a computer, a TV and a music system in my new American house, a luxury I wasn’t granted in India. I was also introduced to the concept of a water bed wherein the mattress was hollow instead of coir in it and had water to give it shape. The result? Every time I sat on the bed, the impact created waves which propelled me back and forth. It took at least ten minutes of sitting still to bring it back to its original form. Despite that, my room became my sanctuary. It had every thing a teenager could want, including a never ending supply of M&M’s.
While living in Perry County, I had to attend school. At Perry central Junior-Senior High School, I was a student of the 11th grade and I took up various subjects like 3-d Art, US History, English, Biology, Chemistry and Marketing. The portions of the subjects were covered back in India in the lower classes and I had no problem with my studies. I would answer questions easily and sometimes even before the teacher could complete them. I was called a geek at times but I figured that was alright because back home I would never get that honor.
Extra-curricular activities faced a setback while I was at school. The chief obstacle was transportation. My school was almost 10 miles away from home and I traveled by bus. If I missed it, I would be stranded. And I wasn’t allowed to drive. So any extra activities I wanted to take up, I had to make sure I was with a friend who had a car and who would agree to drop and pick me up as required. And that happened very rarely.
I was given strict instructions by the Center for Cultural Interchange, the authority that presided over the smooth working and nitty-gritty of this program that my American parents were not my tour guides and hence any expectation of getting a free tour of American was forbidden. I found this directive pretty funny because I didn’t think any student was foolish enough to make a demand like that. But apparently, there were a few students who did think that they could take the Americans for a ride.
While a lot of instructions were given to each student, not all of them were followed. For instance, we were not supposed to travel around the country without our host parents and I did just that. During the spring break I visited my aunt and uncle who lived in Chicago, Illinois. I knew I was breaking the rule, but truth be told, I was so frustrated of having American food and only English speaking folks around me that I decided I needed a change. Going back home wasn’t an option, so I picked the next best thing.
I dreaded coming back to Perry County because a lot had changed when I first came here. Contrary to my lifestyle in India, I had to help with the household chores here, I had to make my own breakfast and sometimes even arrange for lunch. I had to do my own laundry and keep my room tidy. I was lucky to have Dawn as my mother because she was understanding and gave me time to adjust. Even then, accepting these changes was the most difficult part of my stay. They were basic chores that everyone was doing and they weren’t difficult. I was accustomed to luxuries back home and here, I traded them for new freebies like freedom to be out till 1 am, stayovers, having my own TV, a room and my computer.
What scared me the most while living in Perry County was the forest which stretched outside our house. It was unbelievable and unthinkable. I did not know how to react when my host father told me they hunted deer there in the spring season. He had guns in his garage and tools to skin and clean a deer once it was shot. They would hang the deer by its legs and scrape the skin off its body. They would then wash it with cold running water which would mix with its blood. One could see it running down a sewer. Then, they would slice off certain portions of the body and fry it with pepper, flour and salt and eat it. I was encouraged to eat the tender meat of the deer after witnessing the process described above. I had no motivation to even argue or deny them. I put a piece in my mouth, complimented my host father for shooting a deer as fine as that and my host-mother for making it edible.
As a student I had fun times too. I really enjoyed my 3-D Art class where we would use clay to make objects and use the potter’s wheel as well. We made quite a few objects with clay and were later given a papier-mâché project to work on. We were shown Moulin Rouge and were asked to bring the characters to life with the help of colors and other materials.
I took pleasure in attending my Biology class where Mr. Ransome was my teacher. He was really fond of me and treated me with a lot of love and respect. (I suspect that is because I knew answers to all his questions and I always scored an ‘A’ in his assignments). He would proudly show me off as his best student to different teachers and I loved the attention he gave me.
Besides going to school and taking care of my chores, I had little to do. I took up reading and became a voracious reader. I would issue a new book from the school library every week and impressed my English teacher with my writing skills and technique. She appreciated my interest along with the school librarian and to encourage me and the other avid readers; they organized a trip to Barnes and Nobles where we were allowed to buy books worth $20 free of cost.
The more time I had, the more observations I made. Small, insignificant things like the switch of a light bulb was also tuned to be opposite from its counterpart in India. The windows in the bus opened from top and slid to the bottom as opposed to opening from the bottom and sliding upwards in India. Some people also said that the water in the toilet bowl when flushed spun in the opposite direction when compared to that of Indian toilets.
I started counting days till my departure. Towards the end of my stay, days got longer and refused to change to nights. It was particularly hard to live in a rural area and adjust to life there but I was determined and focused to complete my stay for the required period of time. I decided that I would complete my stay no matter how tough the times got.
Finally on the 14th of May, 2006 I took a flight back home. I was given the permission to visit other cities while my visa was still valid but I refused. Vehemently.
I faced good and tough times as a cultural exchange student. I learnt a lot and the lessons of living independently, facing challenges head-on, finding answers to questions, living confidently, not succumbing to pressures, adapting to different environments, living outside the ‘comfort-zone’, surviving the culture shock and being patient will stay with me and will aid in making me a stronger and a more level-headed person.
Even though certain instances make me doubt my decision of agreeing to go to America, I will always cherish the fact that I had an opportunity that merely 10% of the world’s population might ever have in their lives.
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