I hadn’t really thought much about the beggars before the study abroad trip and when I did think about them, I assumed that they would leave you alone after you told them no. I also thought that they wouldn’t actually touch you. I was learning in these first few days that my preconceptions had been wrong. This has been one of the most difficult parts of the trip for me.
After the market, we went to the handicraft and handloom museum. It was so interesting to see that people from all over India had come to sell their handmade goods here. I saw a really amazing intricately carved box that had an elephant inside of it. What was amazing about it was that the elephant on the inside had been carved of the same wood at the box it was in. This means that they weren’t two separate items but the same item, the box hadn’t been separated to carve the elephant – somehow the elephant was carved inside of the box. I had no idea about the amount of skill, detail, or intricacy of the handmade crafts that we saw. I didn’t even really know that such items existed. I feel bad for the people who come such a long way to sell their goods, I don’t know how successful they are but it seems like a lot of hard work for little profit. However, these people don’t mind – it’s all rooted in the cultural perspective and religious idea of reincarnation and multiple lives. It’s because it is generally believed that whatever people have in this life is a result of their actions in their previous life. So if their life is not as good as they would like it to be, it just means that they are paying for their past sins and their next life will be better.
We went to the India gate next. Once we had been here for a few minutes, we went back to FIIB. Back at FIIB, all of the teams had to give a presentation about where we went and what we learned. It was nice to see all of the groups interactions with their FIIB students. All of the other students seemed so nice and welcoming.
Our FIIB student was Faisal. He was nice enough over WhatsApp and I was looking forward to finally meeting him. He seemed nice when we first met him but as the day went on things changed. I was in a group with Namu and we would always laugh about random things. Faisal took this to mean we were laughing about him and no matter how many times we told him we weren’t laughing about anything he still didn’t believe us. This was annoying to me because I’m not used to being around people who need constant reassurance about every little thing. I’m trying to put myself in his shoes and maybe he was nervous about being outnumbered or around so many Americans. It was interesting to hear his questions about the US and listen to all of his conceptions and perspective about the US. At one point he asked us if the US really had werewolves – it was quite a funny moment.
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Learn more about studying abroad as a Walton
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