Sick Days

It’s tempting to avoid writing negative entries onto this blog, about difficulties with my academic work, or homesickness, or the inevitable “Delhi belly,” which we’ve renamed the “rainforest runs.”  It took a lot for Matt and I to get here.  For me, it took a year of stressed-out academic rigor and work, months of planning and purchasing plane tickets, and saying goodbye to family and friends.  For Matt it was some of the same, and also a leap into the unknown in the name of love, and putting off his own academic goals.  So to look at the leap a few months in and not know if it was worth it is a tough thing. 

Let me backtrack.  Up until about two weeks ago, we were committed.  Life wasn’t perfect here on this farm in India, but we were going to make it through to the other side.  We would come home in May, with a Masters degree for me to look forward to, and likely enrollment in a Masters in Biology program for Matt.  But then the Indian government started squabbling, and soon enough our plan began to crumble.  Add to that a lingering stomach sickness I haven’t been able to shake, and turbulence in my family at home, and it seems like we’re struggling to keep up our resolve to stay.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about priorities.  I don’t quit on things easily, especially not something I’ve committed a lot of energy and money into already, like school.  But after a point, when it seems like so many things are pulling at you to do exactly what you’re not doing, when do you switch gears and move forward?

It started with a U.S. Consolate General warning that ended up in the inbox of our visitors, Michael and Taylor.  “Oh no, is this going to affect us?” they worried.  Due to last year’s 26-11 attack in Mumbai, which involved at least one terrorist with a United States passport traveling back and forth from Chicago to India, the government here is cracking down.  Every foreigner not on a business visa or student visa (I’m on a tourist visa because I’m not connected with an Indian university) has to leave after 180 days in-country for at least two months now.  “Shit,” the doctor I visited yesterday said when I told him I was about to be ejected from the country. 

That’s the first strike against staying:  we legally can’t.

As I mentioned, I visited a doctor yesterday.  I met Dr. Devraj just over a week ago, after Matt and I spent an hour looking for Madikeri’s private hospital.  ‘It’s at Thimmiah Circle,’ one woman told us, so we jumped in a rickshaw and headed that way.  When we got there, another man told us it was near the bus stand, back down the hill.  We started walking, weary and weak from the stomach sickness.  It didn’t help that we kept running into a raucous political parade, with music and dancing and a packed pickup truck full of whoever had just been elected.  “We won!” one dancing man with his arms in the air shouted to us as he passed, beckoning us to join in.  

We kept walking, and eventually found it, this clean, disorganized hospital tucked away behind the seedy theatres of Madikeri.  The first time around, Dr. Devraj prescribed me an anti-parasitic and told me to change hotels.  Not possible, I retorted, though Matt and I committed to preparing all of our own food from now on.  One week later, my stomach still in runny knots, he prescribed more antibiotics, and potentially a colonoscopy, at which I silently thought to myself, and later shouted to Matt, “not in F-ing India!” 

That’s strike two:  I’ve got to get healthy.  We’ll see in a few days if this new round of pills can turn that one around.

The third and fourth strikes, I’d rather not share too much about.  One is that my parents are (quite happily, it sounds) getting a divorce.  It would be nice to not be on the other side of the world when my family structure is shifting so suddenly and so wholly.  The other is that my work is not nearly as fulfilling as I had hoped it would be.  The NGO I came here to work with seems to be quietly withering away, and we’ve lost a few competent Indian interns who could have helped out quite a bit.  If this last challenge had occurred when my visa wasn’t about to expire, and my health wasn’t so precarious, I would have soldiered on.  It’s not the first time I’ve joined the scene of a NGO that has nothing going on except for its registered status, but it’s a different context here, and now my time is limited.

It could be, also, a case of the homesick holidays.  Christmas came and went with a lot of effort to bring some hominess to the other side of the world.  We had presents, a tree (well, a branch that resembled a Northeastern pine), and special food like homemade pierogies, German pancakes, and pumpkin pie.  But we also had some tears, and a lot of missing family accompanied by nearly half a dozen skype dates, with Matt’s extended family on both sides, and now my own split-up family. 

Now that we’re on the other side of Christmas, we’ve been thinking about the New Year, and how we can make the most of our situation.  Since we’ll have to leave by the end of February (after 180 days), it may make more sense to return in January and enroll in classes to make up the lost time.  Or maybe it’s better to push on through, to find some closure with our work here, and finish out at least six months of this intended yearlong endeavor.  Personally, I’m hoping for some clarity before the year turns, so we can look forward to a fresh month, and practically a fresh decade, with some future plans that feel good through and through. 

Photos:  The rallying flag of Madikeri's political procession, given to me as a Christmas gift from Matt; stockings hung up on Christmas morning, thanks to Santa (aka our awesome other intern, Lauren)