Right now the group is on bed rest in Leh because of the altitude so I figured that I would kill sometime and write. The easiest thing to say about my experience in Jiapor was that it was HOT. Jiapor is a desert and right now it is the beginning of summer there. It was at least 100 degrees everyday with no ac (we had fans but they didn’t do much help). I took bollywood dancing as my independent study, which was so much fun and my favorite part of the day. The other two girls in my group Sarah and Christina took it with me. Our dance teacher was named Preeti and she might be one of my favorite people in the world. She is the sweetest person I have ever met; she always put us in a good mood with random stories and joking around. She is a national ranked dancer, a doctor, and has a PhD in yoga…basically one of the most impressive people ever. It was so hot and we danced for 3 hours a day so I should have been dead by the end but the group would always get super hyper and have more energy after dance then we did when we got there.
It was pretty hard to say bye to my homestay family because I got so close to them over the past 3 weeks. I loved my homestay family in dharmsala but I was definitely closer to my homestay family in jiapor. In dharmsala I felt like a guest the entire time, but in jiapor I really felt part of the family. My homestay mom’s name is Seengeta, she was so warm, blunt, and had a great sense of humor. She was about as big as her personality but she was still absolutely gorgeous (although she is really unphotogenic). She would wear the most elaborate saris everyday and even forced me to wear them a couple of times. The kids in my family were absolutely insane; they always had so much energy and never gave me any space. If I was sleeping in my room they would come in, wake me up, and force me to play cricket with them. Of course it was a bit annoying because most days I was absolutely lethargic from the heat, but I really loved that they treated me like a sister, and not like some creepy white girl living in their house.
My family was huge because in India it is very common for many generations to live together. The sons stay with their parents and when girls get married they move in with their husbands familys. (The ideology behind dowry comes from this tradition – the girl’s parents pay the boys parents for taking in their daughter. Of course the tradition of dowry has been twisted throughout the years and abused but I wont get into that.) In my family their was a grandma and a grandpa, their 2 sons and their 2 wives, and a combination of the couples 4 kids (a 8 year old boy, a 6 year old girl, a 4 year old boy, and a 6 month year old girl).
Even though my family was awesome there were definitely some culture shocks that I had to get used to. As I mentioned before there was absolutely no personal space or privacy. No one ever knocked, my family would look through my stuff (not to take anything I think it was just out of curiosity), and they would always come into my room whenever I was trying to get some alone time. Seengeeta would always ask me how much the things were that I bought, which you never do in the US. Most of the time it was just to see if I got ripped off or not, but even towards the end it made me feel uncomfterable. My family also had no furniture in their house. They had a huge house and it was really nice, but there was nothing except for a mattress in every room, and 2 plastic chairs and a TV in the living room. My room was pretty big but all that was in it was a mattress with no blankets (not that I would have used them in the heat) and no pillows. I never figured out why they didn’t have furniture. I know it wasn’t because they couldn’t afford it because my family was pretty well off, so I just assume it was because they are Jain and one of the main concepts in Jainism is self control and limiting your needs. It was weird at first but it just made me realize how much stuff we all have that we don’t actually need. None of these things really bothered me or prevented me from having a good time; I just thought they were really interesting/different and if anything made me closer to my family.
I learned a lot about Indian culture from living with and just observing my homestay family. One of the most overt differences between their family and my family was of course sex roles. Seengeeta would stay at home and do the same thing everyday. She would spend all day in the kitchen cooking for all of the people in our house, taking care of all the kids (plus the other random family member’s children that always seemed to be dropped off at our house on weekends), and cleaning. She couldn’t take a break, even for a day, because as the men in Christina’s homestay said to her one night “if she doesn’t cook then how would we eat?” Usually her spirits were high but every so often she would slip and show her complete exhaustion and it always made me so upset because she is just such an amazing women. I know every mom gets tired here and there but for some reason it hit me so hard because she (as well as many Indian women) are trapped in this lifestyle. The family had 3 servants (which I will talk about later) so even though Seengeeta did have so much work to do she did have help with everything, but I just couldn’t help thinking about what she would do without their support.
Another thing that got to me in my homestay was that the men were always served first and the women had to wait until the men were done eating and had whatever was leftover. (This didn’t apply to me because I was considered a guest so I ate with the kids). I always wondered what would happen if there was no food left over for them. Seengeeta spent all day in the kitchen, to me it seems like she deserves to eat first! The attitude towards women was just not in the house though. There have been several times where the girls in our group weren’t allowed to go places because they might be on their period and were considered “dirty” and women have to cover up because men are considered to not be able to control their sexual desires so it is the responsibility of the women. I am so sick of all this gender bullshit, but I can’t pretend like women and men are completely equal in the U.S. too.
Another thing that was hard to deal with was the concept/treatment of the servants. First of all I don’t even like using the term servant because I think that it sounds degrading, but it is what they are called in India so I am going to use the word. My homestay did treat their servants better then the majority of families in India, Seengeeta interacted with the servants a lot and always seemed to joke around with them, and the kids would play cricket with one of the servants, but at the same time they were still treated badly. They weren’t allowed on any of the furniture (I woke up every night to pee because I was drinking so much water there and I would just see one of the servants sleeping in the middle of the floor in the living room every night), they wore the same clothes everyday, and there always seemed to be random comments of disrespect towards them. What upset me the most was that one day I woke up and went into the living room to see a servant massaging my homestay grandpa’s feet. None of this is really a good explanation of what went on, it just made me really uncomfterable to see people being treated this way. I have household help at home but I always felt like I should treat them with more respect then my own family….I don’t know.
On a more positive note another thing that I experienced in Jiapor was amazing hospitality. It is a bit hard to describe without experiencing it but everywhere I went I felt appreciated. Everyone would always want you to come to their house and force copious amounts of tea and food down your throats. Everyone was so open and wanted to get to know you. The best example of this was at my dance teacher’s house. Her mom just came out of the hospital after having a pretty large heart attack and the first thing she said to us after we introduced ourselves was “I am sorry that I can’t get out of bed to make you girls a cup of tea, I hope that I get better before you girls leave so I can.” We would make sure to spend some time talking to her before every dance class and even though she was sick she was always so warm and would always hold our hands and tell us how happy she was that we were there. Another example was we were lost in the desert trying to find a paper making factory (worst day of my life…) and we saw this house with baby goats. We all just got out of the car and asked if we could play with them and the man said “yes yes of course come in! Let me get some tea!”…If some random person came to my house and asked to see my animals not only would I tell them that they were creepy and to leave but the last thing I would offer them is tea. The hospitality here has really made an impression on me and I want to figure out how I can be more open and kind when I get back to NY.


We have just landed in Ladakh and it is completely gorgeous. It is also freezing here which is awesome after Jiapor! The group is here until May 13, we do 5 days in ladakhi homestay in a village and then a 5 day trek. My birthday is May 12 which is awesome because I am turning 18 in India!