Moment: August 27th, 2019 at 9:33 PM
“Remember, this is a STUDY abroad.”
I’ve been here almost six weeks now, so I’ve set up my new room (you can take the girl out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the girl!) and made some serious headway in my classes, which have been absolutely fantastic. Each one of my classes is structured completely differently, and have each kept me on my toes in their own way, so I’m getting a really good understanding of what it’s like to be a student at the University of Hyderabad. I‘m learning how to balance my course load with all of the amazing attractions and shows that Hyderabad has to offer, and it’s a lot harder than I thought. But our directors have reiterated time and time again that school comes first, as it should, so I’m working on it :)
I have Hindi 101 everyday at the SIP building, and I’ve been learning the letters, numbers, and basic phrases necessary to survive in Hyderabad. My professor, Bhavani, spent a whole day just talking about all the different things you might have to say when you take a cab, so it’s definitely a class designed for the real world. She’s going to take us to her house for a cooking lesson, during which we are going to learn how to refer to different things in the kitchen in Hindi, all while learning how to brew a cup of chai and make pakoras (my mom is going to be SO proud!). She’s also planning a day at the zoo so we can learn animal names in Hindi, which I’m super excited for.
I’m taking Business Anthropology with third-year Master’s of Anthropology students, so that has been quite an interesting experience so far. My professor, Romesh Sir, is the head of the Anthropology department and he’s a great lecturer. He keeps the class engaged with his jokes and real-world examples, and as I progress further in my Hindi class, I’ll be able to appreciate more of them soon. I actually emailed him about six months ago asking if he was okay with me taking his class even though I hadn’t taken the prerequisites, and he accepted without skipping a beat. He later told the whole class that when I emailed him, he was smiling for the whole day because a student all the way from Texas wanted to take his class, which I was glad to hear. He was at the University of North Texas at one point, so now that I’m in the class, he makes a lot of cultural references to Texas as well so I don’t feel too left out.
My third class is more of an internship, as I will be working with a non-government organization called Kriti Social Initiatives. There’s a part of town where all of the Telugu movie stars live called Film Nagar, and Kriti works in the slums behind this luxurious area, where the people who work in the homes of these actors and actresses as cooks, drivers, or maids tend to live. The people that Kriti serves are those who see the most lavish lifestyles in all of Telangana, but are some of the poorest people in the state, so Kriti’s goal is to increase these people’s standard of living by providing aid with women’s livelihoods, by teaching them tailoring or embroidery, and children’s education, by providing scholarships or after school classes.
For my fourth class, I’ve been presented with the amazing opportunity to work on some Medical Anthropology research with a professor, Sharma Sir, who is working on a project for the Government of Telangana to study the medicalization of childbirth. I’m excited to explore the healthcare infrastructure in India and how it addresses the socioeconomic disparity that defines how many institutions in this country function, so this will be an awesome hands-on experience analyzing data, interviewing women, and writing papers that will actually make a difference in how the Government of Telangana address these medical issues in the future for both the mother and child.
From the looks of it, I’m going to have a lot on my plate so I’ll be keeping myself pretty busy, but I’m excited to be in classes and programs alongside some AMAZING people where I am developing skills to truly make an impact on this community in the short time that I am here. Alright then, thanks for listening to my lecture, your homework is to be an awesome human being...class dismissed!
