by John Woodall
To begin our homestay experience, our group was briefed on some proper etiquette on the bus ride to get dropped off. Between bumps in the road, we all tried to write down proper greetings depending on if our homestay was a Sikh or Hindu, what the morning routine would consist of, and what we should call our homestay family (most were retired from the Indian Army, so colonel was a common title). A few drop offs in, and the majority of our group was left on the side of the road with Colonel Singh and our luggage. Colonel Singh, professor Sally Stiendorf’s father-in-law, had arranged the homestays for us all. Once it was our turn, my roommate for the homestay Sean and I got in a rickshaw with Colonel Singh and he took us down a few blocks to our homestay.
“This is Colonel Arya Vir ” he told us as we hauled our luggage through the front gate of the small two-story building, tucked tightly between others in a row of similar buildings on the street. The lights came on and we were greeted inside by our host for the next 3 nights. After a quick greeting, Colonel Singh left Sean and I inside a small living room with Colonel Arya, who we would get to know very well over the next few days. The language barrier was definitely a challenge, even though he did speak English. We listened to some of his stories, exchanging questions with each other to try and break the ice all while enjoying some tea and crackers. Afterwards, a quick tour of the house brought us upstairs to our room. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say it wasn’t totally what we were used to. But we were still comfortable, and it had a great view from a rooftop patio area we had access to.
After relaxing and settling upstairs, we joined Colonel Arya for dinner. It was served to us by a girl who was working in his house. This is a common practice and as he explained later Colonel Arya was supporting the family until they were able to get on their feet more. Dinner consisted of a traditional cuisine. Despite having been in India for almost an entire week, the names of most dishes still escaped me. However it was full of flavor, and he was not shy to keep offering us more. At one point in the meal he handed us a small bowl of brownish slices of some kind of fruit. As Sean and I put one of the small slices on our plate, we both gave each other nervous glances, unsure of what we were about to embark on. He explained to us it was pickled lemon* and as they used to tell us when we were little, that was our “no thank you bite” at dinner. We politely nodded as we ate them under Colonel Arya’s stare waiting for our approval, unsure what the polite thing to do was. Dinner continued, and the only other notable thing was a tutorial of how to properly use the cutlery according to the Colonel. As he learned in the Army (which was heavily influenced by the British), he taught us how to scoop with the fork in the left hand and the spoon in the right. Once dinner was over, it was off to bed for a good night’s rest.
The next morning we got up early and went down for tea before breakfast. Since we were still adjusting to the way things should be done, we didn’t realize that tea would be brought to us in our rooms instead. So we sat at the same table we had dinner on and drank our tea accompanied with cookies. We then got ready for the day, the only difference here was our showering situation. The bathroom was a tiled floor with a drain in the corner, and two sink like faucets coming out of the wall above it a few feet off the floor. On the wall was a hot water heater that had to be turned on, and a few buckets lay near the drain on the floor. The process involved filling a small bucket with hot water, dumping it over yourself, then repeating as many times as necessary. It was a new kind of experience.
We went down for breakfast, and soon found ourselves at the table being served a wonderful meal prepared for us. Soon though the same bowl of pickled lemons found itself in front of Sean and I again. As we struggled with balancing being polite, we both ate a few too many of them. After breakfast, we then were escorted to a nearby park to meet up with our group for the day’s activities.
After a long day of activities, we came back to our homestay for dinner. After dinner, it was off to bed. The next day, Saturday, everyone would spend entirely with their homestays, doing whatever they had planned. Colonel Arya had his daughter and daughter-in-law in town, and his wife had been sick, so unfortunately we didn’t get to spend the day with them. However, Sean and I did spend some time with our abroad group leaders and Colonel Singh. I soon found myself back at Colonel Arya’s house, and was able to relax in our room a bit before dinner. I had the great pleasure of having dinner with Colonel Arya, his daughter and daughter-in-law, where we discussed his grand daughters, facetimed their relatives and even became Facebook friends. His daughter shared a script for a movie she wrote, and to be honest I would totally go and see that movie. The dinner was wonderful, and to mix in with the traditional cuisine was a box of Krispy Kreme donuts for dessert.
The next morning was our last with them, and it was a quick breakfast before heading out. Colonel Arya had been very gracious and kind with us, and made us feel welcomed even though we had very little in common. It was such an amazing experience to live with a local family for even just a few days, because so much about their culture and family values was learned from it for myself and our entire group as well. And plus now I’ll have someone to stay with when I visit India again!
*We looked up pickled lemon and it looks very different than what he served us. We are still unsure of what we ate exactly.