Patience, Patience

After living in Paraguay for over two years, I got really good at waiting.  I'd wait for buses, wait in long lines for the ATM, wait for meetings to start an hour late, whatever.  Since returning back to the States, I have found that that has changed a bit.  In the first weeks of being in the US, I found myself annoyed at other drivers zipping around, dodging traffic, and honking if someone wasn't right off the line at a red light.  But after nearly no time I found my foot getting a bit heavier, found myself speeding through traffic, shooting down the highway with the rest of them.  In Philly, without a car, I've gotten annoyed by broken down trolleys, delivery men who stop in the midst of the tracks, hence blocking my way to go home, work, school, wherever.  This may be heightened by my constant tardiness, which Latin America only encouraged and worsened. 

But now I find myself without nearly any patience at a time when i most need it.  Yesterday I was supposed to leave on a flight to India at 3pm.  All went fine with boarding, and we even took off more or less on time.  But then, an hour and a half over the Atlantic, there was an announcement first in Hindi and then in English explaining that we would be turning around and heading back to JFK thanks to some technical difficulties.  My first reaction was that I had really never expected to die in a plane crash, but I guess we've all gotta go somehow and sometime.  We made it back to JFK without any issue, but then sat on the tarmac for 5 hours, waiting for the air traffic controllers to give us the go ahead (the technical difficulty was fixed within an hour).  Finally there was an announcement only in Hindi, and then the rumors flew in English, saying that we were going to finally get off the airplane and head to hotels for the night.  We filed off, waiting 30 minutes for the second bus to take the several hundred people on the plane back to the terminal.  Back in the physical airport, no one met us to give further instruction, so we just wandered around to various parts of the terminal, trying to find someone to instruct us at 11pm once all Air India employees had headed home for the night.  I wish I had the patience I had last year and have since lost.  I'm currently in the Business area of some hotel waiting to get in a shuttle to the airport, just to leave a full 24 hours after I began. 

So obviously this has been a huge headache, and I'm surrounded by grumpy and confused people.  I love the rumors so far--one was that we were waiting for someone to sign a paper in Delhi, and that was the reason we waited so long.  The people at the hotel said that they had been waiting for us since 4pm, so there was no reason for us to just sit on that plane for so long.  Oh well.  Here I go again, and hope that round 2 has better luck....

My trip to India becomes more and more real as the hours tick by. The past two days I've woken up before my alarm, completely unable to sleep, and all day today I've felt just on the verge of throwing up. Yeah, it's awesome. I don't feel too stressed--at least not a fraction of how stressed I feel is appropriate for this upcoming trip--but my body is saying otherwise. I don't think I've felt this way since last April when I was in the last few days in Paraguay and was pretty freaked at the idea of returning stateside after two years.

 On a totally different note, I randomly received a letter today in the mail from some church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was just addressed to the "Current Resident" at my address. It is essentially religious chain mail. Included is this random "prayer rug", which has an image of Jesus with his eyes closed (though I don't know of anyone who could actually kneel on it), a "Sign from the Lord about your future", which one should apparently only read if she has already prayed on the prayer rug, filled out the "prayer request form", and written a check to the 61-year-old ministry. There is the image of a woman with the caption "Blessed with $46,000 After Using Prayer Rug", and then her narrative which explains that her husband listed 7 things he wanted God to do for him, and then he got $10,700 somehow. There is then a page where you check boxes for what you prayed for--these vary from "my soul" to "a money blessing" to "a new car" to (my favorite) "less confusion in my home". If you know me at all, you should know that I suspect someone is pulling a prank on me. A prank I deeply appreciated.

I leave for India in 3 days. I have never been so ill-prepared for anything in all my life but what I lack in preparation, I make up for in enthusiasm. That may actually be my mantra in life. I'll be staying with an Indian Social Worker and her family in Dehli for a few days to begin my trip. She is a couchsurfer, who works with poor kids in the ghetto, so I'll be joining her for a few days to just jump right into the mix, then I'll figure out where to go from there. I know my parents probably aren't stoked about this traveling by the seat of my pants idea, but I'll be safe and smart about where I go and what I do. I'll try to be good about blogging, as I'm traveling alone for 3 weeks and should have plenty of time for uncertainty, uncomfortable situations, and self-reflection. After the 3 weeks of travel, I'll meet up with the other 12 or so people from Penn to take a class called Postcolonial Social Work Practice: International Social Welfare in India. I have so much to do before I go, but can't seem to focus on ANYTHING! EEK!