Nervous about school in India - by Eliza

(Eliza and her sisters share some worries, highlights, and hopes upon their arrival in India... These thoughts were collected in the somewhat delirious fog of their first morning here, after12 time zones and 3 hours of sleep....)

Eliza says:
When we flew to Bangalore, we stopped in a few places. I think I like Hong Kong better than Singapore, because we could see mountains and the ocean. I saw one big mountain, and said, “hey look at that mountain,” and mommy said she had climbed it once. In Singapore we walked around by the “mermaid lion” and got sprayed by salt water. We bought lots of kinds of fruit like mangosteens, rambutans, rose apples, and some gooey thing called a durian. When you eat it you make a weird face, because it tastes so weird… a little like peanuts, but more smelly.

I already miss El Portal, and I’m feeling really sad because we’re going to be here for months and can’t go back home for a visit. Right now time is going so slow, and I really think it’s going to be such a long time here in India. Everyone says “it’s going to go by so fast,” but I’m glad we only came for half a year. I hope that I won’t feel so nervous after the first day of school. I know can make new friends, but it’s just not the same as my friends that I grew up with my whole life. If we ever go to a different country for a real long time, I’d really want my friends from El Portal to visit us there.

I’m really feeling shy and scared about going to the school. There’s going to be so many kids, and I’m used to my school with just 50 or 60 kids, and not one with 2000. I’m afraid they’re going to crowd around my and ask so many questions. I’m going to be the only one with blond hair, and everyone will look at me all the time.

A lot of people say that I’m sooo lucky to go to India. All my friends say that, and they say they want to come to India too. It makes me feel lucky and good, but I think it’s also sometimes a hard thing to do. I feel like it’s a good thing to travel around a lot, but I also really love spending time at home. My favorite place so far that we’ve been was Europe. I also loved going to Guatemala, but we never stayed in such big city or went to a new school. It was also a shorter trip, so that made me feel it was easier. This trip to India is the longest one so far, and it sort of feels like I’m trapped here.

I sort of wanted to come to India, but I’m not so sure about coming to school here. I’d feel a lot more comfortable if my friend Maya was going to school with me.

I am looking forward to some things in India… like riding elephants, and maybe finding a place to ride horses. Today we went for a walk around and saw some squirrels that looked like golden mantle ground squirrels. I also liked drinking coconut milk right out of the nut with a straw. We saw lots of huge palm trees and other tall ones that hang over the roads and have big roots breaking up the sidewalks. We ate dosas at a restaurant, and I mostly ate them plain. A few times I dipped it in the spicy sauce, and that was OK. We went to the aquarium in a rickshaw, and that was so cool. I spotted a huge hawk in a tree with a white head, and my Dad took a picture to show mom cuz she loves birds. I looked it up in Dad's book at home. It's called a Braminy Kite. The tickets for all of our family to go in the aquarium were only 11 Rupees; that's about like 25 cents! I couldn't believe it costs so little!

Today was a fun day, but right now I feel like India is going to be hard for me. I’m also really looking forward making new friends, even though that’s the one thing that makes me the most nervous.

Sylvie adds:
I’m pretty excited to be here, actually I think I like everything… I hope even that I’ll like the school. It’s gonna be soooo big, so still I might be a little scared, but not as scared as Eliza!

Lupin pipes in with:
Everything and everything I like here. I drank coconut milk, and I ate ‘saladosa’ but not the spicy part. We also ate the sweet thing at the sweet cake place. It tastes like sweets and yummies!