My first meltdown

Well today is my 4^th full day in India and I had my first meltdown L 

I actually had a really good day.  The busses picked us up at 7:30 and took us to school.  We started with a middle school meeting.  My principal is Fiona and she is awesome!  She is coming from Brazil (originally from Canada I think).  Katie is the Assistant principal and has been here for 5 years (from San Franscisco) so she is a wealth of information about the school and life here.  Purvi is an Indian woman that is doing the service learning program.  Kurt is science, Paul is Social studies, Corey is Language Arts, and Jordan is my math teaching partner.  Everyone but Purvi and Katie were with us in Memphis so I felt really comfortable and we talked about how the school runs etc.  Then we had a tech meeting with all the teachers.  The school has 13 tech related employees!  13!!  We have a lot of support.  I was even helping people with what we were doing.  I am behind most of the people on tech stuff so to be able to help people is a miracle!

We had a great lunch then delved into Veracross  (their grading and attendance system) and “the portal”  where all our school info is.   This where I started to feel a little overwhelmed.  Other people had used systems like this and they are talking about saving all these google docs and sharing them and I don’t know how…

Then we went to a meeting with the school psychologist – she did a thing on the stages of culture shock.  I know I am still in the honeymoon period but I have been doing well – I don’t mind that my apartment has terrible furniture and that I am one of the only few people that don’t have internet in my apartment yet.  I haven’t been too wigged out about all the trash I have to walk through or the traffic and constant honking.  I’m not too happy about the constant rain, but I have been doing ok.  So as she was talking about the ups and downs of culture shock I was feeling like I wouldn’t have a problem for a few weeks.  Then they put three new teachers with three or four Indian staff so they could answer questions and tell us things about Mumbai.  The other two people at my table seemed to understand what the Indians were talking about and I didn’t.  There are only four of us in our group of 20 + new people who have never taught overseas before.  I constantly feel like a kid that is several grade levels behind!  Even though they have never lived in India, they still have a lot of background knowledge about things from living in other Southeast Asian countries.   I have never seen showers, hot water, lights, appliances like this and I hear a steady stream of “this is how it was in Rio, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jeddah, etc…  and I have no reference point.  They wanted us to ask the Indians questions, but I don’t even know enough to know what to ask!!!  I also have eaten Indian food maybe twice before I came here so I don’t know what anything is.  When someone says the name of something everyone ( it seems like)  nods and says “oh I had the best __________ in ________”  I love hearing about all the places people have been and where they taught, but it just reminds me that I haven’t a clue what I’m doing.  So anyway tears started sliding down my cheeks then I started really crying.  Just really overwhelmed.  I don’t know what people are talking about 30% of the time at school and 80% everywhere else.  I was crying and said “I need to find a  church”  Several people have said there are Protestant churches here, but they don’t know where they are.  Kelli said her family was looking for one too so maybe we can find one together. I like to walk outside a lot and it just never stops raining here.  I haven’t seen the sun in days – that bums me out.   Everyone was very nice – telling me it would get easier and even though they are doing ok now, they might crash months from now.   Karen walked with me to go get some chocolate because I knew that would make everything better!

Amy and I interviewed a maid that worked for someone else at the school.  Her name is Jacintha (she goes by Jessie) and is adorable.  She will go to Amy’s house M/w and mine t/th.  She will clean and do laundry and ironing on Tuesdays and go shopping and cook on Thursdays.  On Friday she will do both houses and just clean up for the weekend etc.  I think my meltdown really started last night with the washer fiasco.  Today the guy came and Jessie was here interviewing at that time so she helped communicate with him in Hindi.  Amy and I were going to have her put name cards on things so we could learn Hindi, but Jessie can’t write in Hindi, only speak it. 

Ending the day on a good note – went out to the market today without a map for the first time!!!  Going to work on some math – that makes me happy!!

Pray that I won’t feel so overwhelmed and confused, that I will make some close friends, that I will understand school expectations and do well in that area.  I have to keep reminding myself I have been here less than a week!!!