So basically I haven't been up to much these last few days. Thursday was police registration and was absolutely terrifying. The police here have egos like no other and seem to have an automatic dislike of all foreigners. We did police registration in groups of 5, and luckily my group had two born indians in it, though american nevertheless. One even had the last name of Patel, so that's an automatic giveaway. Basically, the officer went around and asked us what our majors were. The first person answered something like anthropology. The officer turned and said "Do you believe in creation or evolution?" in a thick accent so he had to repeat the question about 3 times. Tom replied with evolution and the officer started heating him because he was Christian and believed in evolution. Next was Becca, who answered history. He then went into a rant about how Columbus was looking for India when he discovered America and that we kicked the "Red Indians" as he called them off their land and stole their things and ruined their ways of life. Not feeling too good about myself at this point. His final rant was about how Indians know 3-5 languages and Americans only know 1. You don't argue with him, but Chaya (india-born) managed to get away with arguing that everyone learns languages in America now. So yeah, a little terrifying.
Friday was just an academic orientation where we got the timetables for classes and tried to work out our schedules. Depending on how my language classes work out, I am potentially taking four of the following classes: Psycholinguistic, Semantics and Pragmatics, Basic Urdu, Indian Philosophy, Islamic Culture in India, Reading Dalit Reading Black (a lit class on the writings of the women in the untouchables class), and Intermediate Hindi. Classes start tomorrow for auditing so I'll have it figured out by the end of the week.
Yesterday I had the whole day off and mostly read. I'd feel worse about staying in so much but there's been a cold passing around our group and I got it, so I wasn't feeling well to begin with and just stayed in all day. At night we went out to dinner at a really nice Italian place and followed up by going to a sports bar, again very nice, and having fun there. Last call here is 12:30.
Today was the Bonalu festival celebrated in Andhra Pradesh (the state Hyderabad is in). We went to the major temple here, saw goat sacrifices and chicken sacrifices, got painted on, you know, the usual. Immediately afterward I moved into my homestay. We got here ~1 hour ago. It's a two-level house/apartment/condo (still not sure exactly what to call it). The top floor is for us and some other guests my host parents have staying. There are maids here who clean and cook. The family is very well off by India's standards and I would say even well off by our own. They have a dog here, some nieces and nephews are staying, a family friend lives in the room next to ours, and the maids live here too.
Will tell more later.
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