July 30: Preparing

You'd think I'd never traveled anywhere before.

Or perhaps you'd think I was the most organized -- dare I say OCD? -- person you've ever met.

Neither is true, but I have spent the last week totally focused on what to bring with me to India, what I need to get done before I go, and -- I'm embarrassed to say -- I'm almost completely packed.

. . . and I don't leave for another three weeks.

Now, since I am going to Cape Cod for two of those three weeks, one could argue that I do only have a single week left to get ready, but still, even I can see that this is a little ridiculous. It's just that. . . well, INDIA.

Everyone I know who has gone to India has just had their mind blown away when confronted with a world that is so unbelievably different from their own. Some have then gone on to fall in love with its beauty, others have cut their trips short, some have just muddled through, but everyone has said it's not only different from anything they'd ever experienced, but different from anything they could possibly have prepare themselves for.

Despite knowing this, I seem to be on a tear to at least be as prepared as humanly possible.

I have the basics: polio, typhoid, and hepatitis a vaccinations; malaria pills; a couple books on what to do; 130 anti-bacterial wet naps; a door alarm; a security belt. And I have much else to get: my visa; travel insurance; hypodermic needles; travelers checks.

And I am getting prepared mentally for things, too. I write them down here not because I have the hubris to think that I will succeed at being prepared, but for posterity. So three weeks from now, alone in a foreign country, I can laugh at myself for thinking I knew what I was getting into. I have decided that just "being prepared for anything" is not enough. I have to get psyched up to be simultaneously accepting and curious, while being aggressive -- women alone are apparently not in much physical danger, but are regularly groped. A line in one of the books I read said: "Don't be afraid to slap such men -- the Indian women do." And I have to say I'm almost looking forward to the freedom of being high maintenance -- to tell people to keep away. To protect my space if need be.

Of course, space-protecting, I've been told, is not something that will possibly happen. The country's population naturally leads to dramatically different concepts of space, and add to it that there's no way I can hide that I'm a 5'8" Western female. . . and I can expect to be constantly surrounded. I don't know yet how I will handle this. Not well, I think. But even this I am sort of trying on for size. Trying to see if I can for a few weeks give up something so culturally-based as discomfort in crowds.

I am lucky in that the first week I will be in Bangalore in a modern hotel for the Melton Foundation symposium. I have numerous friends from Bangalore who will be there, and so right off the bat, I will have a local support system.

Hmmm. . . we shall see. I don't feel so nervous about it right now -- but I think that may be because I have no concept of what I'm getting into.