Hyderabad: Day 1

GOOD MORNING HYDERABAD!!!

As some of you may know, I am now 24! In celebration of this glorious occasion (hehehe), treated myself to a week in India. During my senior year at Spelman, I became friends with Cate who is from Atlanta but was on exchange from Scripps College; another women’s college located in Los Angeles. Long story short, she’s currently in Hyderabad, India as a Rotary Scholar and she’d invited everyone to visit her a whole year before she was there herself! So I took her up on her offer and we had a WONDERFUL TIME!!!

My flight left at 11:45 am and I reached Bangkok, Thailand after 3 pm. The Japanese woman sitting next to me on the plane kept kinda glancing over a few like she wanted to talk but wasn’t sure if I spoke Japanese. So, finally I took out my headphones and closed my book to see what would happen…and I was glad I did. She’s a university Japanese teacher who taught in the Ivory Coast for 2 years and she was on her way to meet a friend in Madagascar…RANDOM! We had a really good conversation about West African culture, food, and music. And we hung out at a restaurant in the airport in Thailand while I waited for my connecting flight and she waited for her friend from Tokyo to land in Thailand. In Hyderabad, I exited the airport and saw a tall white lady walking towards the street and I automatically knew it was Cate. Taj, one of the administrators at the center where Cate is studying, had driven her to the airport to pick me up. So amidst the “thank you”s and the “you look great”s we loaded up my bags and headed to the Center. Thelma, the caretaker, met us at the door and they showed me to my room. One of the buildings where the students stay is also a hostel, I got my own room. Then we walked around so that she could introduce me to whoever was still awake. The first two students I met were Malathee and Vaneetha; two petite/hilarious women from India. Next, I met Jyostna and Rebecca. Jyostna is also an Indian woman and Rebecca is a pastor from Tanzania. One of the first things that Jyostna said was that I could talk to Rebecca about her hair because she wanted to straighten it. What’s a Black woman to do in a far away land with no relaxers…hehehe. Cate showed me where to get hot water and the dining hall and we called it a night from there.