This week was refreshing. Recently, I have been frustrated with my own inability to properly function in this society. It is humbling and at times exhausting to have to rely on other people to help me with almost everything that I do. This week helped to remind me that every day, through getting the help that I need, I am learning, growing and slowly gaining some independence.

On Tuesday, we were able to catch part of a forum on free speech that was being held by the students at our college. Attending the event made me feel more like an average college student than I have in months. It was energizing. The forum was engaging to watch, the students clearly passionate about the topic. The conversation flowed back and forth between Malayalam and English, and while we could not understand the bits in Malayalam, we still understood the gist of it. The event was a nice reminder that even though these students come from vastly different backgrounds than we do, we are still similar enough to be having the same kinds of conversations.

We had no class on Friday again – this time because it was Gandhi’s birthday. Gandhi’s birthday, we are told, is usually celebrated by doing community service, such as cleaning up streets and public areas. Because of this, on Thursday afternoon, they held a ceremony to thank the chechis for the work that they do at the college. Similar to the janitorial staff in the U.S., the chechis clean, serve lunch, and are generally helpful to the faculty and students. They have always been friendly and kind to us, and it was nice to see them honored for their work.

Friday, since we had no class, we decided to go to the Sree Chitra Art Gallery. This time, we decided to go on our own. On Thursday, Anusha wrote down the names of the buses in Malayalam that we should take to get there and back home.

So we make our way to the bus stop to realize the buses are going quite fast if you’re trying to read their signs which are in a language that you can’t actually read. An auto rickshaw happened to be driving past. Sarah tried to hail it, just to see if she could. It worked. Well, it looked like we’re not taking the bus after all. We hopped in, and for less than a dollar each, the auto took us to the museum.

The museum itself was, of course, beautiful beyond belief. It contains works by Raja Ravi Varma and Nicholas Roerich amongst many other Indian and Asian works. After the museum, we hopped into another auto and headed to lunch, and then another auto from there to the Big Bazaar, a supermarket that feels an awful lot like Walmart.

We got there to realize that where we had been taken was not the Big Bazaar we’ve been to before. We have no idea where we are. We do our shopping anyway and then go outside to hail yet another auto to go home. It took us nearly five minutes to try to describe where we live. We know the name of the place, but not very many other people do, and no matter how hard we try, we pronounce it incorrectly every single time. Because we have no idea where we are, we can’t give directions on how to get there. Eventually, we managed to describe where we wanted to go to the driver, giving directions in relation to our college, which he was familiar with, and he kindly took us there without complaint of our struggle to communicate.

Saturday we went back to the beach at Kovalam. This time, we managed to actually take the bus. That’s right, folks, we finally took public transportation by ourselves—two buses to Kovalam and two buses back, without getting lost. I even managed to pronounce the name of the area we live in correctly to the man on the bus whom you pay for your ticket. While this may seem like a minor achievement, it gives me a ton of reassurance that I can survive here. I can at least do something for myself. It might be a baby step, but it was a step nonetheless.