Trip to India

One of the many benefits of living and working as a teacher overseas is the ability to travel for work. In the past five years, I have attended professional development training in Brazil, Peru, Bahrain, and now India. It’s an incredible way to see the world, get better at my craft, and enjoy the company of my colleagues. 

One of the most attractive aspects of our school’s compensation package for teachers is the generous professional development fund for each teacher. Earlier this year, we were a little busy with lots of Harris related stuff, but the school published some possible options for our professional development including some regional conferences. I signed up for the conference in Chennai, India.  Traveling to India was always something I've wanted to do; ever since my senior year at college and my history professor made constant analogies to the exotic land of spice. Every assignment we had was "Leaving port for our long journey to India." It became a sort of symbolic destination that I suppose found its way into my subconscious. Shannon had no interest in going to India for a vacation, so this was the perfect opportunity. So I signed up, forgot about it in the chaos of living with a newborn and in the midst of it all, and it stayed out of my mind until the week to leave crept up.

My first concern the week of departure was getting the house and Shannon ready. See, while women can legally drive in Saudi now, we have not yet had the opportunity to get Shannon a driver’s license or added to our insurance. This means that she still can’t drive off of the compound, thus she can’t run any of our errands. So the week of the conference, I ran around trying to stock the house with food, medicine, diapers, wipes, and everything else I could think of. We were effectively preparing her for quarantine for the weekend, and every provision was key. 

After loading the house up, the next step was to pack and get myself ready. It’s truly amazing how having a baby makes you re-evaluate what sort of things you consider necessities. I had all of my clothes, toiletries, and work stuff packed into the equivalent size of a shoe box in less than five minutes. 

The day I left, I woke up with the baby and said my goodbyes. It was going to be the first time I haven’t been within 100 yards of him since we brought him home. I was a little sad and I definitely felt some guilt for leaving Shannon with exclusive baby duty for the weekend.

The trip to India took about a day. We had a layover in Dubai where we were able to begin the cross-divisional bonding with some early afternoon lunch. When we got to India, it was about 8:15pm due to some weird two and a half hour time zone difference. I thought time zones were usually in the “whole hour” measurement, but alas you learn something new every day. The process to get through immigration took another hour and change. We hopped into a cab and got to see first hand how Riyadh traffic and driving can be taken up to another level. Upon finally arriving at the hotel and dropping my bags off, it was time for a late dinner at the hotel. It was my first foray into proper Indian food while in India and it blew me away. The blend of spices had no equal to anything I’ve ever experienced. After dinner, it was time to crash. 

We started early the next morning with the bus leaving the hotel to take us to the school at 7:00. The training was good and the campus had a beautiful, open, outdoor layout with outdoor hallways and courtyards. . I had seen our presenter in a previous year in Brazil. During coffee breaks, the school arranged for some local snacks and some vendors to sell some hand crafted goods. It’s a good thing they did, because despite my ingrained desire to explore, I spent 0 minutes outside of the hotel, school, or airport. Having a slice of local culture available at the school was a great touch. The training went until 5:00 at which point we went to the hotel. When we pulled up to the hotel, there was an outdoor parade (I think that’s just called a parade) leading into the hotel. People were dressed in traditional Indian outfits and the colors and designs were awe inspiring. A few of us filed that away into the back of our brains and we all met up shortly after that and had dinner together. I'm also not going to pretend that I wasn't texting Shannon for baby updates every 20 minutes or so. The guilt was strong.

After a quick shower, a few of us wandered over to the main lobby and found ourselves at the wedding reception. We were invited in and enjoyed the music and scenery for a bit of time while hanging out. After we had been there for an hour or so, it came to our attention that a member of our group actually knew the groom through some sort of distant family friend of a family friend sort of thing. It was at that moment that we went from being the strangers in the corner, to regular guests. We stayed for a bit longer, toasted the couple, danced a bit, and retired for the night after a long day. 

The next day was a quick one as well. We set off for the conference at 8:00am and stayed there until 12:00 when we had to leave for our flight back. The flight back was a doozy, but everyone has troubling travel stories that I won’t bore you with. We got back to Riyadh at 12:30 and I was safely kissing my son’s forehead goodnight by 1:30 before another long day at work the following day. My whirlwind trip was fruitful from a professional development standpoint, I had a good time, and my attendance at the wedding of the couple whose names I never learned provided me with a cultural experience despite my short stay.