India decided it would not make my first week here easy.
When the plane touched down in Delhi a day prior to the Banyan Impact Fellowship (BIF) orientation, I was ecstatic. My first time in India (and my first time traveling internationally in a few years!), and I could not wait to get off the plane and begin the six days of orientation. There were new people to meet, new foods to try, and new sites to explore all over Delhi.
However, when I woke up on the morning of the first day of orientation, something felt off. I attempted to sit up in bed and had barely made it onto my elbows before falling back down. I quickly realized that I would not be getting out of bed today. I knew stomach problems were common when traveling to India, but I had not thought they would strike so quickly.
I texted Hari, one of the members of the fellowship team, that I was feeling unwell and wouldn’t be able to make it to the start of orientation. A sense of disappointment flooded through me as I said a too-early farewell to my roommate and co-fellow Anvitha that morning. It felt like missing the first day of school, and more than anything, I was worried I would miss out on bonding with the other fellows.
At night when I was able to catch up with my roommate again, I expressed my concerns about being left out. She assured me that several other fellows had also felt unwell later in the day and had to sit out on activities too. For the next hour we lay in our beds that were mere inches apart, sharing our tales of the day and laughing. (Though Anvitha’s stories of the first day of orientation were more interesting than mine, which was mainly spent watching YouTube.) Feeling thoroughly cheered up, I went to sleep, dreaming of a stomach-pain free tomorrow.
After surviving the second day of orientation on potatoes, watermelon, and Liquid IV, I had high hopes for day three. The day started off fine, since I finally felt well enough to sit through all the morning sessions without taking a break. Yet by the afternoon, I noticed my voice was scratchy. By the evening it was noticeably different to others. By day four, I could only speak in a hoarse whisper with a cough now accompanying my failing vocals. By the morning of day five, I could barely whisper and speaking for more than two sentences made my vocal cords swell up, making it difficult to even swallow.
It turns out I had laryngitis, an inflammation of the voice box, which can be caused by infection or irritants like dust, of which there is plenty in India. After missing half of day five to visit the doctor, I returned with doctor-ordered voice rest and a pharmacy worth of medication. (Navigating the Indian healthcare system as a foreigner with no voice is an experience.)
I moved about in a fog for the rest of the day. Sitting among the other fellows, I could only listen to their playful banter and conversations, feeling like an island in an ocean of people who were all moving at the same tempo. Some people were showing off their embroidery designs to each other, which they had worked on at a session earlier that morning. The embroidery workshop had been one of the sessions I was most looking forward to, and I was sad I had missed it. At least for the past two days, I had been able to participate in conversations even if my vocal cords hurt or my voice sounded like a mini hacksaw. My frustration intensified during the senior fellow session. Because I could not speak, I had no voice to introduce myself with or to ask questions of the senior fellows. Of all the sessions to lose my voice, this one felt like the worst. So there I sat in a conference chair, mentally and physically exhausted from the past week. I wanted to participate, wanted to talk and to better know these fellows, whom my interaction with had been limited because of my illnesses.
In that moment it was hard to feel anything but isolated; yet when I looked at the big picture, I realized how surrounded I was by people who cared. That night my roommate Anvitha let me vent my frustrations, listening to my minimally worded, hoarsely whispered spiel. She offered such comforting words, encouraging me to talk to other fellows and to make the most of the next two nights we had together. The next day, I talked with others expressing my frustrations of missing out on events. Everyone could not have been kinder, telling me how they had missed me when I was sick and how glad they were that I was finally feeling well enough to come join them.
Though I missed out on some fellowship bonding opportunities in orientation that I still wish I had been able to be a part of, I cannot thank my cohort enough for how included they made me feel. Even before I expressed my frustration with my illnesses, the cohort had been there for me. When visiting the Red Fort on day one in India, my co-fellows offered advice on how to hail an autorickshaw and how to dress in a mosque. Nicholas spoke on my behalf when I lost my voice so the senior fellows could still get to know me. For every day that I was sick, I received texts from fellows checking in and asking if I needed anything.
While the excited girl on the plane had not imagined that this would be how her first week in India would go, she also did not imagine the immense kindness of her cohort. I am surrounded by the most supportive group of people and have received the warmest welcome I could want.
To my co-fellows: I can’t wait to continue this adventure will all of you this year!
Sources:
Sachdev, Poonam. “What is Laryngitis and How to Treat It” WebMD, https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/what-is-laryngitis
