Adjusting to a new home, new values.

• Author: Upadhyay, Hardik

About five years ago, when I was 14, I came to this country with my family from India. I had a very hard time when I first arrived in Connecticut. I didn't know a lot of English, and when I spoke, people couldn't understand me and made fun of me.

I used to cry sometimes because everything here was so unfamiliar and I missed India so much. Even things like clothes and food were very different. (Before I moved here, I had only tried pizza once!)

My favorite sport is cricket, which is very popular in India and in many countries around the world. While I still have my equipment in my apartment here, it's useless because nobody in suburban Connecticut seems to play cricket.

One of the things that was hardest to adjust to, however, was the different standard of living and how people view their lives here.

GARBAGE PICKERS

When I was little, my family lived in a small village in Gujarat, a state in western India. When I was 9 years old, I remember going to a playground to play cricket and seeing people nearby pick stuff out of the piles of garbage to find things they could sell. As they sifted through the garbage, they ate whatever they could find.

One day when I was walking to school, I saw a dead body on the street. It was a woman who looked like she had died because she hadn't had enough food. I could see her bones, even in her face.

In India, I saw many people suffering from lack of clothes, food, or a home. I often saw people sleeping in railway stations, on sidewalks, roads, and floors. I saw people dying because they didn't have enough food. It's hard to describe everything I've seen. I think you have to have lived in India to understand the poverty there.

'I'M SO HUNGRY ...'

I think about these things...