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This is my experience with some extra masala added for story effect. Reproduced from my earlier works.
"America! Here I come!" I shouted and jumped in the air. I couldn't contain my excitement and the smile on my face was threatening to become permanent. After two years of slogging away at small and medium projects, my name had finally been selected to be part of a larger one. It required traveling to a different continent but I was still single and had no real attachments, besides immediate family, and the call to adventure was screaming inside me.
Later that day, with the excitement still coursing through my veins, I was called in for a meeting to get acquainted with the rest of the team. We would be together for 6 weeks and it was important that we all got along. My friend Amit was there and he smiled when he saw me enter. He had a year of seniority over me but he had always looked out for me. I suspected he had a hand in getting me this opportunity.
The rest of the team was comprised of two project managers, a delivery manager, and of course, a team lead. I recognized them all and immediately and realized I was the only woman in the group. They were all in their thirties and married and some small part of me was disappointed. Secretly I had hoped that maybe being so far from home, with a single guy my own age, maybe there could have been some flirting. I had a boyfriend but I was always open to meeting new people and making new friends.
Our first meeting lasted an hour. When the team lead told us we would be going to Omaha my face sank. What exactly was an Omaha? I Googled it and found out that it was a small town in central USA. Looking at the map on my screen I knew I was going to be bored out of my mind when not working on the project.
We had several meetings over the next few days to discuss various topics about our project and what would be required. A big issue would be food. There were no Indian restaurants near where we would be staying and only one small store that had anything catering to our diet. American food would be a treat in the beginning but we were sure we would soon tire of it. The local Wal-Mart had a few things but we knew we couldn't just live on Basmati rice for our trip.
We had no idea what would be available there so we decided to take as much as we could in order to not be without. Even our utensils were a question none of us could answer so we made a list of those as well. Bringing food was going to be an issue as America's import rules were very strict but the team lead promised to look into it for us. There was so much planning going on and so many things to consider that we joked even a NASA shuttle launch couldn't have been this difficult.
Our business visa's came in about two weeks before we were scheduled to leave and the excitement level rose again. With the time lapses between events we all felt like we were on a roller coaster ride. One of the funny guys on the team had taken to calling our departure date D-Day, and it had stuck. When it finally arrived I said good bye to my family and boyfriend, and made my way to the airport by taxi.
Omaha was a small city with only about 500,000 people, but was delightfully pretty in the section we landed. We imagined like everywhere else, things got a little worse the further from the city center you went. Our office was on the outskirts and we wondered what we were in for.
We had booked a hotel as close to work as possible but for some reason the available rooms were limited. We ended up settling for two next to each other and had to deal with the sleeping arrangement issues. One room had two queen size beds, but the other only had a king. With six of us in the group and me the only woman, the guys decided that four would share the beds in one room with Amit on the floor, and I would get the other to myself. There was no way a married man was sleeping in the same room with me. Amit protested but the other four didn't want to spend extra on another room. He ended up calling down to the front desk and had them bring up a roll-away bed. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
Morning routines were difficult to say the least. I ended up having to set my alarm earlier in order to have the time I needed to get ready. With the five of them having to use just one bathroom there was always a knock on my door with at least one of them asking to use mine.
A long time back when I was just starting to grow breasts and hips, I had discovered a line of clothing called Victoria's Secret. Everything fit so well but was so tiny. Today though, after a marvelous growth spurt, I had filled out remarkably. I had no intention of letting anyone accidentally walk in on me in tight little undergarments that could barely contain me. Even now, standing in front of the mirror, I marveled at how curvy I had become. There wasn't much fat anywhere but I could fill out my jeans well enough to turn heads in the street.
Amit was the only person in the group even close to my age. He was more modern in his thinking than the rest of the group and was open to ideas and more accepting of things. The others were more regimented and it felt like they had walked straight out of a 1980's government office. When conversation drifted away from work I tended to zone out and not pay attention. I was a very open person and enjoyed new experiences but their view on those things didn't interest me.
"America! Here I come!" I shouted and jumped in the air. I couldn't contain my excitement and the smile on my face was threatening to become permanent. After two years of slogging away at small and medium projects, my name had finally been selected to be part of a larger one. It required traveling to a different continent but I was still single and had no real attachments, besides immediate family, and the call to adventure was screaming inside me.
Later that day, with the excitement still coursing through my veins, I was called in for a meeting to get acquainted with the rest of the team. We would be together for 6 weeks and it was important that we all got along. My friend Amit was there and he smiled when he saw me enter. He had a year of seniority over me but he had always looked out for me. I suspected he had a hand in getting me this opportunity.
The rest of the team was comprised of two project managers, a delivery manager, and of course, a team lead. I recognized them all and immediately and realized I was the only woman in the group. They were all in their thirties and married and some small part of me was disappointed. Secretly I had hoped that maybe being so far from home, with a single guy my own age, maybe there could have been some flirting. I had a boyfriend but I was always open to meeting new people and making new friends.
Our first meeting lasted an hour. When the team lead told us we would be going to Omaha my face sank. What exactly was an Omaha? I Googled it and found out that it was a small town in central USA. Looking at the map on my screen I knew I was going to be bored out of my mind when not working on the project.
We had several meetings over the next few days to discuss various topics about our project and what would be required. A big issue would be food. There were no Indian restaurants near where we would be staying and only one small store that had anything catering to our diet. American food would be a treat in the beginning but we were sure we would soon tire of it. The local Wal-Mart had a few things but we knew we couldn't just live on Basmati rice for our trip.
We had no idea what would be available there so we decided to take as much as we could in order to not be without. Even our utensils were a question none of us could answer so we made a list of those as well. Bringing food was going to be an issue as America's import rules were very strict but the team lead promised to look into it for us. There was so much planning going on and so many things to consider that we joked even a NASA shuttle launch couldn't have been this difficult.
Our business visa's came in about two weeks before we were scheduled to leave and the excitement level rose again. With the time lapses between events we all felt like we were on a roller coaster ride. One of the funny guys on the team had taken to calling our departure date D-Day, and it had stuck. When it finally arrived I said good bye to my family and boyfriend, and made my way to the airport by taxi.
Omaha was a small city with only about 500,000 people, but was delightfully pretty in the section we landed. We imagined like everywhere else, things got a little worse the further from the city center you went. Our office was on the outskirts and we wondered what we were in for.
We had booked a hotel as close to work as possible but for some reason the available rooms were limited. We ended up settling for two next to each other and had to deal with the sleeping arrangement issues. One room had two queen size beds, but the other only had a king. With six of us in the group and me the only woman, the guys decided that four would share the beds in one room with Amit on the floor, and I would get the other to myself. There was no way a married man was sleeping in the same room with me. Amit protested but the other four didn't want to spend extra on another room. He ended up calling down to the front desk and had them bring up a roll-away bed. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
Morning routines were difficult to say the least. I ended up having to set my alarm earlier in order to have the time I needed to get ready. With the five of them having to use just one bathroom there was always a knock on my door with at least one of them asking to use mine.
A long time back when I was just starting to grow breasts and hips, I had discovered a line of clothing called Victoria's Secret. Everything fit so well but was so tiny. Today though, after a marvelous growth spurt, I had filled out remarkably. I had no intention of letting anyone accidentally walk in on me in tight little undergarments that could barely contain me. Even now, standing in front of the mirror, I marveled at how curvy I had become. There wasn't much fat anywhere but I could fill out my jeans well enough to turn heads in the street.
Amit was the only person in the group even close to my age. He was more modern in his thinking than the rest of the group and was open to ideas and more accepting of things. The others were more regimented and it felt like they had walked straight out of a 1980's government office. When conversation drifted away from work I tended to zone out and not pay attention. I was a very open person and enjoyed new experiences but their view on those things didn't interest me.