How many things can you do with a scarf?

Remember how important towels are in the Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy? I feel that scarves are the same here in Delhi. They are incredibly useful.

First of all, they’re fashionable. The majority of women I see every day wear scarves, draped around their bodies in some way or another.

Second of all, they protect you from the hot sun.

Third, you can use your scarf to cover your mouth and nose when you’re surrounded by dust or other impurities. *This would have been nice to know BEFORE I got caught in the dust storm that almost suffocated me.

So far these are the primary uses I have seen and experienced. But I am convinced that I will discover more in the future. At this point I will not leave the house without a scarf.

Birthday Shenanigans

Woohoo! The big 2-5! I felt it necessary to make my 25^th birthday extra special, so several months ago I began planning my birthday present to myself. Wanna know what the present is? It’s a 3-month stay in India!

Since I already got myself here, I didn’t feel the need to have a big celebration. It was a pretty calm day with two main events: 1) Birthday cake at Aashirwad and 2) Evening dinner and drinks with friends.

1)  Birthday cake at Aashirwad

When I told the Maitri staff that my birthday was coming up, the director, Mr. Jolly Sir, proposed taking me and Andrew to Aashirwad to celebrate. Aashirwad is a retirement home that Maitri runs. As it turns out, I have the same birthday as the retirement home’s manager (whose name is Bhim Budha). So we went to celebrate together. This turned out to be a pretty crazy experience. We got there and they busted out a cake that said “Happy Birthday” on it. The usual. They lit some candles. Everything was going as one might expect.

But things changed when it came time to blow out the candles. But then Mr. Budha sir and I were both supposed to cut the cake and blow out the candles at the time. So I had a knife in my hand and was starting to make the first cut at the same time that I blew out a candle (I only got to blow out one because Mr. Budha was quicker than me). Ok, so the candles are out. Great! What’s next? I just followed along with what he was doing. He cut off one slice of cake and held it in his hand. So I did the same thing. But THEN he reached out his hand and I was supposed to take a bite of the cake. Whoa! That took me by surprise. After I took my bite they encouraged me to give him a bite of mine. So I held out my hand and he ate the small slice of cake that I had cut off. Ok, so then this other guy, who is (as I recall) the oldest, most long-standing resident at the home, also cut off some cake and fed each of us a bite. I was shocked. I had no idea that was coming. Then after we each took a bite he touched the top off each of our heads and said something. I’m not entirely sure if I remember this correctly, but I think I remember him saying “Bless you.”

Phew, so then the whole procession was over and I breathed a few sighs of relief. At that point Mr. Budha and I were still expected to slice up the rest of the cake and give everyone else a piece (on a plate, with a spoon).  The cake was delicious! But after that cake there were two more cakes to eat! One of them was really moist and spongy and spicy. The other was. . .I guess a marzipan cake. I don’t know how else to describe it. I was reminded of my time in France when people served me way more than I could eat. I felt bad turning down their offers for more cake, but I couldn’t stand the thought of eating seconds after having slices of three different kinds of cake. But well, that was definitely a nice birthday celebration!

2) Evening dinner and drinks with friends

In the evening I went out with Andrew, our other roommate, and my friend from home, Justin. We went back to Gurgoan to have dinner and drinks in the huge malls there. It was great to top off the evening by enjoying the company of some friends! We went to a sort of makeshift Ruby Tuesdays and I ordered some pasta with lots of cheese! I had been craving cheese.

Saturday Sight Seeing

Saturday (May 19) was a great day. My friend and colleague from IHG, Justin, who happens to be in Delhi on business this month, picked me and Andrew up and we headed out for some sight-seeing. Our first stop was Connaught Place. It was a big market, similar to the Delhi hut but bigger and more crowded. It was pretty loud and chaotic. Lots of merchants kept yelling to try to lure us into their shops. We didn’t spend much time there.

We moved on to Chandni Chowk, which is a huge market/conglomeration of shops in Old Delhi. It is composed of tons of narrow, winding streets that are totally packed. We decided to take cycle rickshaws through the market. We passed through several different sections of the market and the driver would turn around and explain when we moved from one section to another. For example, there was a “Silver Market” and a “Wedding Market,” as well as a “Saree Market.” The streets aren’t all that well paved so it was a pretty bumpy ride. Every once in a while we would get caught in a little traffic jam with one of the wheels stuck in a pothole. 

When this happened the driver had to get down and pull the rickshaw out and then keep driving. It was a good experience. I definitely want to go back there again and walk through it, but it was probably for the best that we did the cycle rickshaw for our first time. It was pretty exhausting already and I’m sure that going through on foot would have been even more so.

Our rickshaw drivers made a detour at the Red Fort. The Red Fort, itself is huge and pretty cool. But the most memorable part of our time there was when some of the other people there wanted to take pictures of us. Justin noticed a guy trying to sneakily take our picture, so Justin approached him and asked politely, “Do you want a picture with me?” The two of them got a picture together. Then a few other people approached us. Andrew and I each took turns taking pictures with another guy. We definitely stood out in the crowd as foreigners and turned lots of heads, but I never felt like anyone was being disrespectful or aggressive. Outside of the Red Fort we went back to our cycle rickshaws. Before we could climb back in for the return trip, Andrew spotted a snake charmer. The guy was holding a cobra on this little platter. He let Andrew hold the platter and then we snagged a group photo of me, Andrew, the snake, the snake charmer, one of our rickshaw pullers, and then a few other random guys.

Our time in the heat at Chandni Chowk and at the Red Fort was exhausting. I don’t know what the temperature was on that exact day, but I can give you an idea by saying that it’s been around 107 degrees Fahrenheit from day to day the last few times I’ve checked. So we decided to get out of the city center and head to the mall in Gurgoan (which is sort of like a suburb of Delhi where there are tons of huge malls).

We went to a huge mall called Ambience. It has seven floors. Inside, near the food court there are lots of rides for kids. The sixth floor has an ice skating rink! The fifth floor has a fun house. There is also a movie theater where we had planned to see Avengers but the timing didn’t work out in the end. I guess they really need to have a place INDOORS where you can enjoy leisure activities with air conditioning here. We refreshed ourselves by going out for a late lunch at Pizza Hut (it was a restaurant-style Pizza Hut with LOTS of options on the menu). It was a calm, contemporary atmosphere. It actually reminded me of going to a restaurant in Salt Lake City. The contrast between this mall and Chandni Chowk was huge and I could hardly believe we were still in the same city as before. I went shopping and got some more colorful, cool Indian outfits. We topped the day off with a round of McFlurries!

I should also mention that I felt much better by Saturday. I’m still coughing and stuff, but I feel great overall.

Down With the Sickness

I just wanted to give a quick update, since I haven't written for a few days.

I've spent most of today and yesterday in bed, trying to sleep off this illness. So I don't have very many interesting things to keep you informed about.

We had one outing yesterday that was pretty cool. One of our co-workers, named Anita, brought us shopping at two different markets--the Delhi Hut and the Kaan Market (I've probably spelled those wrong). I was excited to get out and see some new stuff. I bought two sweet purple shirts and some really cool, baggy, Aladdin-style pants. But wowee! It was hot! Anita said it was 42 degrees Celsius, which is 107 Fahrenheit. So. . .imagine you are coughing and sneezing and you have a headache, then you spend a few hours in that kind of heat. How would you feel afterwards? Fortunately I had brought a water bottle with me!

When we got home I went back to bed. Today I played it safe and didn't go anywhere while the sun was out. It's unfortunate that I have to miss so many days of work during my first week, but I'm sure everyone in the office would rather I stay home than come in and cough all day.

Visit to the Doctor's Office

This will come as a surprise, but I had to cut my first day of work short to go to the hospital.

In the last entries I wrote about the discomfort I felt in my lungs from Saturday’s dust storm. Well, today at work I spent 15-20 minutes in the bathroom trying to stifle a severe nosebleed. A colleague of mine named Anita called a taxi and told the driver to take me to the hospital. Ugh. . .talk about having a bad first day of work!

Andrew came with to the hospital and was very helpful. It turned out to be a pretty interesting excursion. We drove through some new parts of the city. Up until this point we hadn’t really seen any slums or any indicators of extreme poverty. But on the ride to the hospital we were exposed to some of this stuff. I saw lots of groups of little kids walking through the street, in really dangerous areas where they were at risk of being hit by a car. We passed some slums, as well as a bridge that some people seem to be living under. There were cots and things set up under it, as well as some rickshaws piled high with supplies. A surprising amount of adults were just walking through the middle of busy streets right in the middle of heavy traffic.

I also saw lots of cool stuff on the way there. One thing that stands out to me is that things are very colorful. Women tend to wear beautiful outfits. There are tons of vendors on the side of the road selling fruit, or just about anything else you could think of. We passed a vendor selling mops and brooms, all of different colors, just sticking out of this huge bin on the side of the road. Most of the main roads have an island in the middle. The curb on both the island and on the sidewalk is painted in black and white alternating stripes. This will probably not come as a surprise to many of you, but lots of things that I see here remind me of the UK. I feel that my previous experiences in the UK have helped ease me into things slightly.

The hospital was teeming with people but I was ushered in to a doctor’s office immediately. He prescribed me two inhalers and some nasal spray. Woohoo! I am thankful that there is no infection at this point. Hopefully this medication will do the trick and I won’t have to go back to see the doctor again. I started taking the medication right away and I feel much better already. I was also relieved when both Anita and the doctor said Saturday’s weather was atypical and that heavy dust storms are pretty uncommon.

We’re back at the apartment now. It’s too bad that we had to cut our first day at work short, but hopefully tomorrow will go better!

First day at work

Today is my first day in the office at Maitri. For the moment we are spending our time getting better acquainted with Maitri’s different projects. Later today we will have the opportunity to help out with the education program for slum children.

One great thing about jet lag is that it’s improving my ability to fall asleep. But the bad thing is that I want to sleep ALL the time—night, mid-day, afternoon, morning, etc. . . I’m normally not a napper but that has changed so far during my time here. Fortunately Andrew and I bought some instant coffee yesterday, which helped me stay awake during most of the day.

Other matters of physical discomfort include:

-swollen fingers, toes, feet, and ankles

-bug bites on feet

-more or less constant sweating—it’s HOT!

-Coughing and wheezing from getting caught in that dust storm on Saturday.

Regardless of these annoyances, I have had plenty of fun experiences so far as well. Yesterday the roommates hung around the apartment most of the day, some of us dozing off here and there. Andrew and I want to learn Hindi so we started learning some of the numbers. We then played Go Fish to practice our new skills. Since I’m such a language nerd I am generally overjoyed when my friends want to learn and practice a new language with me. It was great! I haven’t practiced my Hindi with any native speakers yet since I’m nowhere close to being able to form a sentence at this point. But I’ll be working towards that slowly.

Andrew and I went on two different excursions to the nearby market. The second trip was later in the evening, and it was more crowded than before. I’m guessing people try to stay inside during the day because it’s so hot.

New Delhi Day One

Andrew and I have been in New Delhi for 12 hours, and I would say that so far it’s much calmer and nicer than I had been led to expect. Granted, Maitri arranged for someone to pick us up at the airport and take us straight to our new apartment. If we hadn’t had their help I’m sure we’d be feeling much more flustered by now.

We came straight to the apartment. We met Jacob, the spring semester intern. We also met Laxmi, our housekeeper. After a shower, a meal, and a nap, Jacob took us on a mini-tour of the surrounding neighborhood.

We went to a few markets and also went to check out where the Maitri office is located.  Some things to note:

-It was extremely hot during the first half of the walk, but there was a huge wind and dust storm, with a bit of rain, during the second half. The storm helped cool us off but it was very uncomfortable with dust and dirt blowing into my eyes and now I feel like my clothes and my whole body are covered in a film of dirt.

-There are lots of motorcycles here. I saw some carrying families of up to four people at one time. The dad was driving, the mom was riding side-saddle on the back, and then the two little kids were piling on in front of the dad.

-I went to buy a snack and the guy at the counter didn’t have exact change, so he gave me back *most* of my change and then two little pieces of candy. I thought that was cute.

-People are sort of crazy drivers here. They don’t stay in one lane and they honk a lot.

-Sidewalks are raised higher above the street than I’m used to. Every time I stepped down from the sidewalk I stumbled a bit.

-It’s not nearly as crowded as I had expected it to be. But I guess that might change once we actually go to Old Delhi.

The dust storm pushed us to cut the excursion short. It’s probably for the best since I’m exhausted and physically uncomfortable in various ways. My legs are still sore from the Eze hike and my fingers and toes seem to be swollen and hot. I’m also coughing a bunch now from breathing in all of that dust.

Back at the apartment I’ve been battling with the internet connection to try to post some more pictures and things. The connection’s strength keeps wavering so I apologize to anyone if you’re waiting for me to email you or something. But I’m pretty excited about the food I’ve had so far. Our housekeeper cooks for us. So far all of the meals she has made for us have been delicious and spicy.

Woohoo! I made it!

Our. . .interesting Doha layover

Andrew and I woke up very early on Friday to catch a bus that would bring us to the Nice airport. I was very tense and nervous on the way there. On top of that, we both took our first anti-malaria pills so I couldn’t tell if the churning in my stomach was coming from the pill or from my nervousness.

Everything went very smoothly. The flight was close to empty and the flight attendants gave us a ton of really good food. It seems like they handed out “refreshing towlettes” maybe ten times throughout the flight. It was the calmest, most serene flight I’ve ever been on. This was especially nice for me because I was pretty scared of going to the airport in Qatar. I really didn’t know what to expect.

The Doha airport was similar to many other airports I’ve been to before. It had places to buy food, as well as “duty-free” shops with all kinds of products, ranging from whiskey, to perfume, to chocolates. We went through security and sat in a waiting area near our departure gate.

It was also strikingly different from many other airports I’ve been to in the past. For one thing, all of the signs were written in both English and Arabic. For another thing, this airport had a mosque in it. Going through security was far more pleasant than is the case in U.S. airports. I didn’t have to show my little Ziploc bag of liquids, or take out my laptop, or remove my shoes. We just put our bags on the conveyor belt and went through the metal detector and were merry. On top of that, the people in the airport were incredibly diverse. I saw all kinds of clothing on all kinds of individuals. I lost track of how many cool hats I saw people wearing. It seemed there was a sampling of people from every country and every continent.

Warning: content in the following paragraph contains gross stuff!

The airport had an upscale feel to it, even though it was a relatively small building. However, there were some unsettling experiences in the restroom. When I first walked into a stall I narrowly avoided stepping into a puddle of vomit. No big deal though. I just left that stall and found another one. But when I came back to that restroom later and was inside a stall, I heard someone come into the stall next to mine and start vomiting. I know it’s normally kind of sickening to hear another person vomit to begin with, but this was especially disturbing. The woman was wailing in pain during pretty much the whole episode. I got spooked and promptly made my escape. It was nice to have Andrew at the airport with me. I needed to talk to someone to get my mind off of what I had just heard.

Our layover lasted (I believe) for six hours. We landed at 7 pm and left at 1 am. It was pretty brutal, especially since I’m already jet-lagged and sleep deprived. To make matters worse, I was overdressed and sore from the previous day's hike. I’m very glad that Andrew and I were on the same flight and could keep each other company during the long wait.

My wonderful Nice layover

My time in Nice was wonderful. I made some new friends at the hostel, had the chance to get better acquainted with my fellow intern/roommate, and practice my French. On top of all of this I was reunited with my two long-lost loves: la Cote d’Azur and la langue francaise.

Andrew (my fellow intern) and I buddied up with three other travelers from our hostel: Hilda, Stephanie, and Sebastian. To give you some background, on them Hilda was born in El Salvador but raised in Calgary, Alberta. Stephanie is also from Calgary, but the two had never met before this. Most of Sebastian’s family lives in Argentina, so he has spent half of his life there and the other half in the U.S., in the Denver area. All three were traveling solo. All five of us had just arrived in Nice that evening.

On Wednesday night we all hung out in the hostel’s common area (which was so bustling it sort of reminded me of a night club) and then went out on the town for a drink. On Thursday morning we split into two groups. Stephanie and I took the bus to Eze while the other three went on a little further down the coast and went to Monaco. Eze was very interesting. We ended up hiking during most of our time there. The Eze Village is on top of a little mountain so we walked up most of the way and took the bus the rest of the way.

Near the top of the mountain there is a “Parfumerie” that gives free tours, and then a little further up the mountain is the very picturesque village. I actually watched that David Bowie movie, Labrynth, a few days ago and there’s a battle scene at the end of the movie that takes place in a village. Well, Eze reminded me of the village in that scene. After exploring the cutsie village stuff we hiked back down the mountain. And might I add that we had a spectacular view of the Mediterranean along the way.

We took the bus back to Nice and spent the rest of the day at the beach. We enjoyed some delightful French snacks in the process, such as goat cheese and baguette. To save money, we stayed in and Sebastian cooked us all dinner in the hostel kitchen. Afterwards we went out on the town once again. After wandering through some random back streets we stumbled upon a small bar called “Shapko” where a bluesy-type band was playing. It was nice and relaxing—a good way for us to spend our last night in Nice together even though everyone was super tired from the long day.