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.