Stories and Anecdotes v2

Things are becoming, dare I say it, normal over here. Things like paying $1 for a full meal are becoming expected, or trying to finding drinkable water wherever you go has become like second nature to me at this point. I’ll be a real Indian by the time I leave. Here are some more stories/observations:

· I had my first encounter with true Indian street food the other day. The family I’m staying with decided that they would drive me and Karan around the city one night to show us what many other Indians do regularly. We hopped in the car (air conditioned, man was that nice) and went off through the city. Our first stop was pani puri, which are nothing like anything in the US. The only way I can describe it are little egg-shaped balls of breading. The server lays out a bowl for each of us, then just starts putting holes in the eggs, plopping in different Indian paste-like mixtures, and then dipping the whole thing in flavored water (not tap water, don’t worry). He does this all in about 2 seconds, and then plops it in your bowl and starts the next one for the person beside you. Just as you’ve managed to swallow the first, he has another one in your bowl. Continue this speed-eating for about a dozen more pani-puri each, and finally we managed to tell him that we’ve had enough. My mouth was on fire, so we went and got the Indian version of a snow cone. This was a bit of a letdown, but helped my burning mouth at least.

· Mangos, they are everywhere. There’s a huge mango tree right outside of our house, and you can go outside, pick up mangos that have just fallen, and then go inside and eat them (that is if you can get them before the cows do). You could never get mangos this fresh in the US, that’s for sure.

· I’ve seen two movies since I’ve been here, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and Hangover 2. Words cannot describe how refreshing a 2 hour respite in A/C is after a full day of 110 degree heat. The theaters here are really nice, with nice seats and big stadium-seating styles. I pay about 150 rupees (like $3.40) which is expensive comparatively, but the facilities are definitely worth it. Indians here are much different movie-goers than Americans, and they laugh at the strangest things. I guess they like slapstick humor more than us, but things that me, Karan and Rachel found hilarious didn’t even illicit a single laugh from the rest of the theater, yet when there’s a monkey doing something silly on the screen, you can bet the Indians are cracking up. They also talk to each other really loudly or whistle/clap/scream at the funny parts.

· The heat here is unbearable, but luckily, there is much less humidity than the rest of India. Everyone that we were talking to before we came to Baroda said something along the lines of, “Baroda, oh my it’s hot there.” It might just be literally one of the hottest places on the planet. Never will I complain about the “hot” 90 degree North Carolina summers. You sweat all the time as well, and you must get past this very quickly if you want to maintain your sanity here. I have to just accept that 30 seconds after my cold shower I’ll be sweating again, and that the next time I won’t be sweaty is the next day directly after my shower.

Interesting Things

Eating Etiquette

The style of eating in India is nothing like what I’ve encountered in my life so far. In a traditional Indian meal, you can expect a large metal plate that has a few other mini bowls on it holding various sauces/fruits/chutneys/vegetable mixtures, a bit of rice, and some roti. This is quite an intimidating spread for any westerner, and I think I’m finally getting the hang of how to go about eating it. A truly skilled Indian will only use their right hand to eat (I’m not on this level yet, maybe a few weeks?). First, you break off a small piece of the roti, and then dip it in one of the sauces (it’s not really a sauce, but more like a gravy but I don’t really know how else to explain it). After this take the roti with sauce on it and pinch some of the vegetable mixture using the roti almost as a utensil. Finally, eat the whole entire roti/sauce/vegetable combo that’s in your hand, and repeat. When all of the roti is gone, take the remaining sauce and vegetable mixes and put them with the rice, and eat it up.

Man the food here is good, but there seems to be a lack of variety. Aside from changing around the vegetables or the sauces, it’s roti and this for lunch and dinner almost every day. I foresee myself getting bored of this fast, but maybe not.

Trash Troubles

God, there is trash everywhere. Like literally, everywhere that I go there is trash on the ground. I guess that by now the Indians have gotten used to it, but I can’t fathom how they live their everyday lives like this year after year. I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem stems from some sort of aversion in India to trash cans. In houses, on the street, nowhere can I ever find a trashcan to throw things away in. What this does is create a mentality among the Indians that it’s ok to throw things away anywhere. Nilay, one of the AIESEC’ers that I mentioned before, threw his trash over the top of one of the few trashcans that I remember seeing on the street, and onto the ground. This isn’t because he is a bad person who just likes littering, but because here, there is nothing wrong with doing this. Another time I saw someone complain about the trash in a lake, and then 3 minutes later, they threw their cigarette into it. I’ll never understand…

I think I am finally becoming accustomed to India, I’m developing a routine and even getting better at my miming skills! I can’t believe that I’ve only been here for two weeks; things like flagging down a rickshaw or sleeping in 90 degree heat seem like the norm now. I wonder what else I’ll become used to in the next month or so. Not the cows, that’s for sure… or the monkeys.

Slummin' It

Today I had my first real day at work. In the past few sessions that I’ve gone, all I’ve done is talk to some kids about what they want to learn or something like that, but today I actually got to impart some of my expansive knowledge. The kids I taught today ranged from about 10 to probably 14 years old. As I pulled up on a moped, one of the kids yelled something in Gujarati and a bunch more came running over into one of the community member’s houses. I followed with my peer-educator who was helping me translate and was greeted inside by about 15 giddy little Indian kids.

I first started by telling the kids to say their name and what they like to do, and then I began attempting to teach them English. This was a struggle. The kids knew almost no English to begin with, so I started with “Hello, how are you” and taught them to respond with “I am fine” or “I am not fine”. After they seemed to get this, I went on to “What do you like to do” and they would respond with things like school work, cricket etc. This led to some funny exchanges when I had them practice with each other as they would mix all of it up (understandably, they had been learning it for a whole 5 minutes at this point).

Soon, the instruction stopped and the kids turned it into an America Q&A session. They crowded around me and asked me a ton of different questions: “how many tigers are in the USA?”, “when is your diwali?”, “what kind of guns does the army have?” and on and on. At one point they wanted to see an American dollar, which I luckily had on me. They were super-excited to get to hold one of these, because most of the time they just saw them in the movies. The picture above is them crowding around the dollar yelling "picture picture picture". These questions and interactions were really entertaining, and some were quite articulate. This part took up a good hour of the time we had, and near the end started to get silly, as the kids were asking me to breakdance for them etc. One kid (front right) then turns on music and starts breaking out some cool techno dance moves out of the blue which was a little startling for me.

The kids left after this and the mother of the house we were staying in brought over some samosas, which I had said earlier when the kids asked that it was my favorite Indian food. These were delicious. When the peer educator, an older kid and I finished these I was off on my merry way back to India proper.

This was a great experience, I can’t believe it’s what I’ll be doing for the next month.

Palatial Adventures

On this past Sunday, we woke up somewhat early and headed to the AIESEC office to go on a tour of some attractions in Baroda. Our lovely tour guide, Bharat, who is an AIESEC’er, was very enthusiastic about everything we did that day. It was obvious that all he wanted was for us to have a good time. I went with Karan, Rachel, Peter (New Zealander), and Brina (Canadian) first to the Palace of Baroda, which is in the picture. The Palace was massive and impressively contrasted the chaos, clutter and apparent disfunctionality of India-general. It was one of the most expensive palaces of its time, and artists from all over Europe and India worked on it. It is very ornate on the inside (of course, no air conditioning even for the royalty) complete with big stuffed animal heads, paintings and weapons rooms. The area surrounding it is perhaps the only maintained lawn in all of Baroda, and it even has its own golf course (I want to play, but 115 degree golf probably doesn’t suit me).

After this we hopped back in the rickshaw, got some ice cream, then walked back to the AIESEC office through the garden of Baroda. This walk back was very interesting, but not for the reasons that you would think. It was home to one of the more concentrated areas of Indians that I’d seen in a while, and with that come the awkward stares at the white people. The strangeness of seeing every head in your peripheral vision turn and follow you wherever you go just cant be described. In unison, dozens of people would stop conversations and watch as 3 white people and 2 indians strolled down the pathway. At one point a group of boys even came up to us and started taking pictures with us, and a grown man came up and introduced his small ~4 year old daughter to us, and had us shake her hand… I don’t think I can get used to that sort of thing. When I come back to the states, I’ll probably think of myself as a celebrity. Rachel suggested that if anyone needs an ego boost back home, they should come to India and just walk around and see the stares they get.

On other notes, Karan and I moved from the AIESEC house we were staying at to one of his relatives houses here in Baroda. They have a very nice house but it’s a little crazy right now because there are relative visiting. This house is a little more difficult to function in because they speak English a little worse collectively, but it’s nothing a little miming and pointing can’t fix. Boy I cant wait until I can come back and articulately describe what it is I need without using my hands or horribly accented Gujarati.

Until next time!

India Strikes Back

I’m writing this the first time I’ve been outside of the house in the last two days. Despite all of the warnings that I’d received saying that I would get sick, I thought that if I had some basic sensibility that I could avoid anything too bad… unfortunately I was wrong. We went to an omelet place for dinner which the Indians had claimed was the best omelets that you could get in town (known throughout Baroda as being safe and good). In their defense they were VERY tasty, but I woke up at around two in the morning, knowing I was in trouble.

All through the night my body purged any resemblance of omelet until around 9:30 in the morning the mother of my wonderful host family took me to the doctor. I was set up with 4 different pills to take, which I just threw up at first, but soon I was able to keep them down and they kicked in. I felt bad for the rest of the day, but this morning I’ve been able to keep down the first food since last night, so hopefully I’m over this bug.

I don’t know what I would have done if Arjun and Siddhant’s mother hadn’t taken such good care of me. She kept saying, “no boy will be sick in my house”. She cooked some breakfast and lunch for me even though she knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it, she took me to the doctor, made me tea and told me exactly what to do to feel better. All better now, and it’s just another day in the chaos of India.

Stories and Anecdotes

Time for more stories or things that I’ve noticed:

• Power and water here are consistent for the most part, but that doesn’t mean that they are impeccable. Twice since I’ve been here all of the lights and computers have shut off, eliciting a groan from the Indians. At first this was a strange moment for me. The concept of power not being available whenever anyone wants it is taken for granted in the US. Arjun, one of the people that I’m staying with was explaining that because Baroda is surrounded by so many industrial plants and manufacturing belts, power is often devoted to these places instead of the residential areas, because they factories are more important. On the same note, last night I had to take an expedited shower because the Indian government had diverted the water away from the area in which I’m living.
• Monkeys, who would have thought that they would be all over the place? I’m sitting at my favorite shop serving sugar cane juice (I need to learn what this is called), and a family of monkeys comes and sits down 6 feet from me just watching me and Rachel drink our juice. I was terrified, those things are scary. They are all around the office that I frequent, so I had better watch out. (The cows scare me too)
• Picture the begging children in Slumdog Millionaire. This is exactly like how it is in real life. Little boys and girls, sometimes no older than 3 years old, will come up to you and tap you on the elbow and hold out their hands at you. These kids are dirty, disheveled and obviously very poor. All of the Indians here shoo them away like animals or something. It’s one of the hardest things to see this happen. The white girls like Rachel get it the worst in our group.
• Rachel and I were talking with Sarah, our friend from home, on Skype and talking about the cheapness and heat of India; just general observations. Afterwards Dinesh, our friend in AIESEC, was telling us that it was hard for him not to laugh as he heard us. He said “hearing white people talk about India is so funny”. Then he said I should get on a white cow and take a picture, haha.
• When I visited one of the slums, I think I met a mob boss. My boss was taking me to kids houses that would be my translators within the slums and then we randomly stopped at this 50 year old’s house, named Rameshbhai. This was fairly strange to me, as we had only been stopping to see kids so far. My boss explained that the man, who spoke no English, was an “Important (pause) member of the community” and that he would be good to know. We were talking for a while, and then a grown man stopped by and gave the suspected mob boss a coke and walked out. There were several women in the back cooking and people seemed to gravitate around the disproportionally nice slum house. I have his cell number so if I run into trouble here, I know who I’m going to call.

That’s all for now. Im having fun and meeting a bunch of new people

My Job

I went to my first day of work on Tuesday and it was explained to me exactly what I’ll be doing in the 6 weeks that I’m here. My main role will be going into the slums of Baroda and teaching kids ranging from 10-18 whatever I choose. Yep that’s right, Andy in the slums of India, if someone had told me that’s what I would be doing this summer then I never would have believed them. I’ll be developing lesson plans for them in order to promote social growth in the slums which has been a large problem for them. Children grow up there with little inspiration and are resigned to the status of their parents, a problem that Shishu Milap, the organization that I’m working for, is trying to prevent. I’m looking at things like gender equality to pollution or computer skills as possible lessons to show them.

My first day of actual teaching is on Monday and I’ll admit I’m really nervous. The kids will speak no English, forcing me to rely 100% on a translator that will be there with me. For my first lesson I’ve created a lesson on culture. I’ll start by talking about myself and American culture (food, school, sports, family etc) and then I’ll tell them to get in groups and determine what they think their culture is; what it means to be an Indian. There’s lots of uncertainty for me, because I don’t know how long this will take, if the kids will enjoy it, if it’s even helpful and so on.

The first slum that I’m going to is the worst one. It is very run down, with children running all around and destitution everywhere. Called Ramdemagar, it’s one of the biggest slums in all of Vadodara, so I hope I come back in one piece.

India v2

(the picture is the street right outside of the office I'm using)

In this blog post I’ll just write down some things that I have realized that are different than the US. Everything is very different, but here are some of the things that I’ve noticed/ things that are really cool:

• - India’s hospitality thus far has been amazing. I was staying at Nilay’s, an AISEC’er, house for the first two days and the family did everything they could to make sure that I was comfortable. They made out extra beds, brought me water even if I didn’t ask for it and many other things. Nilay’s mother also would come and ask us what we wanted for breakfast and bring us tea each morning. One thing that I found funny was they kept saying that I should stop saying thank you, because it was almost their duty, therefore they shouldn’t be thanked. On Monday, I went and visited another friend’s cousin’s house. Niyaz, the friend, took me to their house and said that I was the first American that the family had ever seen. After I got there the small daughter ran in the back and got the mother and grandmother who looked at me from the doorway. They were very shy at first, but then were asking for pictures and saying that I looked like Harry Potter. The boy even took a picture with his phone and told me he was sending it to all his friends saying that he made a friend with a white person! They insisted that I have lunch with them and were giving me more food than I could handle. That was a really cool experience for me, and hopefully for them as well.
• Another thing I noticed is the sheer volume of hired help that there is in houses, restaurants, etc. When I go to a place to eat there are literally half a dozen waiters on one table, and every house that I have seen has people that come in to sweep the floors, deliver clean laundry etc. Some of the Indians were telling me that this is due to the massive wealth discrepancies here. The rich people have more money than they know what to do with so they hire people in order to employ some of their friends that may not be as well off.
• Going off of the last one, there have been several times where we have gotten discounts at places because the people working there were friends of who I was with. At one of Nilay’s friend’s restaurants (Zeeshan) we got a 300 rupee discount and at another place, I got a discount on my phone because the person with me, Dominique, knew the owner.
• For me, being a white, non-Guajarati speaking person, describing to a rickshaw driver what I need is nearly impossible. Through miming, pointing and slaughtering the Gujarat language I am able to describe somewhere close to where I need to be going. Then when I say “kitna paisa” or how much, I am always overcharged by around 30 rupees because I’m white. Finally if I can’t talk them down in price I move on to the next one, or if they finally go down to a manageable price it’s off through the deathly traffic to wherever I’m going.
• Time for writing about traffic, because I’ve referenced it a few times. I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that all Indians on mopeds are at least semi-suicidal. Instead of doing a U-turn to get to a store that is on the other side of the road’s median, my driver will instead go the wrong way down the road into oncoming traffic… holding down his horn the whole time. Indians will also stroll out into the road as pedestrians, and the traffic will miraculously part around them, no matter how busy the road is. (I haven’t gotten the hang of this yet, however). Also if some people are on one moped and friends on another, then the two will have conversations while going down the road, weaving in and out of lanes/cows/people/mango carts/ busses/trash etc. etc. (Several times Ive seen people texting, talking to a friend on another moped and driving in this madness) Another funny thing about traffic dynamics here is that cows are literally the ONLY thing that traffic will yield to. I say this from personal experience as I was almost late to my first day of work due to a cow-induced traffic jam. Couple all of this with the sheer volume of traffic and you have a recipe for disaster.
• - Some of the best food that I’ve had so far has been from random little places on the street. My most frequented place is a stand that crushes fresh sugar cane and lemon into a glass which makes a greenish liquid. It’s really sweet and very good. I had pan at a stand, which as I said last time, was only a memorable experience because of how strange/awful it tasted (first and only time I thought I was gonna lose my dinner since being in India). There are good veggie burger stands everywhere also that will give you good burgers for 15-30 rupees (like 30-75 cents).

That’s all I can think of for now, but there will be more anecdotes and stories to follow.

India

I MADE IT,

Twenty four hours, three different airports and 3 hours of airplane sleep later I made it to my first stop: Mumbai. I am staying with my friend, Karan in his cousin’s apartment, which is only a few rooms even though his family is very well off comparatively. I slept in their kid’s playroom, but I had a bed so it was infinitely better than trying to sleep on the plane.

What surprises me first is the overall foreignness of India. Nearly everything they do is different from what I’m used to. Motorcycles, trains and rickshaws are the norm while cars are a rarity, you feel genuinely lucky to happen upon a ‘normal’ toilet, people drive on the other side of the road, cows, stray dogs, goats etc. wander the streets… the list goes on and on. So far I haven’t even been able to realize most of the discrepancies because they are everywhere.

I arrived at Karan’s family’s apartment around midnight on the first night and got some jetlagged sleep trying to ready myself for more travel the next day. This fist night I was very comfortable as the apartment had air conditioning, hot water and showers. On the Saturday morning after I arrived me, Karan, and Rachel who was also with us, went for a walk around Mumbai, It is a very beautiful (albeit run down) city. It’s a strange thing to see oceanfront properties that are almost or literally falling apart. After this I boarded a train for another six hour trek to Baroda itself. On the train I met some very nice Indians, one of which had just gotten in to the University of Iowa and was extremely worried that he wouldn’t get a visa to come to the US while the other was insistent that I watch episodes of Tom and Jerry with him on his phone.

I arrived to Baroda just after sunset at about 7:30 and, like everywhere in India, it was a madhouse of people. Karan, Rachel and I were crammed into the back of a rickshaw along with all of our luggage and off we went through the traffic like it wasn’t even there. I met up with some of the AIESEC Baroda people and we went for dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, Jojo’s Chinese. After this me and Karan went with some of the AIESEC’ers on their mopeds to see some of the city. We went to one of their friend’s roadside stalls selling gum and cigarettes, and then to meet up with some more friends that were not from AIESEC. When the Indians that I was with heard that I had an iPhone, they were amazed, because apparently these are very hard to find in India. They were going through my iPod on there and getting excited that I had Lady Gaga songs, and kept asking why I had no Justin Bieber. After we were with this group for a while we all went to get Pan. This was one of the strangest things that I have ever eaten. It was a leaf that was wrapped around assorted fleshnuts and spices that tasted like a mix of candy, tobacco and curry… very odd, and I didnt like it at all. The second night, where I would be staying with a family for a couple of days, was not nearly as relaxing as the first. The temperature in my bedroom must have never fallen below 85 degrees (easily 70+ humidity), and there was a tub of water that I used for a shower before I went to sleep. Luckily I was running on fumes at this point so I got a few hours some much needed shuteye.

I am writing this Sunday morning at 6:45am (ugg jetlag keeping me awake). We have a large agenda for today, first comes a soccer game between different sections of AIESEC (my section is Chelsea and we are playing our rivals Man U) and after that I will tour around the city some more.

I will miss the organized and methodical society in America (and the air conditioning) but I’m looking forward to see if I can hack it in this completely foreign environment.