altostratusdream: such a mysterious times

Well, this much more awkward to start than I imagined. I feel the need to preface this whole thing by reminding everyone reading that this is my first trip outside of the country, so a lot of the shocking things that I’ll be commenting on will probably seem pretty obvious to you more traveled folks.
I guess the easiest way to begin this all is– I’m in India! It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that I will be living here until the middle of December. It’s only been eleven days and it feels like it’s been a year. Every day has been such an adventure, so I’ll just take it day by day thus far – luckily I’ve been keeping a pretty good daily journal.

The plane ride was pretty weird for me. I started realizing that the only place outside of the states that I had been was British Columbia. And I was about to go to India – would I be able to handle it? Would I freak out? I don’t think of myself as someone who has a hard time adapting to new situations, but then again, how was I supposed to predict what it would be like for me in SUCH a new situation? Arriving in Delhi was crazy – the only other white people in sight were the 23 classmates I had flown with. Everyone was speaking gibberish, and then it hit me that I was going to be a complete foreigner, not understanding anything that anyone around me was saying. I had never been through customs, so I just followed the hundreds of Indians who seemed to know what they were doing. I had to fill out a H1N1 questionnaire, which was hilarious. “Have you been to any of the infected countries listed below in the last month?” This list was essentially an alphabetical list of every country in the world, so everyone and their grandmother had to answer yes. The next question was “Are you experiencing any coughing or other illness-related symptoms?” Very official, indeed. After getting through customs we met up with Sharada, our leader from Delhi. Basically for this trip, we have two leaders from our school and then two leaders from India – one professor (Sunil Kumar) from Delhi University and then Sharada – the most “ballsy” (for lack of a better adjective) but amazing woman I’ve ever met. She really made me realize how this city hardens women. We boarded a bus which really made me realize I was in India – Americans are the most conscious drivers in the world! Lanes mean nothing here, traffic lights are a mere suggestion, and oh yea – watch out for those cows crossing the freeway. So we made it (in one piece) back to the guest house we’re all staying at. Oh. Man. Our room has AC (which is good because its about 90-100 every day with what feels like 500% humidity), flat screens, real toilets (which is truly a luxury), prepared meals daily, and wi-fi. So yea, we’re living it up right now.

Day two I really felt like I got to see India. In the literal sense, since it was actually light out. But in the figurative sense – we still hadn’t met up with our American leaders so we all decided to go for a stroll. I got some amazing fresh pineapple juice at Khan Market – the market right across from our house. We didn’t really know what we were doing or what we were thinking, but we just walked for about 4 hours, soaking it all up. Needless to say, due to that grueling walk and our extreme jet lag (time change is 12.5 hours) we all passed out pretty early.

Day three we had our first lecture by Dr. Kumar. He’s an amazing man, a professor of Medieval Indian History (so he manages to relate EVERYTHING to something that happened centuries ago, which I have actually come to realize is a pretty cool way of looking at things, but not at all how I see things). I feel blessed to be studying under him but a combination of jet lag and way too much breakfast made the two hour lecture seem endless. We took a bus tour of Centre City, which was less than boring. I was itching to just get out there and see things for myself, so after that a few friends and myself took a few rickshaws to Old Delhi (Northern Delhi) and walked around. I instantly understood the sheer number of people in this city – estimated at somewhere between 11 and 13 million people (the difference between these two estimates number is bigger than the population of Portland – but it seems negligible here). We went to a fantastic restaurant that looked like somewhere I wouldn’t even want to walk past back home, but it was amazing food. The stares were long and hard, but not in a bad way, I just felt like a complete spectacle, which I am getting used to. We tried going into Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India, but we got there right at sunset and weren’t allowed in.

Day four was less eventful, which was a relief to my feet and mind. We went to Delhi University, which Sunil was very proud to be showing us. It was interesting, as the highest regarded university in India, the classrooms reminded me of pictures you see of under funded, inner city schools in America. Maybe it was just the particular one we were in, but it kind of shocked me.

Day five we didn’t have much school to do, I think we had our first Hindi class so we were free around 11:30 Am. A few friends and I walked to Sarojini nagar – a very popular market in Delhi. It was beautiful, the spices were in perfectly crafted mounds, the clothes were bright and the people were bustling. A little kid tried selling us a laundry basket and when Ben and I declined in Hindi he said to us in English “Oh, you know Hindi?!” which sparked up an hour long conversation. This 11 year old kid took the bus 25 km each morning to sell laundry baskets in this market and basically dedicated an hour of his potential business time to showing us around the market and surrounding area. It was one of the first local connections I had made yet and it really made me much more confident about approaching people and really getting into good talks with the people here. Delhi is full of people trying to rip you off and get you to come into their stores, etc. so I had gotten used to just ignoring EVERYONE, but it really opened my eyes to the hospitality of the greater population.

Day six we had to do these independent field trips in groups of 4 where we had destinations but no directions, so we had to get around on our own. It was a great learning experience, and I was thankful that my mind had been opened the day before, because I met so many people just asking directions. My favorite was a man from Nepal who was studying Russian in Delhi so go home and work at the embassy. He gave me his phone number, which is something people are very into here – any time I have met anyone they always ask me for my phone number and give me their card, and really tell me to call them for ANYTHING AT ALL if I need help. We went to a shrine where I got a few men to play some music for me – making me all the more excited to start my tabla drumming lessons next month! The heat must have been really bad, because as I’m looking at my written journal for that day the last line is “Thank god for AC and refrigerated water!!!!”

The next 3 or 4 days involved a lot of field trips and it would be best to just summarize them with pictures.
(But I will say that the night of September 8th a few of us went to Paharganj and met a few travelers from the UK who Ben, Ava and I ended up staying out with until 3 AM. As we were getting munchies with them, I saw my first elephant! Which sounds silly but it was a crazy sight – it was just walkin around in the street! Me being me I was just sitting there staring at it and talking about how cool it was, until my new British friend said something along the lines of “Well blood hell! Go ride it then mate!” So yea, I rode an elephant.)

note: some of these picturse will be redundant to those of you with facebook, but I have to be fair to those without! and apparently they are coming in with really bad resolution, which I also apologize for...but I'm hoping the general idea gets across.