At Last, Work!

E.K. Mohanan, my boss
The office
Eating lunch on a banana leaf
The view from the office

My boss’s name is Mr. E. K. Mohanan, we just call him Mohanan. He is a very tiny man, full of energy and has been very gracious in caring for us. He is very concerned for our safety and has made moving in much easier. Mohanan’s English is very usable, if you speak slowly and clearly.
HPWDS moved offices the week before we arrived and they are located a convenient 10 minute walk outside of town. The location is idyllic in the midst of the jungle cover. The office has a very nice working space, and can be very convenient when the electricity it on. We eat lunch at the office with the staff. Yesterday, Mohanan’s wife cooked us a meal that was some of the most delicious food I have had since arriving in India. The food is very spicy here, I usually have to take a break halfway through a meal to let my mouth cool off before I can continue eating—much to the amusement of natives. Meals are served on banana leaves that are plucked from the trees outside. You eat with your hands; rice and everything. It is silly how hard it is to put food into your mouth using your own hands. Babies seem to know how to do it, but I can’t seem to manage it half of the time. I’m getting better at it. Funny to think about our use of utensils and how using our natural endowment of opposable appendages is too “advanced” for us (Americans).
Anywho, work is demanding and engaging. We have had two days at the office so far, which we have spent interviewing the staff regarding the programs. We have just been constructing a detailed picture of HPWDS’s activities so that we can start identifying indicators of success and ultimately structuring the evaluation tool. Regular works hours are only from 10am-5pm, but they work six days a week, not five. The interviewing process has been arduous due to the language barrier and our lack of knowledge about the general social and economic challenges of the area, also about agriculture. I have learned a lot of interesting things in the last two days. We have enough information now to begin work on the tool. Today will be the start of our first week of only seven weeks to complete our work. We have a scheduled week by week plan of what we hope to accomplish and it is quite ambitious, we are constantly trying to stay focused and realistic so that we can truly produce work that HPWDS can use to move forward. If you are curious about more details of the work, I will begin in the next few weeks to write on my webpage so you can check that. I don’t want to bore everyone with social work and planning details.
I will say that there is clearly a status differential that Leigh and I have to try and combat as much as possible. Due to our education, computer skills and nationality we attract a celebrity status that is beyond just our novelty, especially in the office. We are looked upon as the professional experts who hold all the answers—it is a rather uncomfortable feeling. Not so much because I feel under-qualified, the level of guidance they are looking for I actually feel quite qualified to give, but because it is not a healthy organizational attitude to take.
We are finding that HPWDS has a bit of a deficits perspective about themselves and really are looking outside of themselves for the keys that will help their organization go forward. Leigh and I have tried for 1.5 days in multiple ways to illicit a list of the organization’s current perceived strengths, to no avail. We are quite puzzled by the clear wall we are hitting and are left to ponder the conundrum. Are we hitting something cultural where saying positive things about oneself is taboo? If they appear too capable are they concerned we will not offer help? Via a strong vision of what they want in the future have they convinced themselves that they do not have any of the pieces to arrive at that future? What in the world is going on? We cannot get any sort of positive self-assessment of the organization or its programs. I would say that has been the biggest challenge thus far.

Rajakkadu- Home Sweet Home?

It's confirmed, we're total geeks. I've titled this one, "at least we have books for survival"

The rigging of the mosquito net.

Our flat from the street

The Accommodations
We are relieved to have finally arrived somewhere and unpacked. It feels good. But, I won’t lie, the conditions are a little to be desired. Leigh and I live in a concrete bunker of sorts. We are renting a flat from the owner of the town (read: Richest resident). It is three rooms, and did I mention it’s all concrete and damp and dirty? Our windows look out into a hallway that leads to the “Spice Board” office. Just allow me to gripe this once and then I won’t mention it again, but we have been furiously nesting the last three days to make it livable. This meant we went out and found a plastic table, some kitchen utensils, cleaning supplies, curtains, sheets etc. We are sharing our apartment with an array of other living creatures. The list so far includes; one millipede (poisonous, no good), spiders, one cockroach, tiny geckos whom we’ve all named Gobi after a man we met at the restaurant in town and ants. We are trying our best to feel Zen about the whole thing. I do take great comfort at night knowing that I am sleeping under a mosquito net and therefore do not have to share my bed! In general, it seems more manageable now, although by no means homey.
We are renting a different place than the girls last year did. They were out of town, but we are smack in the middle of town. So, instead of the serenity and remoteness we were envisioning, we are located in the center of quite a hub-bub. In fact, I have never lived in a noisier place-city or otherwise. I have to wear ear plugs at night just to sleep. I think I have identified most of the sounds by now, which is comforting to at least know what they are. I decide to get out of bed in the morning in resignation that no more sleep is coming my way and I feel like singing a Sesame Street song about “these are the noises in my neighborhood, my neighborhood, lalala”. Oof. Let’s see if I can describe some of them:
The neighbors’ television tuned to the Malayalum MTV station (concrete creates quite an echo, by the way)
The corrugated tin roof of the hallway, bending in the wind and rain (imagine an enormous, gigantic piece of tin foil rustling)
Sheets of rain pummeling everything in sight
The leaky faucet in our bathroom running on the tile floor (again concrete plays a magnifying effect here, think Chinese water torture)
Power tools – incidentally the store is beneath my bedroom. Vroooom!
On the roof there is a rusty squealing sound coming from the metal bars used to reinforce the concrete structure, which are left open and are blown by the wind
The Spice Board Meetings (AGAIN, concrete echoes, you must keep that in mind always
4:30AM a man on a microphone, coming from somewhere nearby, starts chanting – we suspect it is either an hour long Muslim prayer call (which seems unlikely to me) or it is emanating from the nearby Church, whose denomination we are entirely unsure about
The radios of the stores across the street blare high-pitched women’s voices “singing” in an indistinguishable Asian style. It would be really neat music, except when you can’t escape it.

The Town - Rajakkadu

Ambily, Leigh, Anna and Komalam (our neighbors)

The village of Rajakkadu, from our roof

The church of unknown origin (we think Syrian Catholic)

The store that outfitted our kitchen

I would describe the town of Rajakkadu as scrappy. You can buy nearly anything you would want to (within the Indian realm), but you have to find it first. It is most likely ferreted away somewhere in the back of a shop or patched together from something else. Things are rough around the edges, but essentially functional. It is a quintessential example of rural poverty in a semi-developed region. There is commerce and business, but nothing has been repaired in ages, or cleaned for that matter. Everything is old and used and not quite up to date.
Indeed, as expected, Leigh and I are quite the spectacle-according to the locals. I have become used to being stared at, pointed at, laughed at, and greeted over and over. I don’t mind it too much, although Leigh is having a harder time with it. The children are my favorite, they all start learning English in school beginning at age 4 and so they actually speak a respectable amount of English. They love to greet us and then when we reply, “good morning,” they burst into uncontrollable fits of giggles. It’s hilarious. My favorite has been a 12 year old girl at the general store who witnessed the gyrations we went through to purchase rice and cooking oil and a few other basics. I thought she was going to pee her pants before we were done.
Our neighbors, across the hall, rang our doorbell the very first evening, about ½ hour after we arrived. There is a woman and her to nieces that live there. Komala (the aunt) seems to be in her 50s and the two girls are about my age. Extremely friendly people, almost too friendly since Leigh and I have needed some time to ourselves to get settled. Komala has taken it into her head that we need taking care of and so she busies herself with a variety of things. She knocks on our door to tell us when the electricity has come back on, she knocks on our door to tell us that the weather is nice and we should do laundry since it will dry, she knocks on our door to tell us that the weather is no longer nice and we need to retrieve our laundry, she knocks on our door to give us food items (green ladies fingers, passion fruit) etc. She is really very sweet, even if she can be very forward and bossy. We’re enjoying their company, in fact last night we spent the evening at their place playing a 13 card, two deck version of Gin Rummy.

Say my name, Say my name

As I have gone about introducing myself in stores, to people on the street, our neighbors etc. Nearly everyone as they repeat my name, once, then twice with a slightly different syllable emphasis, kind of chuckles and looks at each other knowingly. For a while Leigh and I thought it was because there is a brand of Aluminum here called Anna. But, yesterday our landlady told us that anNA means “elephant”. Just my luck.

Language

My attempts at speaking Malayalum are not so much appreciated as they are misunderstood and laughed at. Everyone asks us over and over again if we are going to learn their language. It’s interesting, this is the first locale I have traveled to where people are so intent on you learning their language-in fact in Romania I was reprimanded many times by older adults for wasting my time learning their language which could only be spoken in their country. We actually have felt a little pressured by it because there is no way we will be even a little bit proficient in Malayalum at the end of seven weeks. It is almost a tonal language, spoken very quickly, with all vowel sounds being pronounced in the back of your mouth. When you listen to it, it sounds like very rapid mumbling. Based on our efforts to repeat words, we are pretty sure that our ears are simply not picking up a lot of the sounds of the language. It is incredibly difficult. I am now MOSTLY understood when I say “thank you” and “hello” – but that has taken me 3 whole days. Wow.
An “invaluable companion”
While I was in Ernakulam I found a small English-Malayalum phrase book, thinking it would be a handy little item to have. It has been handy, although not for language, mostly just for comic relief. This phrase book had to have been written by someone who has never traveled outside of their home language. Some of the basics, like greetings, “my name is”, “what is that?” and “thank you” are missing. However, I AM able to say, “What is the history behind these paintings?” and “Why don’t you enlighten me on something else instead?”. What?!!?! Craziness.
I do think, though, the crowning achievement of the book lies in the glossary at the back of the book. There seems to be a bizarre theme that runs in it. I’ll list my favorites and let you decide on the theme:
Abortion (the very first entry!)
Birth control
Contraceptive
Defecate
Euthanasia
Faeces
Laxative
Menstruation
Miscarriage
Oral
Period (punctuation? Allotment of time? Something else?)
Sex
Undress
Urinate
Venereal Disease

Anyone want to learn Malayalum?

The Head Bob
I think when I return I will make my fortune selling Indian Bobble-head dolls in Kerala. One of the biggest communication snafus around here is the Malayalum head bob. It is done to signal agreement, understanding and a simple yes, but it looks suspiciously like someone shaking their head “no”. The motion involves a swoop of the neck, right ear to right shoulder, then left ear to left shoulder and back again. I cannot tell you how wild it is to watch Mohanan bob his head back and forth as we talk with him. I always think he does not like what we are saying, or that he disagrees totally. The head bob also applies in stores when someone offers us something or tell us the price. If we nod OK then nothing happens, if we try out the head bob then things start happening.

Learning about Monsoon

My lovely partner, Leigh and her brand new "kuda"

Leigh and I passed an umbrella shop (“kuda” in Malayalum) on our first foray out in Ernakulum. We went in, looked around and chose umbrellas and THEN made a crucial mistake—we decided to buy them on our way back to the hotel so we wouldn’t have to carry them. Genius! We got our farthest from the hotel and then the rains started. We waited in a store for 10-15minutes thinking it might let up. Nope. By the time we arrived back at the umbrella shop we were sopping wet and the store owners took one look at us and burst out laughing

Train Thoughts

Train thoughts
A few words come to mind; filth, entrapment, discomfort and microcosm.
By the end of 44 hours Leigh and I felt like we barely remembered the outside world. Unfortunately, our seats had a clouded window, which it was impossible to see out of and so the promised scenery was out of reach for us. I did on occasion venture between cars to a train door, open it, and revel in the countryside whizzing past—it is quite stunning. The soil here is bright red, from clay or iron it is uncertain, but the contrast with the green jungles and rice paddies is beautiful. The villages and huts and nestled in among vast fields and cliffs of foliage, it was extremely exciting after the desert climate and big city ambience of Delhi.
On the train you sit four to an area, Leigh and I had foreign tourist quote tickets (only four are available per train) and so there was one other American in our arrangement. And then there was Imrat [pronounced um-rut (roll the “r”)]. Somehow Imrat, a native, was seated amongst the tourists. He spoke perfect English and was a gentleman, but he wanted attention all the time. By the end of the train ride he had completely fallen in love with Leigh and was referring to her as a princess and all the rest of it. Ridiculous really, but highly amusing. Imrat taught us how to play the Indian version of the card game “bullshit”. It’s way better and Imrat is hilarious when he’s trying to lie—you can imagine from the picture.

Unceremonious Arrival in Kochi/Ernakulam
We tumbled off of the train at 4:45AM in Ernakulam and had been told that our boss, Mohanan was going to meet us. Well, 6:00AM rolled around and we were still just being stared at by passer-bys at the front of the train station. It was too much. We took matters into our own hands, pulled out the guide book, lugged around our bags and found a hotel to stay at two blocks from the station. Throughout the next day our cell phone would ring and we’d answer and understand excerpts of conversations in pigeon English, from people we were pretty sure were from HPWDS. Finally at 9pm, Mohanan called and clarified that he would be there the next morning between 9-10 to pick us up. Thank goodness.
Mohanan arrived at 11:30. Welcome to Indian central time.

A Few Things Worth Noting

LP Gas from CNG
Five years ago you could hardly breath in Delhi (according to the locals), it was smog central. Then the government dictated that all rickshaws and public buses and trucks (a very large percentage of the vehicles on the road) must convert to using LP gas, which I am told burns to produce water as a by product. So the city busses all have a sign on them pronouncing environmental cleanliness and at first glance you think it couldn’t possibly be true, but then you really do notice that Delhi is not nearly as polluted as it should be. Truly, a nice feature of an “overly” strong government. Perhaps our government should take some initiative in the market and see what happens?

Male Affection
It is not uncommon to see men walking arm in arm or holding hands or having their arms around each other. I think it’s really nice. Men don’t have such great camaraderie at home, they’re too busy being homophobic. Granted some of it is a product of keeping women so locked up that they aren’t around to walk hand in hand with, but there’s an expectation of affectionate brotherhood here that is noticeable.

Electricity You can tell the poor neighborhoods from the wealthier ones in Delhi just by looking at the electrical lines. In Helzi’s neighborhood, they look mostly regular with only a few additional lines added. In the innercity area of Delhi, Paharganj, they look like this. All of the people who can’t afford to pay for it have rigged their own system of leeching off the public lines

Explanation of Absence

I think this picture pretty much sums it up. No USB Port, sketchy internet = no blog posts.

I am in a large town called Adimali right now and so I have prepared some entries. . .

Last Days of Delhi (con'td)

The Lotus Baha'i Temple
The Baha'i faith began in 1840, with a prophet (as so many do) and it has spread to every continent of the world. The main temple in Asia is here in Delhi and is a beautiful monument, shaped like a lotus flower, including miniature pools underneath each "leaf" close to the building.
The premise of the Baha'i faith is that revelation of truth via each traditional religion is relative and that they are all versions of the same underlying principles and operate in harmony. It takes a historical perspective and treats each new religion as a specific progression of revelation to humanity that was necessary and pertinent to its time and offers new insight to God and truth. It's a lovely religion for its inclusiveness alone, but also its ability to hold many seemingly disparate theories together in one frame. I enjoyed learning about it.

Our First Monsoon

Relief has come to Delhi! Some of the monsoons are here at last, it has been raining in the morning and cooling off and then heats up in the afternoon. But, this has made it tolerable here. We went out on the balcony for the first rain and got drenched. Monsoon rains are not like rain in MN, it is more like sheets and buckets and any other large quantity that you can think of. It felt soooooo heavenly to feel the cool water on our bodies after the heat. We were happy!

Last Days of Delhi

I leave on a train for Kerala in three hours, so this may not be as thorough a posting, but I didn't want you to get behind in my site seeing. My train ride will be just shy of 48 hours, it is a little daunting, but I am told that they feed you constantly and that the scenery is gorgeous-I sure hope so! I'll write again when I arrive, but I don't know what my internet access will be like for a little bit.

Qutb Minar and the Step Wells

Two days ago we went to one of the most well-known sites of Delhi, the Qutb Minar. It is a large minaret(?) built in 1193, marking the fall of the Hindu kingdom and the first set of muslim rulers for the country. It is made out of a red sandstone, which many of the monuments here are.

Isn't the stone work beautiful? I've come to love the muslim sense of design and decoration, the patterns and intricacies are stunning.

Also near the Qutb Minar were some step wells. Orginally, instead of drilling down with one deep whole, people opened wide whole and made large steps to get down to the ground water. This one was still in use by the local boys as a pool for cooling off. It was wonderful to watch them having fun jumping in!

Becoming an Attraction

Hilarious little feature about site seeing in India. The Indian visitors want to have their picture taken with white people. You go to an attraction, like the Taj Mahal, and instead you become the attraction and are featured in strangers’ vacation pictures. How funny.

Mahatma Gandhi Memorial

Marigolds for the Gods (and Gandhi)

Placing the flowers

Powerful Sculpture of Gandhi leading the salt march to symbolically break the British salt laws.

I visited the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial, he is know as “the father of the nation” here, since he inspired the Indian people to overthrow the British colonization via civil disobedience and the practice of nonviolence. I think it has been my best experience here so far. The plain black slab which marks the site of his cremation is simple, with a single eternal flame behind it. You are required to take off your shoes prior to entering the main courtyard area with the memorial. People do come forward and offer marigold flowers to the memorial, this is something that people also do for all Hindu Gods. There are flower sellers at regular intervals on the streets for all your shrine giving needs. I decided that Gandhi would appreciate my offering of flowers and purchased some for the memorial.
The memorial itself is inside an enclosed park of manicured lawns and trees, it is peaceful, stunningly clean and quiet—remarkable considering that it is in Central Delhi. The experience was notably different from anything else because it was free, there were no vendors allowed inside and it was all around hassle-free. After visiting I felt very centered and calm.

We also visited the accompanying museum. Gandhi’s life is particularly well photographed and the museum also had some of his possessions, such as the walking stick he used during his famous salt march in 1931. I was struck by just how revolutionary Gandhi was in his tactics and his concept of civil disobedience. What is also communicated in the pictures is that Gandhi possessed a rare set of dual skills whereby he had great micro skills and incredible macro skills. What I mean is that on a day-to-day basis and person-to-person basis he was compassionate, gentle and connectable. There are numerous photos of him at people’s sickbeds acting as a nurse to those whom no one else would serve, or walking with children who are showing great glee at being with this old man. He had the honed skills and passion for traditional social work activities. And yet, what we all know him as is the prominent leader of India’s independence movement. He was an organizer extraordinaire, possessing potent skills of effecting and leading large scale change. Those are very disparate skill sets and are not often found in the same person. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that makes him such a powerful person in history.
I’ve often said that I loathe the idea of becoming a policy-maker who has lost touch with those who the policies effect. It seems like such a common defect in our leaders, sometimes I feel like it must be nearly impossible to avoid this separation since it happens to so many good intentioned people during the course of a career. Gandhi is a fabulous role model as someone who never forgot what was relevant and important to the people he served and who could lead with power from the intimate understanding of their perspective. Part of me thinks that is why I so enjoy traveling and seeking to gain a type of understanding of others. The more and more connected the world becomes (and it is continuing to be so) my actions, particularly as a wealthy American, have repercussions for many who I have never met and who I certainly don’t understand. I would be miserable knowing that my actions had unintended negative consequences because I simply did not bother to get to know others’ ways or to try and understand my place in the larger system.
Well, enough ruminating for one day. Due to train schedules Leigh and I do not take off until Sunday for the south of India. So I should have another couple posts in me before we take off to Kerala and the internet access becomes much more intermittent. We will also start working at that point and I will switch out of intense tourist mode (I’m sure you will be relieved :))

Holy Cow!

Aha! I finally got the picture I’ve been looking for. Indeed, there are cows on the streets of Delhi in relatively numerous proportion (particularly to Minneapolis). For Hindus cows are considered a sacred animal and so they are not used for their meat. However, in the book I am reading there are five main cow products: (1) milk, (2) ghee (clarified butter), (3) butter, (4) urine (for religious purposes) and (5) dung for fuel. Just like anything, there are those who take the holy cow concept to a fundamentalist level, seeking to use the animal as a political rallying point for Hindus across the caste system, but this type of attitude is fairly limited. As you walk around among the city cows, though, you wonder how much reverence can be shown by allowing the animals in the city to be uncared for and subsist on garbage etc

I am definitely in India

Magazine stand in a market

I'm not even sure what is under that!
A family living on the street of a market

Wow. So recording breaking heat is really something. The temperatures have been as high as 47 degrees Celsius (close 120 Fahrenheit) in Delhi. I’m not really sure how to describe that kind of heat since Minnesotans have nothing to relate it to. But I’ll try.

You know it’s hot when. . .
The butter melts like ice
The ends of your hair are crispy with salt at the end of the day from sweat
Your eyeballs feel like they might shrivel up so much that they’ll fall out
You wake up in the middle of the night, go to the freezer for a liter of water and snuggle up with it as thought it were a teddy bear, then go back to sleep

Despite this heat I have been out in the city quite a bit and have even been south of Delhi150km to see the Taj Mahal (more on that later). This means that I have experienced the death-defying feat that is commonly known as “driving” around here. Absolutely incredible! You simply MUST turn off your “we’re going to die, oh my god, my life is flashing before my eyes!” instinct, or else you would overdose on the adrenalin. I have made a comprehensive list of the “vehicles” that I have seen on the typical Indian highway between Delhi and Agra. It includes: camels, goats, dogs, cows, hogs, bikes, cripples, children, motor bikes, bicycle rickshaws, tractors, lorries, cars, buses, monkeys, rickshaws and a handful of unidentified moving objects. Some of the more notable things are the people on bikes who catch up to a big truck and grab onto the edge to be pulled along for free OR the people trailing after the bus in traffic to climb up the ladder on the outside of the back so they can perch on top of the bus OR four full, real size people (no children) on a single motorbike.

In spite of this chaos, I have recorded the blue and white official road signs that I saw on the way to Agra. In fact, I have created a short quiz.
Which of the following signs did not seem hilarious:
a) Lane driving is Safe driving
b) Do not overload car
c) Keep a safe following distance
d) Merging traffic ahead- Go slow
e) NONE OF THE ABOVE

I am traveling with a Planning major and so she has offered insight that Americans have concluded that the most efficient way of running traffic is to regulate it and so we thrive on the infrastructure of traffic lights and painted arrows on the pavement and cops etc. However, not all cultures have reached that same conclusion and clearly India has opted to let the “first come, first serve” mentality rule the streets. I have to say that there are so many people out and about going places that it must work to a certain extent.
I think I have begun to understand the language of the road a little bit. For example, all of the trucks have painted on the back of them “blow horn” – kind of odd. Except that consider this translation—“Beeep” = I’m here, please be aware of my presence and “Beep, beep” = I’m here AND I’m coming through and have no intention of stopping for you. This last one is particularly useful when you are a vehicle who has chosen to travel into on-coming traffic on the “wrong” side of a divided highway. Yup, I’m definitely in India!

Thoughts on Delhi

Pahagaraj - a large market in Central Delhi
Katrina and our Fruit Walla

Helzi, my professor, lives in a very middle class neighborhood. Upon arriving it does not strike you as such, because of the general street chaos, the dirt and the haphazardness of the buildings. However, compared to some of the more innercity neighborhoods it is quite luxurious here. For instance, there are not people living on the streets, the streets are roughly in a grid, there are parked cars on the street. One of the best features about being at her flat are all the Wallas (work people/vendors). Each morning a trash walla comes to the door to pick up our trash. Each morning a water walla brings huge jugs of bottled water for us. Each morning the fruit and vegetable wallas hawk their wares up and down the street and we just hail them from our balcony. And each morning the pressing walla comes and picks up all the clothes to be ironed and pressed. It’s fairly fabulous really.

This does contrast to the market scenes that you’ll find towards the middle of the city. The poverty is very visible, but I haven’t found it oppressive yet because it is mixed in along with everything and everyone else. I have been surprised to find that Delhi is not as smelly as I thought it would be. There are women everywhere and so any harassment received on the street (which hasn’t been much) is due to being a white American with money and not my gender. The people here are very accessible, ready to talk, well-versed in English and smile easily. I wouldn’t say they go out of their way to welcome you, but they are eager to interact with you (what a contrast to Russia!).

Anna Transformed into a Tourist

Check it out, look at that get-up, aren’t I a beautiful specimen of a tourist?! I had the hat, the sunglasses, the extra sunscreen, the special keep cool scarf on my neck, the shoe coverings for the white marble, and my knapsack. It was great.

The Taj Mahal was very exciting to see. We (Leigh, Frank and I) traveled to Agra and saw the Taj Mahal and Red Fort. I wish I felt more in awe of it, but there isn’t a lot to say about it. It is a monument of love, the emperor Shah Jahan of the Mughal dynasty built the Taj Mahal (which is a mausoleum) for his 2nd wife Mumtaz who died giving birth to their 14th child. It is said that he was distraught by her death and that although by the rules of Islam he was allowed to take another wife he never did.

I made a successful first foray into the city. Leigh and I joined three other students here in Delhi and we are all staying in one flat with our professor Helzi and her room mate Sunanya. With the aid of one of the other girls, Leigh and I have taken a rickshaw ride, gotten cash at an ATM, gotten a cell phone into working order and bought some Indian clothing. I think I will keep this short, but here are some fast facts:
1. Tomorrow’s high temperature is 46 degrees Celsius – I dare you to look it up.
2. When roti bread is made it poofs up like a balloon.
3. Finding Indian pants that fit is a disorienting experience, seek advice of nearby Indians.
4. Drink lots of water. Then a little bit more. Then more still.
5. In order to receive a cell phone plan here you must give a copy of your passport and a photo of yourself – for security reasons?

Namaste! ("bye" in Hindi)

Arrived in India!

I have safely arrived in New Delhi. I am at my professor's flat, going to jump through the shower and go to the market before the heat of the day sets in.
Write more later.
Anna

The Soviets are Alive and Strong (oof.)

June 7th
Perhaps it is true that Americans are used to being able to do whatever they want. But, it is also true that my last 27 hours have been more than a bit ridiculous.

As I write this I am sitting in a smokey “restaurant” in the puny Moscow international airport. [Google search “Moscow airport”, it’s beautiful. Turns out, the finished product on the website is what will be the construction sight that I’m looking at through the window. Jerks.] Tuesday when I left JFK in New York the Russian airline Aeroflot which we were flying refused to issue us a boarding pass for the second leg of our trip from Moscow to Delhi on the grounds that they couldn’t find the flight in their computers—only one that left a day after our scheduled flight. When we inquired about spending the night in NY so as to catch the combination a day later, they said, “No, go now!”.

Fast forward nine hours, 8’55’’ of which have been on an aging 737 Boeing. We deplane in the Moscow airport and try to get our boarding passes issued. Oops. There actually IS NO flight. Hahaha. It’ll 27 hours before the next flight to Delhi. “Where are your Russian visas?” “We don’t have any, we don’t want to be in Russia!” “You cannot enter Russia then, but we will put you in a hotel”. (no you can’t buy a visa. Nice try.)

Translation:
You will be sent through a variety of passport checks, escorted to a sleezy-looking backdoor of the airport, escorted onto a van and driven to a hotel across the street, where the escort is dropped off at the front door and we are told to “Wait!”. The van takes us to the back door of the hotel and we are escorted into a small lobby and they confiscate our passports. Then we are escorted by a security guard to a locked service elevator and taken to the third floor where a security desk and guard are seated. We are escorted to our room and told to “Stay!”—lunch will be served at this time, breakfast at this time, the van will leave two hours before your flight.
We had entered the TRANSIT ZONE, we weren’t quite sure what this all meant, but surely we couldn’t be locked in our rooms, could we? Ahhh, but this is Russia my friend, anything is possible. For the next day and a half we were not allowed out of the 3rd floor hallway where our room was located and where a not-so-friendly Russian guard sat. All attempts to go downstairs were treated very unkindly and adamantly.

It is very unsettling to be treated like a prisoner while on a lay-over, especially as a result of a mistake the airline made. Leigh and I did not get a Russian visa because we had a 5 hour lay-over in the airport, it was completely Aeroflot’s fault that we are in this predicament.
Talk about suspicious—it is clear that the KGB has quite the lingering influence. We were not allowed out of sight of personnel the entire time, were taken only through back ways, our paperwork was checked and rechecked at all opportunities and we had to stay in the “transit zone” 3rd floor hallway with a security guard in the hotel. This morning we managed to convince them to take us back to the airport to wait for this evening’s 7:35pm flight instead of being locked in a hotel room. Luckily, they arranged a van. And so here I sit, waiting for a flight to Delhi in the Moscow airport. Unbelievable.
Russia was not high on my countries to visit, but unfortunately after being treated this way any desire has been completely extinguished. I’ve never felt so unwelcomed, anywhere.

Side note:
Leigh and I met a very nice young professor from Penn State named Frank and a 21 year old, jolly Indian fellow named Aravind. They were in the same plight (and flight!) and so we at least had buddies with which to marvel and complain.