Tuesday, July 31, 2007
The Girls
I don't have much time to write because I'm just biding my time in the Internet cafe waiting for Raphaelle and Elysia to come back from the railroad ticket office, but I haven't even gotten to the most important and most interesting part of my experience here, which is the girls in the home. We've been reading some of their files lately, and their backgrounds are really unbelievable. One girl's father poisoned her mother so he could marry another woman, then abandoned the child, who was taken in by a woman in her village who basically kept her as a little household slave and wouldn't let her go to school. On a trip to Delhi, the woman abandoned the child in a railway station, where she was picked up by the police and transferred to the guardianship of Udayan Care. That was a year ago. Now, she is 10 and in the first grade at school (having no previous education), and is a bold and charismatic girl who reminds me of nobody more than Sophie Mitchell, for you Pattenburgers. It's amazing for us to see how resilient some of these girls are, considering all that they've gone through. Many of them are not technically orphans, but have parents who are incapable of taking care of them, like the three small sisters whose mother is terminally ill and whose father is serving a life sentence in jail. Others ran away or were taken by the police from abusive homes. With all of the traumas they have been through, most of the girls have turned out to be absolutely lovely people. One one hand, they are terribly unfortunate in that they lack the love and care of a mother and father, but on the other hand they are amazingly lucky to have landed in Udayan Care, which provides them with education, counseling, and health care superior to that which probably 99.9% of other Indian children receive. The amazing second chance that Udayan Care provides for these children only makes it more painful when we see some of them fall through the cracks, wasting second and third and fourth and tenth chances, the opportunities of a lifetime, by rebelling against the discipline of the home, refusing to go to school, skipping class to meet boys, etc. It's frustrating because, as short-term volunteers, we don't have enough time to really get to know the girls, understand them, and gain their trust so we can hope to nudge them back on the right track
Monday, July 30, 2007
A Day in the Life of a Didi
This is what it is like: I wake up before 8 basically every day because the sun shines in my window. I go downstairs and catch the tail end of breakfast while the girls go off to school (the last ones leave at 8ish). Breakfast is some random starch...often chole (a fried flat bread thing), but we've also had vaguely toasted white bread and some kind of chopped up thin noodle thing on occasion. Once there was egg; that was exciting. The girls pack a snack to take to school, maybe another piece of chole and some potatoes. While the girls are at school, we three volunteers (me, Elysia, and Raphaelle, who I am going to refer to henceforth as "the didis") have some tea, take showers, run errands, wash our clothes, and plan things to do with the girls. A few girls won't go to school, but they are not allowed to leave the premises, and we honestly have no idea what they do with themselves all day. The rest of the girls get home around 2 or 3, change out of their school uniforms, and have lunch. Lunch is rice, chappati (a toasted flatbread), dal (lentil stuff), and something else, maybe a vegetable or some yogurt-based soupy thing. After lunch, we help the girls with their homework for a couple hours, then play with them or hang out with them or whatever. Sometimes we take the younger girls to a nearby park, but often it is too hot to play outside much. At maybe 6 or so we have a snack, probably milk and this hard sweetish bread thing that the girls dip in the milk to make it soft, although I think there were mangoes once, but I didn't pay much attention because that was the time when Asmani had gotten hit above the eye with a cricket bat and we had to send her to the hospital to get stitches. There is a little more down time until dinner, which is at 8 something, and generally consists of chappati and maybe a little something left over from lunch. Ponder for a moment the starch-overload of a dinner we had the other night: a mushy mixture of rice and potatoes, eaten with an aloo paratha (flat potato pancake-thing). We don't have meat, as most of the girls are Hindu and many are vegetarian; and some of them don't even eat eggs, so we don't have those much. Yesterday at lunch we had a thing that looked excitingly like chicken, but it turned out to be made of cornmeal or something. Oh well.
After dinner the girls gather their school uniforms off the clothesline and iron them for the next day. Even the littlest girls do their own ironing, as well as washing their own dishes. The girls also are in charge of cleaning their own rooms, cooking dinner, and cleaning up in the kitchen. On one hand, they are remarkably responsible, although on the other hand, I'm a little dubious as to how clean the dishes get when a 4-year-old is washing them, especially because we don't have hot water. It's a wonder the girls are in such good health, considering the potential for disease spreading in a 42-girl home, as well as their rather unbalanced diet.
The girls are all responsible for putting themselves to bed, and although they don't have any enforced bedtime that I'm aware of, they go to sleep at pretty reasonable times anyway because they get tired. The really little ones can barely manage to stay awake for dinner. Last night the littlest one was outside the kitchen crying, so I brought her in and sat her on my lap to have dinner, and she conked out completely before I could get her to eat anything. I had a short adventure trying to eat completely one-handedly while my other arm held a sleeping 4-year-old, and then I put her to bed. It's good that the girls are trained to be so independent in taking care of themselves, but the little ones aren't completely up to it sometimes, and the "aunties" who are the permanent caregivers in the home honestly aren't motherly at all, they just discipline and oversee operations. The other night the little one wet her bed, and while Raphaelle was trying to talk to her about it, an Aunty came in and slapped the little girl in the head and then didn't wash her sheets that day either. Discipline is one thing, but being so harsh with such small children really can't be particularly good for them or even particularly effective, I shouldn't think. The little girl has enough trouble in her life as it is.
After dinner the girls gather their school uniforms off the clothesline and iron them for the next day. Even the littlest girls do their own ironing, as well as washing their own dishes. The girls also are in charge of cleaning their own rooms, cooking dinner, and cleaning up in the kitchen. On one hand, they are remarkably responsible, although on the other hand, I'm a little dubious as to how clean the dishes get when a 4-year-old is washing them, especially because we don't have hot water. It's a wonder the girls are in such good health, considering the potential for disease spreading in a 42-girl home, as well as their rather unbalanced diet.
The girls are all responsible for putting themselves to bed, and although they don't have any enforced bedtime that I'm aware of, they go to sleep at pretty reasonable times anyway because they get tired. The really little ones can barely manage to stay awake for dinner. Last night the littlest one was outside the kitchen crying, so I brought her in and sat her on my lap to have dinner, and she conked out completely before I could get her to eat anything. I had a short adventure trying to eat completely one-handedly while my other arm held a sleeping 4-year-old, and then I put her to bed. It's good that the girls are trained to be so independent in taking care of themselves, but the little ones aren't completely up to it sometimes, and the "aunties" who are the permanent caregivers in the home honestly aren't motherly at all, they just discipline and oversee operations. The other night the little one wet her bed, and while Raphaelle was trying to talk to her about it, an Aunty came in and slapped the little girl in the head and then didn't wash her sheets that day either. Discipline is one thing, but being so harsh with such small children really can't be particularly good for them or even particularly effective, I shouldn't think. The little girl has enough trouble in her life as it is.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
My placement
On Monday morning when we were going to our placements they asked me where I was going and I said St. Jones boys' home and they said no you're not. And it turned out that instead I was going to an all-girls home, and it was the same placement as Raphaelle, one of the French girls who seemed like she liked me the least and who had expressed plainly her desire to be alone in her placement. Nice. But I guess since the time I lent her my computer Raphaelle had decided that I wasn't all bad, and I had resolved to get along with her since we were going to the same placement and going to be roommates, and once we got to the home and interacted with the girls it was a great bonding time, because we were commiserating over our shared experience, and we've both been really nice and accommodating to each other. The biggest thing, though, is that when I see how completely sweet and loving and genuine Raphaelle is to the kids, I have to love her, and I think it applies vice versa as well. When I mentioned to Morgan, one of the volunteers who was here when we arrived, that Raphaelle and I hadn't exactly adored each other a couple days ago, she couldn't believe it. Anyway, everything is fabulous now. Morgan and the other volunteer, Elysia, are great, and the girls are just unbelievably lovable. I'm so glad I'm here. Some of them are a little shy, but they are all really sweet and affectionate.
There are 42 girls from ages 4 to 20 at the home (they don't like to call it an orphanage and will get upset if you do), which is called Jagshanti Ghar and belongs to the organization Udayan Care, if you'd like to google it or something. It's a really nice home, actually, very clean and well-kept-up. The girls are amazingly responsible and do basically everything for themselves. They take turns on "duty" cooking meals and cleaning up, and they dress and bathe themselves and iron their adorable little school uniforms and do their homework dutifully and really don't seem to require any nagging. The whole place runs like a well-oiled machine. It's amazing. There are a few adults who oversee things a bit...the dude in charge is named Brigadier something-or-other (he's a former military man), but he goes by "Uncle," and he is rather stern, from what I hear tell of him. There are a handful of guys who guard the gate, and a handful of women ("aunties") who hang around as well. Besides "Uncle" and the "aunties," the girls consider everyone in the home to be their family, more or less, and they all technically have the same surname (Udayan, after the organization). The volunteers all go by the handle "didi," which is Hindi for older sister, and is a constant refrain around the house. The little girls call the older ones didi as well, so when someone yells "didi!" several people might respond, like if you yell "Mom!" at a family picnic. I love it.
The volunteers don't have much in the way of concrete duties at the home, but we eat with them and play with them and help them with their homework and give them positive feedback. "Didi, my English assignment, 30 out of 30!" or "Rebekah didi, look, my drawing!" There are so many girls that sometimes they pull us in a zillion different directions at once, because everyone needs the didi's undivided attention. It gets a little exhausting, but it's fun, and at least the volunteers have each other's company for when we want to just hang out. Morgan is leaving on Friday, which is really too bad, but the other two girls will be here even after I leave, so we're guaranteed to always have a little adult company who can speak English, unlike the aunties.
The one thing that I'm still having some trouble adjusting to is the heat/humidity, which is insane and oppressive. We take 2 showers a day, and I still always feel like I'm marinating in sweat. Morgan says that eventually I won't notice it, so I really hope that's true. The power died this morning at like 5 something and our fan went off and I woke up because it was so hot. Ayyyy. We don't have hot water, but nobody cares. Seriously, there are two knobs in the shower, and they both say C, which I think is fabulous. We can't actually use the shower head, because like 5 drops of water come out of it, so we use the tap and shower out of a bucket. It's honestly kind of nicer than in the hostel where our shower head was broken off and the water just poured out of a pipe in the wall. There are also, like, no washing machines in India that I am aware of, so we all just hand wash our clothes in the bucket and hang them to dry on the balcony. Clothes dry in no time here...maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's like 100 degrees? It doesn't even get cool at night. Maybe 80s if we're lucky. We've been waking up early a lot for various activities (we went to a meeting with people from the Udayan Care office and volunteers from the other homes yesterday, which was interesting) and are amazed at how much we're sweating when it's only 7 am. Fortunately we have a big old machine at the home that dispenses filtered, treated, and most importantly COLD water, which is amazing, and I feel so much better that I'm not wasting the money and plastic to drink bottled water all the time.
Anyway, I'm off to see if there's somewhere in the vicinity where I can get a water bottle for myself so I can have drinkable water at night, because they lock the doors to the stairwell around midnight so I can't even go down to the kitchen to get water. Also it would be a horrendous hazard if there was a fire, but the lack of access to water is a more pressing issue for me. Last night I didn't have water at dinner because all the cups were in use, and I forgot to get some later, and when I went to bed I was dying of thirst and swore that I would get a bottle asap.
cheers,
Rebekah the sweaty
There are 42 girls from ages 4 to 20 at the home (they don't like to call it an orphanage and will get upset if you do), which is called Jagshanti Ghar and belongs to the organization Udayan Care, if you'd like to google it or something. It's a really nice home, actually, very clean and well-kept-up. The girls are amazingly responsible and do basically everything for themselves. They take turns on "duty" cooking meals and cleaning up, and they dress and bathe themselves and iron their adorable little school uniforms and do their homework dutifully and really don't seem to require any nagging. The whole place runs like a well-oiled machine. It's amazing. There are a few adults who oversee things a bit...the dude in charge is named Brigadier something-or-other (he's a former military man), but he goes by "Uncle," and he is rather stern, from what I hear tell of him. There are a handful of guys who guard the gate, and a handful of women ("aunties") who hang around as well. Besides "Uncle" and the "aunties," the girls consider everyone in the home to be their family, more or less, and they all technically have the same surname (Udayan, after the organization). The volunteers all go by the handle "didi," which is Hindi for older sister, and is a constant refrain around the house. The little girls call the older ones didi as well, so when someone yells "didi!" several people might respond, like if you yell "Mom!" at a family picnic. I love it.
The volunteers don't have much in the way of concrete duties at the home, but we eat with them and play with them and help them with their homework and give them positive feedback. "Didi, my English assignment, 30 out of 30!" or "Rebekah didi, look, my drawing!" There are so many girls that sometimes they pull us in a zillion different directions at once, because everyone needs the didi's undivided attention. It gets a little exhausting, but it's fun, and at least the volunteers have each other's company for when we want to just hang out. Morgan is leaving on Friday, which is really too bad, but the other two girls will be here even after I leave, so we're guaranteed to always have a little adult company who can speak English, unlike the aunties.
The one thing that I'm still having some trouble adjusting to is the heat/humidity, which is insane and oppressive. We take 2 showers a day, and I still always feel like I'm marinating in sweat. Morgan says that eventually I won't notice it, so I really hope that's true. The power died this morning at like 5 something and our fan went off and I woke up because it was so hot. Ayyyy. We don't have hot water, but nobody cares. Seriously, there are two knobs in the shower, and they both say C, which I think is fabulous. We can't actually use the shower head, because like 5 drops of water come out of it, so we use the tap and shower out of a bucket. It's honestly kind of nicer than in the hostel where our shower head was broken off and the water just poured out of a pipe in the wall. There are also, like, no washing machines in India that I am aware of, so we all just hand wash our clothes in the bucket and hang them to dry on the balcony. Clothes dry in no time here...maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's like 100 degrees? It doesn't even get cool at night. Maybe 80s if we're lucky. We've been waking up early a lot for various activities (we went to a meeting with people from the Udayan Care office and volunteers from the other homes yesterday, which was interesting) and are amazed at how much we're sweating when it's only 7 am. Fortunately we have a big old machine at the home that dispenses filtered, treated, and most importantly COLD water, which is amazing, and I feel so much better that I'm not wasting the money and plastic to drink bottled water all the time.
Anyway, I'm off to see if there's somewhere in the vicinity where I can get a water bottle for myself so I can have drinkable water at night, because they lock the doors to the stairwell around midnight so I can't even go down to the kitchen to get water. Also it would be a horrendous hazard if there was a fire, but the lack of access to water is a more pressing issue for me. Last night I didn't have water at dinner because all the cups were in use, and I forgot to get some later, and when I went to bed I was dying of thirst and swore that I would get a bottle asap.
cheers,
Rebekah the sweaty
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Difficult Times in Delhi
I thought China had prepared me for going to India. I knew India would be dirty and polluted and disorganized and have disgusting weather, just like Beijing. To a degree, my experience in China has served me well. I was prepared to deal with any level of toilet nastiness that this country could throw at me. I was expecting people to try to scam me, but I was ready to be shrewd. I knew that the deliciousness of Indian food in general would not guarantee that individual samples of it would be well made. I knew that prices might be dirt-cheap, but quality would be equally low. I was ready to be patient with the chaos and accept that maybe I would have to go through roundabout channels to get things done.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought very much about a couple of key things about travel, one being that having fun while traveling depends largely on the people you are traveling with. I hadn’t really given much thought to the other volunteers who would be in the same program; I had really just viewed this trip as something I was going to do individually, and for me, being alone is usually excellent company. There is no chance of conflict, no difficulty making decisions, no fear of inconveniencing anyone else. However, here I am not alone. I share a room with two other girls, and two more are also staying in our same apartment. We have to hire a driver to get much of anywhere outside our local shopping center, and since that is expensive, it means sticking together. Of the five of us, the other American girl and one of the French girls are very nice; friendly, modest, and easy to get along with. However, the other two French girls, while always polite, can sometimes be very friendly, but sometimes have an aura of disdain and cliqueyness. They make fun of Rajan, our silly little coordinator, sometimes even when he is present, although, not being able to recognize French sarcasm, he remains blissfully unaware. I can tell by their attitudes that they are saying the same kinds of things about me behind my back...or potentially to my face, in French. The way I dress, my tone of voice, the way I wave my hands and make faces when I speak, all of my silliness is a cause for disdain. I felt it at first, but tried to write it off as paranoia, just an awkwardness caused by language barriers, but the third French girl acknowledged that my suspicions are correct. Apparently they think I am mocking them with my whimsical tones of voice, or something. I long for my family, the Goonies, MIF, my Beijing friends, anyone who appreciates silliness.
But feeling unappreciated is not the only unexpected difficulty of being in India. I know I mentioned this before, but the huge difference between India and China, the difference that I knew was coming but didn’t think about too hard, was the language barrier. In China, knowing Chinese enabled me to get around, to be self-sufficient, to uphold my dignity by proving that I wasn’t just some stupid tourist to be easily scammed. Even at home, my knowledge of Spanish earned me some credibility at the diner when the busboys realized I understood what they were saying if they talked about me to my face. In India, language barrier shouldn’t be a problem, because people speak English, right? India was a British colony! Yes, but...even when people do speak English (while they don’t always, or at least not well), they also speak languages I don’t, which gives them ammunition. In China, knowing the language was my strongest defense. Here, the shopkeepers can conspire in my presence to rip me off and I can’t understand them. I have no way of knowing what the multitudes of sketchy men are saying to each other as they stare. Even the French girls can mock me to my face. What in China was my strongest weapon is gone, and I just don’t feel like I can get much respect without it.
This is only my first week, so I am still in the language/culture orientation phase. My actual placement starts tomorrow. According to the information I was sent, I’m in an all-boys orphanage, but after arriving here I’ve been getting a sense of general disorganization and unsurety about the placements, so I honestly can’t be sure where I’ll actually end up. Two girls who just finished their volunteer placements stayed here last night and told me a bit about the program. Neither of them got put doing the things that they requested, and their “homestay” was a nightmare. When they attempted to complain about the homestay, the program coordinator was rude and uncooperative (they found out later that he was actually the son of their so-called host parents). I’m not supposed to be in a homestay, but still...they said that the place where they were both teaching was kind of a hostile environment, because the teachers resented them for coming in. The English teachers couldn’t even really speak English themselves, but were insulted to have a foreigner come in and supplant them. The only rewarding part, they said, is knowing that you’ve helped the kids. Everything else was a horror story. The girls were even considering filing a suit against the organization. They said that people were constantly pressuring them for money, and that none of the money we paid for the program actually made its way to places that needed it. Good thing I brought a suitcase full of markers! But Rajan tells me that they had too many volunteers last time, so they had to put them in placements other than the ones they wanted, and that that bad host family was more of an exception than the rule, and that 8 of the 12 volunteers he interviewed recently are really enjoying themselves and not filing any class-action suits or anything. So! I’m just going to wait and see, and pray that I don’t end up the kind of situation the other two girls did. In any case, I’m sure it will be a character-building experience...
Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought very much about a couple of key things about travel, one being that having fun while traveling depends largely on the people you are traveling with. I hadn’t really given much thought to the other volunteers who would be in the same program; I had really just viewed this trip as something I was going to do individually, and for me, being alone is usually excellent company. There is no chance of conflict, no difficulty making decisions, no fear of inconveniencing anyone else. However, here I am not alone. I share a room with two other girls, and two more are also staying in our same apartment. We have to hire a driver to get much of anywhere outside our local shopping center, and since that is expensive, it means sticking together. Of the five of us, the other American girl and one of the French girls are very nice; friendly, modest, and easy to get along with. However, the other two French girls, while always polite, can sometimes be very friendly, but sometimes have an aura of disdain and cliqueyness. They make fun of Rajan, our silly little coordinator, sometimes even when he is present, although, not being able to recognize French sarcasm, he remains blissfully unaware. I can tell by their attitudes that they are saying the same kinds of things about me behind my back...or potentially to my face, in French. The way I dress, my tone of voice, the way I wave my hands and make faces when I speak, all of my silliness is a cause for disdain. I felt it at first, but tried to write it off as paranoia, just an awkwardness caused by language barriers, but the third French girl acknowledged that my suspicions are correct. Apparently they think I am mocking them with my whimsical tones of voice, or something. I long for my family, the Goonies, MIF, my Beijing friends, anyone who appreciates silliness.
But feeling unappreciated is not the only unexpected difficulty of being in India. I know I mentioned this before, but the huge difference between India and China, the difference that I knew was coming but didn’t think about too hard, was the language barrier. In China, knowing Chinese enabled me to get around, to be self-sufficient, to uphold my dignity by proving that I wasn’t just some stupid tourist to be easily scammed. Even at home, my knowledge of Spanish earned me some credibility at the diner when the busboys realized I understood what they were saying if they talked about me to my face. In India, language barrier shouldn’t be a problem, because people speak English, right? India was a British colony! Yes, but...even when people do speak English (while they don’t always, or at least not well), they also speak languages I don’t, which gives them ammunition. In China, knowing the language was my strongest defense. Here, the shopkeepers can conspire in my presence to rip me off and I can’t understand them. I have no way of knowing what the multitudes of sketchy men are saying to each other as they stare. Even the French girls can mock me to my face. What in China was my strongest weapon is gone, and I just don’t feel like I can get much respect without it.
This is only my first week, so I am still in the language/culture orientation phase. My actual placement starts tomorrow. According to the information I was sent, I’m in an all-boys orphanage, but after arriving here I’ve been getting a sense of general disorganization and unsurety about the placements, so I honestly can’t be sure where I’ll actually end up. Two girls who just finished their volunteer placements stayed here last night and told me a bit about the program. Neither of them got put doing the things that they requested, and their “homestay” was a nightmare. When they attempted to complain about the homestay, the program coordinator was rude and uncooperative (they found out later that he was actually the son of their so-called host parents). I’m not supposed to be in a homestay, but still...they said that the place where they were both teaching was kind of a hostile environment, because the teachers resented them for coming in. The English teachers couldn’t even really speak English themselves, but were insulted to have a foreigner come in and supplant them. The only rewarding part, they said, is knowing that you’ve helped the kids. Everything else was a horror story. The girls were even considering filing a suit against the organization. They said that people were constantly pressuring them for money, and that none of the money we paid for the program actually made its way to places that needed it. Good thing I brought a suitcase full of markers! But Rajan tells me that they had too many volunteers last time, so they had to put them in placements other than the ones they wanted, and that that bad host family was more of an exception than the rule, and that 8 of the 12 volunteers he interviewed recently are really enjoying themselves and not filing any class-action suits or anything. So! I’m just going to wait and see, and pray that I don’t end up the kind of situation the other two girls did. In any case, I’m sure it will be a character-building experience...
India at a Glance
Natural resources: dirt, chaos, sketchy men, wild dogs
Time: 9 ½ hours ahead of EST
Number of hours Americans still have to wait after the new Harry Potter becomes available in India: 3
Current average temperature: probably 95 or so
Humidity: 75894723584728572319%
Ratio of men to women: 10:7 (according to Rajan)
Cute children asking for money: zillions
Random power outages per day: 3 or 4, maybe
Cows in the street: yes
Unusually colored boogers: see April 18th's entry, Everything You Wanted To Know About China (But Were Afraid to Ask)
This past week I’ve spent just acclimating to India and sightseeing. We spent the first four days in Delhi, then went to Jaipur and Agra for 2 days. I’ve already forgotten where exactly we went in Delhi, but my main impressions were that Delhi has got some pretty sweet architecture. Beautiful temples and serene gardens are in sharp contrast to the noise, dirt, and chaos of the city in general. We saw a Baha’i temple today that was shaped like a huge white lotus with 27 petals! It looked kind of like the Sydney Opera House, only more symmetrical.
Another salient aspect of our sightseeing experience was the constant attention we got from Indian people. Unabashed stares and constant requests to take pictures with the white people – shades of China! Only here I had more people ask to take pictures with me in one day than I did in my whole four months in China. At several places we developed crowds of men who followed behind us, and, any time we stopped, would seize the opportunity to come ask for pictures. It was kind of a bother, because when I’m sightseeing I’d like to move slowly and stop to admire things and take pictures, but when there’s a crowd behind, you have to keep moving or you’ll be accosted. Arrrr.
The trip to Jaipur and Agra was definitely a good choice. Jaipur had a couple of pretty palaces-of-something-or-other, but what we liked more than palaces was the amazing rooftop restaurant we went to after lunch and the bazaar we went to afterwards. There was tons of pretty stuff, and my China-honed bargaining skills did not fail me; I succeeded in buying some skirts for less than half the price the French girls paid for them, and I got the design that was longer and made of nicer material. I am highly satisfied. Another interesting feature of Jaipur: camels and even a couple elephants on the road! (in addition to the usual cows) Agra didn’t have any elephants, but there were monkeys! Agra was actually kind of ghetto compared to Jaipur, although it contains the Taj Mahal. Seeing the Taj was the main reason for going on the trip, and it did not disappoint. I hope my pictures came out all right. I forsook getting the new Harry Potter at its release time in favor of going to the Taj Mahal, and I’m not sorry. I bought the new HP that night anyway, and I’m done with it now. I really wish I had someone here to discuss it with!!!!
Time: 9 ½ hours ahead of EST
Number of hours Americans still have to wait after the new Harry Potter becomes available in India: 3
Current average temperature: probably 95 or so
Humidity: 75894723584728572319%
Ratio of men to women: 10:7 (according to Rajan)
Cute children asking for money: zillions
Random power outages per day: 3 or 4, maybe
Cows in the street: yes
Unusually colored boogers: see April 18th's entry, Everything You Wanted To Know About China (But Were Afraid to Ask)
This past week I’ve spent just acclimating to India and sightseeing. We spent the first four days in Delhi, then went to Jaipur and Agra for 2 days. I’ve already forgotten where exactly we went in Delhi, but my main impressions were that Delhi has got some pretty sweet architecture. Beautiful temples and serene gardens are in sharp contrast to the noise, dirt, and chaos of the city in general. We saw a Baha’i temple today that was shaped like a huge white lotus with 27 petals! It looked kind of like the Sydney Opera House, only more symmetrical.
Another salient aspect of our sightseeing experience was the constant attention we got from Indian people. Unabashed stares and constant requests to take pictures with the white people – shades of China! Only here I had more people ask to take pictures with me in one day than I did in my whole four months in China. At several places we developed crowds of men who followed behind us, and, any time we stopped, would seize the opportunity to come ask for pictures. It was kind of a bother, because when I’m sightseeing I’d like to move slowly and stop to admire things and take pictures, but when there’s a crowd behind, you have to keep moving or you’ll be accosted. Arrrr.
The trip to Jaipur and Agra was definitely a good choice. Jaipur had a couple of pretty palaces-of-something-or-other, but what we liked more than palaces was the amazing rooftop restaurant we went to after lunch and the bazaar we went to afterwards. There was tons of pretty stuff, and my China-honed bargaining skills did not fail me; I succeeded in buying some skirts for less than half the price the French girls paid for them, and I got the design that was longer and made of nicer material. I am highly satisfied. Another interesting feature of Jaipur: camels and even a couple elephants on the road! (in addition to the usual cows) Agra didn’t have any elephants, but there were monkeys! Agra was actually kind of ghetto compared to Jaipur, although it contains the Taj Mahal. Seeing the Taj was the main reason for going on the trip, and it did not disappoint. I hope my pictures came out all right. I forsook getting the new Harry Potter at its release time in favor of going to the Taj Mahal, and I’m not sorry. I bought the new HP that night anyway, and I’m done with it now. I really wish I had someone here to discuss it with!!!!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
India!
So I'm in India! I'm staying in an apartmenty thing for the first week while I have language and culture orientation, and we have wireless, which is super. It's me and another American girl and three French girls, plus our coordinator Rajan and our adorable cook. The first day I didn't even leave the apartment because when we weren't having our little introductory class, I was napping soooo hardcore, but today we went out to a big bazaar and it was a lot more interesting. India is a lot like China, but people were accosting us even more. I was a little bit tired of it, but I didn't know any good way to tell them to go away in Hindi like I could in Chinese. I feel like when you can speak the language, the vendors treat you differently, and it's easier to maintain your dignity ("face," if you will) and not get frustrated. I couldn't actually buy anything at the market either, because I hadn't gotten an opportunity to get and local money, but it's probably better if I wait a little bit to get a better idea of how much things should cost before I go buying anything. I try to translate rupees into kuai because I figure things should cost about the same in India as in China, but I think things are even cheaper here! Although I really need to cut back a bit on the shopping because I spent sooo much money in China ahahaha.
It's disgustingly hot and humid here, although it hasn't rained once. Weather.com is a liar! It's been saying that there are thunderstorms every day, and I was like okay makes sense, it's monsoon season, right? But so far it's been a lie. It's definitely humid enough anyway, though. We don't have air conditioning, although there are ceiling fans in every room. Still, it gets oppressively hot sometimes. Our shower doesn't have hot water (I feel like there might be some way to unlock the secret to turning it on, but I don't know what), but it really doesn't matter because I wouldn't want anything but a cool shower anyway.
We're playing English/French Pictionary and it is a pretty silly time! I am picking up bits and pieces of French along with the Hindi that we're supposed to be learning. Yesterday we learned basic small talk (hello, nice to meet you, etc) and today we learned question words and pronouns and numbers some adjectives and basic sentences. Rajan says maybe tomorrow we can have verbs. I am excited. Our favorite word is sukriya, which means "thank you very much." "Nice to meet you" is also super fun to say. Apse milkar achchha laga! I wonder how similar any of this stuff will be to the Sanskrit I'll be taking in the fall. Yay Indo-European languages!
p.s. - how awesome is the consonant cluster chchh in achchha ("nice")? very awesome.
It's disgustingly hot and humid here, although it hasn't rained once. Weather.com is a liar! It's been saying that there are thunderstorms every day, and I was like okay makes sense, it's monsoon season, right? But so far it's been a lie. It's definitely humid enough anyway, though. We don't have air conditioning, although there are ceiling fans in every room. Still, it gets oppressively hot sometimes. Our shower doesn't have hot water (I feel like there might be some way to unlock the secret to turning it on, but I don't know what), but it really doesn't matter because I wouldn't want anything but a cool shower anyway.
We're playing English/French Pictionary and it is a pretty silly time! I am picking up bits and pieces of French along with the Hindi that we're supposed to be learning. Yesterday we learned basic small talk (hello, nice to meet you, etc) and today we learned question words and pronouns and numbers some adjectives and basic sentences. Rajan says maybe tomorrow we can have verbs. I am excited. Our favorite word is sukriya, which means "thank you very much." "Nice to meet you" is also super fun to say. Apse milkar achchha laga! I wonder how similar any of this stuff will be to the Sanskrit I'll be taking in the fall. Yay Indo-European languages!
p.s. - how awesome is the consonant cluster chchh in achchha ("nice")? very awesome.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Fabulous Times in Finland
I happen to be in Finland at the moment, although only for another hour or two...I'm on my way to Delhi and have a big old layover in Helsinki (it's totally on the way to India!) so I'm just chillin' and absorbing some Finnishness. The first thing I noticed was that the little stick figure women on the women's bathroom sign are wearing short little skirts instead of the traditional large triangular dress. Those scandalous Finns! Since I can't leave the airport, I can't go to a sauna or see moose or anything, but fortunately the airport is full of Finnish people, who keep speaking Finnish, which is super fun to listen to. I even successfully pretended to be a Finnish person! I didn't think I looked Finnish, but I talked to a Finnish girl on the plane over and she said she totally would have thought I was Finnish, so with my clever disguise and use of the lone Finnish word in my vocabulary (kahvi, which means coffee and which I learned from listening to the stewardesses on the plane), I bought coffee at the airport coffee shop! The woman said bunches of things to me in Finnish and I guessed that she was telling me how much the coffee was, so I used my mad skillz to read the price off the little screen and pretend that I'm totally familiar with euros and definitely don't have to squint at the little numbers on the coins to tell how much they're worth, no sirree! She thanked me in Finnish (at least I'm presuming she said "thank you," but she could have been saying "go away" or "grapefruit" or "bring me the fish of your brother Raoul" for all I know) and I left to find milk and sugar, highly pleased with myself. I think I like Finland. Maybe I will visit some other time and stay for more than five hours. And now, I am off to buy a little Finnish chocolate and head to my gate, and this post is, shall we say (you knew it was inevitable)...Finnished.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Wrapping Up: an Overview of China
First, a list that took shape in my head but never made it to the blog,
Things that the Peking University campus has but yours probably doesn't:
-a lake that belonged to the emperor
-beer/hard liquor in the cafeterias
-dog meat in the cafeteria, for that matter
-intense bicycle traffic
-monks
-20,000+ Chinese people
I didn't arrive in China with many expectations. I didn't really know that much about China before I went, and I knew that I didn't know much, so I just tried to have a good attitude and be open to new experiences. And China was certainly full of new experiences and discoveries for me. Through a lot of coincidence, I ended up volunteering at a migrant school and helping organize a fundraiser. I grew to love bargaining. My spoken Chinese went from basically nonexistent to highly functional. I traveled thousands of kilometers into the West of China. But I also witnessed China's failings firsthand. I saw domestic violence in public, people who survived by eating out of trash cans, and kids who the government refused to educate. Many times I heard people defend the horrifically backwards mindsets still prevalent in modern China by invoking their nation's long and glorious history, as if China's historical achievements negated the fact that Chinese people are still racist, sexist, and a long way from free. Before my trip, when I mentioned that I was going to China, most people responded with some comment about the Chinese economic boom and how useful it ought to be to know Chinese in the business world. Well, I never intended to go into business, and now that I've seen what it's like, I wouldn't go investing in China either. By putting American money into China, we're just perpetuating the current order. The more America depends on China for trade, the less power we have to stand up to China and take effective measures to stop its human rights abuses. The Chinese economy may be progressing swiftly, but the government is not progressing with it, and the educational system certainly isn't either. I can't think of many things more dangerous than a nation with lots of economic and political power but very little education. China is full of crises: of population, environment, ethnic conflict. The gender imbalance borne out of the One Child Policy is creating a national surplus of young men, which could be put to convenient use if the political tension between China and Taiwan ever came to a head...war is one solution to a population problem, right? China has so many issues, but I love it in spite of its flaws. Chinese people en masse can be rude and annoying, but individuals are rarely anything but pleasant. It's a fascinating place, the food is delicious, and the shopping is insanely cheap. So of course I'm going back...it's just a matter of when. Hen hao.
Things that the Peking University campus has but yours probably doesn't:
-a lake that belonged to the emperor
-beer/hard liquor in the cafeterias
-dog meat in the cafeteria, for that matter
-intense bicycle traffic
-monks
-20,000+ Chinese people
I didn't arrive in China with many expectations. I didn't really know that much about China before I went, and I knew that I didn't know much, so I just tried to have a good attitude and be open to new experiences. And China was certainly full of new experiences and discoveries for me. Through a lot of coincidence, I ended up volunteering at a migrant school and helping organize a fundraiser. I grew to love bargaining. My spoken Chinese went from basically nonexistent to highly functional. I traveled thousands of kilometers into the West of China. But I also witnessed China's failings firsthand. I saw domestic violence in public, people who survived by eating out of trash cans, and kids who the government refused to educate. Many times I heard people defend the horrifically backwards mindsets still prevalent in modern China by invoking their nation's long and glorious history, as if China's historical achievements negated the fact that Chinese people are still racist, sexist, and a long way from free. Before my trip, when I mentioned that I was going to China, most people responded with some comment about the Chinese economic boom and how useful it ought to be to know Chinese in the business world. Well, I never intended to go into business, and now that I've seen what it's like, I wouldn't go investing in China either. By putting American money into China, we're just perpetuating the current order. The more America depends on China for trade, the less power we have to stand up to China and take effective measures to stop its human rights abuses. The Chinese economy may be progressing swiftly, but the government is not progressing with it, and the educational system certainly isn't either. I can't think of many things more dangerous than a nation with lots of economic and political power but very little education. China is full of crises: of population, environment, ethnic conflict. The gender imbalance borne out of the One Child Policy is creating a national surplus of young men, which could be put to convenient use if the political tension between China and Taiwan ever came to a head...war is one solution to a population problem, right? China has so many issues, but I love it in spite of its flaws. Chinese people en masse can be rude and annoying, but individuals are rarely anything but pleasant. It's a fascinating place, the food is delicious, and the shopping is insanely cheap. So of course I'm going back...it's just a matter of when. Hen hao.
The End
My last days in China were pretty frantic, overscheduled ones. All of a sudden it became apparent how many things I still needed to do in the short period of time I had left in China, and everything took longer than I expected, so a handful of things just never got done. I spent a lot of time doing last-minute shopping and making sure I had presents for people, plus some last-minute bonding. I packed here and there, in between events in my busy schedule, or at 5 am before going to sleep. I don't think I slept more than 3 hours in a row that last week. On my last full day in Beijing, I ran errands on campus, went out to lunch with my tutor, got my hair braided into multicolored dreads (multicolored string in the braids - no dyed hair here), got a facial and massage, and went dancing with my Hanyu class. I had to wash my new braids 3 times to get the smell of smoke from the club out of them, which is maybe why they didn't last as long as I might have hoped...
On the morning of the 30th I went out to brunch with Richard, Casey, and Pei, and then enlisted one of our familiar cab people to take me to the airport. It was raining, I hadn't gotten decent sleep in ages, all the goodbyes were stressing me out even further, and I honestly just wanted nothing more than to get on the plane already. As much as I love China, I was ready to come home, at least for a little bit. This Saturday I'll be leaving the country again, this time to volunteer in an orphanage in India for 5 weeks, and once again I find myself stressing out trying to squeeze lots of activities into a short period of time. The adventure never stops!
On the morning of the 30th I went out to brunch with Richard, Casey, and Pei, and then enlisted one of our familiar cab people to take me to the airport. It was raining, I hadn't gotten decent sleep in ages, all the goodbyes were stressing me out even further, and I honestly just wanted nothing more than to get on the plane already. As much as I love China, I was ready to come home, at least for a little bit. This Saturday I'll be leaving the country again, this time to volunteer in an orphanage in India for 5 weeks, and once again I find myself stressing out trying to squeeze lots of activities into a short period of time. The adventure never stops!
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