Sunday Morning at Raj's Spanish Cafe

Today is our first day of about 36 hours of travel to Kochi (formerly Cochin), a city in the southern state of Kerala. Kerala is known for being one of the richest states in India, in terms of wealth, infrastructure, gender equality, and natural flora and fauna.

Our flight out of Kolkata is scheduled for Monday, July 1 at 6 am. The only bus that goes from Hazaribag to Kolkata arrives at about 6 am, and it’s close to an hour drive from the airport. If only we had known that while booking, we would have opted for a different flight.

Last night (Saturday) we took the bus, and we arrived in the pouring rain in a giant mud puddle at 6 this morning. The bus drivers were exceedingly kind, and they took our suitcase and locked it in a special compartment inside the bus, and they found us a taxi at a good rate, and they carried the suitcase to the taxi for us. The taxi came right up to the bus, so we did not have to wade through the mud or stand out in the rain. This is very good thing, since I forgot my umbrella.

Helen and I had read in my guidebook that there is a Spanish café in Kolkata that has cheap wifi, excellent pancakes and coffee, ample power outlets, and comfortable seating. Unfortunately, they didn’t open until 8, but we went there at 6:45 (as soon as we were ushered into a taxi). Helen asked a guy standing under an awning near the restaurant what time it opened, and it turns out he’s friends with the owner, so he got them to let us in. We sat and read for about an hour until the kitchen opened, and then we got breakfast. PANCAKES. Turns out they’re actually crepes, but really, who’s going to complain about that? Plus, their coffee is espresso, not instant Nescafe, and it was quite good.

Their menu also offers Italian, Mexican, and Spanish options for lunch, so we’re planning to stick around for a good portion of the day. How lovely when things work out!

2 days of highs and lows

So, I haven’t posted much this week. Sorry about that. As a result, this is a really long post. I’ll do better in the coming week, since it’s my second to last (!!!) week here. Also this coming week Helen and I will be on vacation, so I should have lots to talk about. I have highs and lows from the last 36 or so hours plus a bunch of pictures that I want to get posted before we leave tonight and start our grand adventure.

Highs:

On Thursday, Satish asked Helen and me if we wanted to go to Bodh Gaya, which is a district in the state to our north, and which has several NBJK projects in and around it. Satish was going to leave Friday morning so he could show this man (I’ll call him L, because I don’t remember his name) from an award committee NBJK’s work. L was coming to evaluate NBJK to see if they deserved this prestigious award (whose name I also don’t remember).

Of course we said yes, so at 7:30 Friday morning we were all ready to go. At 9:15 or so, we actually got underway with all passengers in the car (6 of us plus the driver). The car is an ambulance, but an Indian ambulance more closely resembles an American Jeep than an ambulance. There are two bench seats (front and middle) and then two bench seats in the very back that go along the sides of the car. Helen and I got those seats, which I ended up really enjoying because it was the perfect size and shape to lie down along the seat and take naps while we drove.

Our first stop was the Amoli Apurva High School, 

followed by the elementary school. 

Both are in a village in Hazaribag but on the way to Bodh Gaya. The kids were great—the young ones had welcome songs and dances that the performed. 

L gave long speeches in Hindi about his life. 

He lived with Mahatma Gandhi in his ashram for a few years in his youth, so he talks a lot about Gandhian philosophy.

After the schools, we headed to the Lord Buddha Home for Children, which is an orphanage housing 60 children. The living quarters are divided into 6 separate houses, each with its own assigned mother, a kitchen, bathroom, washing machine, dining area, and several bedrooms. 

The kids were very happy in general, and also excited to see us (foreigners!) and speak English with us. Also, they were exceptionally cute.

We had lunch there and got a tour of the campus, which also houses a doctor’s and dentist’s office and several vocational training programs. Lunch was clearly prepared with care, but it was exactly the same thing we get every day, so Helen and I were not excited about it.

After lunch, we visited an ashram where Satish and Girija, who are two of the four founders of NBJK, grew up spending their summers. Satish took us to a temple, as if as an afterthought.

The temple is the place where Buddha received enlightenment under a banyan tree, so there is a magnificent temple (seriously, I think it’s the most incredible one I’ve ever seen) and extensive gardens, and the banyan tree itself. The designs carved into the temple’s exterior walls had birds nesting in them, most notably a large family of bright green parrots.

Then we visited a Thai Buddhist temple, 

then a statue of Buddha (Satish kept inviting L into pictures with Helen and me), 

then had tea and lassis (my first lassi in India!) and we headed back.

This is where the lows start.

First off, L told us right before lunch that he "had an interesting experience with a 26-year-old woman" and proceeded to tell us about how this woman married some guy her family was against, so when the marriage went foul she went to L rather than her family and he "became her brother, her sister, her mother, her father, her friend, and eventually her lover." L is 83, overweight, extremely self-centered, and clearly thinks very highly of himself. After that story, every time he looked at Helen or me or tried to tell us another story about himself or needed one of us to help him up or down stairs, I just felt dirty and disgusted. Unfortunately, we were not in a position to do anything about it since he was evaluating NBJK and we were representing it. Anyways, after the temples, we continued our journey.

We stopped at an eye hospital that NBJK runs, then there was a village meeting complete with insects (it was nighttime by then) and frogs and mice in the roofs, and it went on for a long time all in Hindi. I’m sure it would have been very interesting if we had any idea what was being said. But we didn’t.

We were then told we were going, and we asked where, and they said we would have dinner. We went to some place with a big table and we sat and waited, then the rest of the party joined and talked in Hindi, and an hour and a half later they said that now we would go have dinner.

Okay. So we went to another room with multiple tables (almost no one joined Helen and me) and waited more. About 30 mins later dinner was served, and it was actually fantastic. We had puri (a fried round bread) with a bean side dish and two vegetable ones (the same ones we have all the time), but there was also kir (rice pudding), which I hadn’t had here yet, and mango, and another dessert thing that was very sweet.

We got back after midnight and went to bed. This morning I woke up to talk to Jeff, and when I got online I found out that my dog Meesha, who we’ve had for 12 years, had died. Talking to Jeff was lovely as usual, and then I talked to my mom for more details and found out that a family friend is in the hospital and two of my friends had just broken up after several years of a serious relationship. I cried some, had tea and read to relax, and then the author who wrote the book I was reading had the gall to kill one of the main characters. So then I cried more. That plus packing has pretty much been my day today. Tonight Helen and I will take the bus to Kolkata, we’ll spend Sunday there, and Sunday night we’ll fly to Mumbai, then to Kochi, where Helen’s friend will meet us. And then who knows what will happen?

7, and Ranchi Field Visits Day 2, and illness, doctor, discoveries about water, and other victories

Thursday night in Ranchi, I went to bed feeling a little off. Nothing major, but I could tell that I was not 100%. When I tried to sleep, I kept having to stave off nausea with yoga breathing exercises (thanks Colleen!). I think I had a fever most of Friday, though I didn’t take my temperature.

Friday’s field visits focused on disabled children. We visited a house where a couple lived with a son with cerebral palsy plus 3 older non-disabled children. Their house was tiny, in a slum, and had a mouse problem (I saw 3 in the 20 or so minutes we were there). Still, they were quick to laugh, very hospitable, and in awe of the fact that there were two white girls in their house. The husband took our picture. They showed us the physiotherapy exercises that NBJK’s team had shown them to do with their son, and they told us about the progress he had made.

Next we went to a Resource Room for deaf-blind children. There are 12 (I think) children being seen at the resource room between 1 and 3 times per week, depending on availability. The children are given a baseline analysis and the family and evaluators set goals for one year out. For example, they might say that after one year, the child will be able to lift a certain toy above his or her head. The room has toys that teach motor skills and cognitive skills; they’re the same kinds of toys you’ll see anywhere in American day care centers, but here the purpose is much more explicit and (I think) critical. The room also provides walking aids to children who need support in their feet, ankles, knees, and/or hips to stand or walk. They avoid wheelchairs because parents tend to slack off on exercising their children if they can just wheel them around.

 

After that, we went in for lunch, and I was feeling pretty ill. I ate a tiny lunch which consisted mostly of banana and took a nap. When I got up, we went to a different NBJK office in Ranchi, which is right next to the zoo we’d been planning to visit. I still had a fever, so we nixed the zoo visit. We did get to see the composting and paper recycling projects at that office, though, which was cool. It was a little cooler in theory and memory than it was in practice, though. I was really feeling very sick, and it was hot, and we were in direct sunlight, and compost smells like manure and recycling paper smells like garbage being mixed with waste water, which is exactly what it is. My stomach was already unhappy, so that definitely did not help.

Helen and I took a nap while Anand and Girija did work, and then we read while they did work, and then we complained to each other about how late it was getting and how hot and uncomfortable we were while they did work, and then it was time to go. We had gotten about a half hour out of Ranchi when I tried to discreetly pull a plastic bag out of my backpack in case I needed to throw up, which seemed increasingly likely.

Helen and Anand noticed me, and started asking me what was going on, and we ended up stopping the car while I breathed and waited to either pass out or throw up, since I was sure one of the two would happen. I couldn’t seem to get enough air and my hands were tingling and going numb and I was dizzy and lightheaded (I think I was breathing too deeply, and the not getting enough air was psychological). At one point everyone in the car was turned to look at me and it occurred to me that I probably looked like hell and I couldn’t even muster a reassuring smile, and then it occurred to me that we were hours away from any kind of medical help, so I needed to get by until we could get help.

Someone had the great idea to put Helen and Anand in the seats in the very back of the car, so I could lay down across the bench seat. After I’d been laying down a few minutes, I felt much, much better. We got to Hazaribag and went straight to a doctor, who I think spent less than five minutes examining me before declaring I had consumed contaminated water and writing me some prescriptions. While Helen, Anand, and Girija were at the pharmacy getting the prescriptions, I heard them get passionate about some subject, and then Helen came back to tell me that she had just been informed that we are supposed to boil water before putting it in our water filter. What. I’VE BEEN DRINKING UNSAFE WATER FOR 7 WEEKS. No wonder I’m sick.

After a few days on anti-nausea meds, lots of sleep, antibiotics, probiotics (I always think that’s funny, taking both at the same time, but I understand it), and fever reducers, I’m feeling much better. I did notice today, though, that when I put on my linen pants, they sit a solid 3 inches (maybe even 4) lower now than they did when I arrived in India. They used to fit just below my waist, and they fit in the hips. Now I can pretty much take them off without unbuttoning them. This is a bit worrisome. I had a few pounds to lose, so I think I’m safe, but no more. No more.

So here’s the good stuff!

Auntie and Shradha came upstairs tonight to chat, and Auntie brought a bunch of bananas from the garden and mangoes from her friends’ gardens. Helen and I told them that we discovered today in my guidebook (thanks, Kat, for recommending it!) that in Kochi, where we will be traveling next week, there is an elephant training center where you can help train, wash, and ride elephants! I promised Jeff’s housemate (he probably doesn’t even remember) that I would find an elephant to ride, and Helen, completely independently, promised her uncle, so we’re really excited about it. There’s also a wildlife reserve where you can stay in a treehouse for about $30/night, and there are houseboat cruises, and restaurants on boats, and a café that apparently has divine cheesecake. I love cheesecake.

And speaking of cheese…Shradha said that the information I got when I first arrived, that there is not cheese available in Hazaribag, was completely false. She told me that there is a store in the market that sells cheese, and she will bring us some this week. Cheese! I can’t describe how much I miss cheese.

Tomorrow I promised to go downstairs in the morning to help Auntie set up a loaf of challah. I’m touched that the family liked it enough to want to make it again and learn the recipe. In the evening, we’ll go downstairs again, because I told them I want to make banana bread with some overripe bananas that we have. Plus, we now have three bunches of bananas (one is too soft, one is too green, one is just right), which is just way too much.

Today is 7 weeks since I left the U.S., and 3 until I go back. I have so much to look forward to, and I’m so eager for the next weeks (I was going to say the next few weeks, but I’m really excited about the next 52 or so weeks…)

So much to do! And that’s not even counting my actual work!

Ranchi Field Visits, Day 1

Today at 6:45 in the morning, Helen and I left for Ranchi! Ranchi is Jharkhand’s capital, and it’s thecity that both Helen and I flew into to come to Hazaribag. NBJK has an office in Ranchi that is (at least in some ways) much more comfortable and luxurious than the Hazaribag office. Today, we spent the morning doing field visits to some of NBJK’s projects here.

The projects we visited were microcredit Self-Help Groups (SHGs) that also receive loans for housing improvement, and a hygiene and sanitation program supported by Water Aid, U.K. The SHG consisted of about 15 women in a slum near the heart of Ranchi. The group had been together since 2005, and the women in it have been saving about 5 rupees per week in addition to their borrowing activities. Some of them now have quite sizeable savings.

The SHGs are designed to eventually become independent. The interest that borrowers pay on their loans goes into a group fund, which eventually becomes big enough to fund the loans to the SHG members. To qualify for aid from NBJK to form a group, the group needs 15-20 members, generally all women, and the members must all be married (to reduce issues of migration while holding loans). Through Oak Foundation, SHG members can also apply for loans to make improvements to their homes, and one of the women showed us the recent construction she had done at her house.

That same women told us about how she had no income-generating activities prior to joining the SHG. She took her first loan and used it to start a TV cover business, in which she fabricates TV covers to sell in the market. She started with local materials and selling in the local market, but as her business has expanded, she has started getting materials from Delhi and selling her products in other states. She has sizeable savings, a much-improved shelter, and a comfortable income, thanks to the Grameen-model micro lending that NBJK has supported.

Next we visited a Slum Development Committee (SDC) which receives aid from Water Aid, U.K. to make hygiene and sanitation improvements to the slum. This slum had received funds for several drains and subsidies for residents  to build toilets in their homes. At the start of the project, none of the households (there are about 70) had toilets, and now almost 100% have them.

At this meeting, several of the women brought children in with them, and one woman had a baby who was one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen. Helen and I took a picture with us sitting with the women, and in the second of those photos, I was completely distracted by huge brown eyes looking at me and tiny hands on my arm. Awwwwww. I’ll see if I can take it from her later.

We then went to another SDC meeting, which was in a very different slum that consists of about 100 households. The first slum was very crowded with narrow streets, few trees, mud everywhere, and a river of sewage running through it (I think it’s an actual river that the slum was built around, that has now been so polluted by waste that the water is black). It broke my heart to see children playing and bathing in that water. The second slum was much more reminiscent of a farm. There were animals everywhere (particularly ducks, which I haven’t seen much in Hazaribag), lots of trees and shade, and much more open space. The second slum had similar progress and similar issues to the first, except that they had also built a soak pit.

A soak pit, as I learned from Anand at breakfast this morning, is sort of like a well, but the opposite. It’s a pit lined with sand and bricks, but instead of taking water out of it to drink, you put wastewater into it. This prevents your household wastewater from creating a swamp on your property, it helps filter contaminants from it, and it helps refresh the groundwater supply.

After lunch I think we’re talking to a tribal development council, and then our agenda is blank. Tomorrow we have more field visits planned, and then a trip to the zoo! Funny story: In Hindi, J and Z are the same sound (like L and R in Japanese, I guess), so it took me a while to understand Girija when we were in the car this morning. He pointed out the window and said, “That is the Jew! Would you like to go to the Jew?” I asked what he’d said, and he repeated, “The Jew! The Jew!” It took a few minutes for me to get “zoo” from “Jew,” but I got it eventually.

Mangoes and a Good Day

I feel like a lot of what I’ve been posting lately has been on the negative side, and I’ve been waiting for a fabulous mood to strike or a great day to happen so I can try to balance out the negativity. The opportunity has struck!

First I’m going to talk about my good day today, and then I’ll talk about mangoes, which have been a huge part of my life here.

Haha I was just about to start talking about my lovely day, when I saw a huge cockroach walking across the kitchen floor toward where Helen was about to start eating a mango. I tried to calmly get her to leave so I could kill it without freaking her out, but in the end I wound up saying something like, “Comeinherethere’sacockroachunderyou!!” We killed that one (which was huge, did I mention?) and then almost immediately found another smaller one by the fridge, which resulted in a frenzy of spraying and being paranoid. I wound up standing on a chair because it offered a better vantage point and superior protection to standing on the floor, while Helen bravely continued spraying everything in sight.

Now… back to that good day.

I woke up feeling good (and not sick), got ready for work, and biked with Helen. When we got there, I had some work to do on the annual report, and then I received the rest of the reports that I needed to finish it. I ended up being very busy with work all day and also chatting with my friend Amee over Gmail. At lunch, Girija told us he was planning to go to Ranchi the day after tomorrow and invited us to go along, so it looks like we’ll do that. After lunch, I sat with Satish and worked out a lot of details about donors and projects and stuff, and we worked until about 6.

Helen and I came home, ate mangoes and dates, and then Shradha told us we were invited to go with the family to a 10-year-old boy’s birthday party later. In the meantime, Shradha and Uncle took me to an ATM and to buy more mangoes (which I’ll talk more about later). We went to the party, which had tons of adorable small children. The birthday boy asked us the few questions he knew how to ask in English (“How are you? Where are you from?”), and his family took pictures with us. They fed us dinner, which Auntie had gone over and cooked earlier in the evening. Dinner was absolutely delicious, and also very spicy. I’m amazed, but my stomach has actually been fine with it. (I did take some pre-emptive Tums when I got home, though.)

Overall, today was productive, active, and involved exciting plans for the future, which are all things I’d been lacking.

Now for mangoes.

This, right here right now, is the peak of mango season. I’ve been hearing about it since I got here. Mangoes are cheap right now, and the ripest ones are firm, juicy, sweet, and packed with the tangy mango flavor that everyone loves. The best mangoes are called the King of Mangoes, which brings really silly imagery to mind for me. Helen and I have been eating 1-3 mangoes per day (each, not combined [though I took a brief hiatus when my stomach was struggling]).

We ran out of mangoes today, and mango season will be over soon (a few weeks left, at the most), so I was eager to go out and buy more while the buying is good. Uncle is notoriously good at picking out  mangoes, so I was glad that he happened to be going out and was willing to take me mango shopping.

Uncle is really fun to watch shop. He chose his favorite mango stand (which to the untrained eye [mine] looks exactly like the surrounding mango stands), and he talked to the shopkeeper in Hindi, gesturing to the mangoes. The shopkeeper handed him mango after mango, and he held them up in the light, looked at them critically through his bifocals, felt their firmness and skin texture, and eventually rejected them all. He got the shopkeeper’s assistant to go around to the back of the stand and pull out a crate of mangoes, and he was able to quickly pick out the best ones. I bought 2 kg of mangoes, which was 7 mangoes, plus a kg of my favorite apples.

My time here has been marked with mangoes: the ones when I first got here, that I ate messily while Skyping with Jeff; later, the ones I ate at breakfast at Satish’s house; in Kolkata, the mangoes that we had to stuff ourselves with because Uncles bought too many; and now, the best mangoes of all, which will soon be running out. Uncle said that the mango season still has two or three weeks left. I told him I’m hoping it’s three weeks, because I leave in four, and I can’t imagine being here without a steady stream of mangoes.

6 and Sick

The title of this post is misleading, because I'm not really that sick. I thought I might be, and I had a fever on Saturday night, but I really only feel sick when I eat. So I've given up eating, and now I'm fine.

Just kidding. I'm still eating.

Anyways, today I'm feeling good so far, so I'm hoping it will hold. Yesterday I didn't have internet pretty much all day, so I couldn't post about the deeper meaning behind my having been here 6 weeks and having only 4 weeks left. And now I don't think there's a deeper meaning, so I deleted the post I wrote yesterday.

Helen and I are working on planning some travels, and if all goes according to our very rough plans, we may be leaving for the south of India on Sunday. Maybe. There is still a lot of uncertainty there. But I'm excited about the idea of changing up routine, because I'm getting sort of frustrated with the predictability of my days (made worse by being in bed for the better part of two days).

What else is noteworthy here?

My new clothes from Kolkata are now altered and wearable, which is exciting. Helen bought some really excellent mangoes on Sunday and I'm looking forward to eating more of them when my stomach is okay with it. I finished my 13th book since leaving the U.S. last night. I don't think I'll reach my goal of 30 books before I get back, but I'm sure I'll get through at least 20, which is still pretty good. (Unless I start Shantaram, which is nearly 1000 pages but is supposed to be very good and takes place in India.)

I forgot a few essential things on my list of things I miss about the U.S.: having electricity all the time and having screens on windows.

I think that's all for now. Sorry this post was not especially interesting.

Appreciating Luxury

Things here are very different. I do what I can to give a picture of what it's like to live here, but I was thinking it might be interesting for you to see what I miss from home and what it's like here, by contrast. So I've made a list of some of the things that I miss from home, gave a description of one of my favorite fantasies about being home, and then gave a description of what it's like to be here, by contrast. I hope you enjoy.

Some things I miss:

• cheese, yogurt, ice cream
• hot water
• couches
• cushy beds
• my car (mobility: the ability to get around, the freedom and knowledge and safety and understanding of my surroundings to get around, the social norm that I can go unaccompanied wherever and whenever I need to go)
• smooth roads with lanes and laws and people who follow them
• animals that live in pens or zoos or anywhere but the road
• pets that are cuddly and friendly and clean
• kitchens that are equipped with appliances that I recognize
• trash pickup services
• mirrors
• toilets equipped with toilet paper available everywhere
• carpet
• grocery stores!
• high quality produce
• boneless chicken and other meat
• food that is more protein than carbohydrates (less rice, more other stuff)
• real fruit juice
• washing machines
• dishwashers
• wine
• not attracting attention just by virtue of my skin color
• real coffee
• personal space
• TV/radio in English
• speaking the same language as pretty much everyone around me
• having shared experiences and shared backgrounds with those around me
• sushi
• drinkable tap water
• garbage disposal
• the gym, the ability to go work out
• being seen as my own person (not daughter of [father’s name] or wife of [husband’s name] [no, I’m not married, that’s just what is on every official document here])
• wearing summer clothes (short-ish dresses, shorts, shirts that show my collarbone)
• having authority over where I go and what I do
• lack of stench (garbage, manure, burning garbage)
• quiet (no roosters, no honking, no people screaming about things they’re selling, no people blasting radio announcements over loud speakers strapped to the roofs of their cars, etc)

We (American residents/citizens) live in a world of unbelievable luxury.  When I was living in Senegal, my favorite fantasy to think about was one of the most mundane things imaginable if you’re in the U.S., and here it is similarly fantastic. Here’s the fantasy:

I wake up in my incredibly soft bed at my parents’ house in California, with the sun coming in the large (clear glass) window. It’s quiet outside. I put my feet on the carpeted floor and get out of bed, wearing whatever pajamas I happen to be wearing and not concerned about whether I’m dressed modestly enough. I walk down the hallway, which is quiet and carpeted, and which has sunlight coming in the windows. I get to the kitchen and stand barefoot on the linoleum floor without any concern about cockroaches or other creepy crawlies getting on my feet. I make myself breakfast looking out the window at the street: a few people jog by, some people walk their dogs, the cars drive by quietly, on the right side of the road, not emitting an absurd amount of pollution. The road is clean, the houses have neat yards, and no chunks of road are missing. I have access to all the familiar food things I want, I am allowed to prepare them for myself, and no one forces conversation on me if it’s clear that I want to just be quiet. And if I do feel like talking, I speak to whoever is there in English, and we understand each other easily. Then, I take a warm shower, dry off with a soft towel, and put on whatever clothes I feel like wearing, with no thought as to their modesty (If I own the clothes, they’re modest enough). The end.

It’s amazing the simplicity of some of the things we take for granted in our everyday life. I hope you’ll think about some of the things you’ve had access to today that many people live without for their entire lives. It’s amazing how much the meaning of “normal” can change based on your circumstances.

Just to give a comparison, here’s my “normal” morning in Hazaribag:

I wake up at 5 because the sun is up and I feel like I’ve overslept. I check the time and go back to sleep, but I soon wake up because the roosters are going crazy, the neighbors are scrubbing and cleaning right next door, there are cars/motorbikes/rickshaws honking, and people are shouting to each other. Eventually I get up (checking the floor for insects before I put my feet down) and Skype with Jeff and/or my parents, but if the power is out (which it often is), I have to keep it short so my computer doesn’t die. I take a cold shower, which is even colder on chilly mornings because the sun didn’t warm the water at all. When I finish, I use the foam water-pusher thingy to scrape the water on the bathroom floor toward the one drain (showers here are not enclosed in any way). I dry off with my towel, which feels a little crispy from line drying and harsh detergents and pick out an outfit that I hope will attract as few stares as possible. I boil milk for breakfast (milk here is not adequately pasteurized to drink without boiling) and make oatmeal and coffee. No view to the outside, because my windows are frosted glass and if they’re open, I need the curtains closed so the neighbors don’t gather around to look in at me like they used to before I had curtains. Occasionally someone from downstairs will knock loudly and come in for conversation, which cannot be politely refused. I clean up breakfast, then bike to work, hoping not to get caught in the rain that comes at least once per day. The end.

Getting a Rough Start

My bicycle is great. It has two wheels, a basket, and a little bell that I ring when people/animals/cars/other bikes are in my way. It is a little small for me, and the seat has no padding and makes my butt hurt pretty horribly on bumpy roads. Still, I really like the feeling of biking here. It makes me feel like a part of my surroundings more than I do at any other time.

This morning, I overslept. I chatted with Jeff and Mom, took a shower, had breakfast, and got going. Helen and I prefer to leave on the earlier side because the traffic is less intense before 9:30. This morning, one of the first things we saw was a dead cow on our street. What do you do with a dead cow? Who takes care of it? Does it just lie there and decompose? I guess we'll find out over the next several days.

When we got to the main road, traffic was intense. Then it started raining. Then, at the part where there are mud puddles on either side of the tiny, narrow strip of road, a motorbike was about to cross at the same time as me, so I paused to let it pass. While I paused, the front wheel of my bike sank into the ground. When the motorbike passed and I stepped on my pedal to get going, my bicycle didn't move forward, but sank to the side and threw me from it, into a mud puddle. The whole right side of my jeans got soaked and muddy, plus my right arm, both hands, and a corner of my backpack. Better yet, many people witnessed my blunder, and many more stared at us the rest of our journey (which is always the case, but usually I have nothing to be embarrassed about).

When I got to work, I washed up as well as I could, but that involved dumping even more water on my jeans. I'm sure everyone would agree that wearing wet (not damp, but really truly wet) jeans is one of the more uncomfortable things one can do, especially if they smell faintly of cow manure.

Today it looks like it will rain for much of the day, so we may need to get a ride home when we finish work. Realistically, it looks like we'll finish close to 11:30 or noon, because we have very little work to do today. We may spend the afternoon at home watching movies and planning travel.

I can't wait to take another shower and put on clean clothes. This pretty much sucks. Ah well, I'll do better next time.

"Personal" things

I briefly debated whether to write a blog post about this, especially since I'm sure it will seem ridiculous to readers in the U.S. and will seem ridiculous to me when I get home. Plus, it's personal. But really, I'm blogging about my life and what is important to me now, knowing that it will all be strange to me when it's over.

So this post is about body hair. You can stop reading now if you'd like.

If you're an American woman who is used to shaving/waxing/otherwise removing your body hair on a regular basis, you will understand what I mean when I say that I never really feel clean if my legs are hairy. Much worse if my underarms are hairy. So, when my epilator (which is my tool of choice for hair removal--it's like a mechanical tweezer. Think of it as waxing, but without the wax, the fees, or the professional salon lady) died the first time I tried to use it (worse, when it died after I'd completed one armpit the first time I tried to use it), I was mildly distraught. I was also embarrassed to ask someone here where to go for waxing. So I waited until Helen got here.

As you might imagine, by 5 weeks, I was feeling pretty gross. I felt like no matter how many showers I'd take in a day, and no matter how much I scrubbed, I could never get clean. I hated looking at myself (fortunately we have no mirrors and clothes here cover most of the body) and was extremely self-conscious, made worse by the fact that I'm an ethnic minority here and get tons of stares.

Today was the day. Helen and I asked Auntie where to go, and she took us to a salon very close to our house (5 mins walk or less) that does waxing, threading, skin treatments, hair cuts, etc. The power was out when we got there, so the woman said she couldn't do waxing right then, but Helen got her eyebrows threaded. They did a great job, and the power came back a few hours later, so we came back for waxing. It didn't hurt, she did a pretty good job, and the best part is that it cost $4.40. Not per leg. Not just for waxing legs. It cost $4.40 to do my legs and underarms, Helen's underarms, and Helen's eyebrows.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled about restoring my normal level of personal hygiene at a place very conveniently located, with a lovely and skilled owner, and at essentially no cost. It feels good to feel human again.

[On another note, how messed up is it that women have to go through pain and inconvenience and generally high costs just to feel "human"?! The feminist inside me will stew about this while I celebrate.]

5 and Kolkata, now with pictures!

Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, used to be India's capital during colonial British times. You probably knew that. When India gained independence, it changed many of the British names (like Bombay became Mumbai). Kolkata means "City of Joy." Parts of Kolkata remind me of Washington DC, with colonial-period architecture, many trees, and smooth streets with broad sidewalks. There are lots of pretty things about some of the neighborhoods, with their contrasting trim and ironwork on the windows. I took a bunch of pictures which I'll put up later, but I forgot to bring my cord today. [edit: pictures!]

Our trip to Kolkata had many highs and lows, and I'll start with the highs. We stayed with Babloo, who is Uncle's cousin, in his apartment. He lives in a nice neighborhood walking distance from the food market. His wife and daughter live in Ranchi, and he visits them every month or so.

First thing, we got tea at a famous tea joint, and it was easily the best tea I've had here, and possibly the best I've ever had.

 Then we went to the fish/meat/vegetable/fruit/flower market, which turned out to be my favorite part of the trip. It was massive, and the setup was very cool.

 These are men mixing concrete for a construction project.

 We also went to a huge Hindu temple where people go to worship the god Shiva's penis (I think?). I don't know much about that, but people put flowers and milk on interestingly-shaped (not especially phallic) shrines. After that, we had coconut water and took family photos, which was really fun.

 We saw the Victoria Memorial, which has huge and incredible gardens and a marble palace with a museum about the British colonial period inside. On Saturday, we went to the memorial, but the museum was closing, so we had go back Sunday to see the rest of it. We took a ride in a super glitzy horse-drawn carriage and attracted a lot of stares.

We also went to a "pub with live music," which turned out to be a family restaurant where an air conditioned no-smoking section housed a small stage with a man singing karaoke to old and cliche American rock tunes (think "I Will Survive"). Helen and I had our first wine since arriving in India and enjoyed the surprise of the non-pub-like-ness of the place, but we ended up staying way too long and not getting dinner until it was 11 at night and everyone was grumpy.

 The next morning we all went to church. I'm not much of a church-goer (duh. I'm Jewish.) and churches generally make me uncomfortable, and the ushers seated us right in front, so the pastor kept looking at me while he was giving his sermon. I found it pretty awkward, and I was glad to move on with our day.

 We went back to the Victoria Memorial to see the beautiful garden nearby and the museum inside the memorial, and that's where Helen and I started to go downhill a bit. It was pretty unbearably hot out. I think the high was only in the high 90s or low 100s, but the humidity was unbelievable. Just standing still in the shade, we were pouring sweat. The Victoria Memorial museum was not air conditioned, though the thick marble walls did make it a little cooler than the outside. Unfortunately, the large and sweaty crowds pretty much counteracted that.

The museum was pretty cool (and pretty much as expected), but I started getting very claustrophobic. I came here knowing that "personal space" is not a thing in India, but the way it was manifesting itself was very hard for me to handle. I would try to find the emptiest part of a room and look at things around there, but inevitably by the time I got to that empty place, there would be tons of people around me all brushing against me as they passed. In the U.S., if you're in a crowded space, you do everything in your power not to touch anyone, and if you do touch someone by accident, you get a little embarrassed and apologize. Here, you just don't care. I got very uncomfortable by the number of people/things brushing by my arms, my butt, my stomach.

I've heard that Indian men will sometimes use situations like that to grope women, but this was nothing like that. It was just a situation where I could not get any space and I was sweaty and everyone around me smelled (because they were sweaty too), and I was tired and in pain (I somehow got a fire ant in my sandal, and it had bitten my toe several times at the park, so my foot was stinging and throbbing still), and then I started to get hungry. We left the Memorial and went to a shopping mall, where Shradha and Auntie looked for shoes, but by then Helen and I were hot and hungry and tired and frustrated, and there was nowhere to sit or to escape the crowds.

Eventually we went home and had lunch and then took naps, but that only made me more upset. I laid down in the room that Helen and Shradha and I were sharing to be in a quiet place and calm myself. It was totally ineffective, because, as I mentioned, the concept of personal space does not exist. So people kept coming in and out of the room, having chats, rummaging through things, sitting near me on the bed, snoring, singing to themselves...eventually I gave up and went to the other room, which turned out to be much quieter. After a long chat with Helen and some long hours of quiet, we were feeling much better.

On Sunday evening, we tried to go shopping, but Babloo took us to a posh shopping mall with expensive clothes that we were not interested in buying. We told him we wanted something cheaper, so he took us to the shop next door, which was only marginally cheaper and much lower quality. We said we wanted cheaper, so we went to a market that I think had not a single pretty thing. Then we went to a garden pub type place that was part of a hotel called Fairlawn that is popular with foreigners. Helen and I needed a snack, so we ordered the baked potato with cheese. Cheese! I haven't had cheese since I got here, and I miss it terribly. And the menu said cheese, not paneer. Cheese.

So even though we specifically talked about how we shouldn't expect what we were expecting, we were still disappointed when they brought us French fries. Not baked potato. No cheese. It was a sad moment. We went to dinner at a restaurant called the Bhoj Company, which had fantastic Bengali cuisine. It tasted home-cooked: light, meat that fell right off the bone, sauces that were not too heavy but were packed with flavor.

On Monday, we were told to get up by 8 so we could get going by 10, but we ended up not leaving the house until after 2, because we were dependent on Babloo for transportation and he had to work for a while. We went to the market, which was finally what we were looking for! Helen bought a gorgeous bed cover with elephants on it, and I bought 4 new dresses (for a total of $21, which is not cheap for here, but not bad for the quality). After feeling like I've been wearing the same three outfits for a month, it's refreshing to have some new things to wear, even though most of them need some tailoring.

After the market, we looked for a place that my guidebook had mentioned, called the Marble Palace. We eventually found it, but it was closed, and photos were prohibited. We had some chai and then went to a flower market, where Auntie and Helen and I got lost (and hot and hungry and claustrophobic...again). Eventually we found the others, but we didn't get back to the house for dinner until 7, and we had to leave at 8 for our bus, so Auntie had to rush like mad to get dinner ready in time for us to leave. I felt really bad for her.

The bus ride back was comfortable, but less so than the ride to Kolkata. I had trouble sleeping because the curtain that gives privacy to my berth would not stay closed and the wind from the open windows on the bus kept blowing it into my face. The berth was right next to the bathroom, so it smelled vile and I had to keep my window at least partially open, but that made the other curtain blow into my face as well. It was not so fun.

Other lows came from being on a family trip with a family that is not my own. I adore the family, but miscommunications and lack of communication caused a lot of frustration for me. We would get into the car and no one would tell us where we were going. We would make a list of places to go and would inexplicably end up somewhere completely different. Obviously, when traveling with a group, you have to make concessions so everyone can see/do what they want. It's just easier to understand that when the rest of the people in the group are discussing it in your native language and including you in the discussion.

I already mentioned the troubles with personal space, especially around the bedroom. People would come in during the early morning and seemed to have no regard for the fact that we were trying to sleep. Auntie would say something in moderately loud Hindi to Shradha, Yesh would want to borrow her phone, Babloo would come in singing to retrieve something from the bedroom, the maid would slam doors and slosh water to clean the adjoining bathroom, etc. I am a very light sleeper, so I've always been highly conscientious about waking other people up, and even though I know it's just a cultural difference, my sleepy self had no patience for what seemed to me at the time to be brazen lack of consideration for others. Obviously, that's not what was going on, but I had a hard time remembering that sometimes.

There was also the ever-present issue of waiting. I'm a patient person, but it was clear that we were wasting precious time waiting for Babloo to get off work. We could have taken a taxi and seen some things on our own, but I guess that it would have been inappropriate culturally? I still don't know about that.

This post is super long. Sorry about that. I'll wrap it up. Kolkata is pretty cool. There is lots to see. We saw some of it, but I wish we could have seen more and that the weather would have been cooler.

Last thing: I am past the halfway point of my trip, as of Monday. As much as I'm enjoying being here (and I really really am!), I feel like life when I go back is really too good to be true. I'll be teaching a circus PE class, taking a class with my favorite professor, visiting my family soon (I MISS THEM SO MUCH), going camping, and generally having a ball. So even though I'm not eager to leave Hazaribag behind, I am almost unbearably eager to go back to the States. And now, I can count down.

I still have not worked a single six-day work week, due to the site visits and travels I've been doing. I think that's really cool, and it seems likely that the pattern will continue. I think the annual report will be done by the end of the week, and then there will be two weeks left of June (and we plan to spend one of those weeks traveling), and then two weeks of July, and then Kalamazoo. Life is good.

There's so much more I could say right now, but this is really too long already. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. :P