Setting: The sun is peeking out from beneath the trees as dusk falls upon the city of Lucknow, India. A dashing young man - a foreigner - is attempting to hail an auto rickshaw on the street corner.
David (the foreigner): Hazraat Ganj?
Auto driver: Eh? Yeh yeh eh yeh
David: Ok, great.
David gets into the autorickshaw and sits next to another man.
The ride is silent for a few moments. The man, an Indian, stares at David, who shifts uncomfortably in his seat while pretending not to notice.
Man: You from where?
David: Oh...the US.
Man (suddenly smiling): Oh!
David: Yeah.
Man: Obama!
David: Yeah? He's the president.
Man: Washington D.C.!
David: Yeah, Washington.
Man: Capital.
David: You're right.
Man: Lucknow is capital.
David: Yeah! It is...very nice.
Man: Obama young man.
David: Hm ye...
Man: 47? Young man...very young man.
David: Well I gue..
Man: Chicago!
David: ...Um yeah...that's the city Obama is from.
Man: Obama.
David (nodding): Yup...
The autorickshaw slows and David pays the driver and starts to get out.
David: All right, bye.
Man (smiling and waving): Obama!
-------------------------------------------
Don't let the smiling fool you though. They still try to charge me more for everything.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
I just...
had a meeting with the general manager of the State Bank of India for Uttar Pradesh and he offered a 10 million rupee loan for our project.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Trip #1: Varanasi
Oh, hello! The week is moving along quickly and I have yet to update you all on my trip this past weekend to Varanasi. Let's do a little chronology shall we...
Saturday 11 PM: We are driven to the bus station and load onto the sleeper bus! The word "sleeper" does, however, prejudge the assumption that a lot of sleeping took place on this bus. Indian driving, for better or worse, involves a lot of bumps and even more beeping of the horn. My little bed also ha
d a big whole in the center, which things from my pockets invariably kept on falling through and onto the bus floor. We arrived at 7:15 AM and I had slept for a solid 3-4 hours.
Sunday early morning: After a short auto rickshaw ride we arrived at the Hotel Pradeep. While the hotel itself was very nice, the scene indoors was in stark juxtaposition to the street just a few feet from the front door. Dirt roads, fruit and vegetable vendors, and the similar smells of dust, chai and excrement. Yum.
We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. This is the point at which I will pose the first question of this post to my readers. Is there a difference between Indian meals? By this I mean...is Indian breakfast reallllly different than Indian dinner? Don't get me wrong, I am certainly a fan of breakfast for dinner back in the States. I love me some french toast and eggs at 7 PM. But, as far as I can tell, breakfast, lunch and dinner here in India are all just the same thing. Each meal involves some short of bread (roti or paratha usually) and some sort of mixture of vegetables, potatoes and spices. Surely roti cannot be the base for breakfast vegetables, lunch dal and dinner vegetables and dal? Yes it can. Surely curry cannot be a dish best served at 7 AM, 2 PM and 9 PM? Yes it can. Surely aloo paratha cannot be breakfast food AND lunch "fast food" AND a dinner side dish?! Yes. It. Can. So, after a rousing breakfast of dinner, we headed off to our first destination - Sarnath!
Sunday late morning: Sarnath is supposedly where Buddha gave his first sermon and started his career as Buddha. I say "supposedly" because, as much as I was told this in the World Religion's unit of Global History 9E, I never really believed that Buddha was a real person. No offense to Buddhists at all! I just always had trouble imagining it...especially because he is fat in one tradition and skinny in the other. What's that about? Are there different Buddhas? Is there just one famous Buddhas but lots of other less famous Buddhas? I'd really appreciate a lesson if any of you guys know...I don't mean to be insensitive I'm just clueless. Even with my clear lack of appreciation for Buddhism, Sarnath certainly lived up to its spiritual heritage. Y
ou can see in the picture to my left that huge brick construct, its kind of square at the bottom and domed on top - that is called a "stupa." There are, to my knowledge, eight stupas in the world, and they are built to house relics. The stupa at Sarnath, known as the Dhamek Stupa, is the oldest stupa in the world and holds deep within its core some (or all? I don't think all...but I'm a little fuzzy on Sarnath generally because I was so sleep deprised) of Buddha's ashes. The stupa is a part of this larger complex, where there once were many monasteries and other structures of worship. They have long since crumbled to the ground, but the foundations remain. The highlight was the altar, covered in gold leaf over the years by worshipers, upon which Buddha meditated. Don't worry. We quickly took a picture of Emily pretending to meditate on top of it.
There was also a museum at Sarnath with lots of Buddhist relics. Unfortunately, no cameras (or cell phones, or metal of any kind) were allowed in the museum, so I cannot share with you the many, many, MANY statues of Buddha I saw, but I can tell you that I saw the ORIGINAL national emblem of India. See attached picture of lions on a pillar. That was very cool.
Sunday afternoon: At Sarnath, we got a taxi. No more auto rickshaws for us! We paid this driver 1000 rupees...about 20 dollars...and he drove us around and waited where ever we wanted for 12 hours. How amazing is that! He drove us back to Varanasi to go to a drama rehearsal being led by a professor at BHU that Liju happened to know. We walked into a dark auditorium, sat in the back, and watched a very strange drama unfold. I believe it was the story of a warrior who, to repent for a sin he did not commit, had to kill 1000 people. At person 999, he goes a little crazy. This was represented by a lot of stomping and yelling in Hindi. Then Buddha comes and saves the day! They gave us samosas too. Delicious.
After the rehearsal, we went back to the professor's home. This guy was the pinnacle of old guy-artsy-academia. He wore billowy flowing clothes, was unassumingly quiet and sat in a chair (one with arms, mind you) cross-legged. We sat in his parlor for awhile making small talk, which invariably led to discussing his art - DANCE. And not just any dance. He was an expert in bharatanatyam. I cannot explain this very well to be sure, but it is, at its most basic level, dance that tells stories through movement. He showed us the many different hand gestures and the different words or actions they represented. Then he sang and danced while we quietly sat and watched. It was very, very strange. The dance itself was not strange...the fact that we sat quietly as he performed, still cross-legged in
the chair, before seamlessly beginning our conversation once again was strange. His wife, who is also an artist, served us lunch and he invited us to her dance performance this evening. We told him we'd try to make it but could not be sure.
After leaving the professor's house we visited the BHU campus and the Hindu temple on the premises. Hinduism is also confusing. But the structure itself was astounding...and rather phallic, as you'll see in the attached photo. There were bells all over the temple that could be rung by visitors and for some reason they were all a minor 3rd apart from one another - does anybody know if this is significant?
Sunday evening: From BHU we headed back to downtown Varanasi for the Aarti at 6:30 on the Ganges. We went down to the river and rented a boat for the next hour or so so we could go out onto the river and watch the waterfront ritual from the center of the river. I'll admit that I am not exactly sure what was going on. There were 7 people on pedestals who did a kind-of fire and smoke dance that, I
assume, was to honor some deities. There were a lot of bells and drums and other music going on the whole time, also. Further than that I'm not exactly sure what was happening. I did learn that the wicks of the candles they used had been soaked in ghee, which was not surprising because everything here is soaked in ghee. Other than that it was a generally mystifying and wholly interesting experience. There are some pictures attached of the Aarti also, though the quality is pretty bad because we were far away and it was so dark.
After the Aarti we walked around the downtown area for awhile. The stairs leading up to town from the waterfront were lined with beggars...more than I have ever seen in one place...literally hundreds. Unfortunately for Liju, he has a policy of giving every beggar he sees 3 rupees until he runs out of money. He was mobbed within seconds and I am surprised he made it out of there all right. He gave up a few hundred rupees before running out...but three children continued to follow us down the street. After about 10 minutes of them following us...now a kilometer or so away from the water front...Liju finally took them across the street and bought them some roti and chocolate. Then he took their picture. It was actually very cute.
We walked around downtown for another 45 minutes before deciding to go to dinner. We ended up going to The Gateway Hotel, which was originally a Taj hotel, and ate at their international cuisine restaurant. It had a buffet with yogurt and fruit. This made me happier than I can express.
SLEEP
Monday morning: Wake up call at 5:45 AM. Today was both Republic Day and some type of festival in Varanasi which involved lots of washing in the river. Because of this, we woke up early to rent a boat and travel up and down the river. The whole morning was both eye-opening and mystical. We floated through clouds of dense mist...seeing at once families mourning a dead loved-one burning before them, worshipers bathing themselves in the cold, gray waters of the Ganges...and countless Asian tourist groups pointing and waving at us, the only other foreig
ners.
I think its worth taking a few moments to explain the funeral situation at the river, because this is something I actually learned about. Varanasi is a place people go to die. Supposedly, if someone dies in Varanasi they will go directly to heaven (or wherever they are supposed to go). There are actually hospice hotels open for rent to people who are waiting to die. After death, the individual is taken to the waterfront and burned. Wood is so expensive to burn (something like 300 Rs. per kg) and so much wood is needed that poorer families use electric fires. Either way, though, the fires are started using the eternal flame - a fire burning at a temple nearby - that has supposedly been burning for the past 3000 years. I find this hard to believe. In fact, I'm pretty sure SOMEBODY let it burn out once, swore a lot and then quickly restarted it. But I didn't say anything.
After our boat ride, the guide we picked up for the morning brought us through the back streets of Varanasi. These streets were more like alleyways, only 4 feet wide and dark due to the imposing buildings blocking light from above. More often than not the entire alley was blocked by a cow munching on some trash so we had to climb over and around the beast, while narrowly missing its poop. Importantly, though, we were told that we should not worry about stepping in cow poop because it is actually good luck! A rather convenient good luck charm for a city littered with dung don't you think?
The morning ended with some street food for breakfast (I apologize to all of you who have told me not to eat street food...I didn't get sick so don't worry). We had poori with something on it...I forget the name...and jalebi. Meera tells me she does not like jalebi, which makes me think she is clinically insane. They are perfect. Picture pretzel shaped thin and airy fried pieces of dough...that kind of taste like doughnuts but without all that pesky and heavy dough in the center. Now picture that pretzel shaped thing covered in a sugary, sticky liquid that you want to swim in. Now imagine that you could buy 100 grams of this sugary, sticky, pretzel-y deliciousness for only 10 CENTS. To tell you the truth I'm surprised that I'm not still standing in Varanasi handing the vendor 100 rupee bills telling him to "keep 'em coming" in between bites.
Monday late morning: We went to the Ramnagar Fort. At this fort was, to my knowledge, the worst museum in the world. Rooms were lit with one fluroescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Items were thrown haphazardly on tables so nothing was visible. Signs describing items were either missing or turned in such a way
that they were impossible read. And yet, I don't think I have ever enjoyed a museum more. As the museum got worse...we just found it more hilarious. See the photo below, posted at the entrance of the museum, for a taste of the oversight that was obviously gone into the museum's implementation.
After the fort, we went to lunch and then boarded the bus to go home! You'd think this is where the story would end...but the bus was ride was a story in itself. I may have thought the sleeper bus was a bit uncomfortable on the way to Varanasi, but the bus we took back to Lucknow, no more than a glorified schoolbus with open windows and 5 seats per row, was a challenge. To tell you the truth, though, it wasn't that bad. Even though the window next to me wouldn't close so by 11 PM the wind was so cold I had to cover my head and arms with my dirty shirts and boxers to stop from shivering...I kind of enjoyed the experience. If I were in a Calvin and Hobbes comic I'm sure Dad would just tell me that the experience had built character. And they would be right.
And besides, a ticket for the 10 hour bus ride cost only $3.00 so I can't really complain.
Saturday 11 PM: We are driven to the bus station and load onto the sleeper bus! The word "sleeper" does, however, prejudge the assumption that a lot of sleeping took place on this bus. Indian driving, for better or worse, involves a lot of bumps and even more beeping of the horn. My little bed also ha
d a big whole in the center, which things from my pockets invariably kept on falling through and onto the bus floor. We arrived at 7:15 AM and I had slept for a solid 3-4 hours.Sunday early morning: After a short auto rickshaw ride we arrived at the Hotel Pradeep. While the hotel itself was very nice, the scene indoors was in stark juxtaposition to the street just a few feet from the front door. Dirt roads, fruit and vegetable vendors, and the similar smells of dust, chai and excrement. Yum.
We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. This is the point at which I will pose the first question of this post to my readers. Is there a difference between Indian meals? By this I mean...is Indian breakfast reallllly different than Indian dinner? Don't get me wrong, I am certainly a fan of breakfast for dinner back in the States. I love me some french toast and eggs at 7 PM. But, as far as I can tell, breakfast, lunch and dinner here in India are all just the same thing. Each meal involves some short of bread (roti or paratha usually) and some sort of mixture of vegetables, potatoes and spices. Surely roti cannot be the base for breakfast vegetables, lunch dal and dinner vegetables and dal? Yes it can. Surely curry cannot be a dish best served at 7 AM, 2 PM and 9 PM? Yes it can. Surely aloo paratha cannot be breakfast food AND lunch "fast food" AND a dinner side dish?! Yes. It. Can. So, after a rousing breakfast of dinner, we headed off to our first destination - Sarnath!
Sunday late morning: Sarnath is supposedly where Buddha gave his first sermon and started his career as Buddha. I say "supposedly" because, as much as I was told this in the World Religion's unit of Global History 9E, I never really believed that Buddha was a real person. No offense to Buddhists at all! I just always had trouble imagining it...especially because he is fat in one tradition and skinny in the other. What's that about? Are there different Buddhas? Is there just one famous Buddhas but lots of other less famous Buddhas? I'd really appreciate a lesson if any of you guys know...I don't mean to be insensitive I'm just clueless. Even with my clear lack of appreciation for Buddhism, Sarnath certainly lived up to its spiritual heritage. Y
ou can see in the picture to my left that huge brick construct, its kind of square at the bottom and domed on top - that is called a "stupa." There are, to my knowledge, eight stupas in the world, and they are built to house relics. The stupa at Sarnath, known as the Dhamek Stupa, is the oldest stupa in the world and holds deep within its core some (or all? I don't think all...but I'm a little fuzzy on Sarnath generally because I was so sleep deprised) of Buddha's ashes. The stupa is a part of this larger complex, where there once were many monasteries and other structures of worship. They have long since crumbled to the ground, but the foundations remain. The highlight was the altar, covered in gold leaf over the years by worshipers, upon which Buddha meditated. Don't worry. We quickly took a picture of Emily pretending to meditate on top of it.There was also a museum at Sarnath with lots of Buddhist relics. Unfortunately, no cameras (or cell phones, or metal of any kind) were allowed in the museum, so I cannot share with you the many, many, MANY statues of Buddha I saw, but I can tell you that I saw the ORIGINAL national emblem of India. See attached picture of lions on a pillar. That was very cool.
Sunday afternoon: At Sarnath, we got a taxi. No more auto rickshaws for us! We paid this driver 1000 rupees...about 20 dollars...and he drove us around and waited where ever we wanted for 12 hours. How amazing is that! He drove us back to Varanasi to go to a drama rehearsal being led by a professor at BHU that Liju happened to know. We walked into a dark auditorium, sat in the back, and watched a very strange drama unfold. I believe it was the story of a warrior who, to repent for a sin he did not commit, had to kill 1000 people. At person 999, he goes a little crazy. This was represented by a lot of stomping and yelling in Hindi. Then Buddha comes and saves the day! They gave us samosas too. Delicious.
After the rehearsal, we went back to the professor's home. This guy was the pinnacle of old guy-artsy-academia. He wore billowy flowing clothes, was unassumingly quiet and sat in a chair (one with arms, mind you) cross-legged. We sat in his parlor for awhile making small talk, which invariably led to discussing his art - DANCE. And not just any dance. He was an expert in bharatanatyam. I cannot explain this very well to be sure, but it is, at its most basic level, dance that tells stories through movement. He showed us the many different hand gestures and the different words or actions they represented. Then he sang and danced while we quietly sat and watched. It was very, very strange. The dance itself was not strange...the fact that we sat quietly as he performed, still cross-legged in
the chair, before seamlessly beginning our conversation once again was strange. His wife, who is also an artist, served us lunch and he invited us to her dance performance this evening. We told him we'd try to make it but could not be sure.After leaving the professor's house we visited the BHU campus and the Hindu temple on the premises. Hinduism is also confusing. But the structure itself was astounding...and rather phallic, as you'll see in the attached photo. There were bells all over the temple that could be rung by visitors and for some reason they were all a minor 3rd apart from one another - does anybody know if this is significant?
Sunday evening: From BHU we headed back to downtown Varanasi for the Aarti at 6:30 on the Ganges. We went down to the river and rented a boat for the next hour or so so we could go out onto the river and watch the waterfront ritual from the center of the river. I'll admit that I am not exactly sure what was going on. There were 7 people on pedestals who did a kind-of fire and smoke dance that, I
assume, was to honor some deities. There were a lot of bells and drums and other music going on the whole time, also. Further than that I'm not exactly sure what was happening. I did learn that the wicks of the candles they used had been soaked in ghee, which was not surprising because everything here is soaked in ghee. Other than that it was a generally mystifying and wholly interesting experience. There are some pictures attached of the Aarti also, though the quality is pretty bad because we were far away and it was so dark.After the Aarti we walked around the downtown area for awhile. The stairs leading up to town from the waterfront were lined with beggars...more than I have ever seen in one place...literally hundreds. Unfortunately for Liju, he has a policy of giving every beggar he sees 3 rupees until he runs out of money. He was mobbed within seconds and I am surprised he made it out of there all right. He gave up a few hundred rupees before running out...but three children continued to follow us down the street. After about 10 minutes of them following us...now a kilometer or so away from the water front...Liju finally took them across the street and bought them some roti and chocolate. Then he took their picture. It was actually very cute.
We walked around downtown for another 45 minutes before deciding to go to dinner. We ended up going to The Gateway Hotel, which was originally a Taj hotel, and ate at their international cuisine restaurant. It had a buffet with yogurt and fruit. This made me happier than I can express.
SLEEP
Monday morning: Wake up call at 5:45 AM. Today was both Republic Day and some type of festival in Varanasi which involved lots of washing in the river. Because of this, we woke up early to rent a boat and travel up and down the river. The whole morning was both eye-opening and mystical. We floated through clouds of dense mist...seeing at once families mourning a dead loved-one burning before them, worshipers bathing themselves in the cold, gray waters of the Ganges...and countless Asian tourist groups pointing and waving at us, the only other foreig
ners.I think its worth taking a few moments to explain the funeral situation at the river, because this is something I actually learned about. Varanasi is a place people go to die. Supposedly, if someone dies in Varanasi they will go directly to heaven (or wherever they are supposed to go). There are actually hospice hotels open for rent to people who are waiting to die. After death, the individual is taken to the waterfront and burned. Wood is so expensive to burn (something like 300 Rs. per kg) and so much wood is needed that poorer families use electric fires. Either way, though, the fires are started using the eternal flame - a fire burning at a temple nearby - that has supposedly been burning for the past 3000 years. I find this hard to believe. In fact, I'm pretty sure SOMEBODY let it burn out once, swore a lot and then quickly restarted it. But I didn't say anything.
After our boat ride, the guide we picked up for the morning brought us through the back streets of Varanasi. These streets were more like alleyways, only 4 feet wide and dark due to the imposing buildings blocking light from above. More often than not the entire alley was blocked by a cow munching on some trash so we had to climb over and around the beast, while narrowly missing its poop. Importantly, though, we were told that we should not worry about stepping in cow poop because it is actually good luck! A rather convenient good luck charm for a city littered with dung don't you think?
The morning ended with some street food for breakfast (I apologize to all of you who have told me not to eat street food...I didn't get sick so don't worry). We had poori with something on it...I forget the name...and jalebi. Meera tells me she does not like jalebi, which makes me think she is clinically insane. They are perfect. Picture pretzel shaped thin and airy fried pieces of dough...that kind of taste like doughnuts but without all that pesky and heavy dough in the center. Now picture that pretzel shaped thing covered in a sugary, sticky liquid that you want to swim in. Now imagine that you could buy 100 grams of this sugary, sticky, pretzel-y deliciousness for only 10 CENTS. To tell you the truth I'm surprised that I'm not still standing in Varanasi handing the vendor 100 rupee bills telling him to "keep 'em coming" in between bites.
Monday late morning: We went to the Ramnagar Fort. At this fort was, to my knowledge, the worst museum in the world. Rooms were lit with one fluroescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Items were thrown haphazardly on tables so nothing was visible. Signs describing items were either missing or turned in such a way
that they were impossible read. And yet, I don't think I have ever enjoyed a museum more. As the museum got worse...we just found it more hilarious. See the photo below, posted at the entrance of the museum, for a taste of the oversight that was obviously gone into the museum's implementation.After the fort, we went to lunch and then boarded the bus to go home! You'd think this is where the story would end...but the bus was ride was a story in itself. I may have thought the sleeper bus was a bit uncomfortable on the way to Varanasi, but the bus we took back to Lucknow, no more than a glorified schoolbus with open windows and 5 seats per row, was a challenge. To tell you the truth, though, it wasn't that bad. Even though the window next to me wouldn't close so by 11 PM the wind was so cold I had to cover my head and arms with my dirty shirts and boxers to stop from shivering...I kind of enjoyed the experience. If I were in a Calvin and Hobbes comic I'm sure Dad would just tell me that the experience had built character. And they would be right.
And besides, a ticket for the 10 hour bus ride cost only $3.00 so I can't really complain.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
My Quality of Life
Sorry I haven't updated recently folks. In truth not that much was going on and I didn't know what to write. I go to work every morning at 8:30 and I come home at 6. It's a long day in the office, with lots of reading and drinking of chai, and then a quiet evening at home.
One interesting bit, though. Two days ago I got in a fight (not a fight of fists, a fight of words) with a tempo driver. After he drove me all the way back to my stop, he tried to claim that the ride would cost me 60 rupees! Not this again. His reasoning was that I had "reserved" the tempo, in that nobody else had ridden with me. There were a few flaws in his logic. First, I hadn't ridden alone. He seemed to have forgotten that the tempo was full when I got in and people had just gotten out over the course of the ride. Second, I told him "no reserve" when I was the only one remaining, to make my point clear. We ended up getting into a very strange English/Hindi fight that involved a lot of gesticulating. It turned out nobody spoke English so I had very few allies. But, the one thing I have learned over this past week and a half is that I need to stick up for myself in these situations, or else I will just get cheated.
Needless to say, the police got involved. Seriously. But everything in the end was okay. I tried to pay him 20 rupees as a compromise, but he got offended, gave me my money back and drove off. All in a day's work people, all in a day's work.
Now for the really exciting part. GABRIELLE HAS ARRIVED!
Incredibly and inexplicably since Gabrielle has arrived my quality of life has improved drastically. It's not only that now there is somebody else to speak English too...though this is great. Other things have changed. I'm not sure if she is magical or if it just a coincidence. Let me count the ways my life is better:
1) I have a mattress now.
2) I have an extra blanket now. (This is key...it's freezing in the morning)
3) The maid has finally come and threw out the trash! She also scrubbed the floors!
The last way my life has improved is due to our (mine and Gabrielle's) own efforts. After Gabrielle saw the cockroach infestation that I had been living with, she voted that we get rid of them. In all seriousness, if she had never come I probably would have lived with it for two months. But! With her bug-killing energies we bought a big can of cockroach killer and had at them for a good hour.
At the beginning we felt a little bad for killing so many. Our sprays were hesitant. Our motions were feeble. However, maybe it was the fumes...or just the power that the can imparted...but soon we were hooting and hollering, egging each other on in our deadly quest! We lunged from one cupboard to another, the burden of death no longer weighing our movements down. Each of our sprays hit their mark with deadly accuracy and the roaches seemed to fall from the walls not from the poison but from fear. Unfortunately, this spree was not to last. As we started coughing from the fumes and considered the irony of committing suicide as well as roach-icide, we thought it best to leave the kitchen be for awhile and let things settle a bit.
In a half hour, we opened the kitchen door once again to survey the damage. The countertop, floor and cupboards were littered with hundreds of cockroach carcasses. Some legs flailing still amidst pools of poisonous liquid. I had never seen this many cockroaches in my life, let alone this many dead ones.
The kitchen is a lot nicer now.
One interesting bit, though. Two days ago I got in a fight (not a fight of fists, a fight of words) with a tempo driver. After he drove me all the way back to my stop, he tried to claim that the ride would cost me 60 rupees! Not this again. His reasoning was that I had "reserved" the tempo, in that nobody else had ridden with me. There were a few flaws in his logic. First, I hadn't ridden alone. He seemed to have forgotten that the tempo was full when I got in and people had just gotten out over the course of the ride. Second, I told him "no reserve" when I was the only one remaining, to make my point clear. We ended up getting into a very strange English/Hindi fight that involved a lot of gesticulating. It turned out nobody spoke English so I had very few allies. But, the one thing I have learned over this past week and a half is that I need to stick up for myself in these situations, or else I will just get cheated.
Needless to say, the police got involved. Seriously. But everything in the end was okay. I tried to pay him 20 rupees as a compromise, but he got offended, gave me my money back and drove off. All in a day's work people, all in a day's work.
Now for the really exciting part. GABRIELLE HAS ARRIVED!
Incredibly and inexplicably since Gabrielle has arrived my quality of life has improved drastically. It's not only that now there is somebody else to speak English too...though this is great. Other things have changed. I'm not sure if she is magical or if it just a coincidence. Let me count the ways my life is better:
1) I have a mattress now.
2) I have an extra blanket now. (This is key...it's freezing in the morning)
3) The maid has finally come and threw out the trash! She also scrubbed the floors!
The last way my life has improved is due to our (mine and Gabrielle's) own efforts. After Gabrielle saw the cockroach infestation that I had been living with, she voted that we get rid of them. In all seriousness, if she had never come I probably would have lived with it for two months. But! With her bug-killing energies we bought a big can of cockroach killer and had at them for a good hour.
At the beginning we felt a little bad for killing so many. Our sprays were hesitant. Our motions were feeble. However, maybe it was the fumes...or just the power that the can imparted...but soon we were hooting and hollering, egging each other on in our deadly quest! We lunged from one cupboard to another, the burden of death no longer weighing our movements down. Each of our sprays hit their mark with deadly accuracy and the roaches seemed to fall from the walls not from the poison but from fear. Unfortunately, this spree was not to last. As we started coughing from the fumes and considered the irony of committing suicide as well as roach-icide, we thought it best to leave the kitchen be for awhile and let things settle a bit.
In a half hour, we opened the kitchen door once again to survey the damage. The countertop, floor and cupboards were littered with hundreds of cockroach carcasses. Some legs flailing still amidst pools of poisonous liquid. I had never seen this many cockroaches in my life, let alone this many dead ones.
The kitchen is a lot nicer now.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
My first (real) day at work
I have great news for all of you.
Today I saw a monkey.
It's true! Right on the way to work. There is a little grassy area in one of the medians on one of the bridges, and in that grassy area there were monkeys! Four of them! Jumping and climbing and hooting and picking each other for flies like only primates can do. It was the best day...
Now you may think that, considering the name of this blog, my trip has climaxed. You may think that this is trip is as good as over, and its only the first week. You may think that my dream has been fulfilled! Well, to tell you the truth I thought the same thing...that is until I decided to redefine "meeting" a monkey to "being formally introduced to" a monkey. For that I still have some time.
Anyway, I consider today my first real day of work for two reasons. 1) I was actually at the office rather than out in the field. 2) I did not get driven to work.
1) The office was all right for the first day. I really do not have much work to do yet and because my projects necessitate the input of a lot of other busy people I end up sitting around a lot of the time. I think I read every single New York Times article yesterday...and that was after running through my normal series of news websites and other things. It was excruciating.
But! Some interesting things happened. First, we have office men...or guys? boys? I don't know, they are probably around 40. But they serve us all tea and go out and buy us lunch. This made me uncomfortable at first, but with so little to do getting tea became the highlight of my afternoon and I kind of wished I knew Hindi so I could send them to do other things. Really, they were the only ones paying attention to me.
For lunch I had aloo parata...which is kind of like a fried chapati stuffed with potato. It came with some green sauce that was also really good and a bit spicy. I'm aiming to get kebab parata tomorrow (or today actually...since I'm writing this post at work the next day...still with nothing to do because nobody is here....).
2) Up until this point I have been driven to work by a nice guy whose name is Mahipal. I'm not sure if he is employed by the office, but he seems to know people here. I think he might be a "driver," which disappoints me because I initially thought he was trying to be nice and be my friend. It turns out he was just doing his job. Either way, I felt the need to cut the tether and not depend on him anymore, so I learned how to travel alone.
Traveling alone for the first time was quite intimidating but went over pretty smoothly. Getting to work takes about 20 minutes or so and costs 5 Rs. First I have to walk about 5 minutes to a main road near my apartment. At this street I can get a tempo (which is an autorickshaw) toward Nishat Ganj. To clarify, tempos are more like subways than they are like taxis. By this I mean that they travel predetermined routes. You can't just pick one up on the street and tell the driver to take you anywhere. So this is why there is so much walking involved. Anyway, the ride takes about 8 minutes or so. Then I have another 10-15 minute walk to the office.
This was no problem on the way to work. In fact, I really enjoyed the independence! "Nishat Ganj" I yelled at the tempo! "*Something in Hindi that seemed inviting*" the driver yelled back! I could do this all day.
My trip home was much more problematic. For one I have to walk a bit farther to pick up the tempo because the route home is one block over. But this really wasn't the problem. Because I am the whitest person within the city limits, driver after driver kept trying to cheat me.
"Hazrat Ganj" I said, thinking fondly of my morning ride.
"50 rupees," the driver replied.
"No, 5 rupees," I responded, showing him my palm and 5 outstretched fingers.
"50," the driver replied.
"No...5. 5 rupees. I know the fare."
"*Something in Hindi that did NOT seem inviting*."
"5 rupees. 5 5 5 5 5. 50? No. 5. "
At this point I would think that the driver, his scheme unhinged, would just give up and drive me. Surely, he would realize that it would be better for him financially to drive one person (me) for the normal fare than no people for no fare. But no! Instead he turned off the tempo and crossed his arms and pouted. So I had to get out and find another ride.
This happened 5 times in a row.
I took me 40 minutes to get home.
Tonight I am going to try to buy yogurt and a zucchini! Wish me luck!
Today I saw a monkey.
It's true! Right on the way to work. There is a little grassy area in one of the medians on one of the bridges, and in that grassy area there were monkeys! Four of them! Jumping and climbing and hooting and picking each other for flies like only primates can do. It was the best day...
Now you may think that, considering the name of this blog, my trip has climaxed. You may think that this is trip is as good as over, and its only the first week. You may think that my dream has been fulfilled! Well, to tell you the truth I thought the same thing...that is until I decided to redefine "meeting" a monkey to "being formally introduced to" a monkey. For that I still have some time.
Anyway, I consider today my first real day of work for two reasons. 1) I was actually at the office rather than out in the field. 2) I did not get driven to work.
1) The office was all right for the first day. I really do not have much work to do yet and because my projects necessitate the input of a lot of other busy people I end up sitting around a lot of the time. I think I read every single New York Times article yesterday...and that was after running through my normal series of news websites and other things. It was excruciating.
But! Some interesting things happened. First, we have office men...or guys? boys? I don't know, they are probably around 40. But they serve us all tea and go out and buy us lunch. This made me uncomfortable at first, but with so little to do getting tea became the highlight of my afternoon and I kind of wished I knew Hindi so I could send them to do other things. Really, they were the only ones paying attention to me.
For lunch I had aloo parata...which is kind of like a fried chapati stuffed with potato. It came with some green sauce that was also really good and a bit spicy. I'm aiming to get kebab parata tomorrow (or today actually...since I'm writing this post at work the next day...still with nothing to do because nobody is here....).
2) Up until this point I have been driven to work by a nice guy whose name is Mahipal. I'm not sure if he is employed by the office, but he seems to know people here. I think he might be a "driver," which disappoints me because I initially thought he was trying to be nice and be my friend. It turns out he was just doing his job. Either way, I felt the need to cut the tether and not depend on him anymore, so I learned how to travel alone.
Traveling alone for the first time was quite intimidating but went over pretty smoothly. Getting to work takes about 20 minutes or so and costs 5 Rs. First I have to walk about 5 minutes to a main road near my apartment. At this street I can get a tempo (which is an autorickshaw) toward Nishat Ganj. To clarify, tempos are more like subways than they are like taxis. By this I mean that they travel predetermined routes. You can't just pick one up on the street and tell the driver to take you anywhere. So this is why there is so much walking involved. Anyway, the ride takes about 8 minutes or so. Then I have another 10-15 minute walk to the office.
This was no problem on the way to work. In fact, I really enjoyed the independence! "Nishat Ganj" I yelled at the tempo! "*Something in Hindi that seemed inviting*" the driver yelled back! I could do this all day.
My trip home was much more problematic. For one I have to walk a bit farther to pick up the tempo because the route home is one block over. But this really wasn't the problem. Because I am the whitest person within the city limits, driver after driver kept trying to cheat me.
"Hazrat Ganj" I said, thinking fondly of my morning ride.
"50 rupees," the driver replied.
"No, 5 rupees," I responded, showing him my palm and 5 outstretched fingers.
"50," the driver replied.
"No...5. 5 rupees. I know the fare."
"*Something in Hindi that did NOT seem inviting*."
"5 rupees. 5 5 5 5 5. 50? No. 5. "
At this point I would think that the driver, his scheme unhinged, would just give up and drive me. Surely, he would realize that it would be better for him financially to drive one person (me) for the normal fare than no people for no fare. But no! Instead he turned off the tempo and crossed his arms and pouted. So I had to get out and find another ride.
This happened 5 times in a row.
I took me 40 minutes to get home.
Tonight I am going to try to buy yogurt and a zucchini! Wish me luck!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
In the field
As you may have determined because I have been updating this blog over the past few days, I ended up arriving in Lucknow safely. Huzzah!
While here, I will be working at the microfinance firm Nirmaan Bharati. The firm provides very small loans (5,000-18,000 Rs., or about $100-360) to people who do not have access to banks and need financial assistance. The process goes as follows. People often hear about the firm through word of mouth, so clients proliferate through slum neighborhoods quickly. As a rule, only women are given loans and only one loan is given per family. Women interested will approach a manager out in the field. Groups of 10 clients are formed. This group of 10 is the loan group, and it is this group that will meet weekly with the center manager to make payments. Rather than the firm exacting any penalties on clients who do not pay (what are they going to do, sue them?), these groups provide a kind of "joint-ownership" of the loan process, and so peer pressure is often the deciding factor.
A new client will take a 3 day class that explains the basics of the loan, loans generally, basic finance and the best way to use the money over the next year. It is a rule that the money must be used for a productive purpose. So, for example, the loan may be used to buy a vegetable stand that was once rented, or hire an extra set of hands to increase embroidery output. The money cannot be used to simply purchase food or any other material good. Once the loan is given, the clients have one year to pay back the money plus interest. For a client on a 1
0,000 R. plan, that amounts to 220 Rs. per week, or about $4.35 (these conversions are very approximate, so you know).That is a very rough sketch of what the firm provides. Anyway, for the first two days on the job (Thursday and Friday), I went out into the field with two different center managers to observe the collection of these loan payments. Without a doubt, this was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. First off, I rode a motorcycle for probably 4 hours over the course of two days, which was a thrill. But secondly, a more importantly, I had never seen such poverty before in my entire life. I have seen, talked with, eaten with the homeless in New York City...I have witnessed the tenements and the projects and seen the aftermath of Katrina blazing across TV screens like so many Americans. But this was different. The homes of many were no more than huts built out of plastic and bicycle tires. If they were lucky, families lived in a shack that looked like a brick building after a bombing - crumbled and roofless, with only a sheet for a door. I saw children, naked from the waste down, playing in mounds of trash that looked like hills. I saw men sleeping with dogs on the side of the street, covered in flies and dirt, lifeless except for a shallow, barely visible breath.
Some of the groups were good. We knocked on the door or called out the group leader's name and she would quickly invite us in with a big smile. She would hurriedly find chairs, often plastic lawn chairs, or clean off the edge of the bed and have us sit, before sitting down on the floor in front of us. If the group was particularly good, they would be sitting in two lines, as they had been taught at the beginning 3 day workshop. The women farthest to the left in each line was a line leader, and would collect the money from each woman, count it, and hand it over to the center manager. He would then take attendance and sign off on each of their loan sheets, which the group leader (farthest left in the front line) keeps in between meetings. Of the 24 groups that I visited, onl
y one acted in this manner.Far more often groups were incomplete and disorderly. While Nirmaan Bharati experienced a 0% default rate during its first year, this year they face an increasing number of overdue payments. There are more and more microfinance firms competing for the same clients in Lucknow, and the people realize that they can not pay us back and still get a loan from another firm next year. The peer pressure of joint group sessions only goes so far. One group we visited was not even a group at all. One woman, the group leader, was there, and she wasn't going to pay. She yelled at the center manager who calmly listened. He asked her the reasoning behind her refusal to pay and started on the talking points the firm has prepared. She became angry once again and we left as she yelled us out the door. Since none of the other 9 clients showed up, we spent the next hour searching for them throughout the slum. Some have moved away and all that remains is a bare hole in the wall, clearly vacated recently. Others are found but ignore us, shut the door in our faces, run away or send their kids out to tell us to leave. It is tiring w
ork.You should realize also that I understand none of these exchanges between manager and client. None of these people speak English. But after hours in these slums, that no longer matters. The conversations all seem the same...and the weight grows heavier and heavier on the center manager's back as fewer and fewer people provide payments. We left at 8:30 in the morning and returned by about 4.
I have painted a rather stark picture of the slums, and I stand by it, but there is more to the story. Despite the horrifying conditions many of these people lived in, I have never seen so many happy faces. Truly, I heard more laughter and saw more full-toothed smiles than I ever would have imagined when I first stepped off the bike and surveyed these rotting slum neighborhoods. This idea, that humanity lives on no matter what, is no doubt cliched and trite by this point, but I guess I needed to see it first hand to really understand what that meant.
Anyway, I attached some pictures of things I saw. I couldn't take as many pictures as I would have liked because I didn't want to draw attention to myself or disrespect my hosts. Sorry for the long post, and for those of you still here (Hi Mom and Dad!), thanks for reading!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Travels, part II
Heathrow was uneventful, so let's move onto the good stuff - Delhi!
I arrived in Delhi at 2:30 AM local time. I landed in the international airport but needed to get to the domestic airport to catch my flight to Lucknow at 8 AM. The fact that there are two different airports (which are about 20 minutes apart by the way) makes no sense to me. But no matter, I waited for my luggage and by 3 AM was ready to find my way to the domestic airport. I had my flight itinerary and just walked up to people and pointed at the flight from Delhi to Lucknow in hopes that they would send me in the right direction. As I walked through the exit I saw what surely would be my salvation - the Inter-Terminal Lounge! A lounge! After 25 hours of traveling this sounded great. I could just imagine...the clinking of cocktails and the plush, comforting feel of deep cushiony couches. Perfect.
I walked into the lounge and was greeted by a huge soldier with a huger gun. Lucknow? I said, pleadingly. Grunt, he responded.
Then two guys grabbed my bags and said Lucknow!!! and told me to follow them.
This seemed strange. But I caught up with the guys and questioned them and their English was trustworthy enough so I decided that if this would get me to the airport fast then fine.
They brought me out to their car, a small van, and stuffed my bags in the trunk before opening the back door for me and jumping in the front seats. All right, I thought to myself, this is all almost over! I get to the domestic airport and its just a 1 hour flight until my final arrival in Lucknow. I'll admit, I was a little skeptical of this whole situation. Wouldn't a shuttle have been a lot better?
We backed up and started out of the parking lot. I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes (whilst grabbing my bags a bit tighter). But, no sooner did I close my eyes, then I was literally thrown from my seat as another car rammed into the trunk and our car spun a full 360 degrees.
My taxi drivers (why there were two, I do not know) jumped out of the car and started yelling in Hindi at the other driver. As I sat alone in the car, random Indian men kind of appeared out of the darkness as they came closer and closer to the window. I slipped my hand up to the window sill and locked the door while staring at my feet. At this point I am freaking out. All I want is to get to the domestic airport...you'd think that would be easy...you'd think this would need to happen on a regular basis! But I am now stuck on the side of the road, with any number of men screaming right outside the car, and all I can do is hold my bags tighter. And then, seemingly fueled by the irony of my predicament, the domestic airport shuttle drives by and off into the darkness.
I arrived in Delhi at 2:30 AM local time. I landed in the international airport but needed to get to the domestic airport to catch my flight to Lucknow at 8 AM. The fact that there are two different airports (which are about 20 minutes apart by the way) makes no sense to me. But no matter, I waited for my luggage and by 3 AM was ready to find my way to the domestic airport. I had my flight itinerary and just walked up to people and pointed at the flight from Delhi to Lucknow in hopes that they would send me in the right direction. As I walked through the exit I saw what surely would be my salvation - the Inter-Terminal Lounge! A lounge! After 25 hours of traveling this sounded great. I could just imagine...the clinking of cocktails and the plush, comforting feel of deep cushiony couches. Perfect.
I walked into the lounge and was greeted by a huge soldier with a huger gun. Lucknow? I said, pleadingly. Grunt, he responded.
Then two guys grabbed my bags and said Lucknow!!! and told me to follow them.
This seemed strange. But I caught up with the guys and questioned them and their English was trustworthy enough so I decided that if this would get me to the airport fast then fine.
They brought me out to their car, a small van, and stuffed my bags in the trunk before opening the back door for me and jumping in the front seats. All right, I thought to myself, this is all almost over! I get to the domestic airport and its just a 1 hour flight until my final arrival in Lucknow. I'll admit, I was a little skeptical of this whole situation. Wouldn't a shuttle have been a lot better?
We backed up and started out of the parking lot. I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes (whilst grabbing my bags a bit tighter). But, no sooner did I close my eyes, then I was literally thrown from my seat as another car rammed into the trunk and our car spun a full 360 degrees.
My taxi drivers (why there were two, I do not know) jumped out of the car and started yelling in Hindi at the other driver. As I sat alone in the car, random Indian men kind of appeared out of the darkness as they came closer and closer to the window. I slipped my hand up to the window sill and locked the door while staring at my feet. At this point I am freaking out. All I want is to get to the domestic airport...you'd think that would be easy...you'd think this would need to happen on a regular basis! But I am now stuck on the side of the road, with any number of men screaming right outside the car, and all I can do is hold my bags tighter. And then, seemingly fueled by the irony of my predicament, the domestic airport shuttle drives by and off into the darkness.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Travels
Ok, I made it. Well, actually, I made it two days ago. I have been here in Lucknow for awhile but with absolutely no internet connection. And as of last night no phone either. Suffice it to say, I am very excited to have figured out my data card so I can now have internet in my apartment. But rather than jump in to my current Lucknow experience, let us start from the very beginning...and oh what a beginning it was.
Rather than document the past few days of traveling hour for hour, I will just give you guys some highlights. And to keep my blog posts short and easy to read, I'll break up the journey into edible chunks. The flight from Albany to New York City was uneventful, so we're going to start in JFK.
JFK
I arrive at JFK and go to check-in. Turns out my flight is delayed so much that I will miss my connection to Delhi. No big. The British Airways woman gets me on an earlier flight! Good job British Airways!
I go to Terminal 5 and wait for a few hours. I am thirsty so I buy a bottle of water. I also buy a packet of "Lil' Dippers with Hummus" from Balducci's for $5. Whatever. I'm treating myself because I'm traveling. I take a seat and start reading. I'm getting into a great rhythm of sipping and dipping and flipping the pages...this journey is going to go by in no time. A little while later a couple sits down next to me. The woman sits down in the chair directly to my right and the man flanks her. Without a thought, I place my bottle of water down on the floor in between us and continue reading. Sip, dip, flip. No problem.
Then all of the sudden the woman, who has her own bottle of water (which she is holding in her right hand) picks up my bottle of water (with her left hand). I see this happen but rather than confront her I wait...I want to see where she's going with this. She peaks over at me to see if I'm looking and I quickly become engrossed in my dippers and book. Thinking she's in the clear, with one eye still watching my every move, she unscrews the cap of my bottle of water, unscrews the cap of her bottle of water, and POURS MY WATER INTO HER BOTTLE. Who does that? I was sitting RIGHT THERE. Seriously, WHO?
On the flight I watched the first 30 minutes of Breakfast at Tiffany's and was dumbfounded to find that Mickey Rooney very offensively plays an old Japanese man.
I also watched other movies but I don't remember them right now. I slept for three hours.
Stay tuned for my Heathrow adventures (they involve Wagamama) and the car accident I got into in the middle of the night in Delhi!
Rather than document the past few days of traveling hour for hour, I will just give you guys some highlights. And to keep my blog posts short and easy to read, I'll break up the journey into edible chunks. The flight from Albany to New York City was uneventful, so we're going to start in JFK.
JFK
I arrive at JFK and go to check-in. Turns out my flight is delayed so much that I will miss my connection to Delhi. No big. The British Airways woman gets me on an earlier flight! Good job British Airways!
I go to Terminal 5 and wait for a few hours. I am thirsty so I buy a bottle of water. I also buy a packet of "Lil' Dippers with Hummus" from Balducci's for $5. Whatever. I'm treating myself because I'm traveling. I take a seat and start reading. I'm getting into a great rhythm of sipping and dipping and flipping the pages...this journey is going to go by in no time. A little while later a couple sits down next to me. The woman sits down in the chair directly to my right and the man flanks her. Without a thought, I place my bottle of water down on the floor in between us and continue reading. Sip, dip, flip. No problem.
Then all of the sudden the woman, who has her own bottle of water (which she is holding in her right hand) picks up my bottle of water (with her left hand). I see this happen but rather than confront her I wait...I want to see where she's going with this. She peaks over at me to see if I'm looking and I quickly become engrossed in my dippers and book. Thinking she's in the clear, with one eye still watching my every move, she unscrews the cap of my bottle of water, unscrews the cap of her bottle of water, and POURS MY WATER INTO HER BOTTLE. Who does that? I was sitting RIGHT THERE. Seriously, WHO?
On the flight I watched the first 30 minutes of Breakfast at Tiffany's and was dumbfounded to find that Mickey Rooney very offensively plays an old Japanese man.
I also watched other movies but I don't remember them right now. I slept for three hours.
Stay tuned for my Heathrow adventures (they involve Wagamama) and the car accident I got into in the middle of the night in Delhi!
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