Woohooo

No, I haven't died, I did not get swept away by the ocean's monsooning wrath, I have survived! We landed in Hyderabad tonight from Goa. Goa was awesome, a very welcome break from the insanity that is Delhi- I wouldn't mind going back to Goa...now we are at an incredibly nice hotel in Hyderabad, with the wedding party and omg I didn't realize how nice, nice things were until we got here- I had simply forgotten. Things like a comfy bed, with clean, un-questionable sheets, a REAL shower, AC, internet, gourmet food...it truly is like I have died and gone to heaven, no more $10/night backpacker hangouts (adventure pack now officially weighs 56.9lbs and is taller than me), the last leg of the journey is packed with parties and luxury- life. is. good!

Kiss the cube goodbye...

As I sit here, on my last casual Friday, at my cube, I've been reflecting upon my time spent sitting here at my cube.  

I have thoroughly enjoyed my cube and the company next to me.  And my projects have been fun- or at least they've kept me busy enough to only miss home a little bit so far (ok fine so I'm ready to come home, let's just not talk about that).  I have scouted out companies, learned to code stuff in HTML (yes, me, the most un-tech-savvy person alive) and gotten some good laughs in while being scolded for eating up too much bandwidth (oops lol).  

Every morning, taking in the sites and smells on the way to work I always think about how I need to write a blog post about the stench and never do (seriously this talk goes on in my head everyday) so I figure it is fitting to pay tribute to the smells we smell, not just on our way to work everyday but pretty much anytime we go anywhere here, after my last ricky ride to the office.  

I'm sure you have all heard that the smells here can vary from quite fabulous to putrid.  Most of the time it is putrid.  This is a kind of putrid smell that even a Darling truck can aspire to smell like.  In general when not wanting to smell something bad, you simply breathe through your mouth; this is the kind of smell that is so strong that even that does not work.  You can breath out of your mouth, plug your nose and the smell still gets in there!  There is no avoiding this stench and oddly enough it happens a lot when driving over the river...annnd then just randomly everywhere else.  It's so annoying because you're just going along, on your merry way and then, WHAM! Like a sack of bricks it hits you!  Sometimes it smells like sulfur, other times... well after looking at the dead dog on the side of the road today swarmed with flies... I don't even want to know what kind of combo of smells that I am smelling.  Some things are better left unknown.

This afternoon, I will be making my last trip to the Chinese cart on the street in front of the office.  My last batch of Chili Garlic Chicken Chowmein *sobbing*!  I'm telling you, they have to put something in it because I literally crave it...all of the time!  If I could take the cook home with me to make me chili chick crack noodles everyday, I would do it in a heart beat!!!  Not to mention I'm going to miss the sweet guys that work there... lets just say that foreign girls are a novelty around here and their big smiles and practically tripping over themselves to help me place an order and pack up my food attitudes, never cease to make me "googles hard all around";) (for those of you not in the loop- Giggles had all around)

We did one last dinner and drinks w/friends from the office last night...annnd who knows me might have a repeat of the fun again tonight since our flight out tomorrow isn't until noon or is it 1pm...eh sometime around there.  It was fun, but sad at the same time- Not gonna lie, I'm going to miss Kunal's blunt honesty and sarcasm and Nirdesh's hilarious commentary!  Although, Kunal might be meeting up with us in Goa on Tuesday, and we have stocked Nirdesh up with tons of new music to jam to (all music from the 90s...1992-1996...haha really, we wish he would move back to the states!) so I suppose last night was not the last time that we will all light up the town.  It has been a fun month- who knew you could have so much fun sitting in a cube being totally unproductive and yet still get so much work done in the end!  

Time to be semi-productive, get crack noodles, say my goodbyes and get packed for a month of adventure...

The Best Eclipse of the Century...

After getting about 2hrs of sleep it was time to rise and shine...or shade our eyes from the sun's rays as we ventured out to watch the eclipse from the 9th floor roof at our office.  4:30am we were up and moving, ready to begin the adventure of taking in the longest solar eclipse of the century...only problem...getting out of our house at night is like trying to escape a fortified castle!  Once everyone is home for the night, the front door is locked and bolted from the inside- funny thing about that is that we don't have a key with which to unlock the door (yes, it is needed to unlock it from the inside).  So we went out via the balcony, down the side stairs and finally made it to the gate.  The gate which was padlocked shut...oops, minor detail.  So, of course the only logical answer is to jump the gate, to freedom.  Only problem with jumping a 6' wall when you are a 5'1", white girl with no hops, is how do you scale something that tall!?  Solution: your tallest friend lifts you up.  Safely perched atop the gate, I next pondered how in the world I would now get down.  Thankfully, flip flops provide fabulous cushioning and support for your feet when jumping from 6' high metal gates onto cement.  Finally, the Three Musketeers, all outside of the fortress, we began our search for a ricky which is tricky at that hour.  We found one, accepted his outrageous price of Rs.100 to take us to the office (we usually pay Rs 80 lol) and were on our way, until one Shatabdi head realized, he forgot his camera...oops!  So, detour back to the fortress, and some gate hopping and stair running later, the camera was safely secured in the ricky and we were really off.  

When we got to the office, the security guards were all hanging out playing cards and greeted us with mixed looks of surprise and the customary cheery "good morning!" and we trudged on, sun beginning to rise.  The elevator guard gave us a look as we hit 9 and were on our way.  Once we got to the roof, we were told that in a few minutes, the elevator would no longer have access to the 9th floor and we would have to take the stairs down... 

After sleepily stumbling out onto the 9th floor/roof we look out the side windows (think a giant room, with walls and all of that, just without a roof) while the security guards stared at us wondering what in God's green earth would bring us to the roof at 5am.  Puttering around we discovered some stairs that lead to a roof where the lightening rods reside.  We climbed the stairs and then a rickety bamboo ladder, squeezed through the metal bars that roofing should cover and perched ourselves on the highest point of the building.  Taking it all in, we sat and watched as the sun tried to peek through the clouds.  Alas, the clouds proved too powerful and started dumping their contents on us.  Of course if FINALLY rains, while were sitting on the metal stuff that connects to the lightening rods- genius!  So, tired and defeated, we scurried back down the ladder (after Sadie, unhooked me from the rusty nail i got my pants hooked on while teetering over the ladder), squeezed through the metal and under the cover of the building.  

It was nice watching the sunrise from such a great view point buuut not quite the view we had hopped for.  We walked to the mall and kept going and finally found the ricky drivers to take us home.  Once we got home, the rain had stopped and the clouds began to part.  From the very patio that we snuck out onto hours earlier, we were able to catch a quick glimpse of the eclipse.  After partially blinding ourselves, staring at the sun like all smart people do, we headed inside.  We were just going to lay down for a little bit and then go check it out again when it was more eclipsed...2hours later we are awoken for breakfast...oops!  4 more hours later we decided to actually get up and go to work.  So, after all of that, the most that I really saw of the best eclipse of the century, I saw on the India Times website...oh well, it was a pretty good nap :)  And so far all of the doomsday predictions today have been hogwash and it is business as unusual here.  

Solar Eclipse

Tomorrow could be a fun day in India!  Hopefully we will be able to see the eclipse from our patio.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090720/sc_afp/scienceastronomyeclipseasiatourismsuperstition

*update* Ryan made a good observation- one of the Dr.s that they quote in here works for Fortis- the hospital I ended up at :)  And not to worry, should anything go down tomorrow, I'll be safely tucked away in my cube at the office all day away from the fun.

Silly Terrorists

So apparently we're not meant to go to shopping at Connaught Place.  Twice we have gone, the 1st time was a Sunday- the whole place is closed on Sunday.  We go yesterday to meet up with a friend from work and wonder why the driver drove past and told us no we couldn't turn in as tons of army men w/shields and all of that excitingness were filling the streets.   So once the ricky drops us off farther down, we are informed that there is a bomb threat and that they're doing searches for bombs...seriously!?  I mean REALLY someone had to plant a stinking bomb or make some stupid empty threat the day that I want to go shopping- are you serious!?  The whole way there the song Girls Just Want To Have Fun was running through my head but more like Girls Just Want To Shop annnnd well clearly, that didn't happen!  Stupid would-be bombers...if I could get my hands on whoever made that threat, and made me miss shopping- lets just say that the Indian government would have one less terrorist to worry about!  But alas, this is apparently a somewhat frequent occurrence and of course with my luck it's the day we decide to go!

Beggar Kid

So, I haven't been feeling so hot lately. I've got eczema cropping up all over my hands, these really weird bites that turned into big bubbly sores and to top it off, have developed a sweet grating cough. Today for lunch I decided that I didn't want cafeteria food, nor did I want Chinese food from the awesome cart across the street from the office, what I wanted, was ice cream. I am a firm believer in the fact that ice cream can indeed make anything better- seriously you want to know the answer to world peace? The answer is, ice cream. So as my comrades were working through lunch, I headed to Shipra Mall for you guessed it, ice cream! Located on the second floor of this sparkling air conditioned shrine to all things holy, is Baskin Robbins, or in this case Heaven. I waltz up the stairs already on cloud 9, look at the ice cream sundaes and decide upon the Banana Royal. Two scoops of banana-strawberry ice cream, sliced bananas, strawberries and whip cream. I sit down with my slice of heaven and dig in...5min flat and I'm off to the grocery store for Chocos, and two bars of Dove soap per the request of my comrades and cough drops- but alas, cough drops they do not have. But no worries, I had ice cream- nothing can rain on my parade. Walking out, past Mc Donalds, I see it, their giant McNugget poster. Curses upon their marketing department, capitalizing on my weak American will to reject such foods. Next thing I know, I'm ordering 6 McMysteryMeatNuggets, with ketchup. No, I do not want BBQ Sauce because it tastes weird here and no I do not want honey mustard because it looks like...well you don't want to know what memories the sight of it conjures up, they're not good...all I want is ketchup- baffled by my desire for just ketchup, they give me one packet and I'm on my marry way back to my cube. The world is mine! As I'm walking out the front of the mall past the rickshaw wallahs calling to me, I decide once again to give into my inner fattie and take a bike rickshaw for Rs10 back to the office- it's a lot faster and lets face it, in this heat getting back inside asap is a general priority. I point across the freeway to the giant building that I work in and tell the driver Rs.10? He taps the seat and I hope in. As I hope in, the beggar children begin their descent upon me. But it is too late, we are on our merry way, free of the sad sight of children tugging on my clothes...until, one of them starts chasing the rickshaw. He runs behind it shouting at me words that I do not know, as he is running along side us he grabs the cart thing I'm sitting in. The driver swerves to try and knock him away, but this kid is persistant- a quality that I under normal circumstance admire in people- he keeps on running, shouting at me. He's running and shouting until it comes down to him running head on into a very tall, well built gentleman, that looks at me, looks at the kid and then arms folded across his chest gives the kid the you leave her alone face and just like that in a matter of seconds we are once again zipping down the street; mean while my head spinning with what just took place. One second I am on top of the world buzzing on an ice cream coma, on my way back to my AC cube to listen to music and do research while eating my nuggets, but now, I have just witnessed something that I have never seen before. I have gotten use to people begging and tugging on me, it is a sad fact of life here, but this, this 8year old kid running after me as if I was the last boat from a ship going down, was altogether different. My head still doesn't know what to make of it. Do I feel like a terrible person for zipping by, do I just accept it as one of those things that happens here that you get use to? Even now my head is spinning- I don't know what to make of it. Perhaps a kid running after me begging for money isn't a big deal but after dropping more rupees in the last 30 minutes than he probably gets in a week or two, I don't know how to feel. So thanks beggar child, for reminding me that maybe I'm not as calloused as I thought I was, because man kid, you shook me up which is a hard thing to do. As I sit here, AC on, having juice that the maid brought up, while munching on Chocos, I still don't know what to make of it all.

Riding Motorcycles Without Helmets

15 July 2009 This morning started at about 4:30am, we left the house a little after 5am after waking Kelly up since his alarm didn’t. It took a little searching and some luck to get a cab this morning- apparently rickshaw drivers are hard to come by at 5am- who would have thought!? Thankfully our guy was driving down the road our direction with nobody inside- we were thankful to get him and didn’t argue with the Rs. 250 price to take us to the Delhi Railway Station. We get to the station, find our train- the Shatabdi Express, and are wowed by the luxury and the amount of white people! We discovered the key to how foreigners and the wealthier Indian train riders ride, they ride in the AC car! Seriously this thing was nice (in comparison to second seating non AC). It was clean, and had individual seats- the kind of seats you sit in on a tour bus. They came around with newspapers, bottled water and tea w/biscuits! Man what an extra Rs.600 can get three people! The train, being an express train, got us to Mathura in just over an hour. The train station in Mathura…haha where to begin! Well the only thing that swarmed more than the drivers were the flies- literally 20 flies on Sadies backpack…and about 10 rickshaw drivers at any given time encircling us. By no means was this the dirtiest train station that I have been to here but it was the worst. It was small and smelled of urine- everything smelled like urine, there was no escaping it! I still can’t get over how men just urinate everywhere here- and there are TONS of naked kids running around everywhere. Anyway we try calling our contact that is suppose to meet us there and Kelly’s phone wont work, we go to the phone stand, that’s not working either, a ricky driver calls the number for us and we tell our guy that we have arrived. Being a combo of poor cell reception, language barriers and the overwhelming experience, we decide to head towards the gates of the station where all of the cars drive in because you can’t miss three foreigners standing on a median can you and after all he would be there in 2min because the office is within walking distance. 45min and a million ricky drivers harassing us later, they finally find us. Apparently there is more than one entrance to the place and we should have stayed in the station’s lobby (funny because I feel like I had made that argument/suggestion)…annnnyway they found us, we do the 5min walk to the office and sit. The branch office is well very different from the corporate office that we work in, but it works and we even made a new mouse friend there too! Lol After relaxing for a bit and meeting some people, we hopped in a mini-vanish bus thing and headed out. It was a quick trip and I didn’t get too car sick which was good considering the roads were being built…it was a bumpy ride. We got to the 1st village and met the education kiosk owner. It was a small room with three computers. We sat down with our Drishtee guy and the kiosk owner’s Dad (the owner was away for the day), who is apparently a very rich farmer in the village. At this point it is maybe 10 or 11ish and apparently classes don’t really start until 4pm so I chilled while Sadie and Kelly asked questions. I really had no questions, between Drishteepedia (the wikipedia site I’ve been working that has ALL info on Drishtee) and not having a project that directly involves the villagers, I really had nothing to ask so I just sat and absorbed. Per usual everyone was very nice- they brought us water (well water- not sure how clean it is soooo I opted out of more quality time with the porcelain bowl) and chai (tea) with milk from their boofellow (buffalo) …I’m not one for Indian tea- I don’t really like sugar and milk in my tea but this was actually pretty good! After talking for a good while we walked around the village. Needless to say they don’t see many foreigners so people were staring and coming out of places to watch us. We stopped at a math and science school and a Drishtee FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) Kiosk. After that it was back to the car to head to another village. The next village was much larger but the kiosk was quite small. At one point there were at least 15people in a room probably ½ the size of my bedroom at home…clearly it is necessary to check out the foreigners (and take pictures of them)- and I mean really who can blame them we’re a pretty cute bunch (and by cute I mean we were already pretty grimy by that point lol). We sat and chatted with the owner for a bit- there weren’t any students there because it was still early in the afternoon which means they are at their regular school (think of the kiosk classes as more of an after school program or enhancement) and on top of that apparently today was a holy day so fewer people would be showing up. After that we strolled down the street to another Drishtee FMCG Kiosk and were literally surrounded by at least 20 people and more on lookers…it was almost like having an entourage- always thought I wanted one until that moment lol after that, back to the office, then to a hotel down the street for lunch which was quite tasty. After lunch we headed back to the office…with nothing to do and 6hrs to kill until our train back home. Somehow Kelly convinced our guy to get some other guy to let him borrow his motorcycle for Rs 200 for the afternoon to go around in. So I hopped on back of our guy’s Vespa and Sadie and Kelly hopped on the motorcycle w/Kelly driving. Not gonna lie, I felt safer with the guy who lives in India vs. Kelly who I would trust driving in the states but here driving is a whole nother level of crazy! We drove around town, and to the outskirts to this really cool temple. It is 9 stories of white marble- sadly I left my camera at the office thinking I wouldn’t need it- this place was pretty impressive. On the way back to the office we stopped at another massive temple that is dedicated to all religions- it isn’t the religion that matters but more the golden rule if you will (in a nut shell). It was pretty fun spending the afternoon riding around! ☺ Once we got back to the office we sat down and Sadie and Kelly PASSED out in their chairs…I wasn’t tired- 4hrs of sleep and I wasn’t tired! What’s wrong with me!? So I just listened to my iPod, checked some email and read the NY Times online and then finnnally it was time to head back to the nicest train station in the world. We were about an hour early to departure time and so we chilled on the platform w/our guy and the beggar kids tugging at our clothes while watching rats run across the tracks. Finally out train arrived- the Taj Express (same one we rode to and from Agra)…we were once again on in the second class seating area- at least this time it wasn’t packed like last time; although this time it felt like the longest ride ever and I felt more filthy and grimy than our last adventure… my hair grimy and sticking out of the ponytail in every which way, dirt lines in the creases of my arms, dirt caked onto my face…feeling like a million bucks! After about 2hrs we made it to our stop, argued with ricky drivers and made it home. It’s nice to be home. On the way home Sadie and Kelly were discussing how much of an eye opening experience it was and how after seeing the villages the train no longer phased them…I don’t know what is wrong with me because I don’t feel any more enlightened than before.  The beggar children tugging incessantly at my clothes is sad, but even as sad as it is, I don’t feel that I have any different kind of an outlook on life than I did before. The village really didn’t phase me either- it’s a poor village, what do you expect? Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen a lot of this already in China so I get it and it isn’t new to me- although the massive scale of poverty in India far outweighs the amount I experienced in China. I don’t know it just didn’t phase me- the world is poor, we live in a country where thank God we grew up not having to live in abject poverty, but overall the world is poor and it is not going to change. Thankfully we get to work for a company that is helping these people and is trying to tackle huge issues like poverty and the problems that come along with it, but we will never be able to save everyone, and I’m happy I get to do what I get to do to help; but the poverty no longer really phases me- it just is what it is. Maybe that is a cynical look at things or maybe I’m heartless but currently that is how I am feeling…perhaps yoga tomorrow morning will clear my head a bit and I won’t be so calloused- though perhaps a little callousness is a good thing because without it I’m not sure how one would survive staring thousands upon thousands of impoverished people in the face everyday without going crazy.