Sandwiches, rickshaws and McDonald's

Sandwiches
Daisy, Jamie, and I got a task from Jaggi and Lalit today to go to the market with the 200 rupees they gave us, buy bread, butter, cheese, cucumbers & tomatoes, make 10 sandwiches, take them out and give them to 5 people and find something out about their lives.
This was interesting for a couple reasons.
I hadn't really been to the markets yet so just seeing what was in there was fun. We got tomatoes and cucumbers at a stand in the village, and then went to a little store called Big Apple. There we got cheese and butter. Then the search for bread began. It took much longer than I thought, and we finally found some but were 15 rupees over our budget. Jamie paid the difference and we headed back to make sandwiches, and saw bread everywhere of course...
Daisy was mentally preparing for the sandwich making line because we were running short on time.
Both were a bit worried about giving the sandwiches away. It was interesting that I didn't find it very strange to give away sandwiches to people. Not sure why but it was funny that they did and funny that I didn't.
Daisy was trying to find a way to get it over quickly and get back without making fools of ourselves, Jamie wanted to find someone who looked like they actually needed the food and was concerned about offending people, I was mostly tired of walking. I understand Jamie's concern about feeling uncomfortable with the "us white folk will give you poor brown folk food" aspect, but I told her that I didn't think it really worked that way here. American's are naturally suspicious. Indian's are naturally trusting. They will be less likely to see the offer of food from young ladies as an insult to their ability to feed themselves. She was seeing it through her cultural lens and was having a hard time switching it. The older gentleman that she offered a sandwich to also turned her down so I don't suppose that helped.
We only had bread for 8 sandwiches and gave away 4 and found out nothing about anybody...
I think the exercise is meant to make us more comfortable in our surroundings but it also is a good way to get to know your fellow volunteers and how they handle uncomfortable situations. 
We also had one of our many US vs UK discussions regarding what is proper on a sandwich.
Tonight I overheard the "zee" and "zed" debate, which was most amusing since neither side was aware of the other until now.

Rickshaws & McDonald's
I had my first auto-rickshaw ride last night. It's just as terrifying as one might think. This is what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with these little deathwish-mobiles. http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/asia/rickshaws01.shtml
They look pretty fun, and they are, but for those at home imagine being in one on the diagonal if 7 year olds were allowed to drive cars and they were all on the road at the same time. I'm not implying that Indians drive like 7 year olds but the rules of the road here are similar in appearance to the organizational skills of children. Lines are irrelevant whether it's staying inside them or staying behind one another without pushing or shoving. People go where they wish as long as they will fit. If the internet gods allow it I will post my videos somewhere one of these days.  It's organized chaos. Everybody knows these non-rules so you can just pull out and create situations which in the US would cause a massive accident, and people will simply beep at you and go around. Generally people here are traveling at lower speeds than in the US so that cuts down the traffic massacres greatly I'd think. Honestly I don't even know if there's a speed limit here or not. I don't think it would really matter.
Anyway...I traveled with Ratish to an area called Okhla to meet his adorable friend Nawaz. The area has a largely Muslim population and we went past a massive Muslim graveyard on the way in. By US standards the "streets" would be poorly maintained for an alleyway and it is PACKED with people, cars, motorbikes, people, shops, dogs, trash, piles of random rubble, carts, rickshaws, people.... For whatever reason it's one of the better smelling places I've been in India. (Which reminds me, on the way there in the rickshaw we went past a couple fruit stands and I could smell the sweetness from the street. It was amazing.)
I think this was the most interesting place I have been to so far. I was, however, comforted by the fact that there were 2 boys with me rather than 1. It was later at night and there were very few women out still by the time they were escorting me back home. I almost got run over my a motorbike but I almost got run over by many things.
There was also the cutest freakin puppy ever. I came out of the gate to Nawaz's building and there it was crawling up to lay on it's mum in a ball and she got up when we came out and he looked so rejected with his floppy little ears. I really wanted to bring him home and give him a bath. He was a puppy puppy not just me calling a big dog a puppy. I also saw two dogs playing with a mat. One ran by at full speed carrying it in his mouth and the other came after him trying to steal it away. They were hopping and leaping all over the place.

Once we got a rickshaw out of the neighborhood we stopped at....McDonald's! Woo!
If my information is correct it was near Jamia University and New Friends Colony. Next door to it was a Pizza Hut, next door to that was a Dominos. It felt so homey.
I had a Maharaja Mac with fries and a Coke courtesy of Ratish. Oh and one chicken nugget, they taste exactly the same. My Mac wasn't too bad, kinda messy.
Before eating I went over to wash my hands in this giant water basin thing which would not go over well in the US, which kind of made me like it. There was a man who had been staring at me. More people stare at me than don't around here, but he was really directly staring. The kids stare and wave or are shy. The younger men either look away or stare with intention. The older men sometimes try to look like they aren't staring. It's all very fascinating to watch. But this guy but just different. He was standing near the water basin with a woman and little boy that was coooovered in ice cream. I kinda smiled at the sight and the man said something to me while motioning to the child. I didn't really understand but he kept doing things. Finally he picked up ice cream kid and handed him to me while the woman wiped his little face and hands and the man was pretending to take a picture. So I said hello to the confused child, tried to figure out if the man in fact said something about "women for me", and then the kid got bored and wanted down. It was interesting...
FYI- McDonald's here is packed full at 10pm-ish. I asked Ratish if that was always the case and he said it was. Though it might not have been that full by McIndia standards I guess.
On the way home in the slowest rickshaw known to mankind we had to take detours. Due to the recent bombing in the city security is fairly high but I got back safe and sound and it was quite the excursion.

The dishsoap here smells like super concentrated 7-Up.
The faucet in the kitchen is at least 2 feet above the sink. It's bizarre and loud.
Have I mentioned that the toast here is amazing? I'm really looking forward to it in the morning. Can I bring butter and toast through customs?

Earth Saviors Foundation

My placement here in Delhi is at a place called Earth Saviours Foundation, it was started by Ravi Kalra who is just the nicest and most ambitious man ever. I believe he's wishing to save as much of the world as he possibly can. Visit the website if you are interested in learning more- http://www.savethearth.in/home

This is a list of the services he provides and missions he undertakes: (direct wording from the website in case you're wondering)
School for poor children
Old age home
Do Not Honk
Help destitute women
Help street people
Help stray animals
Safe Diwali (Safe use of fireworks)
Save Earth
Protect environment
Save Forest
Help for mentally sick people
Electric crematorium promotion
Uff traffic (avoiding traffic jams)
Auto sting operation (misbehaving rickshaw drivers)
Orphanage and adoption

Whew! Think he has his work cut out for him? Oh yeah and he does all of this free of charge for the people he helps. He personally goes out weekly and looks for people he can bring back to his site to feed, give a bed, education, job training, and anything else he can do to help. The world needs him and more people like him. He sees a problem and rather than thinking "gosh, isn't that sad/unfortunate/tragic" he literally tries to make a change right then and there.
I learned today that he's a Taekwando black belt; this is surprising because he's amazingly gentle and adorable. He doesn't seem to have a forceful or agressive bit in him. It seems he must show the children some of his skills because I've seen several of the little ones doing their "karate" on each other or the air.

The site of Earth Saviours Foundation is basically a field with tents. He has leased the land from someone under the condition that he doesn't put up any permanent structures, so he's made the best of it.
There are several classrooms, a room for the elderly women and one for the men. They also have beds outside in the (relatively) fresh air. There are 2 offices, and a small zoo, for lack of a more accurate term. They have cows, goats, mice, ducks, and a few dogs. They get fresh milk from the cows, and I suppose possibly from the goats as well? The baby goats are almost as cute as the children. As is the 3-legged puppy.

The first day we visited the site we were greeted by the most beautiful little woman whose name I don't remember. Everything on her little face is perfect. She's one of the regular staff members. She took us in to the classroom where the 1st-2nd graders are. They put the children in classes based on their learning level and these kids come from all over and various different backgrounds so you can have kids from a rather large age range. They all immediately stood up from their chairs and said "GOOD MORNING MA'AM" to us (me, Daisy, Jamie, and Marianne.) They do this every time a teacher or visitor enters the tent. It's very cute, though disturbingly automatic. They will also stay standing until you tell them to sit down. Most have uniforms of little green jumpers but some do not. Some are tidy, some are not. Some know a little english, some do not. It's a grab bag of children overall.

We quickly made a few friends...little faces appear at your side staring, grinning, or waving. Sometimes saying "hello ma'am" and taking your hand. One of the notables is Karin (he's a boy, and I'm not sure if that's spelled correctly) who is a tiny fella, maybe 4 years old at most. I suspect he's slightly developmentally challenged, if that's still a PC term. He mostly wants to hold your hand, sit on your lap, or be held. He doesn't seem to stay in his classroom so well. He wanders here and there, going where he pleases.
Another memorable character I just call Candy Man. He comes up to you and gives you a big smile a few times....takes your hand....charms you....then says..."chocolate." I don't know if that tactic has worked before but I haven't had any chocolate with me so he'll have to keep trying I guess.

Also on our visit we met weeeee baby Angel. She was 8 days old and her mother had run away. The older people help to take care of the very small ones and are responsible for the orphaned children when the staff leaves at night. She was so very tiny and cute and slightly grumpy at the time but soon quieted down. We also met Kushi, who was napping when we got there; she is 11 months, has a head full of curly hair, and was also left by her mother who I believe was very young and ran away.

We met a charming character in the office who had a bit of a British accent and said he was a former barista, went to Cambridge to study English literature, and was born in London. However....I believe that he was a resident at their facilities and though it's certainly not impossible it had us wondering how he might have gotten to where he is from those beginnings. He had a lovely smile and vocabulary, and seemed quite pleased to be speaking with a lovely bunch of ladies such as ourselves.

After our visit everyone was feeling very excited about their placement (Marianne was only visiting with us as the person she was to see at her placement was sick, but Daisy, Jamie, and I are all assigned there.) It's a very lively place where you can feel the optimism of Ravi Kalra in everything.

Today was the first day teaching and exactly what I thought would happen is what happened...
When we went the day before Jaggi asked if Daisy and I (we're assigned to the same age group) could observe the lessons for a day before taking on some students of our own. But as soon as we get there they put us in the classroom and ask us what we'd like to teach. The teacher there at the time figured out that I didn't have anything so she had them working on spelling out numbers so I went around and helped with that. After their break I worked with 2 students who were not quite as advanced as the others, that was much easier other than the little boy trying to take the pictures I was showing him. He was distraught that he could not have my photographs. He kept trying to take them saying "me?....me." I said, "no these are mine." But even if he could have understood I don't think he would have cared. The little girl working with us turned to him at one point and said "Me, me, me, me something-in-Hindi" which based on her tone I translated to "it's not all about you!" I wonder if they were related since they were very comfortable annoying each other.
There was a number written in the little notebook I had and the little boy kept asking if it was "mobile number?" so I guess he's the youngest boy to ever ask for my number...

It was slightly stressful but overall it was fun and I had hugs and chai.

An exciting thing for me was that Ravi came over to ask if I would look over something he had typed up to make sure the language was good. Naturally I said "yes!" I love the children and all but I will be MORE than happy to take time to edit for him! I very much like it. I told him to please let me know if there's anything else I could look at, so I had 2 more people come over to me before I left to have me check things. It doesn't always matter how educated someone is, you can often tell when something is written by someone for whom english is a second language. If I can make a document sound as professional as possible then I am happy to do that in hopes that it will help in the slightest bit in gaining support from overseas for all his honorable efforts.

I'm a terrible person, and other thoughts...

Here's some things I have forgotten to mention in my previous posts so far:
We met Bella yesterday, the director of the India program/Queen Bee, and I love her to bits. She's so fun. Unfortunately, I think she's leaving today or very soon to Morocco. :( But at least we got to see her before she left. The rest of the staff here is awesome though, so we will still have them.

The cooks make the best eggs ever. The toast here is amazing. Of course the chai is to die for.
Cricket is on pretty much every day in the office. I tend to sit at the end of the table so I can see the TV. I'm convinced that if I watch it enough times I'll eventually figure out how the hell the scoring works.

We make friends while we're being driven around by our magic driver. (He does things that would injure me or others if attempted by me.) Since you are rarely more than a few inches from a car/rickshaw full of people you can clearly see who is traveling around you. We pack 7 people in this little jeepy looking thing, which would be entirely illegal in the US. Anyway...if you get close enough to folks that are interested in a car full of white women then it's sort of fun. Children, and sometimes women, will wave or smile. Men sort of....stare, sometimes smile. More often than not they either look amused or quizzical.

The downside to being stopped in traffic on the road (aside from being squished in the car longer, the fumes, the heat, etc.) is that you see the people begging or selling things, most often children with dirty little faces and pitiful puppy eyes.  The other day a little tiny surly looking child comes out to the middle of the road with a little mustache and other things painted on his or her face, and is wearing a hat with a little bobble on a string on the top. He or she twirls the bobble around and it's freakin adorable. Then the mum comes out and asks for rupees. There's a lot of aaaaws happening and wanting to give them money or something, but I don't feel this. I think they are adorable, and I don't like that they have to beg, or feel that they have to sell things because their parents want them to. However, it's all they know and it's not generally as desperate as it seems. It's a racket. Obviously you will feel bad for them and want to give them things. But giving them money simply gives them reason to continue. If this should ever happen to you and you feel bad looking away or ignoring them, which is the only thing you can do, then I recommend wearing sunglasses. They will still come up to the cars but it's easier to avoid eye contact which only gives them hope. Thus the "terrible person" bit in my title...

There was a dead pigeon on the roof of a car all day.

I have no idea where I am or where I'm going most of the time.

It feels weird to take money out of the ATM with so many digits.

I made a doggy friend in the courtyard. He's a talker. I scratched him, barely touching his dirty little head, for all of 30 seconds at the most and you would have thought he was the happiest dog in the history of all the world. However, then he wouldn't stop his overjoyed jumping and got paw prints on my outfit. Oh well.

On the way to visit Earth Saviors this morning there was a little gang of kids selling flowers for those last minute gifts. I'll talk more about that visit later.

Happy Valentine's Day <3

The Tour

Yesterday we all piled in the car with Ashwini for some sightseeing.
First he took us to the Lotus Temple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Temple
This is a Bahai house or worship where all are welcome to silently pray or meditate in their own fashion regardless or any religious affiliation. The Bahai faith does not practice rituals, ceremonies, or sermons.
No photos are allowed inside the building but I took several from outside of the temple and around the grounds and pools. Check my Facebook album for those until I can find a way to add them to my blog.

Aside from the children that don't get the "no talking" rule, it's quiet and peaceful. No shoes are allowed in the building so you check them in what looks like a rice bag and they give you a token. The marble benches are a bit chilly on your bum but it's a nice sanctuary from the noisyness of the streets.

After a little silence and retrieving our shoes, we headed over to Hamayun's Tomb, including the Isa Kahn tomb enclosure, and Bu Halima enclosure.
Very impressive structure. All kinds of arches, doorways, waterways, well-maintained grounds, chipmunks frolicing, everywhere, sort of breezy and peaceful up on the roof (with a nice view), there's a lot to like for a tomb.

After that we drove by the India Gate, and the President's House & parlaiment. Then Ashwini let us free for a while in the Lodi Gardens where we watched families playing cricket & some sort of dodgeball, ducks, birds, chipmunks.

Sleeeeepy. I'll carry on with the rest later.

The flight and beginning thoughts on India

*I'm not able to get any pictures to upload presently on the blog, so if you want to see them you'll have to check out my Facebook album.*

The Flight(s):
Had Pizza Hut for brunch, it was pretty good actually. Denver to Newark was fairly uneventful aside from the family of 5 with 3 kids 4 and under who were ALL assigned middle seats. Why do they even ask you if you are traveling with children if they are just going to send your toddler off to 5 rows in front of you? Silly. But nice people on the plane gave up their seats so that they were all next to a parent. My next question is about how someone with 3 children can afford to fly ANYWHERE.

Newark to Delhi:
Had the headache from hell by the time I got to Newark, but took some drugs and drank some water and felt a little bit better. Finally met my fellow volunteer Marianne, who I've been talking to for a few weeks now. She's a nurse and a mom so I felt that I was in good hands. We weren't sitting together but we've got 4 weeks to hang out together until I move along.
I was lucky enough to have a pretty darn fun 14ish hours. My seatmates were Mexicans from Texas, Angel/Felix the Cat and Crown Royal Mike. They were friendly, chatty, and entertaining. It made the flight so much better and helped kill some time since I can't really sleep on flights anyway.
Someone spilled Crown Royal down their leg, said something about zombies and "schlongs," chatted about languages, spoke several random bits of other languages, annoyed whichever one of them was sleeping at the time, and I didn't have to worry about being kind of snuggled up to get the 20 minutes of sleep I might have gotten.

I do NOT like the descent in to Delhi; dropping out of the sky and all. But at least I probably felt better than the silly hungover one next to me. As we were coming in I could see lights blinking on and off in houses for miles, and something on fire. Otherwise it's just little patches lit up and darkness.
The man at the customs counter didn't say a single solitary word to me. He beckoned me, took a couple minutes to finish what he was doing, THEN took my passport and did whatever he had to do than pointed in the direction I should go. He was wearing a very dashing golf-looking hat.

Marianne and I collected our luggage at the same time, had a potty break, I put on my International Volunteer shirt and then headed out to find our ride Salwar & Vicky, who were waiting with Terry who had arrived a little before us from Vietnam, I think. (Vicky is a man's name here, FYI.)
I nearly had a panic that I couldn't find my Ratish, but a girl finally came up to me and told me he was outside waiting for me. He gave me a boquet of my two favorite flowers, roses and a lily, but we only got a few minutes to chat. I didn't want to have my ride wait even longer than they already had but I'd waited a while to meet my ducky! It was very sweet and cute for him to bring me flowers. He's upping the greeting standards at the airport.
We got a little taste of the India traffic adventure on the way home but we were all a little fuzzy from long flights. I was just glad to be on the ground.

We got a quick orientation on the ins and outs of our flat and then found our jammies and went to bed, which was agreeably comfortable. I didn't sleep much but I slept pretty well at least. In the morning I tested the shower which boiled for a good few moments and then it just got chilly. We'll try to get the hang of that.
We had omeletes, toast, and chai for breakfast then went out for our sightseeing. I'll talk about that later.

Things that are interesting so far in India:
Lines in the road have no use what so ever. I don't know why they waste the money to paint them.
Dogs in India are like squirrels in Longmont. Everywhere. But not in quite as good of shape as Colorado squirrels. They fight and rough each other up, eat garbage, and I saw one in the street that had presumably been hit and killed earlier in the slew of traffic.
People here seem to trust each other a somewhat bizarre amount, whether it's reasonable or not. Aside from the veering around the road in to miniscule spaces and at a split second notice, they also pile on top of each other in autorickshaws and motorbikes. It's not often you see a family of four on what is not much more than a dirt bike. It's quite the achievement to witness.

That's all for the moment before I face plant in to my computer. More to come later.

Magic 49!

Pounds, that is. I got my suitcase down to 49 pounds after a day and a half of sorting and stuffing and Ziplocing. I'm nearly too exhausted to be excited but it'll come to me soon enough.

Now just over 12 hours until departure...