On the Road

I am writing this post from Mumbai! Flew down here a couple of days ago and met up with the parents and Gus who flew in from Boston. Staying with good friends from England who are posted here now, and living it up with them in British-High-Commission style. It's been great here but tomorrow, early in the morning, we will press on to Udaipur and spend the next few weeks traveling.

Things in Delhi were good before I took off. I think I have mentioned a project I have been working on to get a 9 year old profoundly deaf boy who attends a school in the slums, outfitted with hearing aids, which he had never had before. A couple of weeks ago I, and some others from the American Women's Association, took him to a national institute for the hearing handicapped to run some audiological evaluations on him. The tests showed that he had some hearing and thus would benefit from hearing aids. Long story short, we took him to the institute again where the audiologists tested several different hearing aids on him, chose a pair, and handed them over to him. He looked so excited to be hearing sounds and noises, even if he could hear only fractions of them. The batteries are solar powered, which is an incredible idea- especially as he can't get electricity in the slum where he lives. So this was very exciting and I hope to follow up with this boy.

This past week, I also got to relive the whole experience of arriving in Delhi for the first time, because another Yale 06'er, Gul Raza, arrived there on Monday and crashed at my place. As I took her around the city, showed her where to buy a phone, where to have passport photos taken, where to buy food, etc etc, I realized how far I have come with this city since arriving there. Delhi is crazy and confusing and sometimes I feel like it's trying to get me down, but this was a reminder that I've got things under control. I've figured out how to live here and I guess I'm not a fresh off the plane Delhi newcomer anymore... there's still a LOT more to discover about the city, but it seems that I am getting there!

Varanasi Pictures

Scenes from Ganges boat rides...



Views of the Ganges from our hotel...

Trains, Boats, and Cycle-Rickshaws

This past weekend in Varanasi was an adventure that involved several forms of transportation that are unusual for me. The first was the 12 hour train ride from Delhi to Varanasi. Most travelers in India go by the 3AC class, but because there were no seats left in this class, Dan and Rafa and I went by Sleeper class. To give an idea of the conditions in this class, I will just say that it smells even worse than Metro North and that the bunk beds along the walls are stacked so close together that your only choice is to lie flat on your bed.

Fortunately, the food and drink vendors who frequently pace through the train provide some entertainment. Each of them has their own distinctive call as they ply whatever it is they are selling- "chai.chai.chai.chai" or "chayeee...chayeee...chayeee..." or "gulab JAMuun, gulab JAMuun, gulab JAMuun"... or "SAMosa. SAMosa. SAMosa. SAMosa" They all sound like off-key robots and it is quite amusing to watch them run up and down in their red uniforms.

Our hotel in Varanasi was nothing too exciting, but we could see the Ganges river right from our window. The Ganges was, for me, the only really interesting part of Varanasi. And so much goes on in this river- bathing, laundry, religious ceremonies, funeral processions, swimming... you can imagine that it's extremely dirty. Hindus believe that it is auspicious for cremated ashes to be scattered into this holy river, so there are burning halls, or ghats, lining the river throughout the length of Varanasi.

Dan and Rafaela and I went for two boat rides in the river, one at dawn and one at sunset, and got to see all of these things going on. People had warned me that I might see a dead corpse or two floating by. Unfortunately for me, this did not happen. I would have liked to have seen one. We did catch sight of a huge religious ceremony on the banks during our sunset ride, and this was quite a spectacle, with smoke and flames and dancing.

We also saw a couple of Hindu temples, one of them so heavily guarded due to Hindu-Muslim conflict in this area that you had to walk through a metal detector to get in and leave your electronics outside (we left ours in a nearby silk shop that was owned by our boat-driver's family). I received an extremely intense frisking from the security women who then went on to confiscate my pens and pencils. This even beats the US Embassy in Delhi for security.

The other thing we did in Varanasi was ride cycle rickshaws. A cycle rickshaw is basically a bicycle that pulls a little bench-type thing behind it, on which the passengers sit. The bench is placed about 5 feet off the ground, so any fall off the bench would be quite a serious one. After dinner one night with Dan, Rafa, and a couple of Germans we'd recruited to join us, the five of us ended up taking three of these rickshaws home-- the Germans on one, Dan on the other, and Rafa and I on the third. The predictable trip back to our hotel evolved into a race between the three rickshaw-wallas. Unfortunately for Rafa and I, ours was the youngest, fittest, and fastest. He took off at break-neck speed through the streets of Varanasi with us clinging to each other and to the seat to keep from falling off... we even overtook a motorcycle at one point. Whenever I tried to tell him in Hindi to slow down, he'd just turn around and give me a mischievous look. We made it back to our hotel in one piece, and even I started to enjoy it in the way one enjoys a roller coaster. But I think my hair is still standing on end...

This Might be the First Time All Week that I've Sat Down

Yes, it has been a busy week. And tonight I am heading to Varanasi for the weekend on an overnight train! I'm going with Dan and Rafaela, my faithful weekend adventuring companions who visited me in Mussoorie over Diwali. When I tell people that I am going to Varanasi, they react in one of two ways. Some say, "Varanasi! What a lovely, beautiful, peaceful, holy city." Others say, "Varanasi! It's noisy, loud, and crowded! I wouldn't go there again if you paid me to!"

But to recap. This past week started off well with International Trade Fair on Sunday. This was a huge fair at the Ashok hotel with booths from about 40 different countries, most of them in Eastern Europe or Asia. The vendors representing each country sold crafts, food, and drink that are "unique" unique to that country. I put "unique" in quotation marks because the honey pancake I ate at Morocco was suspiciously similar to the one I ate at Russia. But nevertheless, it was a pretty amazing display of both edible and inedible products. My favorite booth was that of Kyrgystan (I can't even spell it, there's another y in there somewhere, but it's apparently pronounced "Kerjistan").

Later in the week, I spent some time visiting places that will be helpful for my upcoming Fulbright research (which will officially start as soon as I dash to Kathmandu and get this visa in my hand!). I thought I would have a hard time finding places at which to do research, but it's the opposite- there are too many! My plan is to find a few institutions/NGOs/clinics that are especially impressive and come work/volunteer/research at those places on a regular basis. Yesterday I went to the India headquarters of Special Olympics, which was great. The staff was extremely helpful and the director happens to be the husband of a woman I've gotten to be friends with here. I'll definitely be back there.

Today I ditched research in favor of exploring Delhi, and went on a guided tour with two other women. Our guide was a British man named Nigel who has lived in Delhi since 1945, first as a member of the British imperial government in India, then as a member of the British High Commission, and now as an independent tour guide. He is quite eccentric but tells a good story and has an amazing knowledge of Delhi. He told stories as we drove through different neighborhoods and we went to the Indira Gandhi Museum, the residence of the President (the former Viceroy's House), a Sikh Gurudwara, a municipal cremation Ghat, and to the site of the coronation of George the 5th as King Emporer, which is on a huge field just outside of Delhi and is totally ignored by most tourists.

And now, for the best part of the week... my tennis tournament!! There is a women's tennis league that practices every day of the week and I have never been able to make any of the practices yet, but the organizers allowed me to participate in the two-day tourney anyway. And it was a blast. Most of the other women were foreigners who have come to Delhi for their husband's jobs (which explains why they are free for tennis in the middle of the day). We drew for partners and I ended up with Anke, 30-something, whose husband works at the Belgian Embassy here. Unlike many of the women who were extremely serious and competitve in the court, she was very sweet. We clicked with each other and managed to finish in second place! All kinds of fancy shops sponsored the tourney, so at the celebration luncheon afterward, reps from these shops actually came and took pictures of Anke and me and of the first place team. Better yet, they even gave swanky prizes to the four of us for finishing in first and second-- I mean, seriously swanky prizes, like $200 worth!!

Delhi is a perfect city for tennis because of the weather and because Indians are obsessed with it. If I could learn how to play cricket as well, then I would be REALLY successful here.