Encounters with Indians

13 Jan 2012

Due to our schedule, we are often doing new things every day. While it is an amazing and exhausting way to spend our time here, it is not as good for building relationships. So I want to tell you a little about some of the people I’ve met, and what seems to be the recurring themes in what they like to share.

This is me with the neighbor kids on our last morning in Indore

Like Slovaks, one of the first things they ask is how we like their country. More specifically, they want to know how we like the people in their country; strangely, they always seem skeptical when I tell them its all good. They also really like to know the details of where we are staying- we don’t usually share them.

When they ask about my feelings on India, I always tell them that one of my favorite things is that just going down the road, we often see monkeys, camels, and elephants and I love it! (Often, more common than those animals we see cows, boars, dogs, goats, and donkeys, but you know, a cow on a big city street is just common place now!) The guaranteed response to my statement is something like this: Oh! You know where you should go then… We have a zoo! As if the novelty is in the animal itself and not the fact that I can reach out and touch it (or better, take it home!:)

—UPDATE: Scary monkey story coming soon!—

In Indore, people just loved us. They aren’t really used to foreigners there and so our white skin sometimes brought them flocking to us. One day as I was just killing some time in the mall, I was approached by a young man and we became fast friends. We were chatting about all sorts of America/India things and he especially wanted to know the following, I’ll give you a rundown….

Sameer: So if I come to Australia, will you show me around.
Me: No, I’ve never been to Australia, I’m from America.
Sameer: Oh, so will you show me around America?
Me: Yeah, sure.
Sameer: Okay, what’s your phone number.
Me: No phone (true story).
Sameer: (shock, some conversation about how it is possible, back to the story) Okay so the number to your home, or your family?
Me: Well, it doesn’t really work that way in America. I don’t really live at home anymore.
Sameer: And your family agrees to this?
Me: Well, yeah. After University, most people my age just don’t really go back to their parents.
Sameer: (again, shocked) So after you graduate, you make some agreement with your family and if you both agree you no longer live at home?! And they agree to this… hmm.

Basically, I blew his mind and apparently in a way that made us best friends because a few minutes later, he told me that he wants to marry his girlfriend, but she only wants to be friends. Then he very bluntly asked me, What can I do about this? How can I change so that she would want to marry me? Is there something wrong with me? Am I not nice? So that was fun.

Last thought, these are Indians that we did get to build relationships with, and they are great!

This is the sister who tied the girls' saris and laughed at long fingernails!

We are often laughing at our differences, but it is extra funny when they laugh at us! One thing that they laugh at guaranteed is when some of the girls from our group wear the saris they bought. They meet my approval, but there are intricacies to tying them on that need years of practice, so the Indians always giggle at the sight of them. The other thing that makes them laugh is long fingernails- how impractical!

2011: A Year in Review

04 Jan 2012

This will be a hard post to write with no internet- I’m not able to reference last year’s post at all. I can’t even say offhand what most of my New Year’s Resolutions were, but I do know I didn’t accomplish them all.

Let’s start with a recap of what we did do!

We went to 13 countries, only 3.5 of them were new though.

Turkey

It was Burke's first time to Italy!

(our other new countries were Bulgaria and India:)!

Our neighbors

I did run 100+ miles during more than half of the months this year!

I didn’t make it an official goal, I didn’t really have a reason to, but I decided to be alcohol free for the year, and I did that with only two small special occasion exceptions.

As for goals we didn’t complete… I never got to run in any races, we didn’t go on a bicycle tour and Burke is still working towards 100 consecutive pushups. Those can be our first three goals for 2012! (update: I also didn’t compile recipes!)

Other goals/ New Year’s Resolutions:

Get a good summer/permanent job. Just like last year, we will go home upon completion of our program, but aren’t yet sure what we will do, and whether we will stay with it or return to Europe again. Either way, I’d like to be as productive with my time (specifically in regards to my college loan) as possible.

I want to make a new friend. Honesty at the undoubted risk of sounding pathetic. While I love the life that Burke and I are living, it can certainly be lonely at times.

Exercise. I’m good with exercising, but I really like to have goals. I’m going to keep my 100 mile/month goal, but I already know that won’t happen until we return from India. So during India, my goal is just to exercise 3+ days a week.

Ukraine. It’s Slovakia’s only neighbor we haven’t been to, so it should be an easy goal. Yet it hasn’t happened during the last 2.5 years… (I’d also settle for Slovenia, Albania, Kosovo or Belarus.)

We went to Prague for our third time:)

I promise my next post will be about our daily life in India! I’m really excited to share it, but if you want more of an update on what we are actually doing here in India please go to our the members only section of our website!

Animals Galore!

20 Dec 2011

As I thought might happen, this post will be a scattering of observations and experiences; so as usual, if you want more in-depth stories of what we are doing here, please visit the other section of our website.

I’ve learned 4 phrases in Hindi! I can say Thank you, My name is…, I am from…, and What is your name? All of these phrases are met with giggles (perhaps due to horrific mispronunciation?), but it worked once on our neighbor- his name is Amos. I often sit outside during quiet times and he comes over and sometimes we play together. Yesterday during my quiet time, I was braiding my hair. A group of girls approached me (I have NO idea where they came from), and said “Beautiful!” As they stared, I finished braiding my hair. Once it was done, they promptly took 2 photos with their phone. They said “beautiful” and “goodbye,” before walking just 10 meters away from me and then gathering around the phone to look at the photo.

Usually on arrival, we are welcomed with a flower, lei or bouquet of some sort!

I’ve said this a few times before, but I really need to make a bucket list. Not because I want the list, but because when something happens that surely would have been on the list, I can cross it off. The other day, one of those things happened! We were walking through a small village and we spotted monkeys!! Tons of them- parents, babies, monkeys of all ages. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. They were jumping on top of a couple of rooftops and into a tree. I was so close to them- definitely less than one meter.

Monkeys

Only a few days later, we saw an elephant on the side of the road! He wasn’t wild; it may have been for a wedding, but he was just hanging out there in all of his hugeness! And just yesterday we saw CAMELS! They were so majestic and bigger than the ones I remember from Jordan.

One of my favorite things to sneak in during he day is visiting the dogs on the property. I’ve been heavily warned against pursuing wild dogs, but the dogs of the house are okay to befriend. So that’s what I’ve been doing. The first group I’m still working on winning over, one of the dogs is downright vicious and isn’t chained up so it’s a little daunting (update: totally my friend now!), but the other dogs are amazing! One just had a set of five puppies and they don’t even have their eyes open yet! I visit them about as often as I can.

Burke & Janko sporting their stylish Indian outfits!

Last thing, quick story- Toilets here are just crazy. (I still plan to have an entire post about daily living here, but I ran into a camera battery roadblock so it wasn’t possible for this week.) So toilets. If there is a toilet, you are lucky. If it flushes, you are incredibly lucky. When we first arrived, I had heard that flushing is usually to be done with the pressure from a giant bucket of water. Fortunately, the first night, Burke discovered that our toilet flushes! A few days later, I was talking with one of the girls here and I mentioned something about the flush. She was shocked! She didn’t realize that her toilet could flush too, but it does! It was a little humorous that she was doing something the old way when she didn’t have to. What’s funnier though is that I mentioned it to another girl yesterday and didn’t know either! The kicker is that the two are roommates and the first roommate just didn’t tell the other!

First week in India!

12 Dec 2011

We’ve been here for a whole week now and it still feels surreal. As I was editing photos I can hardly believe this is my life right now. We are seeing amazing things and interacting with incredible people. I’ll tell you more about what we’re actually doing on the other website, but for now, here are more of my observations of what it’s like to be in India.

Our group rides from where we are staying to the center of town every day, usually twice a day, so we are quite familiar with the route already. We ride in a van, which makes us one of the biggest vehicles on the street. Rickshaws are very common, but just because they only have three wheels, doesn’t mean they don’t carry a big load. Maybe even more common are scooters. I’m on the hunt to see how many people I can spot on a single scooter- so far I’ve seen four adult men.

Family of four on bikes!

I want to reiterate is the multitude of dogs, cows, and pigs in the streets. It is insane! They teem along the country roads, but they’re also resident on the busiest city streets. Yesterday I even saw a pig and dog playing together! In addition to the wild dogs, it appears every building has its own set of guard dogs. Our establishment has three, and the neighboring building has two. I know the other two well because twice I’ve attempted to exercise by running outside. Running in this country is even more foreign to residents than it is in Slovakia, so that and the fact I’m a lone woman, its not the best idea to really venture out. What ends up happening is that I run in a giant L shape down two driveways. I ran early this morning so a couple times I looped the driveways with a small bit of road so I had a football field-sized track, but the dogs got increasingly more vicious with every lap so I went back to the L shape.

Cow crossing!

This is downtown.

The last thing I want to say is that I’ve seen so many open fires here. It appears that almost all families or business right outside of downtown have a fire in the evening. The last couple nights have been chilly so I think it’s partially for heat, but it is also definitely for cooking.

This is our neighbor!

Be sure to check out the other post about what we’re doing in India!

Nameste

07 Dec 2011

Please excuse the scattered-mindedness of this post- I’m typing it out on a borrowed office workspace computer, but I wanted to share a few of my first impressions before I get used to my surroundings (I’m not sure if that will happen, but maybe?)

We arrived in the evening last night and drove in a large van holding 12 people to the place we are staying. They said it would take an hour but it was only 10km; the main road was busy because there was a Muslim festival, so we took the back road which was hardly a road at all! It was amazing! I don’t know if they can be called potholes because they were the size of sinkholes and looked like waves of an ocean.

As we drove it was impossible to ignore the incessant honking. Start the car, honk; turn, honk; pass a car, honk; see a friend, honk; drive straight, honk; see a cow, honk. While driving today, it was pointed out to me that there are often a few simple words painted on the back of the cars, something to the effect of, Honk if everything is okay.

We are staying just outside of a 2.5 million people city. As we drove towards the city this morning, we saw so many animals! Along the sides of the roads (and sometimes in the roads) every five meters or so there is a cow, another cow, dog, cow, dog, cow, goat, cow, dog, boar, cow, dog. It’s amazing. As for buildings, the city is mostly 3 story buildings, but on the way into the city I’d say there were more storage-type living spaces and shanties rather than western-style, stand alone buildings.

Last few things before my this small bout of internet is up- the head bobble is so prevalent and I am LOVING it.

The place we are staying welcomed us with Indian food- western style. They heard a lot of people in our group don’t like spicy (hot) food, but instead they left out all of the spices (flavors). It was still amazing, but probably the most bland food in all of India.

That’s the end of my internet time!

India

04 Dec 2011

We’re going to India tomorrow.

And we won't be needing these hats:)

Also, if you haven’t seen it, I just finished a video and you can watch it on the subscriber section of our website. Next time I post it’ll be from India!!