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!