Oh what a great few weeks it has been so far. Goa was a fun, relaxing party time on the beach. Delhi... has been interesting.
For the sights I got the opportunity to be shown around the city to a number of must see monuments. Many of these places date back thousands of years and the history that accompanies them is pretty interesting. The thing I love the most about these places tends to be the attention to detail. It is almost unbelievable to imagine how these buildings were able to be constructed given the time period and the technology available to them at the time. True masterpieces. I haven't been to see the Taj yet, but I can only imagine how I'm going to be blown away once again. We've also had the pleasure of meeting some young locals who have taken us out around Delhi and we've gotten the chance to see Delhi in a different way.
To be exact, I spend my weekdays out in Faridibad, a suburb of Delhi and have gone into the city on days off. A typical day in Faridibad includes waking up to a breakfast of chipatti, roti, bread or some other carb. Then the five of us girls (2 Aussies, 1 Canadian + me and 1 American) and our host brother or mother take off to the school. The first sight we are treated to is typically 40 sets of eyes staring at us none stop. While the stares typically belong to creepy men giving us odd looks and at times comments, I really like when the women stare. It's more of a curiousity. I've noticed Indian people use a lot of expression in their eyes. In a weird way you almost have a conversation with an Indian woman just by looking at each other. It was however, slightly uncomfortable when myself and my 6ft 1in female Aussie friend stepped onto the women's only cart and felt the whole carriage staring at us. Their curiousity is quite cute though. It is not considered rude here, however, it still makes me very uncomfortable at times. Then we step on the busy street to see auto rickshaws, motorbikes and massive trucks zooming by us. En route it is not uncommon to have to dodge a cow, donkey or stray dog along the way. Along a particuar road there are multiple massive work ox chained to the ground waiting to get to work. And then we come to the garbage corner while we are just about to school. You can only imagine which animal loves this place the best, yup, PIGS! Typically there lies in the sludge one or two grown pigs and several little piglets. It's funniest to see when the piglets and puppies play together chacing each other around. As we pass this corner we are then treated to the sights of the children we will be teaching that day. They all approach us with a hand shake and "good morning ma'am, good morning ma'am..." until they've greeted us all. The kids are another fun sight of our days. In the mornings we work with between 5 and 20 children varying in ages in one room. Mornins are a lot quieter and give us the chance to work one on one with the children, often teaching them more challenging concepts. In the afternoon, things get crazy. Still the same small room, but over double the children, with every child trying to get their turn of attention by getting in your face, often shouting something in Hindi that I don't understand. Lets just say it gets noisy. The children have become famous in our minds for their constant "ma'am no, no ma'am" with a very serious face and the classic Indian head nod every time they are asked to do a subject or excersise they are not fond of. Ohhh the Indian head nod, something that is still confusing to me. It is a side to side nod that can mean a multitude of things like "yes we are in agreeance", "I don't understand you but I am going to pretend I do" or "you are saying something stupid, but I don't want to offend you and therefore I will agree". My guess is the last is typically the correct meaning in most circumstances when an Indian gives me the head nod.
As for the sounds of Faridibad it varies. My favourite noises include that of music, typically drums. In the evening there are parades going down the streets led my a large garbage like truck carrying a groom and his partying friends with speakers on the top blaring some sort of Hindi music. The truck is followed by a parade of men dancing, drummers thounderously drumming and then men dressed in funny looking suits carrying portable living room lamps. About every 20 minutes or so, fireworks are set off from the parade to produce a loud gun shot like bang. This happens every night, multiple times... tis the season for weddings! The hindi music blaring from cabs, rickshaws and store fronts is also quite charming, although can get over powering. But we are becoming more interested in the Bollywood music scene. The two young boys we live with constantly put it on and do the accompaning dances. We'll have to get them to show us their ways. Some of the girls are taking their love obsession to places where were not suppose to. Like in expat bars and top end locals bars it is strictly prohibited to request bollywood music, some of the girls have had to get reminders over the loud speaker that no hindi requests will be taken. The sounds I am not so fond of... the traffic. Holy moly people, if there is no where to move too, honking your horn isn't going to make them go any faster! Everywhere you go people are constantly honking. To me I would just stop paying attention to all the honking, but I guess every honk means something different. The worst honk is that off large trucks and buses. On our walk to school we are usually treated to about 3 or 4 loud, skreetching, ear paining honks from a truck right next to us. The honking I am becoming accustomed to, but the truck honk I will never be able to accept. And while the honks become fewer at night, they by no means cease to exist. Being able to sleep through the whole night in India is a goal of mine... not yet achieved.
Ah, now for the smells of Faridibad. What a glorious range. Walking down the street, past shrines and into shops you can be treated to the most beautiful smells of inscense. There is one in particular I am fond of, but I am yet to find it for myself to purchase. You of course also get the gorgeous smells of a mixture of spices coming from restaurants and street food carts. Our walk to school also boasts a variety of smells. While passing the cows and ox it is typical to smell the smell of a barn, but as a prairie girl that doesn't bother me. Occasionally wafts of urine work their way into my nostrils, especially in areas down by the metro station we catch into Delhi. On the way to school there is a particularly nasty smelling corner that is a combination of toxic varnish smells, welding metal smells and egg fart. Approaching the garbage and pig corner is another memorable smell that I think best goes undescribed.
Where we live is with a lovely host family, but it is rather basic. Even more so I've come to value the simple things. Like clean, hot, real showers (not bucket showers). We had the day off from school the other day so one other girl and myself went into Delhi to do some shopping that we wanted to get done. While cruising through her lonely planet on the metro I came accross the "activity" of going to the spa. After it was mentioned neither of us could get it out of our minds so we made an appointment for a deep tissue massage and later added mani, pedi to the list. It was glorious. After the massage we got to have a steam and then... A SHOWER!!! The women at the spa must have thought we were weird or something. I asked for shampoo and then we both took the longest hottest showers. I think we overstayed our welcome, but I have no shame. It had to be done. For three hours of blissful pampering after 4 months of travelling and volunteering, it was worth the 56 CAD.
My experiences so far in India have been great, and will only continue to change as I set out in a few weeks to travel around this miassive country. Delhi is a neat place to see, but I have a feeling India has so much more to offer and I am excited to see the changes as I change my location.
For the sights I got the opportunity to be shown around the city to a number of must see monuments. Many of these places date back thousands of years and the history that accompanies them is pretty interesting. The thing I love the most about these places tends to be the attention to detail. It is almost unbelievable to imagine how these buildings were able to be constructed given the time period and the technology available to them at the time. True masterpieces. I haven't been to see the Taj yet, but I can only imagine how I'm going to be blown away once again. We've also had the pleasure of meeting some young locals who have taken us out around Delhi and we've gotten the chance to see Delhi in a different way.
To be exact, I spend my weekdays out in Faridibad, a suburb of Delhi and have gone into the city on days off. A typical day in Faridibad includes waking up to a breakfast of chipatti, roti, bread or some other carb. Then the five of us girls (2 Aussies, 1 Canadian + me and 1 American) and our host brother or mother take off to the school. The first sight we are treated to is typically 40 sets of eyes staring at us none stop. While the stares typically belong to creepy men giving us odd looks and at times comments, I really like when the women stare. It's more of a curiousity. I've noticed Indian people use a lot of expression in their eyes. In a weird way you almost have a conversation with an Indian woman just by looking at each other. It was however, slightly uncomfortable when myself and my 6ft 1in female Aussie friend stepped onto the women's only cart and felt the whole carriage staring at us. Their curiousity is quite cute though. It is not considered rude here, however, it still makes me very uncomfortable at times. Then we step on the busy street to see auto rickshaws, motorbikes and massive trucks zooming by us. En route it is not uncommon to have to dodge a cow, donkey or stray dog along the way. Along a particuar road there are multiple massive work ox chained to the ground waiting to get to work. And then we come to the garbage corner while we are just about to school. You can only imagine which animal loves this place the best, yup, PIGS! Typically there lies in the sludge one or two grown pigs and several little piglets. It's funniest to see when the piglets and puppies play together chacing each other around. As we pass this corner we are then treated to the sights of the children we will be teaching that day. They all approach us with a hand shake and "good morning ma'am, good morning ma'am..." until they've greeted us all. The kids are another fun sight of our days. In the mornings we work with between 5 and 20 children varying in ages in one room. Mornins are a lot quieter and give us the chance to work one on one with the children, often teaching them more challenging concepts. In the afternoon, things get crazy. Still the same small room, but over double the children, with every child trying to get their turn of attention by getting in your face, often shouting something in Hindi that I don't understand. Lets just say it gets noisy. The children have become famous in our minds for their constant "ma'am no, no ma'am" with a very serious face and the classic Indian head nod every time they are asked to do a subject or excersise they are not fond of. Ohhh the Indian head nod, something that is still confusing to me. It is a side to side nod that can mean a multitude of things like "yes we are in agreeance", "I don't understand you but I am going to pretend I do" or "you are saying something stupid, but I don't want to offend you and therefore I will agree". My guess is the last is typically the correct meaning in most circumstances when an Indian gives me the head nod.
As for the sounds of Faridibad it varies. My favourite noises include that of music, typically drums. In the evening there are parades going down the streets led my a large garbage like truck carrying a groom and his partying friends with speakers on the top blaring some sort of Hindi music. The truck is followed by a parade of men dancing, drummers thounderously drumming and then men dressed in funny looking suits carrying portable living room lamps. About every 20 minutes or so, fireworks are set off from the parade to produce a loud gun shot like bang. This happens every night, multiple times... tis the season for weddings! The hindi music blaring from cabs, rickshaws and store fronts is also quite charming, although can get over powering. But we are becoming more interested in the Bollywood music scene. The two young boys we live with constantly put it on and do the accompaning dances. We'll have to get them to show us their ways. Some of the girls are taking their love obsession to places where were not suppose to. Like in expat bars and top end locals bars it is strictly prohibited to request bollywood music, some of the girls have had to get reminders over the loud speaker that no hindi requests will be taken. The sounds I am not so fond of... the traffic. Holy moly people, if there is no where to move too, honking your horn isn't going to make them go any faster! Everywhere you go people are constantly honking. To me I would just stop paying attention to all the honking, but I guess every honk means something different. The worst honk is that off large trucks and buses. On our walk to school we are usually treated to about 3 or 4 loud, skreetching, ear paining honks from a truck right next to us. The honking I am becoming accustomed to, but the truck honk I will never be able to accept. And while the honks become fewer at night, they by no means cease to exist. Being able to sleep through the whole night in India is a goal of mine... not yet achieved.
Ah, now for the smells of Faridibad. What a glorious range. Walking down the street, past shrines and into shops you can be treated to the most beautiful smells of inscense. There is one in particular I am fond of, but I am yet to find it for myself to purchase. You of course also get the gorgeous smells of a mixture of spices coming from restaurants and street food carts. Our walk to school also boasts a variety of smells. While passing the cows and ox it is typical to smell the smell of a barn, but as a prairie girl that doesn't bother me. Occasionally wafts of urine work their way into my nostrils, especially in areas down by the metro station we catch into Delhi. On the way to school there is a particularly nasty smelling corner that is a combination of toxic varnish smells, welding metal smells and egg fart. Approaching the garbage and pig corner is another memorable smell that I think best goes undescribed.
Where we live is with a lovely host family, but it is rather basic. Even more so I've come to value the simple things. Like clean, hot, real showers (not bucket showers). We had the day off from school the other day so one other girl and myself went into Delhi to do some shopping that we wanted to get done. While cruising through her lonely planet on the metro I came accross the "activity" of going to the spa. After it was mentioned neither of us could get it out of our minds so we made an appointment for a deep tissue massage and later added mani, pedi to the list. It was glorious. After the massage we got to have a steam and then... A SHOWER!!! The women at the spa must have thought we were weird or something. I asked for shampoo and then we both took the longest hottest showers. I think we overstayed our welcome, but I have no shame. It had to be done. For three hours of blissful pampering after 4 months of travelling and volunteering, it was worth the 56 CAD.
My experiences so far in India have been great, and will only continue to change as I set out in a few weeks to travel around this miassive country. Delhi is a neat place to see, but I have a feeling India has so much more to offer and I am excited to see the changes as I change my location.
No comments:
Post a Comment