Getting Acclimated

 

There are actually some very nice green spaces here, not just people.

 

Train stations are incredible. This is one of the more mild ones (a smaller one in Mumbai). The Delhi central gratin station was where I first got culture shock. Everyone uses trains to get everywhere here, and you'll see all sorts of 'funny characters' as my host mom says.

Sometimes I feel awkward taking photos. The most amazing things I see, you won't get to see since I'd never dare take photos in those places

'Excuse me, what's going on here?'

My mind is already starting to think in rupees.

Of course the food is great. This is called a dosa, and it's the tastiest piece of paper you'll ever have! Served with masala, coconut chutney, and spicy potatoes.

The inside wall of a small shop where I got sugarcane juice. 

 

Eating on the floor and eating everything with hands (including rice) are both very fun! But at my home we have a table.

Bathroom Business

(Don't read this while eating) 

Before coming here, I thought that only poor rural areas wouldn't have western bathrooms. Now I know it's actually only areas that have lots of westerners and tourists that do. It's not a technological issue (the vast majority of places that don't have toilet paper could easily get some if they wanted to) but a cultural one. Indians think toilet paper is unclean and prefer to use water.

Arguments like, 

-If any other part of your body had s*** on it, would just wipe it with paper, or would you wash it?

-If you had a dirty plate, could you wipe it with paper and then eat off of it again the next day, or would you wash it before eating off of it? 

-Water is simply better at cleaning than toilet paper. 

My rear feels cleaner actually, like after a bath. But as a sissy I use about 5x the amount of soap I normally use. And I don't have to be reminded not to use my left hand when eating. And it's suprisingly easy to do lots of things like tear bread with only one hand.

So I'm capable of cleaning myself with my hand. The hard part is squatting over a toilet which is a literal hole in the ground. Fortunately my home here has an actual toilet.

Some places (including a restaurant that I've been to) don't have bathrooms. My school (which hasn't started yet but I've visited three times now) doesn't have soap in the bathrooms (I learned this the hard way,after having just cleaned out diarhea). No bathrooms (except in the touristy parts of Mumbai) will have paper towels or even hand dyers. You have to carry a handkerchief and soap everywhere. And that handkerchief is also useful for wiping the constant sweat off your face.

One of the reasons that some Indians would not like to shake hands (and would instead prefer to keep some distance) is that plenty people (generally lower income ones) never use with soap. At my schools bathroom there was a janitor and a security guard who after cleaning themselves with their left hands only washed with water (I had to do the same too that day but I avoided touching anything with it).

More of Mumbai

First time in India

I could not imagine what India would be like.  

The two things that surprised me most about India were (I can't say it enough times) how incredibly different it is, and how that difference doesn't bother me. The Netherlands seemed amazingly different, yet the difference between India and the US is  thousands of times greater than that of the Netherlands. It's like I stepped into a fantastical story that is totally unreal. The differences are insane. 

The frustrating thing is that I can't convey in pictures India as it seems in life. But here are these

The 70 AFS students from all over the world who are spending the year in India (9 of which including me are American) actually got to meet the European Union's ambassador to India. He told us about his wonderful gap year 32 years ago in India, but what stuck in my mind most was a story he told. When he first stepped out of the plane, he thought that the plane exhausts were aimed at him. That was the only explanation for the heat, humidity, and smoke. As he stepped down, he realized that that's just the way India feels like.

Takeoff

    (One of the best photos I've ever                

taken)

After a day in New York, me and the other the AFS India students boarded a flight to Delhi at around 8. We were worried we wouldn't make it, since hurricane Arthur caused other flights to get cancelled, and the entire airport's electricity when out for a few seconds before we boarded. And it took what felt like half an hour to get the airport check in computers running again.

Once we got in the plain, we had to wait for over two hours to get off the ground. So I watched an entire movie (Noah) before we were even in the sky. 

Though it was still airplane food, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed the diner, when it was served to us around midnight. That's probably cause it was indian food. There was this one cup (that I wish I had gotten the name of) that was a creamy sweet lemon flavored milk drink with cheese bits in it. Mmmhh.

The flight was almost 14 hours long (which is much shorter than I thought it would be). After learning that the local time in India she we arrived would be after 10pm, I decided to try to stay awake the entire flight in order to sleep in Delhi and beat jetlag quickly. I was not successful in preventing myself from falling asleep, especially around 5 in the morning when i think i was the person other than the pilots to still be awake.

For most of the flight, we weren't allowed to open windows (because even though almost everyone was sleeping the sun was out). But around 11 the next morning people started to wake up and not mind if I looked out the window. Most of the ground had clouds, but when we were above Turkmenistan, the sky was almost empty of clouds, so I could take photos.

Here's some of Turkmenistan:

And some taken when we flew over Afghanistan: