Signing Out

I’m normally not a super emotional person – I mean I only even managed a few tears at the Notebook, - but I have to admit I’m totally feeling it as I sit in my room packing up all my stuff and saying goodbye to all my coworkers and friends. I was just looking over my first blog entry, and it’s hard for me to imagine I’ve been in India for almost a year now, how on earth did that happen? Part of me is definitely eager to get back to the US, but I’m really going to miss India. I love this place for its crazyness and the fact that I can’t seem to make it through a single day without being surprised by something in some way. I’ll admit that at times it has been a love-hate relationship, but I’m so glad I came here and India will always have a special place in my heart.

In retrospect our bosses took a bit of a gamble by having Monisha, Aakash, Jack and me live in the same apartment and work on the same project day after day. Clearly they have never seen an episode of Real World. And yet, the four of us have seriously become a little family – we spend way too much time together and have a pathetically small circle of other friends in Delhi, and yet we all love it that way. I’m really going to miss them next year!

On the plus side, I have a pretty epic summer ahead of me. First, I’m off to Sweden to see my host family from my semester abroad five years ago. My host sisters are now 14 and 17, which makes me feel so old! After that I return to the US of A – nearly a year to the day after I left. I’ve got a few weeks on the east coast visiting friends and family and a sweet beach trip with my favorite Fed gals. Then I’m heading down to Bolivia and Peru for some good old fashioned backpacking with some fellow Bowdoin grads. Then it’s back to the Golden State in August. Rather than sit still for even a moment, I’m planning on road-tripping it down to SoCal to visit friends – and Tig, Mickey skyped me the other day and is wondering where the hell we’ve been these past few years so we definitely owe him a trip to Disneyland. Plus I’m hoping to watch all 64 World Cup games, so yeah, to say I’m looking forward to the summer would be a huge understatement. Even with all those plans, I got a call the other day that makes me wonder if I’m leaving India prematurely. Mr. Star Model/Actor (not Zoolander, but the one with the McDreamy hair and at least a few brain cells) from the Nokia ad called and asked me out in his adorably accented English. It gets better. For said date he suggested we could meet up for coffee or McDonalds. He clearly knows the way to my heart. So now I’m thinking maybe I should tell him I don’t date but I can do an arranged marriage, and then we can become a Bollywood power couple! So much for economics, this is my true calling!!!

Alas, I think I’ll take the nerdy route instead and go for a PhD. I’ve heard so many Hollywood stars say they wish they could give up the fame and money to write a dissertation, and I just can’t let myself make the same mistake they all did. I decided to go with Agricultural Economics, because it will allow me to do more world-saving economics and less theoretical-mathematical-torturetical economics. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how I’m feeling at the moment, of all the cities in all the states, one of the top programs in the field is none other than UC Davis. So, after 7 years away from the land of bikes and cows, I’m heading back to the homestead to pursue higher education. Woopeee!

If you’re reading this you are my hero, because I figured by month 11.5 my readership would be down to just mom and dad, who let’s face it pretty much have to read. I hope I’ve managed to keep you entertained, and seriously thank you so much for taking the time to read about my escapades. India has been a wild ride, but I can absolutely say that I am going to miss it. The good news is that by pursing a PhD in development economics, I can pretty much guarantee that I will be spending a lot of time in developing countries in the future, so who knows – SoozinKenya? SoozinNepal? Soozin Azerbaijan? We’ll see!

I also realize that some of you may count on this blog to waste time in your first 10 minutes at the office. To prevent you from having to work an extra few minutes every week, I’ve created a blog entry that you can use to keep tabs on me for the next 5 to 7 years. It is sort of like Mad Libs – each time you read it you can cycle through the different options in the brackets to get some variety. Otherwise you might think my life is boring!

Right now I am [studying / reading / doing math / TAing]. I am in [the library / Peet’s Coffee / a classroom]. I wish I were [on a beach in Sri Lanka / on top of a bus in Nepal / chillin’ with some Indian villagers / dancing on a Bollywood set]. I am eating [a Southwest Rice and Bean Burrito from Dos Coyotes restaurant].

I heart Nepal

I just made an incredibly important discovery, which, had I made earlier in my stay here might have drastically altered my first 11 months here. So pay attention because I promise you that should you ever find yourself in New Delhi in the future you will want to remember this: The waiting room at the U.S. citizen’s services center in the American embassy has issues of People magazine, from America. I mean WOW. Just when we all though couldn’t love Sandra Bullock any more she adopted a son? How am I, lover of all things tween pop, just now learning about this Justin Bieber kid? Also, I think aliens abducted Kate Gossling, gave her a new body and face and returned her to earth? I mean, wow, I can see I am going to have a lot of catching up to do when I get back. Maybe I’ll go straight from the airport to the waiting room at a doctor’s office and just catch up on all these important national issues for a few days.

Anyway, sorry for that tangent but as you can tell it’s been a really productive morning for me. I also apologize for going MIA for a few weeks, I wish I could say I’ve been consumed by work, but it would just be wrong. First, we needed someone to go check on field work in Kerela, a state in south India that is home to the country’s most beautiful palm tree lined beaches and backwaters. It was a tough assignment, but somebody had to step up to the plate.

Then, upon my return to Delhi, Jack and I realized we had another week of vacation time we needed to use before we leave our jobs in mid June. Sometimes life skips the lemons and goes straight to the lemonade. We figured since we’d already rocked the beach vacation in December, we would go for mountains with this trip and we headed for Nepal. Can I just say that I am now in love with Nepal? I definitely want to go back and spend more time there, a week just wasn’t enough. Jack and I spent most of our time deurbanizing ourselves. We managed to pack in whitewater rafting, hiking at the base of the Himalayas, and learning whitewater kayaking. We both succeeded in scaring the shit out of ourselves by taking on class III rapids in the kayaks, and I think our Nepali guides were quite proud of us.

One of the cool things about Nepal is that it has a ton of backpackers, so we met a lot of great people along the way. I haven’t met many Americans over here, so it is so cool to me when you can meet someone and already have so much in common with them (College! Baseball! Subtle humor!) I hope this doesn’t come across as obnoxiously American, because I obviously love meeting people from all over the world, but there is something great about the ease of making small talk with other Americans and having them get all my Ace Ventura references. Our other favorite part of meeting tourists is that we can always trump them with our “yeah we’ve been living in Delhi for the past year” card. We met a lot of people who had been traveling impressive amounts of time and been to some cool places, but then we drop the fact that we’ve been living in Delhi and traveling to rural villages and it just wins everytime.

I don’t know how much it makes the news in the US, but the political situation in Nepal is slightly precarious, as there is a tense power struggle between the Maoists and the ruling party. As a result, there are sometimes strikes in the country that shut everything down. The past few weeks there have been no problems, but naturally, there was one blockade, in one small town, on one day in the last three weeks, and Jack and I ended up stuck right in the middle of it. We were traveling about 70 miles by bus (side note, in the US I tend to associate 70 miles of travel with about an hour. In India and Nepal, 70 miles takes about 3 to 4 hours). At about mile 30 the bus hit a huge line of traffic and came to a stop. There were about 5 tourists on the bus, and it really struck me how living in India has changed my patience level. Three of the tourists looked immediately concerned, and wanted to know why were stopped, how long we would be there, and generally what was going on. Jack and I just sat at the back of the bus for over an hour before we even started to question that maybe something was up. The amount of times here I’ve encountered something unexpected and had no idea what the hell is going on around me has given me an amazing ability to just go with the flow and figure it will all work out somehow in the end. It’s a little disturbing for me to think how content I can be in total cluelessness. Anyway, we eventually ventured out of the bus and managed to learn that there was a political protest that was holding up all bus and car traffic and we would likely be there until 5pm, which sucked since it was noon. (Another sidenote, this was highlighted by a young American hippie, who upon learning what was going on actually said out loud “Oh, I need to get my journal, I might forget this by tonight”. Oh hippies, love it.) Anyhoo, Jack and I, seasoned travelers that we are, went for a guy wearing glasses and a button down shirt, which is a telltale sign of an English speaker. Sure enough, he let us use his cell phone and we called the rafting company we were attempting to get to. The rafting company sent two of its guides on motorcycles to come pick us up. By the time they arrived we had been waiting there for about two hours and were faced with 4 more hours to go. It was like my knight in shining armor, in the form of a Nepali man on a motorcycle, had come to my rescue! Feeling pretty smug about our resourcefulness, we bid the other tourists adieu as we each hopped on the back of a bike and rode off into the sunset.

Amazingly, I have only T-13 days left in Delhi! I can hardly believe it. I'll try to make them as blog-filled as possible.

Back where I belong

As my time in India slowly winds down, I am attempting to spend as little time in Delhi as possible and to get out into the field and see some more of the country. This is also inspired by the 110 degree heat and unrelenting smog that is the magic of Delhi in the spring. Our bosses are currently considering replicating our study in a second state, and we are in the midst of trying to choose said state. Our first state, MP, is currently baking like a desert while it awaits the monsoon in July. We figure just about anywhere else in India will be a step up. Fortunately for us, number one on the list for state number two is Himachal, which just happens to be one of the most beautiful places in India. This small state sits to the north of Delhi and borders Tibet and the Himalayas. Its gorgeous scenery and cool temperatures make it a top tourist destination in the summer months. As the dutiful research assistants we are, Jack, Aakash, and I figured we owed it to our bosses to reluctantly leave the heat of Delhi and check out this new state.

After a few days of legitimate work, we were able to take three days to do some hiking and camping, which was an amazing break from the crowded mess that is Delhi. Note to self: as cool as chillin with the models of Delhi might be, it can't compete with sitting around a campfire with some good friends. Unfortunatley, as any of your who have camped with me know, the real reason I go is for the marshmallows, which were desperately missed on this trip.

We started off in Dharamshala, the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exile. Although the town has its charms, it was a little too full of dreadlock-sporting tourists for our taste and instead we took to the hills for some serious hiking and camping. Well, a serious as it gets for some out of shape city kids anyway. The pictures I have here just don’t do the beauty justice, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The mountains we were in actually reminded me somewhat of the Sierra Nevadas in northern California. The only difference is here those are just the foothills, and the Himalayas rise majestically above them. On the second day we made the big push to make it up to the snow line and touch the Himalayan snow. I’m not gonna lie, after we reached the snow, huffing and puffing and full of blisters, I couldn’t help but notice that Himalayan snow feels oddly similar to the snow in Maine I could touch by stepping out the experience.

And of course, no trip in India is complete without at least one event that completely throws you off and reminds you that you still don’t understand this place at all. In this case I managed two of these events back to back on the taxi ride from Dharamshala to the train station in a neighboring town. We were winding along a one lane highway on the edge of cliff when we took a quick “chai break” at a roadside dhaba when our driver joined us and proceeded to pull out a joint the size of a pencil. We tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and asked him if it was a cigarette. He assured us it was “the good stuff”. Fortunately, after some convincing he agreed to wait until he was done driving us along the edge of cliff before he got high. And they say professionalism is lost.

Next, we came across your typical Indian village, made slightly less typical by the huge crowd gathered around in a circle in a park. Not wanting to miss anything good, we had the now sulking cab driver pull over so we could check it out. It turned out the entire male population of the village had gathered around to watch about 12 guys wrestling each other in their underwear. I’ve had several instances in India now – on the road at night or in a bar in a smaller town – where I’ve been the only woman surrounded by a sea of men. While I’m always slightly phased in these circumstances, this was the first time I actually had to abandon the guys and wait for them at the edge of the park. Somehow, after the beauty of the Himalayas, watching a bunch of chubby middle aged Indian men in tightie-whities wrestle each other to the ground just wasn’t on my list. For once, I really don’t think the women were missing out on anything.

My acting resume grows

Director’s note: The following events are real. The conversations actually occurred exactly as they are recorded. Due to the absolutely ridiculous nature of the content, the names have been changes to protect the innocent.

Scene 1: R.P. Singh, a casting agent in Delhi, is casting 15 people for a Nokia commercial. The commercial will feature a hip party that looks international enough to be anywhere people are hip and use Nokia phones. He has 10 models from Delhi of a variety of skin tones. He throws in two random black people. He now needs two white people to complete the picture. Remembering the two gorgeous and talented actors he had the chance to work with in the blockbuster film of the century, he calls up JackandSuzanne.

Scene 2: The following day at 5 pm.

Having no other life, and lured by the promise of fame and fortune, JackandSuzanne arrive at a gorgeous mansion on the outskirts of Delhi. They have no idea what they have signed up for, other than that it is some sort of commercial possibly involving Nokia. They meet a slightly dorky Finish man, flown in from Nokia to oversee the shoot.

JackandSuzanne: So what exactly is this a commercial for?

Mr. Nokia: Well, we have not yet gone public with that information so I really can’t tell you. All I can say is that it is not a product, but it is not a software either. It is a project. Basically we are going to be changing the way people communicate.

JackandSuzanne: ?

It turns out that the “star” actor knows all about this new form of communication, which he doesn’t hesitate to tell JackandSuzanne about. In the interest of avoiding a lawsuit with Nokia, the detail of said project will not be revealed on this blog, but when it does come out just remember I had the inside information.

Scene3: JackandSuzanne encounter The Director

The Director: Oh no, no one told you that you were supposed to dress like you were going to a party

JackandSuzanne (looking down at their T-shirts and jeans, which they had specifically chosen because they were told to dress like they were going to a party and these are their shirts that don’t have stains on them): No, I guess they forgot that part

The Director: We will send a driver to your apartment to pick up some clothes

JackandSuzanne (on the phone to their roommate): Can you grab the clothes in the back of the closet that are so nice we’ve never worn them here once and give them to the man at the door

Scene 4. Lounging around the mansion with the a bunch of Indian people.

Attractive Indian girl: So are you guys also models?

JackandSuzanne (inner monologue): Um, I think you have to be attractive to be a model?

JackandSuzanne: No, we’re NGO workers (inner monologue: which is almost as cool)

Attractive Indian girl: Oh. So do you party?

JackandSuzanne: Oh you know it

Attractive Indian girl: Where do you go?

JackandSuzanne: drop the name of one bar we frequent way too often

Attractive Indian girl: Oh (condescension oozes). I prefer F Bar, Lava, and Lap.

JackandSuzanne( inner monologue): Heard of F bar and Lava, would cost us our monthly salary for cover charge and one drink.

JackandSuzanne: What is Lap, we’ve never heard of it?

Attractive Indian girl: Well, you do have to be a member to get in there

Scene 5. The hair and makeup room

JackandSuzanne-minus-Jack (inner monologue): Damn why doesn’t Jack have to come into the scary room? Life is so unfair. Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so judged by a group of girls in my entire life – this is like high school on steroids.

A 5’2’’ Indian man proceeds to put more makeup on JackandSuzanne-minus-Jack than she has worn in her entire life – combined.

Scene 6. JackandSuzanne sitting in the prep room. Zoolander enters. Zoolander is an 18 year old Indian male model whom JackandSuzanne just met. From a few short conversations with him it is extremely clear that he is not the brightest crayon in the box. Zoolander says nothing, just walks up to the floor length mirror and pulls his shirt up over his chest. He proceeds to swing his arms up, simultaneously breathing out and striking a bizarre model pose that accentuates his ridiculous 8-pack abs.

Zoolander: I love my abs

JackandSuzanne: Yes, they are very nice. Some of the nicest we’ve ever seen.

Zoolander: I can’t decide what to wear – he proceeds to try on multiple outfits and is actually asking JackandSuzanne to pick for him

Mr. Nokia enters the room looking for the bathroom

Zoolander: What do you think I should wear.

JackandSuzanne (inner monologue): I never thought I would see the day when a fashion model is asking us and a guy in khaki’s and a corporate-issued polo shirt what he should wear for a photo shirt.

Later in the evening JackandSuzanne will watch as Zoolander spends 15 minutes sitting in the corner by himself taking a picture of himself on his cell phone, turning it around, admiring it, and then repeating the process.

Scene 7. JackandSuzanne proceed to be involved in numerous party scenes. As is the case with all tech-related commercials, there is no dialogue, everything plays out while a bouncy, up-beat tune plays in the background. Do to the lack of dialogue, JackandSuzanne have been upgraded from extras to key players, and actually interact with the “star” actor in a scene. At 12 midnight they break for dinner. They eat food. The models eat cigarettes and water. At 3:30am the shoot wraps.

End Scene

Field Photo Gallery

I've never been good about taking pictures. I generally forget to take them or when I do remember they turn out fairly miserably. Luckily, the digital age has a solution for this in the form picture-mooching off friends who are more photographically inclined. These are Aakash's pictures from Chhindwara, the destination of our most recent field visit.

A school - this is larger than most

Kids testing out the crayons we gave them

standard cow traffic jam

random waterfall we stumbled across

Kids in an Anganwadi center, which is free preschool

A government-run health clinic

We measure people's "peak flow" which is how much air passes through their lungs and is generally correlated to overall health

The wild ride that is rural India

Whew, I am back in Delhi at last – it feels like I’ve barely been here for the last few months, I’ve been spending a lot more time out in the field, which is interesting to say the least. My first trip was with Aakash to a district called Jhabua, where we checked in with our surveyors and explored the area a bit. Jhabua is our most tribal district, and it was really interesting to see the tribal villages, because they are noticeably different in terms of the villagers houses, clothing, and lifestyle. We were told to be slightly careful because visitors to these areas are sometimes shot with bows and arrows! Once we started talking with them, though, all the villagers were really friendly and seemed excited to talk with us. Even more than talking, they were pumped to share their Toddy with us, which is a local alcohol and one of their major sources of livelihood. And let me tell you, Toddy is not your basic microbrew.

It is basically the sap of these palm trees that grow in the area, and it doesn’t even need to ferment, you just collect it off the tree and drink it straight. Here is the exact Toddy process: First you scale the palm tree and leave jugs at the top to collect the sap. A few weeks later, you again climb the tree and collect all the sap (these dudes literally shimmy up the palm tree in about 20 seconds).

Starting up to collect the goods

The problem with the collection process is that bees fly into the booze and drown in it, so after you collect it you poor it through a filter to collect all the dead bees. Once you’ve filtered out those suckers, you’re ready to drink.

Filtering out the bees, yummy

The stuff doesn’t exactly taste good but it seems to be pretty strong and the tribesmen (not to mention our surveyors) were getting a huge kick out of the fact that I was willing to drink it.

This guy is a vetran Toddy collector, and made it up the palm tree in record time

In addition to learning to drink like a villager, I also learned their most common gambling game, which is called Carrom board. Carrom board is sort of like pool except its played with checkers on a wooden board and you try to slide them into the pockets. Ok that was a pretty pathetic description but if you look at the pictures it kind of makes sense.

Apparently Aakash had played before, so he suggested we try to take on the two village guys. Fortunately we didn’t put any money on the game, because I learned that I am just as pathetic at Carrom board as I am at pool. Pretty soon the entire village had gathered around to watch the white girl attempt to play. I quickly became their charity case, and they all started trying to coach me. The best part is that I actually improved and in the end I think I actually made my coach proud of his new protégé. Needless to say I really would have preferred to work 24/7 while in Jhabua, and yet was forced to bridge the cultural gap by drinking and playing Carrom with the villagers. The sacrifices I make for the good of the project…

Jeep top: our primary mode of transportation. And yes, to fit more people in they actually ride on the hood.

After Jhabua, Aakash headed back to Delhi and Jack came down and joined me for a quick three day tour of Rajgarh, another one of our districts. Somehow in just three days we managed to get into quite the shitshow, for lack of a better word. Challenge number one was to get ourselves from the city out to the village to meet up with Purshottam, one of our Indian coworkers who was already there. Amazingly we managed to get on the right bus, and we were quite proud of ourselves, until we of course got off at the wrong stop and ended up wandering around asking everyone for the Hotel Orange Residency. We walked past the Hotel Anand Residency entirely too many times before we realized that was, in fact what Purshottam had been talking about all along. On day 2, we went to visit a small town. We had been in said town exactly 60 seconds when we were “pulled over” by a cop (I don’t know what you call it when you’re a pedestrian and you get pulled over). The cop informed us that we had to go check in at the police station and show them our passports. Clearly Rajgarh is not yet ready for international tourism. We ended up spending an hour trying to prove to the cops that we were just looking around the town and not up to anything shady. He insisted that we give him a copy of our passports, which would have been fine except that Jack had left his at the hotel, which was over an hour away. We figured they would leave it at that, but that night they actually showed up at our hotel to get the copy. We weren’t sure if we should be proud or upset that it was worth it to them to travel over an hour just to get the copies. The best part is we still didn’t have a copy because the entire town our hotel was in had a power outage all day. The cop actually waited there for another hour for the power to come on just so he could get the copy. You know how some restaurants post pictures of celebrities who have eaten there? I think that the Biora police station is going to frame and post the copies of our passports with a little plaque underneath that says “these white people came here”. We should have signed them.

By day 3, we decided we should head back to the larger city since we were not exactly getting a warm reception from the smaller towns. We started with breakfast at a roadside stand. We were about halfway through when there was an explosion in the dhaba right next to ours, like about 20 feet away. Amazingly, the workers there seemed ok, although they were pretty badly burned. We were pretty shaken up and decided to go straight to the bus stand and get out of this district, which clearly had it in for us. We made it on to the right bus (go us) and sat right behind the driver. We made it through the first 20 minutes of the ride event-free, when a car passing us somehow hit a rock at the right angle to fling it into the front windshield, completely shattering it all over the driver and the front the bus. I have no idea how, but the driver was completely fine. I literally pulled a shard of glass out of my chin, but was otherwise fine, as was Jack. What’s even more ridiculous is that the driver barely missed a beat. He pulled over, brushed all the glass away, and then just kept right on driving. We drove the remaining four hours to Bhopal with no front windshield! Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more ridiculous, a bee was sucked in through the lack of windshield and stung me. Seriously? Overall it was an amazing trip, but also one of the most ridiculous 48 hours I’ve ever had, and I think both Jack and I were pretty glad to be back to the “peace and calm” of Delhi.

My hand is tired from signing autographs

So as you may remember, back in October I made a new best friend named Jules. You may know her as Julia Roberts. On the way to becoming best friends, I also dabbled in acting, showing a large repertoire of walking, standing, and bollywood dancing. After months of sleepless nights in anticipation of my debut, the Eat Pray Love trailer was released, or at least now shows up on youtube. While watching it, Jack managed to hit pause at exactly the right moment to view our glory. I can guarantee you that this moment passes so quickly you can try 100 times to re-pause it and will not succeed. Thus, the still fame below is the only way to see my 0.15 seconds of fame. Please note the red circles, clearly indicating, from left to right: Jack (in amazing red hat), Me (10 shades more pale than anyone else in the shot), and Julia (clearly in the midst of thinking how amazing I am as an extra and planning our next shopping trip).