And my sanity returns...

Whew, sorry about the dramatics in that last one, I think it was the mini-plague speaking. I am now cured or least for now until I inevitablly consume something else that does me in. I can’t really say that too much of great thrill or excitement has happened – would you believe it that sitting all day at a computer in India is extremely similar to sitting all day at a computer in the U.S? Craaazy. I am definitely looking forward to our visits to the field in August to see some more of India.

I did manage to meet up with another American who has been living in Delhi for a year. We determined that the way we “knew” each other was that she worked with a guy who lived with a guy who lived with a girl who now lives with a girl who I am friends with from college. Oh, and Kevin Bacon is in there somewhere. Regardless of our degrees of separation, I’m sure we will be facebook friends soon which thereby makes us BFF. She was great though because she was able to tell us a ton of places to go in Delhi and things to see, etc.

And finally, drum roll please, the moment you all have been waiting for…I found a pool and went swimming today! It was so great to be back in the water. I came to the sad realization that I hadn’t been swimming in three weeks, which is officially the longest I’ve gone without swimming since the summer of 2003. What do you think that says about the levels of chlorine in my body? Possibly slightly elevated. But this pool is fabulous and even a full 50m long. The water smells a tad weird and my skin itches a wee bit after I get out but those are really irrelevant details. Anyway, I’m sure you all are super excited to hear about this but clearly if you came to this site you were pretty bored anyway…

journeying out of Delhi

Hi Team,

Sorry for the delayed post – I seem to be suffering from a bit of “Delhi belly” which has been good times. I’m still not feeling great but the fact that I can sit up and be at the computer is a vast improvement.

So after working at least 12 days in a row we finally realized last week that we had a potential two days with a limited workload and decided to really go crazy and give ourselves a weekend. In order to celebrate, Little Ditty and I headed up north to Amritsar, in the state of Punjab. To get there we took the overnight train, which was kind of a cool experience in itself. The definite plus side was that we took the sleeper car, so we could actually lie down and sleep. The negative side was that the windows were open so anytime we passed another train it was so loud and the train shook so bad there was no way you could actually sleep for more than an hour at a time. And then there were these Chai-men who walked through the cars at all hours of the night shouting “Chaaaaaaai Chaaaaaaaaaai Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai” like the peanut guys at baseball games. I don’t know why they thought that at 3am if they just shouted a little louder someone would wake up and buy their tea. I think they need a new business plan.

Anyway we arrived in Amritsar and headed to the Golden Temple, which is what the town is most famous for. It’s a Sikh temple that is the largest in all of India and is absolutely breathtaking. The coolest part is that while you are in the temple there is constantly a priest on a microphone chanting these soothing rhythms that are blasted out over the whole complex, which was such a relief from the usual sounds of India (cars and honking horns).

Oddly enough even though Amritsar is a big tourist destination our skin color made us pretty big celebrities there. We are now in pictures on numerous cameras throughout India, which is unlucky for those folks since none of us had showered in a few days and were definitely not pulling off the mandatory head coverings very well. It was also adorable because little kids would come up to us and stick out their hands and give us a handshake and then look mortified and giggle and run back to their parents – so cute!

To top off our day we ate dinner in an Indian restaurant that was going for a sort of 1950s American diner theme and playing all this great throwback 1980s soft rock including but not limited to Celine Dion’s My Hear Will Go On. Yessss.

Anyway, we’re back in Delhi now and my current goal is to be able to stay awake for more than four hours in a row and then who knows? Maybe even be able to keep down solid foods? Well I don’t want to get too ambitious.

First few weeks here in a nutshell

So I guess I’ll start with some details…

I am living in Delhi and currently live with two fellow Research Assistants on the project, Jack and Diane. From now on I will refer to them as “Little Ditty” (wait what is she talking ab...oh wait I get it, like the song, haha). Two other RAs will be joining us shortly. Naturally the only one of us who speaks a word of Hindi gets here last. Unlucky.

When we first got here we were introduced to Sreela, a wonderful woman who works with CPR, our Indian employer. Sreela was unlucky enough to be put in charge of us. I will get a picture of her up here at some point but basically imagine you just got off a plane in India and are thinking that you wish you knew someone in India who could serve as a mother-figure while you are here. Enter Sreela. So far my favorite moment with her was at lunch on our first day when she casually asked us how long we were going to be here. We told her a year or two and you could literally see the fear and terror sweeping across her face. Apparently she thought we were summer interns. It was as though you could see her running the calculations in her head: she had already given us her cell number, would it be easier to get a new number and inform all her friends, realtives, and coworkers or to have to deal with these three clueless Americans for over a year…tough call.

Most of our first few days here have consisted of trying to buy things for our apartment, trying to negotiate with rickshaw drivers, trying to figure out what exactly our jobs are, and sweating. A lot. In case you were curious standing in line for four hours to get your visa registered in India is a lot like standing in line for four hours at the DMV. It really is a small world after all. Little Ditty and I have also decided that so far the only way we’re solving global poverty is by paying way too much for everything and getting ripped off at every turn. The best is when they even point it out and say “for you, special price” as if we need a reminder that we paid four times as much for our rickshaw ride as any local would every pay and they are laughing at us on the inside (and sometimes on the outside too now that I think about it). But for the record we are slowly getting better at this world of bargaining and will probably get the price down to twice what it should be by the time we leave.

Little Ditty and I do pretty much everything together and frankly they have quickly become my security blanket here. Coincidently, Diane also does races involving swimming, biking, and running (or triathlons as some in the business would call them). Sidenote – while she is entirely too modest to admit it I think it’s a very good thing that there aren’t any races here because I get the distinct feeling she would get extremely bored waiting for me at the finish line because she is quite kick-ass and raced for the Cal team. Anyway, being the triathletes that we are we naturally both bring a suit, cap and goggles with us everywhere and thus set out to find a pool in Delhi. As luck would have it, there is a sports complex about two blocks from our apartment! Yes! And, its not even just a vacant lot that one calls a sports complex, but looks fairly legit! (Yes! And, it even has a swimming pool! Not just a pool, but an Olympic sized pool! Yes! And, its closed for approximately one year for renovations.

Oh so close. So very close. We comfort ourselves by pretending we would have gotten rashes from the water.

I am realizing this blog is a lot of Seinfeld and not very Rick Steves and talks less about global poverty than Brad and Angelina. I’ll give you a moment to google all those mad cultural references. I really hope that no one out there thinks I am making light of India’s people, culture, and most importantly poverty. I can honestly say that so far everyone one I have come across here, whether its someone I’ve met and interacted with, asked for directions, or even just seen on the street has treated me with respect and has been extremely friendly. And the poverty is very real. You cannot go one day here without being reminded of it. I really do hope that by working on this project I am doing at least one little thing to make one tiny dent in this huge problem.

That said, I have a feeling the rest of this blog is going to focus more on the lighter, funnier side of things because, well, most of my life I focus on the lighter and funnier of things. And its more fun to write. What can I say folks, even in India the glass is still half full. Assuming it’s a glass of filtered and sterilized bottled water that was adequately sealed and comes from a trusted and reliable source.

First post - wooooooo

So I am sitting here in bed in Delhi and despite being here for a little over a week I still can’t seem to get this whole sleeping normal hours thing down. So I figured now was as good a time as any to start that blog I told everyone back home I was going to write. And yes, I realize that blogging is like so 5 years ago, but don’t worry in a few years I’ll start a Twitter and none of you can follow that either. I should also mention that as many of you know I am extremely technologically unsaavy so I of course am actually writing this in Microsoft Word and will figure out how to actually post it online at some later date. But hey, it’s a start.

So I’m not really sure what this blog is going to be or what it will contain but I can give you a few things not to expect. First, this will not be any sort of me saving the world story a la Mountains Beyond Mountains or Three Cups of Tea. Lets be honest people – you know me and I’m not that good…yet. It will also not be full of deep and profound statements of the life altering nature. I do intend to have such thoughts and feelings here and am hoping for a lot of personal growth and changes in my perspectives but somehow the words “personal” and “world wide web” are not synonymous to me. Go figure.

I guess what I would expect is a lot of random observations, stories, and some good examples of me getting confused, lost, and/or making a general ass out of myself and hopefully some cool explorations of a new country and culture. So hopefully every so often you’ll be sitting at your desk and have reached the end of facebook and read every random news article you care to read for the day and think to yourself I wonder what Sooz has gotten herself into over there. Oh, and I will take some pictures at some point and put them on here, I swear.

A brief bit on what I am doing in India. I’m not totally sure. I am working on a project with six economists from the U.S. as well as a number of Indian organizations that each come with an acronym that is extremely difficult to remember. We will be surveying and mapping health care facilities and households throughout India, trying to understand where people go to receive care and what type of care they get. Eventually we will come up with potential ways to improve this care (hopefully) and then test the effectiveness of these interventions. Or something like that.

Ok well apparently all it took to make me tired enough to sleep was a mere description of the project we are starting so I guess that’s it for today. Until next time…

Oh, and all that stuff about it being hot in Delhi is total BS meant to keep tourists away and its actually 75 degrees out and fabulous. (ok people this was an easy one if the sarcasm in my voice didn’t come through on that the rest of this blog is going to be a challenge for you:)