A Holiday gift in the form of a life lesson - lucky you!

As some of you (particularly Eastern Market swimmers and anyone who attended Bowdoin’s graduation last year) might know, I managed to turn lap swimming into a contact sport and wound up with a sweet black eye. As it turns out, I can also turn running into a contact sport. Let me preface this story by saying I am totally fine, just sporting a few large scrapes and bruises. Now for story time.

Since the pool is closed for the winter, I have resorted to running laps on the road that circles our apartment complex because a) there is very little traffic and b) by now everyone in the neighborhood knows there are white kids living in 155 and one of them is prone to jogging (or yogging, as some would call it) so they don’t stare at me as I huff and puff and generally struggle along. So yesterday morning I have the ipod on, am totally in my zone strutting along, when it occurs to me that it is almost New Years, and thus I should take some time to reflect on the last year. Just as I’m thinking to myself “what are the major events that have happened over the last year?” BAM! A guy on a motorcycle literally drives straight into my back, sending me flying forward sprawled out face first on the pavement. Even as I was flying through the air all I could think of was the irony. Once I realized nothing hurt too badly, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing as I was sprawled out, and of course the guy who hit me doesn’t speak English so he’s now thinking I’ve hit my head and gone insane. Luckily I was totally fine and he apologized profusely and bent down to kiss my leg where I was bleeding, at which point I hightailed it back home…

I’ve decided that given the completely classic timing of the event it is clearly a sign, and thus I’ve decided my lesson of ’09 is that sometimes life throws an Indian man on a motorcycle at your back and before you know it you’re face first on the asphalt thinking maybe you should just lay there for a while. But, if you can find a way to laugh about it and get some motivation to pick those pebbles out of your forehead, you’re that much stronger for it and you’ve got a story to share with your friends. So there you have it folks…your knowledge bomb of the day.

Sadly, other than taking a national holiday so that they can get the day off of work India does not deck the halls, so this year has been sorely lacking for me in Christmas spirit. Mom and Dad did come through with a sweet box o’ gifts, which I’ve been working my way through while playing Christmas music, so at least that’s something. Plus, to add to our house’s holiday spirit, Jack’s parents send him Hanukah in a box, which managed to arrive the day after Hanukkah. Luckily for Jack, for honorary Jews such as myself, the 9^th night of Hanukkah is really what we do best. Our bosses also got a touch of the holiday spirit and gave us a week off, and it’s a little known fact that when Santa can’t have eggnog he prefers a pina colada, so in his honor I’m heading to Sri Lanka tomorrow for some serious beach time.

Merry Christmas to everyone out there and I'll see you in 2010!

Kolkata, Calcutta, potato, po-ta-to

My two week tour d’India continues, for the last 9 days I have been in Kolkata, once again living out of a hotel room and helping to train surveyors. I feel like I’m living the life of a consultant - traveling alone to places, working non-stop, and ordering food from the hotel room service night after night. Of course somehow I don’t think consultants share their room with a large array of bugs, attempt to navigate public transportation in cities where no one seems to speak English, or have to deal with cold bucket showers. I guess this would be consulting done NGO style. I’ve really enjoyed getting to see Kolkata and the villages surrounding it, but now that I’m sitting in the airport I have to admit I’m really looking forward to getting back to Delhi and having some social interaction beyond thanking the room service guy for his excellent delivery skills.
Unfortunately, Kolkata is a bit of an intense city. Everything is covered in a layer of dirt and grime and it is brutally loud and crowded. I haven’t really had much free time here, and since the city is on the very eastern edge of the country (which, despite its large size is all in one time zone), the sun sets at about 4:30 which left me with little daylight to do any exploring. I did manage to take Sunday off and made an attempt at being a tourist which ended up being a complete Kolkata-fail. I started off fairly successfully and managed to get to the main landmark, which is a palace called the Victoria Memorial.

The Victoria Memorial - my one tourist success!

It was actually quite impressive, with beautiful gardens all around it and a nice museum inside describing how the British f’ed over Calcutta. After, I attempted to walk to another neighborhood that supposedly has cool architecture, but got completely lost in the crowded maze of streets. The problem was I couldn’t take out my map because as soon as I did I was surrounded by about 1,000 people, none of whom I could communicate with of course, who would all offer their 2 cents about which way I should go. I gave up and hailed a cab and attempted to tell him where I wanted to go. Fail number 2. I must have been saying something wrong because we circled around for about a half hour and ended up right back where we started. At this point I was so burned out that this Colonial Architecture the guide book talked about wasn’t sounding nearly as interesting as it had in the morning.
I accepted defeat and headed back to my hotel room. Then, in the ultimate of ironies, I turned on the TV to discover they were showing Outsourced, a movie about a guy who comes to work in India and experiences total culture shock. I embraced the beauty of the moment and spent the afternoon in my room laughing at this guy as he struggled in India. What a loser. Oh wait. Although the movie itself isn’t anything spectacular, it’s pretty hilarious if you’ve been here because it’s so true in so many ways (except for the fact that everyone he deals with magically speaks English). Still, I was impressed with how many little Indiaisms they managed to show – especially the way Indians always say “no problem, no problem” and shake their head back and forth even when there clearly is a problem and they clearly aren’t going to be able to fix it.
I managed to snap a few pictures of the city and the countryside, for all the city’s lack of beauty, the countryside definitely made up for it. It was incredibly lush and green and there was water everywhere. Sorry my pictures don’t do it justice!

I failed to fully capture it, but this was this super rickety wooden bridge that I thought I should take a picture of before our car attempted to use it. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be there any more after it tried to support the weight of our car...

One of my trainees interviewing my favorite doctor. First of all he was super fun and cheery and second of all when we asked him to list new medicines he had heard of he listed "Sooz-75". I don't know what it claims to cure but clearly I would take it in a heart beat.
Saminar primary school

While the people I'm "training" administer surveys to the teachers I distract their students by making faces and generally being pale and white.

Greetings from Pune, a city in Southish India along the west coast. I am here for a week helping one of our field coordinators train the people who are conducting our surveys. I can’t say I’m enormously helpful, seeing as most of the training is in Mahrahti. Fortunately, Mahrati is really similar to Hindi, which I can at least follow somewhat, and most of the guys know some English. We are training a group of 20 guys, all of which look to be between 20 and 25, and seem extremely terrified to talk to me. Good thing I’m not trying to flirt with them or that would surely scare them off! We are working through medical cases that they are going to survey the doctors about. I think it’s safe to say the low point for me was when the trainer didn’t know what constipation was I had to explain it to the group of college-aged guys. Yeah. That went real well.
I don’t really have any time to explore Pune, although I did have the first afternoon I got here free. I attempted to go to the Osho Ashram, which is the main tourist destination here. The Osho Ashram was founded by this guy who proclaimed himself a guru and promoted using sex as a way to find yourself. It still operates now, and there were a ton of people walking around in robes who are in the process of finding themselves…riiiiight. I attempted to take the free visitors tour, but was told they just had to shut it down due to a pending lawsuit. Then I read that in order to set foot in the Ashram you have to take a mandatory HIV test. Now I’m definitely glad I couldn’t take the tour because I have visions of stepping through the gate and immediately getting jumped by some guy all in the name of him finding himself.
Thus far, though, Pune is my favorite place in India. What is so great about it? Amazing vistas? Historic temples? Great culture? No no, none of those. One word: Television. Yes, my hotel room has a TV, and every time I turn it on they are either showing Friends or Desperate Housewives. It’s as if there is a channel out there that is catering specifically to me. I get back to the room at 9pm, Friends is on. I turn it on at 7am when I get up, its DHW. Amazing! Then, in a rare moment of brazenness I navigated away from this channel and found a 2008 gymnastics meet between University of Arkansas and Alabama. Talk about random! I’m sure that D-1 athletes at decent programs across the country have no idea that a few years from now some family in rural India will be gathered around their prized position watching their meet!
I must admit, working with the surveyors and going out to the villages to interview doctors is still slightly cooler than all the Friends reruns. I’m sorry for the lack of pictures, we try to keep a somewhat low profile when we go into the villages, which is obviously completely impossible given that I’m a white female, but me snapping a bunch of pictures definitely wouldn’t help. Being here has also made me appreciate how diverse the US really is. It’s so bizarre to me that I have been in Pune, which is a huge city of 5 million people, for five days, and I have not seen a single non-Indian. There were a few whities at the airport, so I suppose there are some others wandering the streets here somewhere, but I have yet to spot them. The worst part is that if I have a huge stain on my shirt or my hair looks crazy I have no way of knowing it, because everyone is staring at me all the time anyway.