Erik - Delhi, Week 4

Namaste, everyone,

I'm sorry this blog post is a few days late, for those of you keeping up.  A number of factors, including being busy with work, feeling under the weather, and a sometimes struggling internet connection have left me unwilling/unable to work on this blog post until today.  Better late than never, I suppose!

It's so weird thinking about how close my stay here is to being completed.  As of today, I have exactly ten days left in India before I head back home.  Time's passage seems very slow as it happens, but looking back it always feels like it's racing forward!  So many emotions are fighting within me - I definitely feel that's there's more to my story here in India (hopefully the next week and a half will bring with it closure), but I'm anxious to get back home to see all my family and friends and talk about our summer adventures (and to eat a lot of meat/hamburgers, which I have desperately missed since coming to a primarily vegetarian country!).

Last week at work wasn't all that interesting.  Most of the kids were on summer holiday, spending some time with their families, so the number of children in the homes was down to about a quarter of their size.  Additionally, no one really wanted to do too much with me or any of the other volunteers.  The summers here in Delhi are very, very hot - it's been told to me that along with Rajasthan and Maharashtra, Delhi's summers are one of the hottest! - and the temperature reaches about 110°F every day; combine this with the frequent power outages that leave the fans and water coolers useless and it leads to a very lethargic group of kids (and adults).

One of the few interesting things that happened this past week at work didn't involve work at all.  At the Ummeed Home for boys on Saturday, instead of any sort of English lesson (those are getting rapidly phased out in favor of just spending time with the students and playing with them while using English, since no one's interested in classes right now), some of the older boys taught me how to play carrom, a game I had never heard of or played before coming here.  It involves a board smooth board with four holes in the corners and a circle in the middle, with a bunch of chips placed on the board.  You have to try to use a striker (a bigger chip) and flick it at the smaller ones on the board, pushing them into the holes in the corners.  Each one you get in get points, and you have to have at least ten points to not be eliminated from play.  It can be a lot of fun, but I'm forced to face my limitations every time we play it!  It sounds really simple, but there's a certain balance between speed and aim you have to hit, something my brain seems to understand but my fingers don't!  The boys are very skilled at this game, and even the girls, who aren't nearly as good, still don't have much of a problem easily eliminating me from competition.  Still, the practice can't be making me any worse (I hope).

A carrom board (photo taken from Wikipedia)

Aside from work, I also decided to make a trip to Old Delhi on my Sunday off.  I had heard nothing but bad things about this part of town since before even having arrived in India, but I figured the historical sites found there would be interesting enough to be worth the trip.  I personally really liked Old Delhi, and found that while a lot of what I had heard was true (that it was dirty and overcrowded), it was definitely not as bad I had built it up to be in my head.  There were so many pictures I wanted to take, but I only realized I had forgotten to charge my camera battery after Agra after leaving the Chandni Chowk metro station.  Oh well!

It was a very tiring day - it was extremely hot (even by Indian standards!) and without my water bottle at the Red Fort complex for 45 minutes, I got very dehydrated very quickly.  Having passed by a McDonald's on the way there, I decided to walk back and take advantage of the free air conditioning/free availability of meat and Sprite to cool off and rehydrate before making my way to the Jamia Masjid.  It was a nice visit, and my first time to an American restaurant since arriving, so it was a comfortable change of pace from having Indian food at home almost all the time.  After recharging my batteries, I walked to the Jamia Masjid and decided to go inside.  As it's both a mosque and a historical site, there was a 300 rupee ticket for entry, which I was fine paying.  I entered the mosque's courtyard, and immediately noticed that the man I sold the ticket to was following me and trying to act as a tour guide - not as a very good one, since he spoke no English and I speak no Hindi, so mostly this just involved pointing at stuff for me to take photos of.  I was suspicious right away - tour guides in India (whether their services are requested or not, free or not) will always, always, always demand a tip, and it's usually more than you want to pay.  Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge in Hindi worked against me that day, as I tried to politely tell him "I don't need your help, thank you" in English to no avail.  So after getting a 20 minute tour and taking a few photos, he demanded a 200 rupee tip, which left me extremely annoyed and my ego deflated.  Still, it was a gorgeous monument that I am very excited to have seen, and I suppose it's not worth getting upset over getting "gouged" the equivalent of about $3.50.  Overall, my day in Old Delhi was rather fun, even if I was pretty anxious to get back home and out of the heat once I was done sightseeing.

A view of Old Delhi

The entrance to the Red Fort, known as the Lahore Gate

A view of the Jamia Masjid, India's biggest mosque

Well anyway, that's it for now.  Again, not an especially exciting week, but there's always something to talk about in Delhi.

Until next time, see ya!

Erik