The Delhi Metro

Considering I spend two hours everyday on the metro, I thought it merited its own blog post. The Delhi Metro is vastly nicer (albeit 100 years younger) than the New York City subway, although the city is not as well connected as NYC is. The trains run incredibly frequently: I've never had to wait more than 3 minutes for a train. In the morning it can be quite crowded, but not much more than New York City at rush hour. A key difference is the Ladies Only car, which is inevitably always less crowded. Another difference is the security, as you're required to have your bags scanned and to pass through a metal detector every time you enter a station. Overall, I thoroughly enjoy travelling by metro -- the swift, efficient underground offers a welcome contrast to the chaotic, noise polluted (and air polluted) streets.

To get to work, Gabby and I take the Yellow line from Green Park to Central Secretariate, then switch to the Violet Line to Kailash Colony 

My First week in Delhi!

My first week in Delhi has been amazing. I am living with a great family in Green Park, a nice neighborhood in the South of Delhi. The streets are all lined with trees and there are parks around practically every corner. The Jerath family consists of the father, Rocky; the mother, Geetika; the 20-year old daughter, Rishika; the 13-year old son, Rahul; and Rocky’s sister, Nina. They have all been so welcoming and I felt at home immediately. They enjoy How I Met Your Mother, and when I learned that I knew right away we’d get along. There is also another volunteer here, Gabby, who is 19 and from the UK. She is a firecracker. Funny, bright, and able to banter with everyone, Gabby and I hit it off right away. She is also an invaluable guide. She has been here since January and knows her way around. We are working at the same project, and she has shown me the best ways to get there, the best places to eat, and the best places to get orange juice on the street.

            We are working at the Delhi Commonwealth Women’s Association Hospital, although it is more like a clinic as there are no beds and none of the patients stay overnight. The medical aspect of volunteering at the clinic involves mostly observing the doctors as they treat patients throughout the day. Nearly all interactions are done in Hindi, though, so it is a challenging process. There is also a van that drives out to poorer areas to distribute medicine: Gabby spends most of her mornings in the van. She is training to be a nurse and has worked in a hospital before, so she already has some experience. The aspect that appealed most to me at the hospital is the nursery school that they run for local children. Every day, nearly 100 3-4 year olds gather in 4 classrooms to learn their ABCs and the Hindi equivalent. The day consists of a period of writing, a period of reciting the alphabets, a break for recess, and then a period of doing colors, numbers or songs and poems. I have been working there since Monday and I really enjoy it. The kids speak no English, so I communicate partly through my broken Hindi but mostly through hand gestures and facial expressions. All the students are adorable. The teachers have been very kind and welcoming to me. Throughout the morning I will assist with writing, quell disputes over blocks, and once or twice I have led the class in Twinkle, Twinkle and Baa Baa Black Sheep. Sometimes I just sit and observe the teachers, who all have divinely inspired patience. I am gaining quite a lot through watching them.

            In the afternoon, after a leisurely lunch break during which Gabby and I explore the surrounding neighborhood and then settle down in a park with some street food, Gabby and I tutor older students who attend a local private school but are sponsored through donations from the DCWA. This is also an entertaining experience, as I get to see what sort of things they are learning in school. Most of it is fairly similar to what we learn in the States. One of the boys in 6^th Class is taking French, and as I was helping him with his homework I experienced this bizarre, international phenomenon of communicating in 3 languages at once. While the curriculum is very comprehensive, the way of learning is very different than what I experienced growing up. They do practically everything by rote. One girl was studying for her science test, but it seemed to me more like she was learning lines than studying. They can repeat their notes verbatim, but when you ask them to give their own example, or extrapolate just a little bit, they are lost. It’s definitely made me appreciate the “not for school but for life” aspect of my education. Nonetheless, the kids are quite bright and it is fun getting to know them. I think I am going to enjoy my 7 weeks working at the hospital. 

Two photos of the outside of the hospital -- more pictures to come! 

From Jaipur to Delhi

On Saturday, February 23^rd, I woke up at 5 am. I had spent the previous night stuffing all my belongings (not even all of them as I left many things behind) into my suitcase and backpack, zipping, sweating and swearing until everything finally fit. I had said my goodbyes to the people in the house, whom I would miss very much. Friday night there had been a torrential rainstorm, and I was really worried my rickshaw driver wouldn’t show up the following morning and I would miss my train, etc. etc., but fortunately those fears were in vain. He was there at 545, as requested, and at 6 we set off for the train station.

I had taken the train the previous weekend with Greta and Sophie, so I knew generally what to expect. A porter met me as I disembarked from the rickshaw and I immediately took him up on his offer to help me and my bags to my platform for 200 rupees. My train left at 720 and it was 630 when I arrived, so I had quite a bit of time to spare, but I didn’t be mind. I’d rather be an hour early than 5 minutes late.

When the train did arrive, right on time, I was able to board with minimal struggle. The biggest challenge was storing my enormous suitcase. Fortunately, it just fit underneath one of the seats in my car, and just fitting was enough. I was in 3-AC, which means an air-conditioned car with three tiers of seats. I was in the upper berth, which means I had to climb a ladder and sit on a raised bench where I couldn’t do anything but sleep. This was all right with me, though, as I hadn’t slept much the night before. 5 hours passed in a whir and at 12:10 I got off the train in Delhi Sarai Rohilla station: my time in Delhi had begun! 

My seat

3-AC (the enormous green bag to the right is my suitcase!)

My Final Week In Jaipur

My last week in Jaipur passed quickly. On Tuesday, Liesbet and I went to Galta Gate (also known as the monkey temple) to see one of the view attractions in Jaipur I hadn’t yet visited. The rickshaw ride took close to an hour to get there. The Monkey Temple is actually a series of temples located in a barren spot between two rocky mountains. There are several huge pools of water where we saw women bathing – whether it was for a religious purpose or simply to get clean I couldn’t tell. There were also, as one might expect, many many monkeys. They, like all the monkeys I’ve seen in India, were unfazed by people and just carried on their monkey routines.

            Friday was my last day at the project, and I will say right now that at first it was rather anticlimactic. It began like every other Friday with the girls asking for games and drawing. In the first hour the only remarkable thing about my last day was that Komal did some mehandi (henna) on my arm. Akshat, the brother of one of my students who frequently hangs around my class, was the first one to mention that it was my last day, and that he would miss me.

            A bit later, I handed out the small gifts that I had brought: chocolates, mechanical pencils and some decorative hair clips. Again, it did not go as I expected – rather than displaying gratitude, the girls behaved as if getting gifts were par for the course, and there was nothing special about it. As I drove away from Ninder from the last time, it occurred to me that to my girls, there WAS nothing special about today. Volunteers come and go all the time. I have been referring to them as MY girls, but they are many other people’s girls too. While I thought I was enlightening them and making such an impact on them and they’d be eternally grateful to me for teaching them, etc. etc., the real truth of the matter is that THEY left a much more profound impact on ME than I ever could on them. It was a valuable, humbling realization, and a good one to have considering I have 3 more months left of volunteering. It doesn’t alter the affection I feel towards my students, nor does it lessen my motivation to volunteer. It simply made me appreciate what my trip is about. I set out to make a difference to other people, but more than anything, those other people have made a difference to me. 

My Last Weekend in Jaipur

This past weekend was my last in Jaipur, and it was a great weekend to go out on. Saturday I went on a day a trip with Greta and Sophie, two girls from the house (from Germany and California, respectively). We took the train two hours to a nearby town called Sambhar. The train itself was an experience, and not an unpleasant one. We went sleeper class, which is the second lowest class but you have a guaranteed seat. I was glad to have travelled by train with Sophie and Greta (who had both taken the train several times before) because I decided that next weekend, when I make my move to Delhi, I will go by train rather than hiring a car.

After an uneventful journey, we disembarked and began walking through the town. There was not a tourist in sight: we were off the beaten track. Greta chose this location because there is a 230 km long salt lake, though we had to wander around quite a bit before we found it. Wandering, however, was my favorite part of the day. It was a small town with winding streets and colorful houses, and it was enjoyable just to explore this new place we had found. People were fascinated by us, and children would frequently run up to us, wave, and then run away giggling. At one point, a woman approached us and by communicating with her in my broken Hindi I learned she was teacher, and she asked us to go into her school. We walked into the building that was FILLED with boys and girls in uniforms, all incredibly amused to see us.

Inside the school

Me and the head of school (center) and one of the teachers (right)

We finally found the lake, and it was an interesting change of scenery to see a body of water in the desert setting. There wasn't very much water in it as it is the dry season (although it had rained the night before so there was more water than usual). It stretched far beyond where we could see.

After finding the lake, we walked around a bit more. We ate some street food and sipped some chai and were approached by more giggling children. At 6:30 we boarded our train home and made it back in an hour. It was a lovely day in the country.

Sunday morning I slept in and then spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to pack my suitcase with my new acquisitions. (After much pushing and squeezing, I was able to make it work.) That afternoon, Greta, Sophie and I went to the cinema. I had so much fun. We saw the movie Special 26, with a bollywood actor named Akshay Kumar whom I like. It was a heist movie (almost like an Indian Ocean's 11), and even though it was in Hindi with no subtitles we were still able to enjoy it. The movie theater itself was gorgeous. It is the Raj Mandir, and one of the moviegoers informed us it was the first cinema in Asia (that fact has not been verified). It is a cotton candy pink building and the inside looks like a movie theater from the 30s or 40s. They only show one movie, 4 times a day, and tickets are 100 rupees (less than 2 USD). Popcorn is 35 rupees.

I thoroughly enjoyed my last weekend in Jaipur, and am spending my last week preparing for my trip to Delhi and saying my goodbyes. 

Valentine's Day: India Style

February 14th was celebrated with much to-do in the volunteer house. Purnima loves to throw parties, so we planned a party for the night of Valentine's Day. That morning, much to my surprise, I received a card in the mail! It was an incredibly sweet card from my parents, and it made my day to receive a note from home.

Valentine's Day is not a widely recognized holiday here, so at the project I took some time to explain where it came from, and then we discussed American versus Indian weddings, and the girls were very animated. They were puzzled that we ate cake at our wedding parties, and that the bride wore white instead of red and typically wasn't laden down with as much gold jewelry as possible. Then we made valentine's day cards for each other and ate some chocolates.

That night Purnima threw her party, and we all gathered on the roof where we enjoyed an abundance of sodas, snacks and samosas! We had decided earlier in the week to do secret valentines where we all drew a name and then had to write a nice note for whomever we drew, and it turned out to be quite fun. There were lots of fireworks going off that night as people celebrated weddings in the neighborhood. Overall, it was a wonderful way to celebrate Valentine's day.

Me and Purnima

All the volunteers and their valentines

My valentine from Greta 

Ranthambhore and the Tiger Safari

Last weekend, I went to Ranthambhore, home to a large National Park about 4 hours from Jaipur. Ranthambhore National Park is known for its tiger population, and we were heading off to see if we could spot any of the striped cats. Although *spoiler alert* we didn't see any tigers, it was still a wonderful trip. 

The hotel was gorgeous, set in a lush, green oasis, with huge rooms and an overall peaceful atmosphere. It is fascinating how much the scenery can change in 4 hours: we left the desert landscape of Jaipur for the leafy, green setting of Ranthambhore. The rooms were all in separate villas, and the beds were inexplicably enormous. 

View from the hotel room

Me and Molly (we got bindis and necklaces of marigolds at the entrance of the hotel)

Our very large bed

Saturday afternoon we explored Ranthambhore Fort, which is set atop this mountain that we hiked up. We spent some time roaming around the old temples, exploring the ruins, and taking pictures of the abundance of monkeys that were leaping around. Saturday night we enjoyed a chai break outside of our room, followed by traditional Rajasthani music and dancing. One of the girls pulled me up to dance with her, and I gave it my best shot, to the amusement of my friends.

Ranthambhore Fort

Sunday morning we woke up at 545, got bundled up in several layers, and set out in a jeep to the national park. It was incredible. We drove on this dirt road, bouncing up and down (and nearly falling out at several points). The sun was just rising and the entire place glowed. It is very rare to see a tiger, and we didn't come across any. We did see tiger prints and, more excitingly, two leopards, which are also super rare. They were on top of this mountain pretty far away, so we could only make out their silhouettes, but it was still an impressive experience. The guide and the driver were so excited by it, we sat there for nearly 45 minutes and they didn't want to leave. 

Safari selfie

Watering hole

Tiger prints!

Another tiger print

To the right of the tree, you can just barely make out the head of one of the leopards we saw. My friend Janie has some better photos I will hopefully add soon

After the safari we had a large buffet breakfast and then came back to Jaipur, where I began my penultimate week!