1. Shopping here is an experience – it can go so well and it can be incredibly frustrating. Yesterday we went to Hyderabad Central, which is something like a gigantic Indian Macy’s, to buy sheets. One of the frustrating things about shopping is that everyone views us as rich white tourists, which I suppose we are to them but we really aren’t – we’re poor white students. As we walked around trying to find sheets we had about 12 Indian salesmen shoving sheets in front of our faces. It was too difficult to think, let alone decide which sheets we liked. The only really good thing about our shopping experience yesterday was that they were having a “Happiness Sale” where everything in the store was 10-50% off. Shopping on the street can be lots of fun. Bartering is a blast except that we know that no matter what price we finally get them down to they are still ripping us off because we are foreigners. It’s okay though because it’s so cheap that I would feel bad insisting that I pay even less for such beautiful things. There are specialty shops for everything here including, but not nearly limited to: car waxes, condoms, leather whips, buckets, and sweets made from pure butter (called ghee). People on the street will try to sell you anything. Little kids especially will try to get you to buy things that are often a. dirty b. broken c. something that is for the opposite sex (not something you would give as a gift) d. something that would never fit you or e. something that you would never want or consider buying … ever. At tourist spots and other areas that see a heavy flow of people, these hawkers are particularly persistent. We have had them follow us all the way down streets shoving bent Taj Mahal postcards in our faces. A few crafty ones have even made it a few steps onto our bus before being physically escorted back off by our bus drivers and Ram Krishna. A quick aside: buses all come with two drivers, but only one wheel. I have yet to figure out what the second driver is for.
2. We have been to some truly fabulous restaurants during our two weeks in India. It is interesting to note that many of the best, and fanciest, restaurants here are located in hotels. In fact, some restaurants are called hotels, which is confusing because they do not have rooms for guests. Street vendor food is supposed to be amazing, however, CIEE policy is that we can’t eat off the street for a month after arriving. The idea is to give our stomachs time to acclimate to India before taking a chance on the sanitation of the street carts. After how sick I’ve been for the last week, I’m certainly not going to argue with the policy. I think it is interesting how many Chinese food street vendors there are. I know we are technically close to China, but Indians hate the Chinese (long disputes and unrest over territory). We have good food at the SIP Guesthouse. They try to provide us with a variety of Indian food and they make sure they dull down the spice level enough to let us eat without burning out our tongues. They also throw in the occasional American favorite like pasta, mashed potatoes, or french fries – which were absolutely amazing. They also occasionally give us vanilla ice cream for dessert that tastes less like ice cream and more like cool whip. Our favorite part of lunch and dinner at the Guesthouse is our drinks. For the most part, all we drink here is bottled water, but at lunch and dinner we get what is basically a shot glass of Sprite (lunch) or Fanta (dinner). We enjoy this more for the jokes it creates, “I think I’ll take my shot of Fanta on the rooftop terrace this evening, do bring it up to me” for example, than for the soda itself. The wait staff is incredibly amused by us. They find our inability to eat with our hands correctly (oh yes, there is a correct way to eat with your hands) and our timid tastes of new foods wildly humorous. Most of them don’t speak English well and their response to most of our attempts at telling them something is to laugh and refill our water glasses. We have also tried a few new foods from the grocery store. Dad would be particularly fond of PJ’s find – the garlic pickle. Pickle here has nothing to do with a cucumber, but rather refers to different kinds of spiced vegetables. The garlic pickle comes in a glass jar and is basically cloves of garlic drenched in a very spicy red sauce. We’ve been digging out the cloves and eating them as a snack, but I’m sure you’re supposed to put them on something or eat them with a meal. The boys and I think they are amazing, but everyone else is convinced they are absolutely disgusting, an opinion that I believe is based mostly on how gross they look.
3. Indian postal addresses are amazingly entertaining. I was speculating with some of you before I left what Near Ladies Hostels meant in my mailing address here. Turns out, we were correct. Near Ladies Hostels means just that, the SIP Guest house is near, or close to, the Ladies Hostels on campus. By far, my favorite address is Past the Big Tree. I do not envy the postman. Another thing is that there are no good street maps. We were given maps of campus, but they include only about half of the roads on campus and not even ¼ of the buildings. It is a much better idea to ask someone on the street how to get to where you are going than to attempt to follow any map.
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4. Animals and insects are abundant here. I’ve been showing my country girl roots – explaining the difference between cows and water buffalo. Although, the cows here are nothing like those back home, they are much bigger, skinnier, and many have humps on their backs. In fact, all living creatures seem to be bigger than back home. It is like we are in a nuclear zone where everything has mutated into a larger form of itself. The bats have over a foot long wing span. Worms and millipedes are 8 to 12 inches long. Even ants are enormous. There are stray dogs everywhere. Water buffalo and cows are everywhere also. They just wander around randomly and at night they go to sleep in the middle of the road. This causes major traffic jams because no one can make them move because the cows are sacred and thus, can sleep wherever they want. There are lots of monkeys too. We have been specifically warned not to try to play with the monkeys because they will attack. There are really beautiful birds here. I love these white and beige ones that hang out with the water buffalo, I’m not sure what they are but they look a little like herons. Downtown you will see the occasional person riding a camel down the road, which Vasu’s son assures me is a much more comfortable ride than an elephant. There are lots of geckos. This one was in our common room the other night.
5. I think that I finally have a set class schedule. I am taking Basic Hindi, Indian Diaspora, Indian Society I: Approaches to the Sociological Study of Indian Society, and Religion and Politics in Modern India. The first two classes are put on by SIP and the last two are regular classes at the University. It was a major hassle to select classes. First, only one of the classes that I pre-registered for is being offered this semester. Secondly, many of the classes that are being offered that sounded interested have class timings that conflict. You know how at ‘Gate there are set times that classes meet? That is so not true here. Classes can meet at whatever time the professor wants them to. So most classes start on the hour and end on the hour. This is a problem because this is a huge campus and if you have back-to-back classes in different buildings, like I do, you might not make it there in time. Another issue with selecting classes was that Colgate was being a pain about what classes I could get credit for. There were two great dance classes that I was excited about, but Colgate wouldn’t give me credit for either of them. Did I mention that classes officially started two weeks ago? So when we went to our classes with Indian students, they’ve already had four or five classes. That is aggravating and embarrassing. You know how I hate to be behind. And it’s not like we can slip into a class for the first time unnoticed and then go talk to the professor after class about joining. Oh no, everyone notices when we walk into a classroom. My Indian Society professor was priceless when he noticed I was there. When he got to class he walked directly to the chalkboard and started talking without looking around. Then, when he turned to look at the class and saw me, the neon-white girl, he stopped in the middle of his sentence and just looked at me for a second before continuing. For the rest of the class he kept mentioning ‘our foreign friend’ when he asked people to elaborate on their answers – he wanted to make sure I understood the concepts of caste. He was very nice, but his accent is difficult to understand. I spent part of the class copying notes off the girl sitting next to me. My Religion and Politics professor is great. His accent is completely understandable; he went to grad school in Philly. His lectures are interesting and he jokes around about the number of foreign kids in the class (there are like 25 of us and 7 Indians). Apparently, no one buys books for their classes in India. Instead, the professor, who you are supposed to call ‘sir’ or ‘madam’, tells you what to read in class and then you go to the library or online to look for it. If you find it, you have to bring it to the Xerox man and pay him to make a copy of it for you because there’s probably only one copy and it needs to be shared with the entire class. Although this is the biggest hassle ever, the good thing is that this is going to be a very cheap semester book-wise. Syllabi don’t really exist so there really is no reading ahead. Also, the way that grades are comprised is a little different. 60% of your final grade is the final exam. The other 40% is made up of your best 2 out of 3 papers/exams during the semester. This is going to be interesting.
Well, that was the longest blog post ever. Hope all is well in the states…
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