arrival/ orientation

guess what?

I'm still in India!

Seriously, every time I wake up or go outside or do anything really, I just get so damn excited all over again. I'm really here. This isn't a dream.

Picking up from where I sort of left off last time, I woke up around 11 am Indian time and no one else was at the residence. The house we're living in sits in a sort of gated community, with each house having its own gate and security guard. We're right across the street from a public park, and about a block away is a cricket field for little kids and then another one for adults. I feel bad taking pictures when there are other people around, so none of those yet, but I'm working on it. In any case, I figured that I could take a bit of a walk around to get my bearings.

This isn't a horror story by any means. No one was rude to me; no one even really spoke to me. But I was very very aware that I was a foreigner. People stare. When the IES group walks anywhere along the road, it's like a parade - cars and bikes and stuff honk at us as they pass. Children call us 'goli' - white people. For once I'm in the ethnic minority, and while it isn't bad necessarily it is pretty stressful. I walked around the park a little and watched the birds/children/dogs/construction workers.

A bit later all of the IES students finally met up with each other and we wandered off to the IES center, which is outside of the gated community and across a very busy street. Which is another weird thing about India - if I had to cross a street like that in the US I'd have a panic attack. Here... it's just the way things are, and understanding that makes it a lot easier for me to cope. In any case, we met the director of IES Delhi, Vibha Sharma, who is easily one of the smartest and classiest people I've met. She's amazing and I'm excited to be working with her. After a crash course on safety, rules, academic stuff, we had a tea break (awesome!) and then went out to dinner. Walking over there at night we saw many of the same construction workers that had been working during the day huddled around fires that they built on the side of the street. The class disparity here is so obvious. In a way it's refreshing how little it's hidden, although there are many people in gated neighborhoods like this one working on hiding this inequality.

Dinner = SO MUCH FOOD. India is going to make me fat. Then we went back and passed out.

Today introduced us to more professors associated with IES Delhi - all women and all very intelligent and classy. I'll go into more detail later - right now I need a nap from walking around. Laters!