oh delhi belly

so in addition to everything else that I've experienced in Delhi, I've experienced yet another thing: HOSPITALS.

The main problem with foreigners visiting India is that you will certainly get sick. It doesn't matter if you don't drink the water (which you shouldn't) or are careful of your diet and wash your fruits well and all of that - it just happens. There's too much bacteria here that our bodies don't know how to handle. I've been sick with various stomach issues before on the program, but this last Wednesday I pretty much checked myself into the hospital because I didn't think that I could tough it out with ginger tea this time. I'm feeling fine now, and barring any random terrible thing happening I should be able to leave tomorrow morning. The hospital is really quite nice, and the nurses here are extremely kind to me - I'm going to miss them when I leave. I'm ready to go though. There's only so much time that I can spend in bed, believe it or not.

I might as well take this chance to update everybody on my spring break, even though that happened a good three weeks ago. My friend Deborah and I decided that we wanted to go to Darjeeling, which is in the state of West Bengal very close to the border to Nepal, and while we were in the area we might as well visit Kolkata (Calcutta), because if you're in India you have to. It's too important to miss. So we flew to Kolkata and stumbled around Sudder Street, which is where most of the tourists stay in the city. Our hotel was... not the best, but ok. The most remarkable thing about the area though was Karim, a 13 year old girl who lived on the street. She helped us find our hotel after the one we had made reservations for fell through (typical India...) and showed us around the neighborhood, introducing us to the women that she lived with and shooing away the ubiquitous Indian men that gawked at us. It was a complicated relationship though - the first night I helped her buy baby formula for her little brother, which was more expensive than I had guessed, and after that everybody on the street knew who we were and asked us for money. Deborah and I helped Karim and her mother out a bit more, buying them rice and lentils, but somehow that wasn't enough for them either. One moment it would be "Thank you sisters, God bless you," and the next would be "but one more thing..." It put us into a difficult position, because on one hand they really were facing some considerable problems. In addition to oh, not having a house yet having four children (Karim is the oldest) to care for, Karim's father has TB and they don't have the money for medicine. Plus the money for shoes. Plus the money to make sure that the kids stay healthy enough to stay in school. And and and...

The thing that I've learned about India is this: nothing is simple, and the closer you look at anything, the more complicated it gets. Because almost everyone who begs for money has these problems, or similar ones. And there's only so much that two people can give. That's the bitch of it.

Outside of Sudder Street, we explored a lot of Kolkata. We went to the Armenian church and found an abandoned synagogue nearby; we went to the used bookstores crowded College streets; we visited the Botanical Gardens and saw The Great Banyan Tree, which is I think the biggest tree in the world; we went to Kalighat and saw where Mother Teresa worked; we wandered around the Victoria Memorial and watched couples make out under every single tree; and we went to St. Paul's Cathedral and the Academy of Fine Arts.

A few awesome people that we met along the way:

Shurjendu - this is Anila's (one of the girls on our program) friend from back home who has relatives in Kolkata. We had dinner with him and Anila our last night in Kolkata in this really nice restaurant called Peter Cat (god knows why) where I had my first gimlet.

George - we met George outside of St. Paul's Cathedral, where he works as the groundskeeper. He told us that we were a little too early for visiting hours, but we ended up talking and having chai with him. He's probably one of the most interesting people that I've met in India - he's over 70, grew up in Goa, worked his ass off to get his two daughters through college/graduate school, and loves to dance with his wife, to whom he's been married for nearly 50 years. An amazingly sweet guy, deeply spiritual, and I hope that I can be half as cool as he is when I'm all grown up.

That's it for part 1 of spring break - I'll tell you all about Darjeeling in the next post. But first! A few pictures!



Deborah and me with Karim's mother, who gave us henna!















Here's Deborah with George!

so

Here's an update finally, but I'm not going to talk about my trip in this one.

No, this post is about the many problems that plague IES Delhi.

Some problems are inherent in study abroad programs, I know. For one thing, this particular program is extremely new; for another, any and all study abroad programs, particularly those in developing countries, are going to subvert expectations to a certain extent. That's partially why I came here - I know that I needed my world-view shaken up a bit. However, this particular program has certain problems that I don't think are unavoidable. We'll start with the one that has become most pertinent.

"Domestic Help" + theft

like most middle-upper-class Indian households, the IES student residence has servants. The staff refers to them as the domestic help, but for a Westerner who has never even had a cleaning lady, that's pretty indistinguishable from servants. All of us were uncomfortable with their presence simply because of different cultural standards - it's very strange watching someone sweep my room when I know that I can do it myself - and honestly Parul, our residence coordinator, didn't help with that much, as she especially treated them as if they owed her the world. Every morning Pawan or his wife Maya would come into our rooms and sweep the floors, which was all well and good until one girl found a few hundred rupees missing from her wallet. She took it for simple absent-mindedness until more girls started realizing that money was being taken out of wallets and bags. This came to a head when one girl had 4000 rupees (about $100, but it buys so much more here) taken out of her wallet while she was in the room sleeping. Vibha, the program director, was pretty reluctant to accuse the staff, so we all got a big lecture on the importance of not stealing and of keeping everything important locked up even if we were in the residence, despite the fact that all of the locks to the drawers of our desks - if they even work - are identical. The thefts stopped for a few weeks and started up again at the beginning of this week, climaxing when one girl's entire wallet went missing. She searched for it furiously and we all helped, again assuming it was merely misplaced; at one point however, her room was empty for about the space of a minute, with the outside ground-level window open. The wallet was then discovered, empty, in the middle of the room, most likely having been thrown in from the window after the hue and cry of the wallet search had started. The only people with access to that particular side of the house is the 'domestic help.' Additionally, students from last semester have reported missing money as well under the same circumstances.

So basically this has made an already awkward situation worse. There's no way of trying to ignore the thefts at this point or pretending that we don't have relatively clear evidence as to who has been doing it, and all of the students have agreed that Maya and Pawan should no longer be employed by IES or present in the residence. Which breaks my heart even as I agree with it - it's pretty obvious that the stealing was in part driven by compulsion, and they have a two-year-old kid. But over 10,000 rupees has gone missing in a program that we are already paying a hefty sum for. Vibha is going to announce her decision tonight - I can't imagine that it will be anything other than Maya and Pawan leaving their position.

What frustrates me most is how this has been handled. Vibha is constantly asking us for help and then putting the responsibility of what happens to them on us despite the fact that the responsibility is hers, as she hired the staff and did not handle the situation adequately when it first arose. Also, this is, you know, HER JOB. Parul is pretty useless when it comes to this, as has been the case almost always - apparently she was the only one who even applied for this position, so we're not exactly getting expert help here. She's incredibly small-minded, tactless, and incompetent, and Vibha, while intelligent, is extremely duplicitous and pretentious.

I've loved being in India, but if I had known what I know about the program now, I would not have chosen IES. The entire program is marked with miscommunication and misinformation - much of it deliberate - and the inability for the leaders to treat us like adults. The majority of the staff I respect and love (then again, it consists of maybe 10 people including professors), but these two positions are incredibly important and are filled by people who are not doing their jobs correctly and moreover often blaming us for their lapses.

Sorry that this isn't a very happy update - you should check out my pictures to get a sense of where I've been going. Spring break was honestly amazing - I think that I want to end up living in Darjeeling, it's so beautiful. (Plus the tea and momos are amazing!) Feel free to ask any questions here about specifics of my trip or my complaints; I know already that I'm going to ask the UPS study abroad office to put me into contact with anyone who is considering this program because people honestly need to be warned about the inefficiencies here.

brief update

Hey all - I know it's been a while, but just checking in to say that things are pretty much okay now. When I have a bit more time I'll give a more complete update on what I've been doing, as well as pictures of all of the places I've been now, but I'm actually leaving in an hour to go to the airport! For spring break I'm flying to Kolkata, spending a few days there, and then taking the train up to Darjeeling. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.


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Listening to: Sondre Lerche - Things You Call Fate
via FoxyTunes