Back in the DELHI
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2007
1
10
23
Trip End
Jul 30, 2008
New Delhi,
India
Monday, October 1, 2007
We stayed with 4 of our colleagues from the NGO and 2 colleagues from our partner organization in Delhi in a guest house in the back of what we later learned was a temple to Sai Baba (the religious figure at the center of one sect of Hinduism). Alhough the guest house was safe and in a good location, it had possibly the worst service I have ever received at a hotel, motel, etc. I know that this sounds like something a typical American tourist would complain about in any "foreign budget hotel," but I'd like to preface my complaint by saying that I am usually not that particular about hotels, and I've stayed at some pretty cheap places! To back up my claim, I'll give an example. Each morning we'd call down to the front desk to place our order for breakfast. We'd call early, about an hour before we had to leave for the training, to give the cooks enough time to prepare our food. The choices were limited: coffee or tea, and toast with butter or cornflakes with hot milk. Every morning, after waiting an hour without seeing any sign of breakfast, and then, we'd go downstairs to cancel our order and inquire why the breakfast hadn't been delivered. When we'd come downstairs, the man at the desk would say "it's almost ready" and, as if he'd just remembered our orders, would call back to another staff member who would relay the message to the kitchen. About 10 minutes later (and now, 10 minutes into our travel time), we'd get tea and toast, which couldn't possibly have taken that long to make, and after gobbling it down we'd rush out the door in order to not be late for our session.
Aside from the hotel, everything else about our week in Delhi was great!! The training was conducted in English, which was a big advantage for me and Sharon, but seemed to disadvantage of some of our SAHAYOG colleagues whose English skills are very limited. Each day we'd start off with a session about a different component of qualitative research, and then we'd get to practice what we learned through an interactive exercise or "field experience." One of my favorite activities was the exercise we did to practice our observation and recording skills in the field. We were put into pairs and sent off to examine the buying habits of foreigners and Indians at an upscale shopping area in Delhi called Khan Market. My partner was a sweet woman from our Delhi partner organization, and the two of us were assigned to observe the different buying habits of foreigners and Indians in Khan Market's food stores. We tried to be discreet as we wandered into a few different food stores to observe the goings-on, but I came to realize that as a foreigner, it's a lot harder for me to go unnoticed. The best part of our assignment was that in addition to observing others' buying practices, we could also do some food shopping of our own, and Khan Market is THE place to go in Delhi for imported and specialty food items! I decided to satisfy my month-long gummy craving and bought a pack of Wine Gums (Delicious gummies from England), and my partner and I also purchased a loaf of crusty bread from a European-style bakery.
Aside from the training, we also had time to do some shopping and visit some friends during our week in Delhi. On Monday night, our first night in Delhi, Sharon and I planned to meet up with Sammy and Dan, the two AJWS fellows living and working in Delhi. Before going to meet them, we visited a couple of Delhi's famous and cheap outdoor markets, where we noticed huge crowds of men standing in front of a few of the shops. We found out that they were watching the big Pakistan vs. India cricket match on TV. Each time India scored a point, the crowd would erupt in loud cheers. Indians are definitely passionate about their cricket team!
Around 8pm, we caught an auto to go meet Sammy and Dan. Sammy suggested that we meet at a restaurant near their apartment called "Shalom" (it's kind of ironic that the four Jews decided to go to a place with a Hebrew name!). Shalom turned out to be possibly THE most posh place in Delhi, and it's definitely the place where the children of wealthy Delhi-ites come for a night out. It was also quite pricey...my Kingfisher beer cost almost $6. However, it was fun to see Sammy and Dan, and to get another taste of Delhi's nightlife.
On Tuesday after the training, we joined a bunch of our fellow trainees, including our SAHAYOG colleagues, for dinner at JNU (Jewarahal Nehru University). JNU is definitely one of the most-loved universities in Delhi, if not in all of India. It has a real campus, complete with dorms, and each dorm has a "dhaba" (café/restaurant) right outside. Our colleagues took us to what they said was the best dhaba on campus, where we sat outside at concrete picnic tables and deliberated about what to order. We ended up getting a bunch of different dishes for all of us to share, all very tasty (though some a bit too spicy for me), and had a nice time getting to know our Indian colleagues!
On Wednesday night, Sharon and I went shopping with our coworkers, and then met up with Anna, our fellowship director, for dinner. Shopping in Delhi is fantastic! There are lots of small, cheap market areas that are packed with people at night. Our coworkers took us to Sarojini Nagar, one of the best places to find good deals on clothes and fabric. We spend lots of time rummaging through piles of odd-ball clothes laid out on big tables in front of the many shops, searching for that one treasure. We learned that our coworkers, both the women and the men, are quite avid shoppers, making lots of purchases for friends and family back in Lucknow.
We left our coworkers after about an hour and took an auto over to Anna's apartment, not too far away. Anna had cooked a yummy pasta dish for dinner, and even had chocolate brownies for dessert (quite a treat here in India, where ovens are rare, and brownies even rarer). We sat and ate and told Anna about our first week in Lucknow. It was nice to see Anna and to have the chance to reflect on our first impressions and experiences about life and work in India. It was late by the time we finished our visit, so Anna called us a cab. Although we gave the cab driver the same directions we'd given auto drivers in the past, it was dark, the shop lights on the street leading up to our guest house were off, and thus, we didn't really recognize where we were. It also didn't help that the driver spoke no English and we, as usual, only had our very small Hindi vocabulary to rely on. After driving back and forth past our destination at least 3 times, we finally spotted the now-darkened sign for the gas station next to our guest house and told the slightly-exasperated driver to pull over and drop us off.
On Thursday night, the night before our last day of training, my boss and her husband hosted a dinner at his organization's office in Delhi. The staff members from the organization who were attending the training asked me to suggest a game we could all play, so I suggested, mostly jokingly, that we play Celebrity (for those who don't know, it's a game like charades where everyone writes down names of people that others know, celebrities or just mutual friends, and then they try to act out the names they pull out of a hat for the others to guess). However, since it was highly unlikely that the famous people known by the Indians in the group would be known to me, Sharon and maybe even the Scots, we decided to modify the game a bit and act out the members of our training group instead. I helped write down people's names on scraps of paper and threw them in a bowl. When everyone arrived, we all sat out on the balcony and began the game. It was definitely funny to see people act each other out and to see the different characteristics people emphasized!! The game was followed by a full-out dance party, initiated by my boss and her husband, which continued long after the food arrived. I've found that people love to dance at my organization...so I'm looking forward to lots more dance parties in the future! The food was very good, and the Scots had brought a special treat for dessert: Walker's Butter Biscuits, yum! After dessert, the dance party recommenced and we were all treated to a rousing performance of the Scottish Jig by our wonderful trainers. We all clapped and whistled as we watched the Scots twirl and "jig" across the floor...this was definitely one of the highlights of the training for me! People slowly started saying goodbye and trickling off, back to their homes and hotels, though I suspect that my boss, her husband and some of our colleagues kept the dance party going long into the night.
On Friday, we had our last day of training and thanked our trainers for such a fun and educational workshop. That night, Sharon, I, and our NGO colleagues from our NGO planned to take a 10pm overnight train back to Lucknow. However, getting to the train station was a "harrowing" experience, to say the least. Although the weather had been nice in Delhi since our arrival on Monday, the skies decided to unleash their fury late on Friday afternoon in the form of a torrential downpour. The worst of the rain was over by the time we had to leave for the train station, but it was still drizzling and the streets were semi-flooded from the onslaught of water that afternoon. Had it not been raining, we could have just caught a couple of auto rickshaws to take us to the train station. However, with the rain, every rickshaw was filled to the brim, and so we decided to have the hotel call a taxi. I have a theory that the man who cooked us breakfast at the hotel was also the taxi driver, because the taxi still hadn't shown up after 30 minutes of waiting (much like our breakfast experience).
We were all getting a bit nervous, since we knew there'd be a lot of traffic due to the rain and didn't want to miss our train, so we decided to give up on the taxi and drag our bags out to the street to flag down ANYTHING that could take us to the train station. After about 10 minutes, we managed to flag down an Ambassador taxi. It was a tight squeeze for the 5 of us and our luggage to fit, but we had no other choice if we wanted to try making our train. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper, much like L.A. during rush hour, but much more chaotic. The trip, which should have taken us 30-45 minutes, took over an hour and a half.
As we approached the entrance to the train station, with 10 minutes to spare before our train left, traffic came to a standstill. Cars were honking and trying to drive the wrong way down the street, people were getting out of their vehicles and unloading their luggage in the middle of the road, and the five of us were sitting in our taxi counting down the minutes. We deliberated about whether or not we should get out and run for it. It wasn't the safest move, but when the cars still didn't move after another 5 minutes, we collectively decided to get out and make a dash to our train.
When we got into the station, we learned that our platform was the farthest one from the station entrance. So, we grabbed our bags and ran as fast as is possible while carrying a suitcase, pardoning ourselves as we pushed past people in the narrow station corridor. With one minute to spare, we arrived at our platform and got on the train, relieved that we'd made it! Sharon and I had bottom bunks in a 3-tier car (ie. 3 bunks stacked on top of eachother). However, when we got to our seats, an elderly man and woman were sitting on our bunks and asked us to switch and take their middle-level bunks instead. Although we can't even sit up in a middle bunks, we couldn't really refuse and were too exhausted to argue, so we secured our bunks, climbed in, and soon fell asleep.
Comments
Yawning
I am exhausted just reading what you are up to!