Those less tidy ones

Over the last few days and weeks, we've gotten to know some of our local beggar families quite well (not on a level playing field type of way; it's more... we're their "frequent customers"). The whole concept of the beggars themselves is a touchy one, in that it's complicated. Quite complicated. Some, many? of the people who live on the streets could in fact get a job and work to get money for their families. Many of those who choose to beg have decided that it's a better way to achieve what they need, and it takes less work. It's laziness. That makes me mad. The fact that they would also peg us fairer skinned folks as rich or with money to spare - which may be true, comparatively, but still - angers me as well (I've been struggling with feeling as though the way money works out, who has it and who doesn't, is just not fair). On the other hand, though, some people who live on the streets have almost no other option but to beg - they're illiterate, they have no education, and they have mouths to feed. It's really complicated.
Regardless of how complex the begging situation is, there is a right way and a wrong way - and this we have come to learn. There is a family of beggars over by the Hotel Aditi and the Hotel Apex here and Baroda, and they're touchy. The mother, if she doesn't do the same as her kids, tells them to get us. And they do. They run up, and they touch us. The pull at our clothes, dig at our pockets, and they DO NOT LEAVE. I myself have come to dread going to the Hotel Aditi neighborhood, because, think about it. These kids live on the streets. They're obscenely dirty. And they don't understand no in the context of touching other people. It's bothersome. So, that the lord my trusty father has developed an efficient technique for ridding us of these clinging, begging children. He raises himself very tall, turns, glares at them, yells "NO" quite scarily (I myself would be scared if I were 5 and someone did that to me), and if it comes to the last resort, he slaps his hands inches from their face to know we're serious. It takes direct and straightforward energy. For the first time, we've not been touched! Thank you daddy :]

Now, please note. I don't want to sound insensitive, and it's not like that. It's all complicated, the poverty is. Regardless, though, when it comes to the point where you touch without permission, YEAH! That's a problem.

Our apartment

We're on the second floor of a tall (ok, not that tall. I'm not even sure how many floors there are) building. We're lucky, because it's somewhat isolated (for urban India :]) and surrounded by plants. Once in a while, you can see little monkeys hopping across our neighbors' roofs, playing and what not (because of the monkeys, we have bars on our windows to prevent them from coming in and stealing things :]).
The floors are all marble, and all of the ceilings are really high. For an apartment, especially here, it's really spacious. Our kitchen has a little gas stove, running water, and a small fridge. The bathrooms all have sit down toilets (thank god, as compared to the little hole option), showers, and sinks. Not that there is no shower curtain in the bathroom. In many of the showers here, the floors are slightly slanted so the water will run into the drain at the corner of the bathroom. It is a more efficient use of space, if I do say so myself. Also, people here don't use toilet paper. They either use a stream of water directed at the rectum from the back of the toilet seat, or they use their hand (the second option, though it sounds revolting, really isn't as bad as it's made out to be. We're just scared of germs :]). Our bedrooms all have mosquito nets over the beds because of the mosquito infestation. Even though we're inside and we have screens over our windows, we are still somehow eaten alive. At least we can sleep now that we're covered.
Our living room has a not quite functional tv, a newly purchased stereo system from the Big Bazaar (a walmart type store with surprisingly good clothing), and a table. The furniture that came with the place is quite nice.
Over all, the apartment beats the hotel we were staying at, the ginger, by a LANDSLIDE.

The Rickshaw

I suppose for me, one of the most fun and yet most frustrating aspects of the trip thus far has been the rickshaws - interacting with and dealing with their drivers... and riding in them :]
The above image shows the standard Indian auto rickshaw, though many of them are green with yellow tops. A standard ride in an auto rickshaw can cost from 10 rupees to 30 rupees - the equivalent of 20 to 60 cents USD. Now, looking at it face value, if you get charged 80 cents for a ride, it's not too bad. BUT. The most frustrating part is when these drivers try to overcharge you or they don't charge fairly because of categorization. Many times, rickshaw drivers assume that you are a) a tourist or b) you have lots of money or c) you're ignorant of what a fair charge would be or d) all of the above. Because we've been traveling in and out throughout india for the last two weeks, well, we pretty much have the rickshaw concept down. My family is quite a bit more relaxed about getting messed with by them. I, on the other hand, find it to be extremely rude and so have coincidentally taken the job of rickshaw business into my own hands. I enjoy getting angry when they refuse to be fair, and then dramatically leave the little auto in search of another. It's helped me learn how to say no, and how to be direct about something. It's fun :]

Vadodara!

Since my last post, we have arrived at our host city of Vadodara. It's "small", with 1.4 million people, and it's home to the M.S.U., of whom is sponsoring my stepmother in her work. We stayed in this oddly business quaint hotel, as titled The Ginger, for five some nights, only after attempting to get an apartment days before we got to leave. We were all sick of that place - it had an obscenely strong odor of bug pesticide, mixed with indian food spices, mixed with flower deodorizer. What a horrid combination :D
After moving out of the ginger, we moved into our apartment (of which is conveniently located right next to the University). It's got three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, and a large living room. All of the ceilings are really high and all of the floors are marble. It's quite nice. In our surrounding area we have trees on nearly all sides of the building with countless, sometimes more than 8, monkeys roaming around in the trees and on top of buildings. It's rad, I gotta say.
We conveniently hack onto our neighbor's wireless internet, so thank the lord we're still wired here :] My brother is the one with the window air conditioner and flipping king sized bed (I actually found this royal treatment to be quite funny - it's his loss of the rustic life :/)
During the days, I've taken to working on my online Spanish course, reading, and attending a twice weekly sewing class at the college. I've met several girls, all in sewing or textiles majors, and all of them are 21 or 22. The shocker for me was, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they got into college because they looked the EXACT same age as me. And I kid you not, it was wild. They were all shocked when they found out I was my age... The feeling was mutual all around.
We're probably going to stay here for a few weeks before traveling a bit. Hopefully it will start to feel a little less strange here pretty soon (not like it hasn't already; don't get me wrong. It just feels like a complete and utter foreign world. It's quite different).

The ruins! And a zoo.

We did a bit more sightseeing today, as we visited the local zoo and a tomb. The tomb was our first stop of the morning, and it started out brilliantly. It was THE QUIETEST place I had been in days. It was amazing. The place itself was a brick-walled, dome building'd paradise for the fellow whose tomb it surrounds. In the sky above the large grassed ancient ground, there were many, many birds circling and hunting overhead. Some of the hawks were hunting these really cute little green parrots that were about the size of a cockatiel. They were beautiful little birds.
After a while, a large (and by large, I mean a few hundred) group of school children ran in. We heard them coming - there was mass cheering from a distance. About two minutes after the yelling began, we saw a steady stream of little boys sprinting to the large tomb structure. It was crazy! They RAN. I wish I got that excited... :] After a short bit, we climbed down from the top of the building where we were sitting and followed the stream of mayhem.
After we circled the top level of the taj mahal - looking building about half ways, we noticed this fellow about my age following at a close distance. We caught on, and soon started to be aware of his presence. After a bit we decided to move on to the next structure, and we left the domed building - the kid followed. My father caught on and decided the best approach for relieving us of the barnacle boy was to make him uncomfortable. For this, he walked extremely close to him (a couple of feet away at most) and we continued our regular conversations, with my father in this boy's extreme personal space. It worked for a bit, and the boy left our side and walked at a distance of about 30 feet. As soon as he could, he rejoined with a distance of about 10 feet. We all laughed, we me laughing hysterically. Apparently these folks haven't seen too many white females before, as I have been told. (It is important to note: the excessive staring that goes on by others is really NOT funny, and it drives me bonkers. I get extremely uncomfortable :/). As we neared the exit, he walked out as he was 10 feet ahead. We let him go and we decided to stay inside to see if he would leave. He didn't.
After a bit, we left. He continued to follow close behind. I briskly walked to our taxi and got in. At that point, I was feeling uncomfortable with the whole following by unknown teenage boy thing. It was odd. The rest of my family piled in. The boy walked across the street. As we pulled out of the parking lot, my dad waved to him and he waved back. We accelerated down the street and laughed.

New Delhi

We arrived in New Delhi yesterday morning at 3:30 - it was a couple of hours left. Even at 3:30, the airport was crazy. People were everywhere and outside there were taxi drivers going bonkers. The whole environment was overwhelming. I myself got a bit of culture shock just on the drive home. Outside, there was an eerie bit of fog, and it made everything look quite creapy. Not to mention the in action construction going on at the very wee hours of the morning. That was a bit odd.
The section of housing that contained our guest house was guarded by a gate, which was raised and lowered by a rope and three men sitting by a fire. As we pulled up, we got out and were greeted by the fellow who owns the place. He was nice enough and showed us to our rooms. The rooms were small and had two twin beds and a tv. We also got two water bottle size containers for water. The bathroom had a toilet, a sink, and then an odd sort of shower into the wall that had no tub or anything around it - just a large plastic bucket and the tile floor. To this moment I'm still not sure how to use the thing (and have coincidentally not showered since Germany... yummy).
We slept for a good 5 hours after that, and then rose for breakfast. The guest house served a good meal of toast, an omelet, some soup, and good juice. Indian breakfasts seems almost as good as German ones.
After breakfast, we went for a little walk around the neighborhood, and headed over to a park where there were supposedly free roaming deer and flamingos. We saw neither, but there were countless dogs and birds. We saw a few ducks and geese in this drained little lake, and that was cool. A few of the dogs were the cutest puppies I'd ever seen, just running around and playing. I was trying to think of a way to keep one, but to no avail :]
Walking to the park, we saw a few men peeing on the big wall that surrounded the deer park. There were these wet spots on the brick every few meters, and I was quite careful not to step in any of them (EEEEWWWW). There were also, ehem, many turds on the ground. Apparently public sanitation standards are different in Delhi than Lincoln. You can potty where ever you like, and just leave it there. That's got to spread disease!
After walking for a bit, we all walked back to the guest house and got inside our first official taxi ride. It was pretty wild. The driving here is nuts. There aren't exactly any rules that are followed. Lanes don't seem to apply, and the speed limit is the pace the rest of the cars are going. They honk constantly. Honking is apparently a tool used by drivers to alert those in front and behind that they're about to do some obscene move, and it's to give them a split second to react before they do. There are surprisingly little accidents :/
Once we arrived at our destination (the fulbright house where Wendy had her meeting), we went in and took a brief glimpse. It was this large, beautiful house in the front with a green yard in front and back. It also had a cafe and an office building in back. It was really nice. After meeting the fulbright fellow and what not, my dad, my brother and I left to go walk around a bit. We went to this center with all of these shops and an assortment of people present. There were american shops and odd Indian shops combined, and it was a complete scene. Upon attempting to withdraw money from an atm (and still not knowing how much a bloody Rupee was), we discovered that the atm likely didn't even contain more than $50 in USD - we only withdrew 2000 Rupees.
After that we walked back and hooked up with Wendy again, and went to dinner with our family and a fellow fulbrighter. We went to this semi odd center of shops and restaurants and we walked around a bit first. All through our journeys there have been beggers everywhere of course, but there was this really tall creepy guy that was especially scary (he only bothered my dad and my brother though, thank god). That completely scared the crap out of me, and I was in a funk after witnessing him in action.
We soon decided on a restaurant and went in. We ordered our food - Indian, of course- and ate. Most of the meals were quite spicy, and I had a bit of a hard time. In America I have no problem but here, the spices are a tad high for my liking. Even my lamb curry was too much. I ended up drinking a LOT of water. At the end of the meal, they brought each of us a small dish of warm water with lemon and rose petals to freshen up. It was a nice touch, definitely :]
Upon leaving the restaurant, we went to look for transportation. We all ended up taking a rickshaw - Greg, the other fulbrighter, took one back to the fulbright house. My family, all four of us, boarded one ourselves. As the ride proceeded, my water that I drank at dinner had caught up with me pretty quick. I had to pee really really bad. Our driver pretty much ended up getting somewhat lost on his way to our guest house, and that made my potty situation much worse. After the third time of him asking directions, I jumped out and convinced my stepmother to come with me so I could go pee. I ended up going in this parking lot with only a handful of cars on the perimeter and a few little boys playing. That made things a bit odd... I felt very much relieved after the fact, and was very glad I took care of it (even though it required urinating in front of a few little children). Our driver finally got us somewhat close to our house, and we ended up walking the rest of the way.
Once we got home, my brother and my dad walked around outside a bit more, and my stepmother and I stayed at home. I went to bed :] Very very tired, as I only slept 5 hours the night before. Jet lag and what not.
And so, here we are. Today I believe we're going to some craft museum with crafts from all over India, and maybe some shops again. We're leaving here on thursday to head to our home city of Baroda. I'm pretty excited for that - Delhi's a little too big for me.

Frankfurt!!!!!

We have finally accomplished the first official leg of our journey, that being to Frankfurt, Germany. After an extremely long, sleepless 8 hour flight with a good meal, we finally arrived. Upon arrival, the differences between the states and here were instantly visible. The bathroom had a separate place for the paper towels and toilet paper in the airport. People were speaking dialects that I'd never heard - and not just German. As soon as we boarded our train, my first real look at a bit of the German countryside was a good one. Lots of tall, thin trees and a thin layer of snow. And cold. As we began to enter Frankfurt, there were countless little plots of land with little structures on them. Possibly gardens? Not sure about that. There were acres to miles of many, many of them. The train station itself was this huge, tall building with dozens of open doored bakeries, older women with scarves on their heads begging for money, and pigeons :] It was a very active, moving place. DEFINITELY not like anything in America. As soon as we began to walk around the city a bit, we hit a section of street that seemed to be dominated largely by Turkish folks - complete with markets, restaurants, men-only coffee joints, the works. It was really interesting, and there were definitely some things I'd never seen before!