saturday night struggles

I like electronic music and dubstep and D&B, and I love going to concerts (in case my post about seeing David Guetta couldn't tip you off). I was really excited to be in Delhi by myself so that I could see some shows here, but that hasn't been the case for a bunch of reasons. For example, last weekend was shot because I was in the hospital, but I was hoping that this weekend would be different. This weekend, I thought, I was going to grab the bull by the horns and go out.

To get more "in touch" with the music scene here, I liked a couple of pages on Facebook because that's how it's done these days or something. Most notable is BASSFoundation, which bills itself as, "a collective of DJs, producers and MCs promoting Drum & Bass, Dubstep in Delhi and India." Great. Totally up my alley. And they just posted this status, which I'm posting below.

Now here's the thing. I looked at their website, and Zook is right by my house; it's no more than a fifteen minute ride by auto. It's also would be so much fun to go and see a DJ in Delhi, and I would love to get out of the house and do something a little bit different. The one catch is the 11:30PM start time because I can't be out of the house at 11:30PM by myself. In fact, I'm terrified to be alone in Delhi at a bar at 11:30PM. If I was in Boston or in New York, I would have no issues with hoofing out on my own to see a DJ at 11:30PM on a Saturday night, but it's a totally different story here.

While I've been here, there have been a couple of high-profile rape cases in Gurgaon, a city that's 18 miles south of New Delhi. Basically, a 23-year old woman was by herself at a pub and was gang raped. Although that in of itself is frightening, what's even more frightening to me is the response from police. Essentially, their answer to this problem was to ban women from going out past 8PM. Granted, New Delhi isn't Gurgaon, but the two cities are very close. To create an analogy that my readers would understand, the relationship between New Delhi and Gurgaon is like that between Boston and Cambridge. They're technically different cities, but if you spend the day in Cambridge and say you were visiting Boston, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong.

I'm in a bit of a pickle, because I really want to go to this show. It sounds like a lot of fun and I'd love the opportunity to meet young people in Delhi who are interested the same music that I am. But the 11:30PM start time is a deal breaker, especially considering the fact that I would be going by myself and going anywhere by myself in this city is an invitation to be harassed and catcalled even in broad daylight. The worst part is when I think, "If I was a boy, I could go by myself with no problems." That's just not a productive way to think, and I know that, but I often wish there was a way for me to fly under the radar, to go places without being on the defensive. My two least favorite sounds are when men smack their lips at me like you would when you're calling for your dog and when they say, "Ma'am! Oh, madam!" in a vain attempt to grab my attention for whatever reason.

But back to the main point. It boils down to the fact that I can't take the risk of going out by myself as a foreign woman in New Delhi on a Saturday night, and it's absolutely killing me that I can't do what I want, when I want to do it because there's a safety risk or because it's socially inappropriate, which in turn causes a safety risk. I need to trust my gut on this one though, and my gut is telling me to stay in tonight.

So that's exactly what I'm going to do. I bought "The Dirty Picture" on DVD today, so I'll be watching that and eating Oreos with peanut butter. I wish I could go to that concert, but the benefits aren't worth the costs. I need to grit my teeth and remind myself that there's nothing I can do, that I'm making the responsible decision, but that doesn't make it any easier or any fairer.

home free....sort of

Sorry for the lack of posts. I don't really have an excuse though because ever since I left the hospital on Tuesday afternoon, my life has been relatively average. Here's a quick list of what I've been doing.

• Chilling in mad coffee shops all over this fair city. There was the Café Coffee Day in Connaught Place after I got kicked out of the British Library for having a backpack and refused to pay the Rs.650 membership fee to sit there for longer than 30 minutes. (Americans rebelled from the British once, and I can do it again.) The Costa Coffee by my apartment in Malviya Nagar has been getting a lot of action. I'm currently sitting in The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Select CityWalk, which is pleasantly Americanized and air conditioned.

• Speaking of Select CityWalk, I saw "The Hunger Games" on Thursday evening. Couldn't tell if the movie actually is that choppy or if Indian censors just had their way with the movie. Either way, it was brilliant. No shame in admitting that I cried when Katniss volunteered for her sister and again when Rue was killed and again when they returned home.

• Because I'm in Delhi by myself, I've been a little bit starved for contact with other human beings. This has driven me to listen to podcasts obsessively. Lots of podcasts. I'm literally free basing NPR right now: "This American Life," "Planet Money" episodes from 2010, "Savage Love," "Radio Lab." The first thing I do when I get home is write a big (and I use "big" in the relative term since I am still a student and soon to be unemployed) check to NPR because these podcasts are saving my life right now. You should donate too because your favorite blogger is telling you to. It's the American thing to do.

• I've been eating mad peanut butter and honey sandwiches, since my "fragile American tummy" can't really handle anything else right now. It is what it is.

• But it hasn't all been Americanized. I went to a lecture at the Indian Trust for Art and Culture Heritage on World Heritage Day about "Cities and Political Power." It was incredibly interesting, and the lecturer was this great MIT professor and Indian urban planner Charles Correa. I think that I really do love urban planning. In fact, I think this might be what I want to do with my life (although this is a bold statement to make in a public forum). This is probably a good time to have this realization, considering I only have six months before I graduate from college.

• There's been a lot of sending of e-mails and conducting of interviews and writing of my ISP. I've got 20 pages down and ten left to write. It's really the home stretch, and my goal is to have thirty pages by this weekend because...

• I bought a plane ticket to Mumbai! This time next week, I expect to be sitting on a beach. It's been hard being in Delhi by myself. The city's lost a little bit of its luster since I've been here on my own and haven't been able to go out with friends. I'm excited to meet up with them in Mumbai; it'll be a good time.

That's about it. I'm anxious to get the next phase of this trip going. I feel like I'm furiously spinning my wheels right now, but I'm not going anywhere fast. It's frustrating, and being alone in a big, foreign city doesn't help. But talking with my boyfriend the other day, I realized that I need to give myself some more credit. This isn't an easy experience, especially given the fact that I've been in the hospital for four days. As my dad put it, "You've had enough sick days in the last few months to last a lifetime." I just need to breathe and make it through this next week, and then I'm home free.

isn't it all so glamorous?

Remember that time I had dysentery? What about that time when it was actually giardia? Well, I've got a story to top either of those two.

I told you about my new living accommodations in Malviya Nagar. Part of the appeal was the kitchen and the opportunity to cook my own food, which I've been doing. I've also been eating a lot of fruit, which I know is a little bit risky, but I've been doing a good job at washing the fruit with filtered water. That is, there is a water filter above the sink at the PG, and I've only been drinking and cooking and washing utensils with that water.

Well, that water may not have been the cleanest or that filter may not have been entirely working or I may have just picked up a bug from somewhere else. All I can tell you is that I got sick. Really sick. Worse than dysentery. Worse than giardia. Like, I went to see Housefull 2 at the movie theatre on Friday night and I had to leave during intermission because I felt like I was going to pass out. We're talking Delhi belly to the maximum, combined with a high-grade fever of 103.6°F and severe dehydration. I mean, that's what the doctor told me when I went to see him on Saturday morning. It was so severe that they admitted me, and I've been chilling in this hospital bed ever since.

I'm hooked up to an IV, which has been pumping me full of fluids and antibiotics for the past 36 hours. The doctor says that it's definitely a bacterial infection, hence the antibiotics. His exact words were along the lines of, "There is lots of bacteria in your stools. Lots of bacteria."

On the bright side, I'm feeling a lot better now. My fever broke yesterday, after a couple of injections and a sponge bath of cold water. (Didn't know that was a thing you did to treat fevers.) I'm also using the clinic's wireless, which is much faster than the Internet from my Tata Internet stick. I can eat again, per the doctor's orders, and I've gotten a lot of reading done and some ISP writing in. But I still have to go to the bathroom a lot, and I still don't know exactly what kind of bacteria has invaded my stomach and GI tract. I'm bound to make a full recovery, though, and I'll probably be out of here tomorrow.

It's funny that even while I'm in this hospital room, it's hard to forget that I'm in India. Take, for example, the chai that was just delivered to my bed. Even when you're suffering from severe intestinal distress, you still get chai.

Oh, man. Isn't studying abroad super glamorous?

an american in delhi

Not as romantic sounding as "An American in Paris," but it'll do. I'm currently sitting in the American Library, and I'm the only American here. I was not expecting that. I was sort of expecting that I would flash my American passport and my New York driver's license and would just be waved through, but I was at security for a good ten minutes and had to unpack my bag and let the security guard examine all of my belongings. It became quickly frustrating, but I guess that's what I get for assuming security would be lax for an American. I was also just not expecting how crowded this place is. All of the seats at all of the tables are occupied, and if you go through the stacks, you'll find people - mainly students, about my own age - sitting on the floor on any unoccupied floor space.

But it's quiet, despite the dozens and dozens of people. There's CNN playing on a flat-screen TV, and I haven't seen CNN for over two months now. There's a picture of Barack Obama on the wall, holding a book and imploring you to "READ." There's a marble bust of some white man on a nearby bookshelf, and the color scheme is a comforting red, white and blue. I also just discovered the DVD section, stocked with some really classic American titles including "Brigadoon," "Jurassic Park" and "1776." So, like, that could prove to be a dangerous development.

This place simultaneously feels very familiar but entirely strange. I really think that I'm the only American in the American Library in Delhi, India. Globalization, man. That's a thing.

in which i don't die à la "hostel" and acquire two tailored dresses

I moved out of my homestay in Lajpat Nagar on Monday, and I was supposed to live in a hostel in Paharganj. But that didn't work out for a multitude of reasons. First, my hostel was down an alleyway. Second, Sarah got stopped while walking around aforementioned alleyway by a French reporter who wanted to know if she felt safe in Delhi. She said she did, and she asked why he wanted to know. Apparently, a female French tourist was found dead in a hostel or a hotel in the neighborhood only a week before. I didn't want to pull a Natalee Holloway or get trapped in Hostel, so I booked it out of there and scrambled to find a new place to crash.

Thanks to a friend of a friend, I found this great PG in Malviya Nagar. PG stands for "Paying Guest," and it usually works as a room in a family's house. But I've got a good situation here that offers a bit more privacy than my last homestay, lovely though it was. The owners live on the third floor, and I'm on the second floor. There are two bedrooms with three beds in each, a kitchen and two bathrooms. There are only two Indian girls who are alo living here, but they're in the other bedroom. This means I've basically got this big room all to myself, which actually rules. The owners lock the front gate at 9PM, but they gave me a key so I don't have to worry about booking it back by 9PM on the dot. This new living situation - including the fact that I can eat all of the museli and honey and yogurt and pomegranate and chikoo and mango and banana that I want when I want to eat it - is pretty great. Plus, I live around the corner from a bagel shop and a frozen yogurt place.

Having a room to myself also means that I can take embarrassing pictures of myself on my laptop to show you all the dresses that I got tailored! (Remember that post?) Well after weeks of waiting and days of delay,  the dresses are in my possession. They fit me like a glove. Actually, they fit almost too well; getting them on an off is sort of a challenge. My waist is 6-8 inches smaller than my bust and my hips (and I know this now because I've been measured for the tailor so many times), so I have to sort of squeeze either my boobs or my hips into the dress. But once all my lady curves are in, let me tell you: I look good.

This is the fabulous 70's-style embroidered fabric that I bought...

...and this is the dress that I had made from it!

This dress makes me feel like Joan from Mad Men.

I never want to take these dresses off ever, but I have to because I can't walk around with bare legs here and because I don't really have anywhere to wear them to. Yet another reason I can't wait to get back to the States. (Fun fact: Leg waxing is incredibly inexpensive here, which is sort of ironic since it's impossible to show my freshly waxed gams off without staying culturally appropriate. But my legs feel great.) One of my flatmates just got home and I showed her my dresses. She thought they were kurtas, but she liked them a lot. Ah, well.

let's talk about holi

"Casual Tisching, post-Holi" -- a gem from Spring 2011.

The first time I heard about Holi was during my freshman year at Tufts. I went away for a weekend with the Tufts Democrats (because I'm a hip, social activist type...or just a nerd), and when I came back, my roommate and quite a few of my floormates were coated in colorful pigment. All I could get from them was, "Holi! Colors! On the Rez Quad! Just now! Indian festival! Blah! Did you see how cool my shirt looked?! Look at the cool Holi pictures that are up on Facebook!" During my sophomore year, I made it a point to partake in the festivities, led by the Indian student organization on campus. Once again, I didn't really know what it meant except that it was an excuse to take a nice, long break from studying for midterms to throw colors at each other. My boyfriend and I took a picture on my laptop in Tisch, post-Holi, to show to the world how cultured and colorful we were. (I should also mention that I sort of hated the whole thing. I liked being covered in colors, but I hated how every time I blew my nose for the next week, my snot was a mixture of purple and red from the rang. But, hey. A good Facebook picture is a good Facebook picture, you dig?)

Now let's fast-forward to a year later. I'm in India for Holi. No more of this janky Rez Quad business; I've moved into the major leagues. I woke up, excited to get out there and get my color on. But let me tell you something about Holi in India. It is serious business. First and foremost, the streets are empty. The market's closed. You can barely find an auto-rickshaw, when they're usually driving around in packs of five or six. Second, there's this ominous feeling when you walk down the streets because all you see is patches of pigment thrown on the sidewalks. You know someone has been there, but you don't know where they've gone and you don't know when they'll be back. It's nerve wracking. This is what I imagine a zombie apocalypse to feel like --

The usually bustling Lajpat Nagar Central Market on Holi.

And what have we all learned from zombie movies? When the zombie apocalypse is approaching, you stock up, and you stock up quickly. The only vendors that were on the streets were selling water guns, so Sarah and I grabbed one each and filled up. We then, cautiously, made our way back to our homestay. On the way, we had to dodge water balloons dropped from the roofs of the buildings surrounding us. I even saw a father, carrying his baby, with a water gun in hand. Sarah and I, unfortunately, did not come out unscathed. Some old man with a great white beard came up to us as we were buying water guns and smeared some green pigment on our foreheads and gave us a big bear hug, which was equally slimy. On our walk to the market, Sarah got hit with a few water balloons, some good squirts of a water gun and an egg to the right thigh. I got a water balloon to the right side and the back of the neck, in addition to an egg on my left butt cheek.

And then, war began. Children throwing pigment. Fathers on rooftops with sons and daughters, chucking water balloons. Big kids jumping little kids, rubbing dye in their hair and faces. Total chaos --

It was way aggressive. I'm still scared to go out onto the streets. In fact, Sarah and I went to the ATM and I had to literally growl at two teenage boys to get hell away from me with the rang, or pigment. They got dangerously close, but I scared 'em off. There was also a couple of grown men who were harassing us and threw a bottle of water on us. That was just uncalled for, honestly.

I'm now sitting in my room while the rest of my host family is napping. Our host sister says that once you wash the pigment off, you wash away your energy too and you just need to take a nap. But, much like last year, I need to buckle down and study for a midterm. Miree Hindi bahut karab hai. That's fancy-talk for, "My Hindi is really bad."

Today's been fun, but I already have enough trouble when I walk down the mean streets of Delhi. I get cat-called on the regular, so I really don't need to be worrying about getting a water balloon thrown at me or staining my clothes with potentially toxic chemicals, too.

Happy Holi! Right?!

in which we cross something off the bucket list

My roommate Sarah and I realized how little time we have left in Delhi, especially considering the fact that we spend so much of our time doing Hindi homework and going on excursions with the program. This led us to spend our valuable time (and I will not confirm or deny that this valuable time may or may not have occurred during one of our lectures this week) making a Delhi Bucket List. It is, if I may say so myself, a beautiful list and very well-written and designed.

Today we had a holiday from classes because of Holi tomorrow, so Sarah and I took the opportunity to cross some things off today. Specifically, we went to Lodhi Gardens and then a nearby American-style diner that I found on the Internet the other day. Neither activity disappointed.

The gardens were stunning. I had no idea that there was so much green space within Delhi. There were beautiful monuments, palm trees, green parrots, dogs, benches and flowers. We found a nice bench next to a little lake and studied Hindi until a sort of creepy man came up to us and started asking us questions about our Hindi homework. I think he was trying to help, but he was more of a distraction than anything else.

We then found some monkey bars. Sarah did some flips and I failed - yet again - at doing a single pull-up. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted some boys playing Holi. Holi, for those of you who are unaware, is the festival of colors. You celebrate by throwing colored powder over all of your friends. The main day of the festival is tomorrow, but that hasn't stopped anyone from started the festivities a day or two early. These boys were chucking powder left and right, and we very willing to have their picture taken...but I also had to pose for a picture with them in return. That made me uncomfortable, but a deal's a deal.

in which i would really kill for some cheese with this whine

Today, in a word, sucked.

in which i give an indian doctor a stool sample

I, Maxine Lee Builder, a proud citizen of the United States of America who is currently spending the semester in New Delhi, India is currently suffering from a bad case of intestinal infection caused by the ingestion of contaminated food or drink. (This is a fancy way of saying that I have a parasite or bacteria living in my GI tract, and I'm pooping a lot. I'm not ashamed because, as we learned on Friday, everyone poops. [Everyone. Even Beyonce.])

I went to the East West Clinic in New Delhi this afternoon with one of the SIT staff, who is the most maternal figure I have ever met. I told her this morning that I had been suffering this weekend from a fever, the chills, lots of digestion issues, and she was the most kind and understanding. She handed me two packets of Electral, which are the W.H.O.-approved rehydration salts, and let me take a nap in the library rather than talk in Hindi for an hour. That was a welcome break.

At 2PM, after a rather bland lunch of bananas and plain yogurt and white rice, I hopped into a car and strolled into this clinic. We went there on the first day of orientation, and I sort of figured that I wouldn't have to go back again. I went into an examination room and a nurse checked my pulse and my temperature and my blood pressure. (All normal. Duh.) Then the doctor, who had a killer mustache, came in and asked what was the problem.

Although I'm attempting to be cavalier about my intestinal troubles here, it's still quite embarrassing to look a strange doctor in the eyes and say, "Well, sir. I've been been suffering from what we in the business like to call, 'diarrhea.'" Nobody wants to have to be that girl, but I had to do it. I walked him through the roller-coaster of emotions that have plagued me and my internal organs all weekend. The initial distress at feeling ill, the tossing and turning all night. The feverish, delirious stage in which I could do little more than writhe under the covers, which turned into a great euphoria once I realized that my fever was gone. The following disdain at realizing that my intestines had, in fact, failed me yet again.

in which my roommate and i get an a+ for effort

Last night, I drank a liter of water that was fortified with W.H.O. approved rehydration salts, fell asleep and then slept like a baby. Woke up this morning, and my temperature was down to 98.1°F so I'm cool. This morning, I wanted to make up for lost time and by 10AM, my roommate Sarah and I were on the Metro and headed to the National Museum of Natural History. She had read about it in her Lonely Planet guidebook, which she got for cheap on Amazon. (This also means that her guidebook is from 2001. We decided to ignore that fact while making plans this morning.) We negotiated the price of an auto rickshaw like champs and told him to drop us off at the museum. Our first clue that something was amiss should have been the fact that the rickshaw-wallah didn't know where the museum was, but we told him that it somewhere near the Embassy of Nepal and the Mandi House Metro stop and he knew where those things were, so we got let out there.


Our second indication that things were weird was the fact that the sign on the museum was missing an "M." Also, we could hear construction on the inside. But there was a giant dinosaur outside of the building, so we knew that we were in the right place and were just way too excited to play with the dinosaur and take pictures with it because it's a life-size, huge dinosaur in the middle of New Delhi! You cannot say that it's not the coolest thing ever, because it is.

It's like Jurassic Park, but it's New Delhi and the dinosaur can't move.

The interior of the illustrious National Museum of Natural History.

But then we went into this so-called National Museum of Natural History, and we were confused. Like, immensely confused. Because there were dozens of construction workers doing all sorts of construction tasks. This includes hammering, jack-hammering and other things with power tools. But, according to the security guard at the front desk, the museum was still open. Just go up the stairs. So we did, and I regretted that decision the second we made it. I love natural history museums and this was definitely not a natural history museum. There was one "exhibit" that was open, but the room was really, really dark and I refused to go in because I am afraid of the dark. But Sarah did. She said she didn't learn that much about natural history or anything. We left after about five minutes, before the construction workers could harass us or a loose beam could fall on our heads or something. That's what you get when you listen to a guidebook that's over a decade old, I guess. (You should also check out the website of this museum. It's pretty high-tech, all things considered. But I do not regret going to the National Museum of Natural History because I took a picture with a dinosaur.)

But we weren't going to be deterred! "Off to Connaught Place," we triumphantly said. We walked down a beautiful tree-lined street, past the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and strolled into Connaught Place. But it was Sunday, so most of the stores were closed. And we tried to find this market but totally got harassed by a guy who was definitely paid by some store to bring tourists to this back alley place. And then we found an Indian tourism office and asked for a map, and he showed us a map of Delhi and started writing in pen all over it but when we asked if we could take the map with us, he refused to give it to us, which just didn't make a whole lot of sense. And then it was lunchtime and we were hungry and wanted to eat somewhere "hygienic," which led us to McDonald's because we figured that a Western food chain had to be relatively clean. I maintain that it was a cultural experience because I got a vegetarian McSpicy Paneer sandwich and fries. The McSpicy Paneer sandwich was fried Paneer with this really great sauce, but it was definitely too McSpicy for my taste. This led me to start craving frozen yogurt and, lo and behold, we found a frozen yogurt place!


The fro-yo wasn't that good. They didn't have "original" flavor yogurt, as we fro-yo connoisseurs like to call it. Instead, they had four flavors: chocolate, blackberry, blueberry and green apple. The machine with chocolate and blackberry wasn't working though, so there were really only two flavors. We took the Metro back to Lajpat Nagar, and I bought a really Western-style tank top from some store (but it was on sale for 419INR, which is really a good deal for this tank top).


So the moral of today's story is that we really, really tried. We did a lot of things and went a lot of places and didn't get put in too many dangerous situations and bargained and pleaded and used a smidgen of Hindi and didn't get violently ill from McDonald's or Cocoberry and navigated our way through Delhi without getting run over by a bus or a horse or a bicyclist or a scooter and I don't have a raging fever anymore. All in all, I'm calling today a victory, and I don't care what anyone else has to say about it.

look, ma!

I've been in this country for about a week now, and I'm only starting to get my bearings. We're starting to fall into a routine, which is definitely a good thing, but I'm worried that the routine will totally be shaken up next week though because we'll be taking an excursion to Aligar. Even though we're finding our groove, it's not exactly easy. Our schedule is, in a word, intense. Hindi is taking over my life. When I signed up for this program, I sort of considered learning the language like a cherry on the top of a public health sundae. But right now, it seems that all I'm spending my time on is having my host mother dictate sentences about khana, which means "food," so that I can write them down only to be completely incapable of repeating them to my teachers at school. Our classes have been running over the listed schedule by a couple of hours in some cases, and I come home from the program center totally drained.

But today we got our things together, dragged ourselves out of the house and made did some real tourist stuff. We went to India Gate! And we took pictures! So look, Mom! I'm doing some cool things here, I promise!

the requisite post about spirituality in india

In the United States, India is synonymous with spirituality, and there is some truth in that statement. I've stumbled upon dozens of temples in my week here. Right now, I am sitting at our host family's kitchen table, and there is a shrine in a small alcove to my right that features a statue of Ganesh, a photograph of our host mother's in-laws and a burning stick of incense. I can hear bells ringing from the small Hindu temple that stands on the corner. Images of the Hindu gods are everywhere and featured very casually at that.

One of these religious sites that I didn't even know was here was the Lotus Temple. This shows my ignorance, I suppose, but I sort of assumed that it was a Hindu temple since we're in India and about 80% of the population is Hindu. However, it's a Bahá'i temple. I didn't even know that Bahá'i was a thing until this afternoon, even though I pass this structure every day on the Metro ride to class. 

coming home

Our bedroom for the next two months.

We got assigned our homestays yesterday, and that was sort of a stressful process. We knew that we'd be placed with an Indian family somewhere in Delhi, but they didn't tell us if our family would have kids or pets or anything until the 11th hour. In fact, we didn't know who our roommate would be until the last minute either. We were all watching the Bollywood movie "3 Idiots" in the Program Center as our host parents came to pick us up. Sarah, my roommate, and I were the first ones to leave. It was like being a puppy and waiting for someone to adopt you. Simultaneously sad to be leaving the group but totally excited to have a home, all at the same time.

I'm in the Lajpat Nagar neighborhood. It's right near a big market, which is not going to be good for my wallet, and we're only a 15-minute walk from the Metro. Our host mother is the cutest woman. This isn't her first time at the rodeo, though. In fact, I believe we're at least her third set of host daughters with SIT. Auntie-ji can cook up a storm, has beautiful long hair and loves watching "Comedy Circus." In fact, we all watched "Comedy Circus" last night. A lot was lost in translation, since the show is in Hindi, but I still giggled. Fun fact: Spit takes are funny, no matter what continent you're on. Our host mother also has a daughter who is 19 and a student at Delhi University.

Our building.

As I mentioned, I'm sharing a room with another girl from our program. There was a rumor floating around that the roommate pairs might have to share a double bed, but that's fortunately not the case. My one complaint, if you can call it a complaint, is that the bed is very, very firm to the point that I'm sort of sure that it's a table with some padding on it. Koreans like firm beds too, so I'm relatively used to it, and I'm just grateful to have a bed and a host family in the first place. We've got a lovely balcony, too. One fact of Indian life that I'm still adjusting to is the noise. From our window, you can hear car horns beeping; packs of dogs barking; a man riding his bicycle, ringing the bell and chanting; and shouting. Shouting from kids, from parents, from everywhere. We're also pretty sure we heard a flock of pigeons fling themselves at our window this morning.

I'm trying hard to act like I'm part of the family rather than just a paying guest, but I still don't know where that balance is. I'm sure I'll be walking the tightrope throughout the next couple of months, but I'm glad I finally have a place to rest my head. (The food is delicious, too, but I have to learn how to say no to second, and sometimes third, helpings. Auntie-ji likes to make sure we get enough to eat, and she's a mean cook.)

Our neck of the woods in Delhi.

what i've learned during orientation

Tomorrow is our group's last day of orientation, and it's been an informative couple of days. We've been living out of our suitcases and barraged with a ton of information about safety, health, academics and Indian culture as a whole. Here are some of the gems that I've picked up along the way.

A sign for the "Women Only" car on the Delhi Metro.

1. What you wear is important. Kurtas and salwar suits are the norm for woman, and if you're a Western woman who wants to be taken seriously in India, you better dress the part. Our program of 21 is made up of 18 women, so what to wear has been the talk of the town. We're finally going shopping tomorrow, so I'll be able to show you all the colorful goodies and what I'll be wearing for the next three months.

2. Things are cheap. A bottle of water is 15 Rupees. A ride on the Metro is 32 Rupees round-trip, although that depends on which stop you get off at. A cup of coffee is about 80 Rupees. A good meal will run you a couple hundred Rupees. A kurta, or tunic, will cost anywhere from 350-500 Rupees. Now consider the fact that $1.00 is 50 Rupees, and you'll get a sense for how much things cost.

3. The Metro rules. It's really clean, and there's even a women's car in the front. (That's not for segregation; it's for safety.) It's quick and efficient and wonderful. I have a feeling that's how I'm going to rely on getting around while in Delhi.

A smokestack located next to the park...near Gandhi's grave.

4. Smog does not rule. I've got a little bit of a sore throat because of the pollution, and (not to be vulgar) my snot was black the other day. There's a constant haze over the city. It's a little brutal. I'm hoping I adapt, but I won't die if I don't. I'm just grateful that I don't have asthma.

5. Things aren't always what they seem. When I arrived at the hotel, there was a swastika painted on the door. In fact, there are swastikas almost everywhere. In Indian culture, that's a sign for good luck -- not for Nazi Germany.

6. Delhi belly is a thing. We've been continually warned about the dangers of street food and not to be alarmed if we start having diarrhea from the food. They told us at our Program Center that they've been taking it nice on us for our first week, but the food's only going to get spicier as the semester goes on. I don't know if my GI tract will be able to handle that...

This is not anti-Semitic pottery. I promise.

7. India is a vegetarian's dreamland. Everything is labeled "Veg" or "Non-Veg," and every place will have Veg options. Most importantly, it's all delicious.

8. I don't know how to read Hindi. I promise I made flash cards, but I really don't have any idea what I'm doing or saying. Sorry, SIT.

9. Indian toilets are essentially sideways urinals that you have to squat over. It's tough on the legs, but if you want a tutorial, you should watch this video. They showed it to us during orientation. It's a laugh and a half, let me tell you. He's the Napoleon Dynamite of Tamil Nadu, and he can use a latrine like it's no one's business.

I'm still learning, and I'm still getting oriented. SIT gave us an Internet stick that gives us access to Internet anywhere in India. I know it's not actually called an Internet stick. It's actually a USB drive that blinks and lets me log onto Facebook; I think it's called an "external modem." But Internet stick just sounds way better. Let me live the dream, and I'll tell you more about my adventures as they happen.

i made it here!

I'm here in Delhi! I made it alive! I'm staying in a hotel right now with the other members of my program for our orientation. We're shuffling between the Program Center and the hotel and other excursions in the city, including Gandhi's gravesite this afternoon. On our first visit to SIT's Program Center on Wednesday, the staff gave us garlands and tied a red string around our wrists and put the red dye on our foreheads. I know this has some significant meaning, but it's sort of lost on me right now. I'm already digging this city, and I'm ready to explore and to make it my own. Orientation is over on Saturday, and we'll move into our homestay then. I'm getting better access to Internet sometime tomorrow afternoon, so I'll give you all a better indication of my life when I figure it out myself. Hopefully I'll figure out what it all means by May.