I'm a Walking Cliche!

(Note: I actually wrote this post 2 days ago, but couldn't get online to post it until today. But, since I'd already written so much, I decided to go ahead and post my belated entry. Things should be a little smoother once I have internet access at home, though I'm not promising anything!)

A lot of people have many preconceived ideas about what life in India is like and the types of experiences one will have in coming to this country. Generally speaking, I try to stay away from preconceived ideas and stereotypes about places and people, as they usually are not correct. However, today, I think I managed to expose myself to every single clichéd Indian experience possible in the span of 24 hours! Let me explain.

Yesterday afternoon, a few hours after my extremely spicy lunch, my stomach started to rebel against me. It seems that my first brush with “Delhi Belly” had begun. For the rest of the night, I resigned myself to lying motionless on my bed, trying not to switch positions for fear of waking the monster that had apparently crawled into my tummy. Then, today I woke up and took an icy-cold shower, courtesy of our heater in the bathroom’s unannounced leave of absence. After that, I walked to school, dodging suicidal rickshaw drivers and rolling my eyes at the perpetual flood of cat-calls reserved only for those fortunate enough to have day-glow white skin. At school, I actually attended one full course from 9 to 11am, but then had to find some way of entertaining myself from 11 until 2, since the 11 o’clock class was unexpectedly cancelled. After my courses finished at 4, I met another student at the school library to help me check out the only copy of my class’s compendium of notes. This trip of course resulted in me being told that the copy was already taken, and that if I wanted to reserve it, I would have to come back the next day at 8am and put my name on the list. If my name is first on the list, I will then be able to pick up the compendium at 2pm. So, after that relatively unproductive afternoon, I went home to rest, since my stomach still was not too happy with me. A few hours after I arrived home, one of my roommates came into my room and asked if I had checked the water recently. Apparently something had malfunctioned in our water tanks and our daily ration of water had overflowed out of the tank and onto the bathroom floor!

So, there I was, lying in bed, feeling sick, and, due to our sudden lack of water, psychosomatically dehydrated. Amazingly though, I was not discouraged. While I certainly was not happy to be feeling ill and to be inconvenienced by the water situation, I took it all in stride. It seems that the Indian “Chalte hai” attitude ( A favorite phrase in Hindi roughly translating to: “It’ll work”) is rubbing off on me. I’m learning all sorts of valuable lessons here, like: You have to take things as they come (sickness and cancelled classes are inevitable); You can’t take anything for granted (running water is not a God-given right); and, finally, Always carry your umbrella, because if it isn’t raining now, it will be soon.
That last lesson came tonight when my roommates and I started walking the 2 minutes to our landlord’s house to sign our contract. Thinking we would only be out for a minute, none of us bothered to grab our umbrellas. Today had been relatively sunny, after all. Of course, not 30 seconds into our walk, the skies opened up and water came gushing onto us. By the time we reached our landlord’s house, we were completely drenched! Thankfully, our landlord was very nice, and didn’t mind letting 6 soaked students into her home.

Oh, that reminds me... As you can see, I finally have pictures to show you! Because I have so many that I want to share, I have tried to be selective for now and just put a few of my favorites. Here are some of my flat in its unfurnished state. I am now living about a mile from campus with 5 other girls: 3 from Nepal (Shradha, Rekha, and Anjam) , 1 from Bangladesh (Sonia), and 1 from India (Glenda).

Part of the living area where Glenda and Sonia sleep

Our garden. We are really fortunate to be off of the main road a little.

The bathroom that Shradha, Glenda and I share.

See the pink water heater in the corner? It's nice, when it works!

And, just because I like them, here are some pictures at a meal we had after church this past Sunday. I visited a congregation in Northern Mumbai and had a really interesting experience muddling through the Hindi and meeting all kinds of new people. But, since this post is already plenty long, I promise to write more on that another time. Until then, to all the Americans reading this, HAPPY 4th!!!