Morning hike, afternoon wrestling

Those of you who know me know that I am not what is typically called "a morning person." When I wake up in the morning, I like to lounge in bed for a while and ponder my next moves. I like to have a leisurely breakfast and a nice, warm shower, and then get on with my day.

This tends to surprise "morning people," who don't seem to understand why a person would want to waste any time taking advantage of a morning. Kalden is one of these people. There have been a good number of occasions where I've woken to him hollering outside my window "Magda! Wake up! Let's go hiking!" I have tried -- and apparently failed -- to explain to him on each of these occasions that I need some mental preparation for something like a 6-plus-hour hike. Today he wanted to go to Triund. I told him straight out that I wasn't up for it; it was nice to hear Brij say the same thing. Eventually we regrouped and after a few false starts, the two guys, Marie, and I set out for a "little hike."

We wound up taking the long way to Dharamkot, which involved navigating a very, very muddy stretch where there had been a landslide recently. We got pizza at this restaurant that is generally regarded by people in the area to be one of the best around, and then we tried to beat the rain at least to Bhagsu, after which point we could head back to McLeod Ganj.

Some of the only flat space I've seen since I got here.

A nice, small, well-kept house. I think I could live someplace like this.

 Navigating the slippery stone path from Dharamkot to Bhagsu. No casualties.

Brij wanted to be back because apparently there was mud wrestling as part of the fair that's been going on lately. We decided that sounded like fun, so we made sure we were back in town before 2pm.

We found this!

A marching band!

As it turns out, they were on their way to the wrestling match as well. We just followed them, found seats, and hung out for a while.

Indian wrestling is somewhat more interesting than American wrestling. This is mainly due to the fact that they have live music the whole time.

New bukkits: living the high life in India

The other day my students took their Unit 2 test. It's always interesting to see how people score on exams; some of my best communicators in class don't do as well as I expect them to, and a few of the quietest, blend-in-to-the-crowd students do surprisingly well indeed. One thing I noticed was that even my strongest students had some trouble with the writing portion, in which they were asked to "write a short email to a new friend" and answer six simple questions, such as what is your name, how many siblings do you have, that sort of thing.

So I did what any concerned teacher would do and I devised an activity for them to practice their email-writing skills. I typed up an email from one fictitious person to another and filled it with punctuation and grammar errors. I tried to base it largely on the ones they've seen in class so as not to throw too much at them at once.

I have since been informed that I may have gone a little overboard. It's a tricky situation: they need to know how to do things like write emails (and sound intelligent), but their grasp of the English language is somewhat slippery, so I have to be careful not to do things like say "my town is called Springfield" and then tell them the whole thing should be in present simple tense, because a whole bunch of them got confused with "called" being a past tense form of a verb. Being a native speaker, I didn't even think of it at the time.

Oh, the surprises one gets when teaching!

It's not so bad, though. Today I had them compare notes, during which time I wrote the entire first paragraph on the board. Then I had them come up and one person correct each sentence, after which I asked the class if the corrections were, well, correct.

The best part, I think, was when a couple of them went back and forth reversing each other's corrections because there was some dispute over whether an apostrophe belonged in a particular word. One student went up and inserted the little flying comma, and another got right up and erased it, the entire class had a nice little giggle, and it was the perfect setup to discuss when we need to put apostrophes by the letter S.

I think I'm going to start doing something like that each class, and hopefully it'll get them used to sentence structure and everything. Does anyone from R-C remember "Daily Oral Language" from Mrs. McGann's class? Isn't that what it was called? I'm thinking I'll do that sort of thing and see how it goes. They seem to do well when they can check each other's work, but when it's up to each one of them individually they have some trouble. I really want to try to get them over that. The culture here is very community-oriented, and it comes out in the classroom. I dig that. It's a little tricky to get them not to help each other on tests, though.

In other news, I have a new trash can at my place!

A shiny new bukkit: I haz one!

I'll have to see if I can get them to do something about my electrics next...

Brij and I were a little excited about the new additions in our hallway this morning. We think it may have had something to do with our telling the guys who run the place that if they want westerners to stay there, as they claim they do, then they should make a little more effort to get the place up to something resembling a western standard of living. Seriously, guys. You could at least replace the shower head that's missing in the one room, and scrub the walls for god's sake. I had to do the walls thing on my own, and if you recall, I also went through a couple hours and half a (rather large) package of butt wipes to scrub down all the trim and the headboard. I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but about a week before I moved in I asked them to make sure the room was cleaned before I got there. To be fair, the floor was all sparkly and still even a little wet. Really, though. You could make some effort to make the other surfaces presentable.

That said, I really do like my room. It's small but not too cramped; it's sufficiently "Indian" without being so ghetto I count the days until my flight home. In the immortal words of Goldilocks, it's juuuust right.

I am, however, a little concerned about the temperature situation. My room most definitely does not have heat, and the nights have been getting chilly already. I'm thinking I may have to stock up on blankets in the coming months.

-- For those of you who are curious, my typical morning goes something like this:
Awake to music from Suikoden for my alarm, around 7:30. Congratulate myself on having the foresight to download this ringtone before I left home.
Get up, put on flip flops. The floor is made of tile and is always, always cold. Go into the bathroom and turn on the water heater.
Fill up kettle, turn on. Make sure everything else in the room is switched off because otherwise the breaker trips.
If/when the breaker trips anyway, muscle open the door to the hallway (it sticks) and flip the switch. Repeat until it stays.
Once water in kettle is boiling, make oatmeal and stir in homemade peanut butter I bought from some Tibetans at the temple a few weeks ago. Add dried fruit and nuts or fresh bananas as available.
Eat breakfast, drink some boiled (clean) water, wash dishes in the bathroom sink.
Take a shower. Turn the water off often so as to conserve the precious hot variety; the tank is pretty small.
Flip off the water heater.
Get dressed, turn on wall outlet to charge my phone/laptop/Nook/whatever. Prioritize wisely, because there is only one outlet in the room.
Fill up large bucket in bathroom with water and some powdered laundry detergent. Put dirty clothes in to soak.
Lesson plan or read one of the handful of books I have going at any given time. (Currently working on: God Against the Gods, Koran Curious: A Guide for Infidels and Believers, and They Do It With Mirrors. I recently finished The Seven Daughters of Eve and one night I knocked out Metamorphosis. I recommend all of 'em. Lon, I think The Night Circus is going to be next on the list.)
Brush my teeth with purified water, then scrub the laundry that's been soaking. Dump the soapy water in the sink, refill the bucket with clear water, and rinse. Repeat as necessary. Wring everything out as much as possible and then hang it out on one of the clotheslines on the balcony or drape it over the side in the sun. Hope all my laundry doesn't fall on the filthy ground while I'm not looking.
Collect my stuff, triple check to make sure I have my keys, and head to class sometime between 10 and 10:30 if it's a weekday. Otherwise I keep my balcony door open so I can holler down to Marie and Gill to see if they want to go do anything in town together.

Today the after-school excitement was a street market down past the main square.

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of food.

They even had carnival rides. They were old, dirty, creepy carnival rides, but carnival rides all the same. I did not ride them.

On my way there I ran into a few of my students, all of whom cheerfully engaged me in conversation. I also stopped in to the post office to send off a small birthday package; thankfully the experience went much more smoothly than last time. I had to lick oldschool stamps. I can't remember the last time I even saw stamps that required licking.

For now, I'm going to go study my Hindi, so to quote the picture Casey so thoughtfully left on my FB page earlier today......

Namaste, bitches. ;)

A Most Exciting Breakfast

I have been craving "muesli with fruit and curd" for the last week and a half. I had some the first morning I was in Delhi and it was really good. For those of you Americans who don't recognize half the words in that sentence, it's basically granola with yogurt and fruit. Pretty yummy.

So this morning as Gill was leaving her building to go teach her class at Tibet Charity, I poked my head out my balcony door and asked her to knock on Marie's door for me. Marie had already made some oatmeal, but she accepted my invitation to breakfast anyway so I collected my things and we headed into town for some coffee "and whatever."

On our way up, we passed this construction site like we always do on our way up Temple Road...

... when we heard a CRASH and found bricks falling from the top floor. Everyone on the street stopped. The Tibetan women near us started "tsk tsk"ing and saying "very dangerous," with which we agreed.

We decided to walk on the other side of the road.

A few minutes later we arrived at the Moon Peak Cafe, which I had never been to in the month I've been in McLeod. We've heard good things, though, so we figured we'd try it out since I wanted a coffee.

The menu reads thusly:

That seems fair.

We sat at a table outside and had just gotten our omelettes and coffee when we heard a ruckus from near the restaurant door. There was a whole bunch of arguing and shouting in Tibetan, and a couple of the restaurant guys were trying to reason with this guy who was clearly under the influence of something. I managed to record the end of the tussle. I missed the part where he punched the picture window. Sorry.

One of the other patrons came over and tried to reason with him. I'm pretty sure she was from New York, judging from her accent and fearless, brazen attitude.

Another patron was caught a little too near the altercation and we invited her to come sit with us. That's how we met Suzanne, who comes from Maine:
 

Suzanne and Marie, practically unruffled by the morning's commotion.

The rest of the day was less crazy. My students took their Unit 2 test and so far have done... decently. I developed some stomach cramps around noon:30 and had to take a little while off; I wonder if I ate my larger-than-usual breakfast too quickly? Regardless, I'm ok now, and I even came up to town for a pedicure at a Tibetan salon (350 rupees). I left a 50 rupee tip because they wouldn't let me pay for the bottle of nail polish my oh-so-graceful self dropped and broke... I may not be going back there for a little while if only because of embarrassment. Oh well. So it goes.

Here, finally uploaded, is the video I took the day I hurt my knee, in case you want an idea of what it's like going from my room to Lower Dharamsala. I didn't start recording until about halfway through the trip; it takes roughly 30 minutes total. You should kind of get the idea, though. There's less to see in the upper half of the trip anyway.

A collection of randomness

Earlier today I gave in and bought some Midwest comfort food, since I'm going to miss it at home this year: corn. Fresh, roasted corn on the cob. I was really excited, because I've seen street vendors with the stuff for the last couple of weeks but wasn't sure I wanted to risk it.

It's not Illinois corn, but it should hold me over for a while. They have a bunch of ears of corn in the husks on their little carts, and then they unwrap one and roast it IN the coals, fanning it with this little thing, and then wipe it down and put lime and salt on it, and there you go. I was pumped. Real, fresh corn!

Sadly, it could have been cooked a little longer. The flavor was good, but the texture left something to be desired. Oh well. So it goes; you take what you can get.

Speaking of taking what you can get, all of the chips and snacks here are masala flavor. Observe:
 

On an unrelated note, here are some cows chilling in the road for you:

Where do you suppose this garage door goes?

Here are a couple bits of writing my students did:

"La," in Tibetan, is an honorific added to the end of a person's name to show respect.

And finally, a couple of pretty landscapes:

To TED or not to TED

We saw this guy on the way up to McLeod Ganj this evening:

There were some snails too, but I'm having trouble with the uploading thing tonight.

Gill, Marie, Brij, and I spent most of the day in Lower Dharamsala roaming the place and just generally looking around. There was supposed to be a TEDx talk in the area, but according to the website the venue was simply "Dharamsala, India." I hate to break it to you, TED, but Dharamsala is a whole city, and a sprawling one at that. We had originally intended on attending the event, but after the very rainy morning and the fact that we weren't sure where to go, we decided instead to just go wherever seemed like a good idea at the time.

When we got back, I helped Brij get some splinters out of his hand (he had also taken a spill earlier in the week) and he helped me do this:

Yeah, it's time to quit being a slacker tourist and learn the local language. Yes, English is technically an official language of India and yes, 90% of the signs here are in English. Everybody seems to prefer speaking Hindi, though, and I can't think of a good reason not to learn at least a few key phrases. Wish me luck. ;)

Observations on India 2

• Yes, my knee is looking (and feeling) better. Thank you for your concern.
  
  
• You know that saying about “People often mistake kindness for flirtation because it's so rare these days”? There's truth in it. I may need to stop being so nice.

• Prices for goods (and services) easily reach into the multiple 100s in India; you will find yourself tempted to haggle the prices down. Keep in perspective just how much 100 rupees actually amounts to, though: about $1.65. If someone quotes you 600 rupees and your reaction is “My god, that's so expensive!” keep in mind that it's actually only about 10 bucks. If you manage to talk them down 50 rupees congratulations, you've saved almost a whole dollar. Sometimes it's less stressful for you (and better for the local economy) to just accept that the original price is still pretty damn low and cough it up.

• Restaurants advertise when they have ice cubes available, because this is a fairly rare commodity here.

• Restaurants also advertise when they take care to wash their veggies in something better than tap water (I believe most of them specify potassium permanganate.. I'm not a chemist, though, so I may have gotten that wrong) because

• You do not want to consume the water unless it's been boiled first, and for this reason

• “hot water” is the beverage you order here. It's the free, default beverage you get, like you can always get ice water in the States.

• Unless the restaurant you are ordering from has one of the above disclaimers, you probably do not want to order any sort of raw veggie. Sadly, this means salad is very hard to come by, and it's almost impossible to maintain a raw diet (if you're going for that sort of thing).

• Standards of cleanliness, professionalism, and time management are very different in India than they are in the US.

• If you do decide to scrub the walls in your new Indian place of residence, be forewarned that a fair amount of that dirt may be load bearing. Don't be surprised if you get just as much paint off the walls in the process... not that I know from experience or anything.

• Incense is your friend. So is hand sanitizer. This is coming from someone who uses neither at home in the US.
  
  

Glad I got that tetanus shot

People around town are getting excited for the end of the monsoon, and that includes me. This morning I decided to skip the teaching and instead take advantage of the bright, sunny balcony and do some laundry. Last night I actually made the executive decision to wash my pillows and their cases – after I saw how much dirt came out of them, there's no way I could have slept another night on those things. Damn. I'm hoping it's more due to the fact that everything in India is dirty and dusty, and less with the housekeeping of the staff at this establishment.

Regardless, it's my room for at least the next month, and that means ultimately it's up to me to keep it the way I want it. My spoiled American self is adjusting well, I think, to the fact that if I want something done I'd better be prepared to spend some time doing it myself. After I hung and laid out the rest of the laundry I decided to see just how much of the dirt on the window frame was permanent, and to my surprise and delight, the answer was “not much of it.” I had asked, with the help of my good friend and colleague Brij, for them to clean the room prior to my move in last weekend. When I arrived the floor was still a bit damp and so I figured they'd done all they could to ready the place. After I tried out the bed they even switched the mattresses for softer ones and gave me what appeared to be decently clean sheets.

After this morning, though, I realize that there is work to be done. Thank you so much for the new pillow Mom – it came just in time and it will be appreciated like no pillow has been appreciated before! Perhaps it's even my new best friend. I set out for Lower Dharamsala where things tend to cost less because a) I had to pick up a gift that I had made for one of you, and b) I wanted some cleaning supplies.

On the way, I slipped and sustained a bit worse than your average scraped knee.

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I can't say I was happy at the prospect of having an open wound, wandering around India past the cow turds in the street and the piles of garbage on the corners. It's swollen now, but I've got it cleaned and Neosporin-ed and bandaged up, so I think I should be ok. I don't really want to walk too far tonight though, which means if this is posted on what is Thursday morning for you at home, I have gotten creative with how I access the www. If not, I guess I haven't out-clevered the Indian internet yet. Give it time.

Ok, so the knee got banged up on the way to Lower Dharamsala, which means I sort of limped through town as I ran my errands. Luckily, I only had to stop at 3 places before I decided I'd found a large enough percentage of the things on my list that I could head back and not feel like I wussed out too badly. The sky was also growing progressively darker, and I've lived here long enough to estimate that I probably had an hour at best before it started raining. Did I mention I'd forgotten my umbrella at home?

I asked the tailor where I could pick up “the Jeep” that everyone keeps telling me goes between Lower Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj and costs 10 rupees as opposed to the taxi which will run you 40 (usually only if you at least look Indian and can speak enough Hindi to talk them down), if not more. Ok, it's true 40 rupees or even 100 is not that much money. I've been spending more than I anticipated, though, and so I'm trying to cut back. Besides, I had also heard the bus/Jeep takes a more scenic route and I was interested in that. Oh, and it's what the locals do, taking the bus/Jeep. I'm trying to fit in. All the cool kids are doing it, you know.

Anyway, as luck would have it the bus pulled up as I was just reaching the bus stop (which I don't think has a sign, it's just where everybody congregates and the bus obliges by pausing for a moment) and I hopped on. I was really glad, because by this time my knee was reminding me with every left step that I really shouldn't be putting my weight on it.

The bus trundled its way over the potholed road that wound up to McLeod Ganj through a military base that proudly displayed signs with Indian soldiers brandishing rifles and mustaches, and slogans like “May God have mercy on my enemies – because I won't!” Totally worth the 10 rupees.

Half an hour later the bus pulled in to the bus station in McLeod, which I had never been to. I wasn't even sure what part of the city I was in, to be honest. Of course, just as we got there the clouds decided they'd held in all that moisture plenty long enough, thank you very much, and the daily downpour commenced. “That's cool,” I said to myself. “I can hang here for a little while.” And so I did. I chilled there at that bus station for an hour before I finally got cold and tired of the gaggle of Indian women who had since disembarked their own bus and decided to literally surround the chair I had sat down in and pay absolutely no regard for where their purses and dupattas were swinging as they animatedly chatted with each other. (That's a fancy way of saying it was loud, a little smelly, and I got whacked in the head a couple of times.)

At that point I flagged down an autorickshaw that had pulled in and asked how much it would cost for a ride to the bottom of Temple Road. After a brief clarification on where that was, he told me 80 rupees. I had decided before I asked that I was willing to pay 100, and a tuk-tuk, as they are also called, would be cheaper than an actual taxi, so that's why I tried him first.

The astute among you may notice that I could have just taken a taxi from Lower Dharamsala straight to my place and paid 100 rupees or less for the 15-minute trip, and now instead I'd taken an hour and a half and spent about what I would have anyway, and was cold and a little bit damp on top of the knee injury I'd have had either way. I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble if I hadn't been so stingy in the first place, eh? Maybe so, but I actually welcomed the chance to just sort of sit near the dhaba (Indian cafe) in the station and watch people, and contemplate my situation. It may not have been the most efficient route, but I think it was the right one for today.

I got up to my room where I carefully counted how many switches I flipped on at once and took a shower. Or at least I tried to. I had left the water heater on all night in hopes that I could be guaranteed a hot shower whenever I wanted it, but that seems to have backfired because the “hot” water was only a step above lukewarm. Whatever, I thought, I just need to clean this knee up. So I did that, put on dry clothes, and decided I'd take it easy by snacking on some dried pineapple and recounting my adventure to you, dear friends.

For all it lacks, it really is kind of nice here. Some days I think I might actually be able to live in India for more than a few months. Maybe a different part of India; I hear Punjab is really nice. I think I'll also check out Thailand. I've had a bunch of people tell me lately that Thailand is like India but cleaner. That sounds fun.

Don't worry, I'll be home in December. I can't make any guarantees how long I'll stick around, though. In a lot of ways India has what I've been saying I wanted: walkable cities, all privately-owned businesses, and people being more concerned with appreciating what they have rather than working to constantly make more money so they can buy things they don't need. I think I'll probably end up going for someplace in between as far as lifestyle. I don't know that I'm ready to permanently give up reliable electricity and hot water, or salad, or nice knitting needles.