Three Weeks?!?!

I cant believe it has already been three weeks! Sometimes I think the time is going by so quickly here and at other times the summer couldn’t be moving slower. I don’t think I’ve ever been seriously homesick in my life before, minus maybe once or twice when I first went to Cornell. But usually new situations that I put myself in are pleasant enough that I don’t need to go home right away. I mean, I only go home for winter break during the school year and most people go home at least 3 times if not more. Thus, I thought I would be mentally prepared to go straight from Cornell away for the entire summer. Turns out I underestimated India. No matter how much I learn here, sometimes I just want a cheeseburger, AC and a television.

Essentially, I realized that I have been living a fairly low-class lifestyle in India. Our flat doesn’t have AC, I take the bus to work and I’ve been on the verge of starving. Most middle class Indians in Delhi all have AC flats, many have drivers if they don’t own their own cars and of course and no relatively wealthy Indian would ever in their right mind take the buses here. As for the food situation, as much as I loved it the first few days, I can’t so much as look at chapatti now without feeling nauseous.

So I have decided to start living a little better. Instead of living off of toast and watermelon, I’m going to start cooking (gasp!) and see how that works for me. I also got a long overdue pedicure last night with Kylie (Canada) and Josephina (Samoa) and that helped a bit.

Overall, I thought I would be able to handle India because I had heard so much about it and I just came back from a third world country, Nicaragua, so I should be able to handle anything. Plus, Nicaragua was anything but a shock for me. I felt completely comfortable there and I was fine living with people who were very poor. What would be so bad about seeing slums in India? Well to start, in Nicaragua I fit in right away. We were a group of 15 Americans doing a service project where foreign groups go all of the time. The Nicaraguans were not shocked that we were there. Here, they are a bit more shocked. And the people who are poor are a bit more …real. At the bus stop, and this is a usual occurrence, groups of poor children who look like they haven’t bathed in days, have tattered clothes and no shoes, see me (or rather see my skin) and head straight toward me. Seeing slums in India and getting repeatedly poked by poor Indian children who are begging for money is a bit different.

But after this weekend was over I think I am doing a bit better. Just a moment of weakness I think. And everyone here I talk to says that they hated the first month. So really it’s a matter of time before I become a bit more accustomed and comfortable.

As for this weekend, I, along with 26 other AIESEC people, went to Corbett National Park. Apparently it was the last weekend that we could go to this park as well because when the monsoon season hits the entire place has to shut down for 2 months because of the river. So the troops left at about 8 PM on Friday night to board our overnight bus. It was kind of funny actually that so many of us went because we were able to get an entire bus to ourselves. Reminded me of a bizarre school trip.

And while the bus ride may have started out smooth, that lasted for about 10 minutes. Imagine the crappiest bus you can driving on dirt roads and roads with potholes with a dodgy driver for 8 hours straight. We would all be trying to sleep, when all of a sudden we are woken up by the sound of heads hitting the ceiling. Not to mention, since horns are like candy in India, the guy used the bus horn at least once every minute if not more often. And this wasn’t your average car horn. It was more like… WEEEWOOOOWEEEWOOOWEEEWOOOOWEEEEWOOOOO. Something similar to an ambulance on steroids.

When the bus trip from hell was finally over, we rolled out to the hotel at 5:30 AM and prompty started our safari at 6 AM. Oh joy. And while this was supposed to be a tiger safari, we all already knew the tigers were pretty much nocturnal in the summer so we didn’t get our hopes up and just laughed when a highlight of the safari was a rooster. I’m kidding, but really we saw a few cool things. Lots of peacocks, some cool birds, deer and monkeys everywhere. The best was when a monkey stole this lady’s lunch at the rest stop. Monkeys are intense when it comes to food.

After that we all crashed for about 4 hours in the hotel and then hit up the pool! It was very nice to actually swim for a bit and to lie out and tan. And in the words of Jana, the girl from Kazakstan, “Good thing you lay out in sun, you were very white before.” Well as long as she’s happy.

The food also wasn’t bad at all. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was the best Indian food I’ve had here yet. There was even lamb for dinner!! At night we had a party, all 27 of us which was fun too.

Then bright and early in the morning I woke up for my 7 AM elephant safari. On the way there (the surprises never end) Kylie asked the driver if he could turn on the radio since it was about a half hour drive. He replied that it was broken and proceeded to tell us it was because he flipped the car three times the other day. After repeating what he said to make sure we weren’t just misunderstanding him, he then told us it was just because he was drunk driving and it wasn’t a big deal. Of course, I said “Well you know you shouldn’t drive drunk” (obvi). Then he laughed and said everyone driving at night in India is driving drunk and it was completely normal. He said he lost his license 4 times already but he just goes back and gets a new one. Oh you know, no big. I also learned at you can get a prostitute in the town we drove through for an average of 30-40 rupees. Good to know they go for under $1 here.

One we got to the elephants it was pretty cool. There were four of us per elephant and we did about an hour or so safari through this forest. We saw a lot of wildlife there as well and elephants poop the size of a coconut. Lovely. Pretty neat though seeing them so close – not your average zoo trip!

The way back from Corbett was the most painful 7-8 hours of my life. This is when the homesickness really kicked in. All I have to say is you can’t pay me to get on a bus for longer than an hour in India. There isn’t enough money in the world.

Right now I’m just back to work (after taking a day off of course to recover) and back to my normal business. I handwashed my clothes for the first time last night after I was given lessons by Angelos (Greece). This was of course after he made fun of me for being a spoiled American and only ever using a washing machine. We jokingly butt heads a lot but more on that later…

Must go! They are calling me at work! (They call me Zill by the way).