Hot. Hustle. Bustle.

Calum left yesterday to teach at another Idex camp in Himachal. I’m excited for him (and it’ll be a lot cooler up in the mountains-the jammy dodger) but it does shift things quite a bit for me. Obviously socially it changes things as I live and work with him and he’s become a good friend so I’ll miss having someone to pull silly faces with over breakfast. It then also means the reins are in my hands in terms of teaching/organising it all etc. But it also shifts things as I was almost instantly dependent on Calum when I landed up as he had already been here for a month or so and I got used to doing things with a side-kick. I can be stubbornly independent at the best of times so frustrating to admit that it feels a bit un-nerving to start doing things on my own-especially as a woman. I’m still getting used to being stared at and having passing comments said to me as I walk down the street-a rickshaw driver even said “you are sexy” when I got out of a rickshaw recently. I just glared at him and stormed off wondering what he thought he would achieve by saying that. It does make me feel a bit un-easy, well more uncertain really, of how to “be” as a woman. It’s strange because I don’t really think about it at home. I just am-and my gender feels irrelevant somehow. I had a coffee with Kabir (really sound local guy Calum introduced me to) and I was chatting to him about it and he told me the “do’s” and “don’ts” and things I should avoid doing which will make me look “available”-like drinking alone in a bar for example. Don’t worry I’m not being a total dingbat and oblivious to everything, walking around in hot pants and crop tops down a dark alley at 3am-I’m just still working out the balance between being overly cautious and guarded and being too blasé and relaxed and therefore putting myself into unnecessarily silly situations. I do feel safe here and a lot of the time people are just staring out of curiosity but it does feel strange when you can feel eyes on you, regardless of what the intentions are. I also feel cautious to generalise after the “you are sexy” rickshaw driver encounter for example, especially when all the men I work and live with never make me feel uneasy or uncomfortable-in fact they’ve all played a massive part in making me feel at home so quickly. Regardless of what city I’m in, there’s good and bad. It’s just harder to spot where you’re in an unfamiliar place. I guess, I just have to have my wits about me without shutting myself off to it all.

I have predictably fallen in love with India though-it’s like yep, I already know I need to come back. I know I’m going to miss bouncing around in a rickshaw taking in the sights of empty billboards full of birds, fading colourful writing on the side of buildings, jewellery shops,people having a shave on the side of the road, rickshaw drivers asleep in their rickshaws, donkeys and carts-I even saw an elephant plodding down Tonk Road the other evening!! But the initial honeymoon “seeing everything through rose-tinted glasses” phase has passed now so, as predicted, the annoyances have set in. I think the main thing is the heat. Even local people I work with are feeling it-it’s getting hotter every day and everyone keeps warning me that “this is nothing”. It is going to get HOT. I think it’s making me ill already though. This week I’ve been sick a few times. Only ever in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning for some reason but being sick is disgusting isn’t it?! I’m a bit soft and always feel a bit panicky when I’m being sick (don’t laugh, Ben!) It’s just un-natural for the contents of your stomach to come out of your mouth!! I can’t complain because everyone’s in the same boat and most people have, or have had, it a LOT worse than me.
But even so when you’re hot, dehydrated, tired and queasy it makes you so much more sensitive to everything else. When I’m ill everything annoys me: mosquito bites and being kept awake at night by the need to scratch and heat induced dreams of crowd surfing at parties, water parks, mazes and airports; my leaking toilet; broken flip-flops; nose-bleeds, power cuts; rickshaw drivers getting lost; the lack of peace and quiet. Oh that’s the other main annoyance after the heat.....

Jaipur is a loud and bustling city with constant beeping, drumming, whistling, screeching-even in the house there’s the TV on full blast, the doorbell ringing, music playing and everyone shouting around the house. There are 3 floors and if anyone wants to talk to anyone they’ll shout from the bottom of the stairs all the way up to the kitchen on the roof- “Umaaaajjjjiiiii!!”-until they get a response. Sometimes I sit on the roof to try and get some quiet and it can be quite peaceful-Umaji may be there singing to herself as she cooks and I can just drift into my book with the breeze and the birds singing in the background.....and then a couple of staff will turn up with music blasting from their phones whilst having a really loud conversation over your head as you read. It actually made me smile writing that though! Whilst it’s annoying when you’re in a crabby mood and want peace-it makes the house feel colourful, alive and warm somehow and it’s just part and parcel of living here. Thankfully though there’s a beautiful pool in a hotel nearby I can go to at the weekends to read and relax which has beautiful gardens with peacocks roaming around...and just peace! It’s heaven to get out of rickshaw and walk through the gates! Silence!

So yes the only major hang ups so far are the heat and the struggle to find silence. But that will feel insignificant when I look back on all this. I can imagine just remembering key things-like rushing through the crowd at the Gangour festival we went to with Carloline and Roma to try and get a better view of the parade. Roma asked a family if we could stand on their roof to get a better view and they warmly invited us in-so we quickly took our sandals off and scuffled up their stairs (catching a glimpse of their lives as we ran through the rooms) all the way up to the roof to catch the camels and elephants moving through this colourful mass of people with a view of Jaipur and mountains in the background. Their son told me riddles as we ate sweets and looked at the crowd. (what sport do you win when you take a step back?.........tug of war). There’s a thousand little moments like that but you’re eyes will turn square if I carry on. Incredible India alright. It’s loud. It's hot. It’s bustling. It’s tasty, colourful and smells amazing (apart from the odd whiff of urine on the streets). It confuses the hell out of me sometimes but I’m enjoying being kept on my toes!

Camels, chai and cricket

So I’ve been in Jaipur for just over a week now and as you’d expect it’s flown by. Whilst I felt instantly ignorant as soon as I landed in Delhi and everything is new and some things feel totally alien to me-India felt strangely familiar straight away. When I first got off the plane in Delhi I expected to feel a massive shock to the system but perhaps I was too zombified from the journey to feel anything or maybe it’s because all planes/airports feel pretty much the same. I did find myself delaying leaving the familiarity of the airport though. I bought a coffee, bought a sim card (which meant filling in a massive form complete with a photocopy of my visa and passport, a passport picture and signing about 5 different pieces of paper....all just to buy a sim!?!) and then followed a similar procedure just to get a taxi into town. My first experience of bureaucratic India! I then expected to feel a massive wave of culture shock as soon as I stepped out of the airport but as soon as I got in the taxi I fell asleep! On the bus journey to Jaipur I half took in the new smells and views of cows, camels and rickshaws but if it wasn’t for the constant beeping and what seemed like, near car crashes, I would have fallen fast asleep! So I’m still waiting for “it” to hit me.

Just to give you more background on what I’m doing here-I’m working for idex ( network for development exchange) with Calum (another intern from Stevenage) to teach English to the idex staff as an internship-the cooks, managers, administrators, cleaners and drivers etc in order for them to communicate with the volunteers easier. I haven’t actually started putting this into practice yet as I’ve been cracking on with the admin work that has building up-I’m basically working on a system of tracking volunteer’s feedback of their experiences and creating reports so the managers can monitor what areas need to be improved. It’s actually really interesting-not only reading the feedback-but getting a behind the scenes view of how such a big company runs and the endless amount of things you have to consider. It’s also interesting working in the office and having banter with everyone-breaking away from work every now and then to drink some chai and discuss bollywood films, women’s empowerment, the Indian census, literacy rates etc. It means I’m constantly learning new things every day. And once I start teaching it’ll be interesting in a totally different way. Teaching sat on a floor of mattresses without the constraints of a whiteboard and tables and chairs. It’s liberating in one way but intimidating in another. It means you have to think on your feet and not rely too heavily on pre-planned lessons (as things are very changeable here as I’m sure you can imagine). Calum seems to have it nailed as I’ve sat in a few of his lessons so it definitely can be done-but I’m looking forward to giving it a go myself.

Me and Calum live in a big house known as the high school house (as it’s usually used for European high school kids to stay on the high school exchange program) about a ten minute rickshaw journey away the idex office.We live with Dinesh and Umaji who cook breakfast and dinner for us every day. It’s quite a cushy set up really as we have our own room and bathroom area (bucket bath again like Ghana but indoors/private and if you have one if the afternoon the water’s quite warm), dining area on the roof, area to wash our clothes out the back, a TV to watch cricket/bollywood films and even internet. Maybe this is another reason why I’ve not felt a culture shock as such, because I’ve got everything I need and I don’t feel disconnected from anyone at home. Oh and the food is amazing, as you’d predict-tasty, filling and varied-perfect place for a vegetarian! I’m coming home FAT!
Even though I’ve not had one tidal wave/slap across the face “oh my god-I’m in India” moment, I keep getting little waves of contentment and realisation that I’m here: walking around the craft market in the evening browsing the stalls selling materials, shoes and puppets with live music in the background, the smell of incense and spices, passing a guy wearing a turban with a big twirly moustache playing two pennywhistles through his nostrils with a big smile on his face; on a rooftop bar when India beat Pakistan, appreciating the breeze with a Kingfisher as everyone chanted and cheered and fireworks went off all around Jaipur; feeling like I was in an American teen film at a pool party with a pool with turquoise water, a DJ, candles, waiters and a bathtub full of ice to put drinks in; watching the final in the living room with Dinesh and finally getting the rules of cricket in the final hour of the game and finding myself going mental when India actually won (i’ve got the cricket bug now)......there’s obviously a lot of moments like this as I’ve only been here under two weeks so every day I’ll encounter something entirely out of the ordinary. I'm guessing soon it’ll be less of a novelty and annoyances will creep in, so at the moment I’m just letting myself soak it all in and allowing things to become slowly more familiar to me bit by bit.