Ho Hum

                After an exciting few days of getting work done and planning the beginnings of my AMAZING research it’s been one of those days where no one is around and I’m left trying to keep up the motivation of getting all those things done that have been left behind or will be left behind once things pick up again. I ran out of DVDs to watch (in 6 days, like a champ) and so have now started the epic journey once more of learning Hindi and even reading (gasp!) books for those times when a break from work must be had.

                I happened upon another insight last night as I sat staring at the ceiling (sans internet & electricity). This is: I do not like living by myself. I like people around me. Even if I can’t understand them, as long as they make enthusiastic attempts to talk with me. :) Right now I’m trying to find another place to live, hopefully renting out a room with a family. Then I don’t have to buy furniture and it will probably give my poor Hindi skills a boost trying to communicate more… :)

Woohoo! Wish me luck!

My room!

My neighbors!

What I do when I'm bored!

Banana Day!

So there was some pretty exciting business yesterday. Last night as I was walking home I decided to try to purchase some bananas… in Hindi! No philosophical discussion of bananas and life were attempted but I was actually able to communicate how many I wanted, what I wanted, ask how much (and understand the answer), pay, and say no, I don’t want grapes.

WOOHOO!!!

No, not my photo... it was taken in Jaipur... other photos here

CARE Office Day

Good afternoon!

This is the first “normal” day I’ve had here in Patna. Well, if normal is going to the CARE office at some point. The past two days have been packed 9am-6pm meetings with all of the heads of the organizations involved in this Bihar project. There were representatives from at least eight different organizations doing large scale projects as part of the Gates funded project, Ananya (more information here). 

Even though I felt I knew so much about what CARE was doing here in Bihar, it’s really just a fraction of what all of these groups are doing around different aspects of maternal and child care.

Group breakout sessions about field experiences... Booya.

I also got to try out one of the Patna highlights… a rotating restaurant! That’s right, I tried out the Patna circular restaurant before the Sun Dial restaurant in Atlanta… :-O This one is called Pind Balluchi. We also learned that you can’t take the stairs up to the 17^th floor because there are no lights and they are very steep so sometimes people get stuck part way up. Hmm… 

Round Two Begins...

Wow, it looked like this day might never come but I made it back to Patna, Bihar today! Now for round two of Indian escapades including more exciting blog entries... :) And a promise to be more consistent about my updates!

I flew into India last night, actually. This was different from my last arrival, when I flew straight into Delhi from Chicago and on to Patna in the same day. This was because when I bought the tickets, there was a large strike pending from Air India (more about this here) and the odds of being stuck indefinitely in Chicago were actually pretty high.

But, all worked out and in the meantime, I got to have a 12 hour New Delhi adventure at the Jaypee Vasant Continental! (website here) This was kind of a crazy fancy place with telephones in the bathrooms and hard wood floors (two hallmarks of nice hotels...) :)

Fancy pictures of the fancy digs at the VPC...

Fancy pic #2. Shower looks into bedroom (?) but no worries, there's a remote control blind that comes down to separate block visibility... :)

Besides Delhi being over 7 times bigger than Patna, another way you can tell this was taken in Delhi is the Mickey D's. None of those in Bihar! Guess I'll have to wait a little longer to try the Majaraja Mac (article about this here).

While the service was pretty darn awesome, I was reminded about a trait I've found in India among those in the customer service industry. They will almost always accommodate your requests... But no one tells me what they actually do...

I'll explain...

Maybe this is only in the US but I feel like when you check in to a hotel, they tell you what amenities there are. Talking to an airport attendant, they might volunteer instructions on how to pay your fees (walk over five kiosks to line "G", stand in line, pay, take receipt back to same attendant -- simple enough to explain, but something your average foreigner strolling through India would probably not know).

I know that one could say, "They probably assume you know that." But really?? I am clearly not from here and look confused most of the time. You might say, "They don't know English that well." Which is probably true in Patna... But fancy 5 star Delhi hotel? Nope. I'm thinking this is an India (or rest of the world except the USA) thing.

But, this time, I picked up on that nuance right away and didn't worry about making 2 phone calls and a trip down to the concierge (after they hung up on me) to figure out why internet was not working. Or asking, then dropping by, then looking up hotel literature (where I discovered I should say "health club" and not "gym,") then a phone call to find if the hotel gym a. existed and b. was complimentary.

Today I was handsomely rewarded twice!

1) I went to the hotel gym! There IS one. AND it was free. :) AND it was awesome. The added endorphins have been serving me well all day!

2) I had to stop and ask four different people where the vodaphone store was but I found it and got a SIM card even though I am not an Indian national. How did that work? I did not want to ask that question. And therefore, as per the rule of no extra information, do not know the answer... :)

By 3:30pm I had made it safely to Patna to hang with my bad self at the guesthouse. Tomorrow is busy meeting day and hopefully awesome meeting up with other Emory folk day as the CARE stakeholder meeting is going on and I will get to attend. WOOHOO! Bonus meeting! :)

Gudwara Patna Sahib

Ha. Forgot to upload some pictures!

These are from a Sikh temple in Patna. It was the birthplace of the tenth Guru, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji who was born on December 22, 1666. It was also visited by the first and ninth Gurus and the commandment of valiance and fearlessness was issued from this place to the Sikh fraternity. (Citation!)

The service that was going on while we were visiting. Two men were sitting behind the fenced area reading from the texts.

Palace exit & good wishes :)

Pretty window!

I liked the contrast between the hanging clothes and pink archway against the white. :)

On the way back through the market...

Madhubani artwork is famous in Bihar. I took these clandestine photos in a shop selling Madhubani silk for saaris.

Back in the U. S. of A.

I’m in the USA! Crazy pants… well, actually no crazy pants today… I’m just wearing jeans… :)


It was weird, I was really looking forward to the different foods awaiting me in the U.S. and then when I got here around breakfast time and passed all the Starbucks, Coffee Beans, and general coffee shops full of sugary scones and muffins… I was really craving some kachori padjhi. Dang, that stuff is good… :)

I was able to finally find something though in the shape of breakfast TACOS at Chilis (so not quite your authentic Mexican cuisine but hey, I’m in Chicago at an airport…)


Other surprising things for this Bihari girl:

1) Central heating. It’s COLD in Chicago. Or at least it looks cold from inside this really warm airport. Dressing for spending all day in an office with no heat means that I was actually drenched in sweat by the time I passed customs!

2) SPANISH. Got on the concourse to go to my gate. So did a Spanish family. They were trying to get to terminal 3… and kept telling their daughter to grab onto the pole instead of her suitcase as the train started moving. What? People speaking in another language AND me understanding them? Hooray! :)

3) BLACK COFFEE. I ordered coffee and got it straight up black. No questions asked. Boom.

4) TIME ZONES. Almost missed my flight because my laptop was on Bihari time. Oops! :-O


One last unrelated commentary:

Once you get on the flight and it actually takes off…. Air India is where it’s at. Flight from Delhi to Chicago has fun movie/tv screens with an ample supply of Bollywood movies with English subtitles. I loved every one of them…. AND I loved the Indian woman next to me. Throughout the trip I helped her open her water bottles, peanut packages, and fill out her US entry form (hopefully correctly?) And I scared the bijezis out of her when I decided not to wake her but just crawl over her instead when I needed to go to the bathroom (PS – not recommended!)

False Alarm

Today I was supposed to have my big presentation about my findings… So I worked all yesterday and night and today until I found out… postponed ‘til tomorrow… So, I went to the fair! :) It was quite exciting. Unlike fairs I’m used to, this had nice items at good prices… so much so that each shop quoted the same prices and no bargaining allowed. It was kind of refreshing considering I usually get told a price far higher than other people to start the negotiations…


Shopping done, I went back to the office (yes, it’s a Saturday… and yes, that means my meeting got postponed until Sunday…) But I’m actually pretty stoked to be working all the weekend. I was going to anyway, so now I get to do it at the office with CHAI. :)