Friday June 12, 2009

Settled in Jaipur.
Our apartment and school.

Love exists.

Happiness exists.

...and a little bit of Delhi Belly never killed anyone --I hope.

Tonight I have just returned from a weekend get-away to Pushkar. It was my first trip out of the city because since I arrived in Jaipur two weeks ago my days have centered around going to school, getting settled in my apartment, and getting reacquainted with all my favorite places to go for vegetables, fruit, books, and A/C—which is sometimes necessary to keep the brain alert for loads of Hindi homework. Now that my feet are wet (with familiarity and humidity) I am finally able to sit down and write to try to paint a picture for my loved ones of what my day is like in Rajasthan.

Every morning I wake up in a big beautiful bed covered with a colorful elephant and flower printed sheet that we got from a shop in Raja Park, the neighborhood behind our flat. The sun rises outside our window at about 5:30am and the heat starts to fill the room at about 6:15. Outside our door is a little balcony, which from the sixth floor of our building provides a lookout point over our neighborhood. If the heat hasn’t woken me by then, the door bell does. Our cook, launderer, and cleaner (who all come in one package: a lively woman named Suman who lives downstairs) comes in and starts bustling around. She mumbles under her breath about how we need to buy milk for chai and if we don’t get salt how can she make good food?! She yells over the steamy whistle of the pressure cooker to Reed, “Baba Baba!” while yelling to me that I am too thin and that I don’t understand what she is saying. Last year Reed lived in this same flat and Sumanji came three times a day. She is the best opportunity for Hindi practice because, although she speaks a village Marwari dialect, she is unabashed and will speak without pause even when she knows we don’t understand. The great thing about being here again one year later is that this time I do understand and she understands me aswell.

Similar to last year, sometimes Reed and I wake up early to do yoga in the park. We have found that yoga is one way to blow American stereotypes out of the water. The locals, doing their morning circumambulations and breathing exercises, are surprised and delighted to see us out there practicing in the early morning. When we open our mouths and speak Hindi, they practically fall over. Our Hindi is much better this year and we have really been able to engage with everyone who wants to talk –which is pretty much everyone.

After breakfast of oatmeal and fresh mangoes and papaya we take a rickshaw to school at 8:30am. At school we have classes focused on speaking, reading, listening to, and writing in Hindi. My brain is usually mush by 3pm but there is usually still another 2-3 hours of homework to be done. The advanced level is much more work than intermediate last year and we finish up the program by writing a 10 page research paper in Hindi. The work is exciting though, because I finally feel like the language is coming to me.

Needless to say, we needed a little adventure away from work and the big bustling city of Jaipur, so we hopped on a bus and rode to the small, lakeside holy city of Pushkar.

Continue reading: India Stories 3