Back in Africa

Well, I have returned to warm and steamy Malawi! I am very happy to be back with the humidity and greenery. Delhi was freezing! I haven’t been that cold since I left Oregon. It was too cold to shower, though I did force myself to bathe occasionally. The houses are built to be as cold as possible so that the inhabitants can withstand the hellish summers but for the two-month winters, well, it is butt-ass cold.

The best-thing in India I experienced:

Jagnoor’s Mom’s food. No doubt. I gained about 7kgs while in India and it was totally her fault. Every hour of everyday, there was delicious food available. I just couldn’t control myself. I love her food.

The worst-thing I experienced:

Well, this is a tie. Two bad things happened; One, I went to a salon to get my mane trimmed. I walked out with a butchered head of pseudo-layers and it looks terrible. There’s no damage control possible either. I’ll just have to wait another year until my hair grows out. What hurt the most was the look on Jagnoor’s face; he tried to control it for fear of making me crying (which I did anyways) but the damage was done. I will forever just cut my own hair.

Secondly, I fell about 8ft off a banister in a super-crowded nightclub and tore all the ligaments in the back of my shoulder. So, I spent my first night out in Delhi in a taxi going to the ER. I’m lucky I didn’t hurt myself more seriously but I spent all of the rest of my vacation in an arm sling and a lot of pain. My shoulder still is bothering me a little. I can’t do push-ups yet. Those of you who know me well are probably shaking your head right now going “Typical Paulie.” The arm sling is rather, eh?

In both incidents my pride was severely hurt. Falling off a banister in a nightclub in front of thousands of people and walking around with an atrocious hairdo seem equally awful to me. Neither is permanent, I know, it might take me awhile to regain that lost pride though.

Observations- Delhi:

Traffic is in Delhi is an incredible mess. There’s no way around it; it’s in every direction. It takes hours to get anywhere. When we landed, J bought a 500cc Royal Enfield Classic and we rolled through the polluted streets on a wonderfully powerful motorcycle. But even with the ability to ride on the sidewalks and weave through traffic, we still got stuck all too often. And I didn’t know it beforehand, but Christmas is becoming an extremely popular commercial holiday in India. So we were caught up in all the shopping traffic all too frequently.

The pollution from Delhi murdered my skin. In combination with the cold, dry air- my skin was not a happy organ. I am sure it would be even less happy in the summer. There were dense fog clouds that settled over the city that were caused by the fog and they smelled awful; a combination of CO2, piss and feces from the river and extraordinarily stale air. All in all, Delhi is the smelliest city I have ever been in, and the most crowded.

And you guys think Californian drivers are bad? Ha ha! They don’t hold a candle to the world’s most aggressive and crazy drivers ever in Delhi! There’s no such thing as lanes, no such thing as a speed limit, and if you’re stopped for any reason (red light, child in the road, anything!) the person behind you will not let off that horn. Constantly blowing the horn is an accepted norm; how else are you going to know that you’re a centimeter away from scraping the car next to you? Mirrors are not utilized, obviously. The streets are quite noisy. And if you’re on a bicycle, or actually on anything, you’re on your own. It’s every man for himself out there.

And speaking of noisy: I have read from author foreign authors about how people, particularly Hindus in India perform their morning ablutions upon waking and that it is a noisy affair. Yeah, they weren’t kidding. Try to imagine that at 5:30a you wake up to the sounds of hacking, gagging, coughing, snot-shooting and of course, spitting from the 30 or so neighbors you have. It’s a lovely sound.

However, one of the great things I noted about Delhi, and was most pleased to see, are the government initiatives that have started encouraging people to be more environmentally friendly. On every corner are ‘auto-rickshaws’ which are three-wheeled, natural gas-powered taxis that produce water as a waste product. There is also large public transport buses that roam the city powered by gas as well. There are signs on all bus stops asking people to plant trees, responsibly dispose of their garbage and use the many bathroom facilities being built instead of the river.

Just like Malawi, it’s acceptable to pee anywhere, man or woman. I laughed the first time I saw a tree quite literally in the middle of a major highway. The government didn’t cut it down; they put concrete right up the edges of the tree and built the highway around it. Common sight. Can’t prevent the trees from being coated in pollution though.

And another thing I loved about Delhi, and this is true all over India, is the way people treat animals. In Malawi, you see stray dogs roaming all over and they are sickly, mangy creatures you dare not come close to. In Delhi, there are cute and fluffy well-fed strays everywhere and because it was winter, the citizens of the city had caught the dogs and put warmer jackets on them. The dogs protect the neighborhoods they live in and have a very good relationship with the people that live there. Isn’t that so sweet? It truly makes me smile.

There are wild cows (BIG cows!) roaming all of the streets and not a single person will raise a hand to remove them if they are impeding traffic. Cows get to do whatever they wish. The first thing I saw when traveling from the airport was a donkey in the middle of an extremely busy highway. I asked Jagnoor who was going to remove the donkey from the middle of the road and he just laughed. The donkey is free to remove itself. One thing I didn’t see a lot of was cats. I assume this is because of all the wild dogs but J assured me that Indians love cats too, I just didn’t see them.

Oh yes, and also on every corner was a temple or Gurdwara and its associated food and tea vendors. There are SO many restaurants in Delhi! We tried to eat at all of them, but failed, lol. Street food was good though, very good. Essentially it’s just deep-fried and battered anything. For this poor PCV, Domino’s pizza was Godsend. And no once did I get sick! I probably have Malawi to thank for that. I’ve built up some tolerance in the past two years.

Observations-Goa:

Ah, and on the note of eating, J and I had a goal for Goa: To eat prawns six-times-a-day. I am pleased to inform you that we certainly accomplished that goal. We ate our hearts out there. Our waistlines will attest to it. I am not a fan of Southern Indian food but I sure do like tiger prawns grilled with garlic and butter, who doesn’t?

Goa was a relief after Delhi. It was warm, humid and sunny. It meant a lot to me that I was finally seeing the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean. I haven’t seen the sea in so long and it instantly made me happier. The waters were warm enough to swim in, but with my arm in a sling that wasn’t really an option for me. The rip curl and undertow was very strong. I did get caught once and it scared me pretty badly because I couldn’t swim or right myself in the water. I stayed shallow after that. And the water tasted so icky and burned our eyes; it was very salty and polluted. There were hundreds of tourist motor-boats out all day and the shore became a giant urinal at night.

Jagnoor and I went to Goa for a music festival called Sunburn, which I told you about before. It was totally worth it. It was one of the best experiences of my life. The music was phenomenal and we spent three days dancing until our legs hurt. There must have been 100,000 people at the very least. From all over the world too. I liked that we discovered new artist’s music and heard some of our favorites too; it was a good mix. I would love to go again this year.

We spent the New Year holiday in Goa as well, but that didn’t work out so well. We realized belatedly that we were at a private gay party after the guys I was with kept getting hit on and J asked what was going on. It was too late to change venues so we danced on the empty down-stairs dance floor and made the best of the terrible music. At least it was memorable and we’re alive to tell the tale.

Being in Goa made up for spending my Christmas in an airplane.

Overall conclusions:

Indian woman are the most beautiful in the entire world.
Indian food is awesome.
Indian culture is many-layered and old. It will take years to truly delve into the pool of understanding it.

With the exception of the time my Grandma took me and my cousin to Disneyland, I have never been on a more fun trip. This was the best vacation of my adult life.

I loved meeting Jagnoor’s family. They welcomed me with open arms and treated me as they would a daughter. I am very grateful.

I loved experiencing a small part of what is India and I am definitely going back to get more.

And I loved getting out of Malawi for awhile. Not to think about the fuel shortages and the economy collapsing around our ears, even temporarily, was a welcome change.

I’m off to the village now. I am going to be extraordinarily busy closing out my grants, getting my paper work sorted for Peace Corps and planting 150,000 trees. Oh yes, and mucking through the mud that are my roads now.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year guys! Let’s rock 2012!