India: the first 2 weeks

Hi friends!

I have to admit, keeping up with this blog has proven more daunting than I anticipated. For one thing, getting internet access has been tricky – at first I didn’t have any, then I had it only at the office (but we are not supposed to use the office wi-fi for personal use), and now I have a little USB stick that allows me to get on the internet by connecting to the cell phone network (but sometimes there are unexpected outages or interruptions). Internet access in India is meted out in gigabytes, so I have to be judicious of how I spend my time online (fewer YouTube videos, for starters!), because I’m literally paying for every gigabyte of bandwidth that I use. This is a first for me.

But the other reason blogging is daunting is because I couldn't possibly convey all that I’ve seen, heard, tasted, smelled, felt, and learned in India. Even in just two weeks, these experiences have piled up so quickly that if I wrote them all in my blog, no one would have time (or desire) to read everything!

So I’ve decided that I’m just going to post snapshots and snippets of the things I’m seeing, and you’ll have to ask about the rest later. Or better yet, come to India yourself someday. ;)

Coming to India

For everyone who asked, here is the picture from the airplane showing the path we took to fly from Newark to New Delhi. I was pretty curious myself.

After about 20 hours of traveling, we arrived in the New Delhi airport, bought Indian cell phones, pulled ~$100 worth of rupees (Rs. 5000) out of an ATM, and headed to our new homes to crash into bed. [I hope to post a more detailed description of my living conditions later (with pictures!); for now I’ll say that they are modest but sufficient. The two things I miss most are air conditioning and a washing machine (with hot water and a microwave perhaps being tied for third place), but it’s surprising how quickly you learn to make do without things you used to take for granted.]

The next day, we dove into orientation at our new office (located in a converted basement) learning all about Indian food, language, religion, body language, hospitality, and much more. Here’s the schedule we followed for the week:

Our First Adventure

You might notice the large open blocks in the schedule labeled “Rishikesh & Haridwar Adventure.” That was a pretty neat part of orientation: basically the eMi staff bought us all one-way overnight train tickets to a town called Haridwar, gave us a 2-page scavenger hunt with directions of different places to visit and things to do (including traveling to the neighboring towns of Har-ki-Pauri and Rishikesh), and told us they would see us in a few days. :) Talk about cultural immersion…

The way the adventure was designed, we were forced to talk with locals wherever we went to ask for directions and to answer questions, like “What does the word Haridwar mean?” or “Who is Laxman and what is a Jhula?” (We weren't allowed to use the internet.) We also had to use all forms of transportation to get around, including walking, riding in 3-wheeled auto rickshaws, riding the overnight train, riding a local bus, riding a long-distance bus, and taking a taxi. The trip was exhilarating because it was so open-ended (but sometimes stressful for the same reason)!

I’ve put up a photo album that shows pictures (and descriptions) from that trip. I really think that pictures are the best way to try to convey what it was like. We saw all kinds of people: beggars, Hindu devotees (we were visiting prominent Hindu religious sites), Indian nationals that lived nearby, Indian nationals who were visiting from out of town, tourists from other countries, and all sorts of merchants, gurus, children, etc. all mingling together in the sea of humanity that we became a part of. It was a very memorable introduction to India.

What's Next?
Now that we have officially finished orientation, our work begins in earnest. One of the interns (Alyssa) already left yesterday on a project trip to northern India (the same project I'll be working on later; I will travel there in October). I (along with the rest of the project team) will head to southern India on September 15 for a different project trip, which should be really exciting. The trip will involve a 24-hour train ride from New Delhi to Hyderabad, and then shorter legs of local transportation from Hyderabad to the project site in the town of Ongole. We will spend one week there (doing as much data collection and design work as possible) and then begin the journey back to New Delhi. I can't wait! In the meantime, I am helping with projects left over from previous semesters (and/or additional work that clients have requested), so on Friday I helped shade in buildings on a massive AutoCAD map. :)

For the rest of the semester, there are many different things happening in the office (see picture below of the "Whiteboard of Destiny" :) ), so there will be waves of franticness followed by periods of normalcy. I'll try to update the blog as I can.

Thank you all for your prayers and support, and thanks for reading this post! Please check out the sidebar section on the right that lists current prayer requests - I will do my best to keep it updated.

Hugs from New Delhi,
David

P.S. - props to my fellow interns and their awesome blogs - as architecture students and/or graphic designers, they are much more skilled at making things visually appealing than I am, haha. And as girls, they are much more in tune with the emotional touchy-feely side of things. :) Feel free to peruse their writings to fill in the gaps about things I didn't cover here:

• Alyssa Webster (from Auburn University, architecture intern)
• Christina Gerhart (long-term volunteer from Nebraska, graphic designer)
• Meredith Quigley (from University of Texas - Austin, architecture intern)