Surprise! Internet does exist in India!

I’m kidding of course but it was a process which took a bit more time and persuasion than I expected.  So here sums up my first week in India:

I passed airport security with a bag full of 6-inch epi-pens and made it through a 15 hour flight where every movie was in Japanese subtitles to finally land in Mumbai (or Bombay depending on who you ask) last Monday evening.  My first 4 days in India were spent completing an orientation at a forest retreat resort in Durshet.  Most of the time was spent covering cultural adjustment 101 with a trek to a local tribal village as well as to a temple.  By Friday we reached Pune where we toured Furgesson College (where I’ll be enrolled) and met our host families!  The house I’m staying at is only about a 10 minute walk from campus so Saturday was spent wondering through the neighborhood with my roommate Annelise mainly on a search for Wi-Fi which turned out to be an unbelievably difficult task.  One thing quickly learned in India, however, is to be extremely flexible and adaptable.  How to cross a three lane street that has somehow been converted into 12 lanes of speeding cars, mopeds, rickshaws and cows is another useful tool to learn.  Sunday we took our first day to relax, sleep in, and discover the disappointing 20% alcohol tax enforced in India .  Monday we saw demonstrations of traditional Indian dance and music to help us decide which cultural immersion classes we want to take while in India and today I start my first day of school!

Considering my first days in India have been primarily spent surrounded by 30 other Americans my first impressions of India are watered down at most but the first and largest adjustment I’ve had to make in India thus far is the food.

Remember that one time you bit into a pepper that turned out to be 100x spicier than you imagined and it took you a gallon of milk and a week rebuilding taste buds to recover?  That basically sums up almost every Indian meal I’ve had so far.  Granted, I come from a diet consisting of toast and vegetables seasoned with a dash of salt and pepper when I’m looking for that extra ‘kick.’  Here though, breakfast, lunch, and dinner means all spice, all the time.  The spices they use here make McCormick look like a joke. I really hope my body starts accepting this new fare of food so I can eventually complete a meal without gulping a gallon of water, crying, and/or ingesting India’s entire supply of Tums.  I would consider eliminating any of these reactions a success. 

There’s really no differentiation between the foods you eat at each meal- what’s eaten at breakfast is easily the same kind of food that’s eaten for lunch and dinner.  Most Indian food consists of rice with variations of different kinds of vegetables and legumes mixed with a variety of spices- sometimes chicken is used but very sparingly.  I’ve quickly learned that utensils aren’t a big component of eating a meal.  Almost every meal is eaten with chipati which is basically the Indian version of tortilla.  The chipati is used as the main utensil to pick up all other food with.  So this seems pretty unusual right?  PLOT TWIST: only the right hand can be used to pick up food and eat as the left hand is deemed ‘unclean.’  It’s not necessarily a hard way to eat but one that takes time to become accustomed to.   

                Eating has proved to be a physical and mental struggle but one I’m sure I’ll get used to in time.  Besides that, India has proved to be everything I imagined it- incredibly, ridiculously, unexplainably beautiful.  There is not a single sense that India will leave untouched.  The land is covered in lush, misty tropics mingled with the aroma of incense and spices constantly lingering in the air.  It’s a country where practicality outweighs comfort and where self-governance outweighs political –governance.  Although everything seems so exotic and new to me now, I’m looking forward to continually accepting the normalcy of life here.   

Market in Durshet

Trek to a tribal village in Durshet

The local laundromat

Room where we spent about 80% of our time in while at orientation

Street Art

University of Pune

Rickshaws- main form of public trans around India

24 stories above Pune

Typical Indian fare

Building up spice tolerance is a daily commitment

Smoking out bugs during a game of cricket