First Impressions

It has been a very busy few days since I first stepped foot out into Delhi at something like 12:30 am on Saturday morning. Anya, my senior fellow, picked me up at the airport and we took a hired car back to Abha's house for the night. I briefly met Abha in the morning before she departed for a trip of her own. The rest of Saturday was a whirl-wind shopping adventure around Delhi with Anya and some friends. We picked up a number of things I would need that would be harder to find up in Himachal Pradesh.

The most exciting stop was Nalli's Saris. I would highly recommend it if you are ever in Delhi. Anya's friend recommended it as a good place to get fabric for salwar camis, which are what women wear up where we are. (My impression is that it is farther south in India that most women wear saris on most days. Up here, they seem to be for special occasions.) As we approached the entrance to the store, we were greeted by two security guards and one woman, who asked to search our purses. Upon entering the first floor, we were a bit overwhelmed by all the fancy saris and we began to wonder if we were in the right place for our budgets. As it turns out, the prime minister's wife and daughter were there, doing sari shopping. That certainly explained the extra security, and spoke to the quality of the merchandise.

Up on the third floor we found what we were looking for. Behind long counters manned by clerks were cabinets stacked with folded fabric. As an extremely jet-lagged fabric enthusiast, I was totally overwhelmed. We found the suit sets section marked with affordable prices (this means that they had selected fabrics for the pants, the shirt, and the wrap all together) and started asking the clerks for colors we were interested in. The would take a stack down for us to look through and put it back when we weren't interested. You could hold up the fabric in front of yourself and examine it in front of a mirror to make sure the colors and patterns worked with your complexion. It was great fun, and I walked out with the makings for five suits. I can't wait to get them tailored. It will be way more comfortable than jeans and t-shirts, especially in this weather.

Another interesting adventure for the day came at a coffee house. In another strip mall, we escaped the heat into a chain coffee shop. The atmosphere was so unlike American coffee shops, I would have hardly recognized it. For one, you were served your drink and pastries rather than ordering at the counter. But most strikingly, was that you almost had to shout to be heard by those around your table. It was a lively place with loud music and rumbling bass. Not the sort of place I would go to study. I hear that there are tamer coffee shops, though.

That night, Anya and I took a night bus up to Dharmsala. It was about an eleven-hour trip, and not much sleep was had thanks to the constant honking (on India roads, it's an “I'm coming up behind you” courtesy and not rude at all) followed by the mad twisting and turning up mountain roads. Once we arrived in Dharmsala, we got a taxi down to Rakkar, the village that I am now living in. While it does take some time to get in between, I was amazed at how close I am to there. As a crow flies, it's not far at all, though it's straight up a mountain.

Determined to fight off my jet-lag, after a short nap, I went up to McLeod Ganj with Anya and some of her neighbors and friends. McLeod Ganj is further up the mountain from Dharmsala and is where the Tibetan Government in Exile is housed. It is also a mecca for foreigners and shops selling foreign goods. I was able to find some cereal, pasta, and toilet paper to keep me supplied back home. We took a leisure eating tour of the town, first having pastries and coffee at an Italian bakery, french fries and drinks at a Tibetan restaurant, and finally ended the night with a late dinner at a Korean restaurant (where I tasted the best vegetarian sushi I have ever had). By that time my jet-lag had caught up with me with a vengeance, and I even had to have the taxi driver show me how to get back home. Thank goodness my land lady is well known.

One thing that really surprised me is how so many people know so many other people. As we headed for the bakery, we found a woman who had been here on a long retreat that was friends with one of Anya's friends, and so she joined us for cake. Then we ran into two other Americans, one of whom knew Anya's neighbor, so they joined us for fries. It turns out that the other one had studied Hindi under Virendra Singh, the same fantastic teacher I just spent the summer learning from. It was really fascinating talking to all of those people to hear what they were doing abroad. It was everything from personal growth, to fair trade business, to freelance writing.

Although Rakkar is rural village, it is far from quiet, even at night; honking cars, noisy conversations, crowing roosters, pounding, loud traditional music echoing across the valley, dogs barking, and an occasional roll of thunder. At the same time, it's a relaxed sort of noise, the kind that makes you feel at home.

As I finally lay in bed last night, it really stunned me that this is to be my home for the next two years. My language skills and knowledge of the culture are fairly minimal, and I don't really know what I'll even be doing yet. But here I am and here I'll stay. While I float between apprehension and excitement, I know this will probably be two of the best years of my life.