What A Difference A 'Fro Makes

Today I decided to let my ‘fro breathe. I have been wearing my hair in a ponytail for three weeks and I thought it was time to do my real ‘do. This afternoon I headed to one of the sites outside of Delhi proper to use the GPS to track points of a site. Two of the staff members, another intern, and I got out of the car and grabbed my GPS and while I was fiddling with it, a crowd of over thirty children had surrounded us. I am used to standing out, and Ignacio gets some looks too, but today the commotion was about my big curly afro. The kids were going nuts and screaming and jumping around and cheering. “They are quite intrigued with your hair,” my supervisor says. So as we navigated alleys, corners and recycling areas, we were accompanied by a band of youngsters. Every time I stopped to write something down, some of the kids behind ran into each other. Two guys would lead me through the alleys (+ the crowd) and then we would all stop when one would say, “point!” Everyone would run into each other, I would press down on the GPS button and Ignacio would record the coordinates. I felt a few little hands in the bottom of my hair, and one little girl stopped to shake our hands. There were a few goat sightings, and a couple chickens. What’s funny is that when we stepped out onto the road, I realized that I was on the same road that I wrote about earlier in the “Rickshaw Adventures,” where we were lost and everyone was staring at us.

We Have Arrived in Delhi

I woke up at 5:45 am today, which is how I know that I am still jet lagged. I don’t even know what time my body thinks it is. There is definitely an adjustment from the US. I am trying to remember all the things that people told me, but I remember some stuff after I already make the mistake! Delhi is like sensory overload and I am trying to take it in without being obvious (even though, I clearly stand out, so I might as well look around).

They definitely have the shared road concept going on here and it totally works. It may appear to be chaotic, but the buses, cars, motorbikes, rickshaws, auto rickshaws and people are so organized. Each mode of transportation knows it’s place, and everyone is maneuvering for their small space on the road. It may be too early to call it, but auto rickshaws are my favorite! You get to see everything and the wind feels great. I have to figure out a way to take some pics from the rickshaw soon.

In terms of food, I have been eating plane food for the past two days (Virgin Atlantic food is actually good!), and my first meal yesterday was at 8pm (geeze, no wonder I felt so out of it an overwhelmed). I am sure the novelty of the food prices will wear off soon, but I was pretty psyched to only drop $2 for dinner and it was SO good! I don’t even know what it was called, I just picked something from the vegetarian menu and got rice with it. I am working up to street food. I know they said to avoid it, but I keep seeing signs for Momos and they smell so good.

Me dumping money in skype was a waste of money. The internet is finicky here so far, and scheduling a time to talk to someone on the phone in an internet café is going to be a pain, so I have a cell phone!