First Impressions of India

As most of my readers will know, Bangladesh was, until last night at 9 PM, the first and only foreign country I had visited. So India is a new experience for me, not only because it is a different country, but also because it was the first time I have travelled alone outside the US. (The last two trips were made with the rest of the CLS group.)

First, the airport in Delhi is really, amazingly, super fancy. As in, there is a mall inside the airport that puts Easton to shame. Who wants to shop for crystal necklaces or state-of-the art children’s toys while they’re waiting for their next flight? Apparently some people do, and for those people there is the Delhi airport.

Second, always you make sure you have all the paperwork you could ever possibly need (and then some) when doing anything at the Delhi airport. I had to show a guy at the door my print-out from Expedia just to get into the building this morning, and then the woman at the airline counter almost didn’t accept the same paper as proof of my ticket.

Kolkata, after a short drive from the airport on a Sunday, seems to have a lot less traffic than Dhaka. A LOT less. I’m living in an area of the city named Ballygunge, which is an older area. I am writing this sitting on the roof of my host family’s house. Why the roof, you may ask? Because that’s where I live! My apartment is a little guest house on the roof of the building. I love it. The view is amazing. I am currently sitting here watching the sun set as people fly kites from their rooftops all around me. I want a kite. From what I can see of the surrounding area, this part of Kolkata is kind of like Old Dhaka – the nice part, with the old buildings and nice houses – but with normal-sized streets, instead of the rickshaw paths they call roads in Old Dhaka. The intersection in front of the house is at odd angles. Between the wedge-shaped buildings, the wide streets (with curbs!), and the large trees, the view on that direction is reminiscent of pictures of some Eastern European city (or, maybe, my mind is partially in the Czech Republic with Marissa). My host family is lovely, as well. They were surprised to find out I was so young – they’ve housed a lot of other foreigners, not just for AIIS – and my host mom called me a baby. Of course, she said that before I told her how old I was! Then she said that I really was a baby.

(The next morning)

I still don’t have internet, I’ve already unpacked, and I’m waiting to go to the orientation session at the institute, so I want to add a few more things to this entry. One of the things I like about Kolkata is that there are taxis – specifically, yellow-painted, 1940s-style cars like the ones you see in old movies. I mentioned that the streets in front of my house look vaguely Eastern European, and that effect is only compounded by the taxis. This morning I saw two taxis sitting in that street, and to look at it you would think you were in an old movie from the 1940s, set somewhere in Europe.

One of the problems that I did not expect to encounter is that my host family has access to too good of a water supply for me to drink. They get their drinking water from their own deep well, which is clean and doesn’t need to be boiled. I may be able to drink this water, but I’m not sure, so I chose not to drink any yesterday. Maybe after a while I will try some, but I’ve had too much experience with waterborne illnesses recently to attempt it immediately. In my house there is a UV-treating water purifier and a pot to boil water in, and I used both last night. So if I get sick, it must be from one of those sources. I remembered this morning (too late!) that I have iodine tablets that I could have used.  Oh well. I had to find out at some point whether the water from the filter was safe to drink.

I’m having some trouble making myself understood, partially because I haven’t used Bangla for a month, partially because I speak Bangladeshi Bangla. I’ve already been corrected for calling breakfast “nasta.” The hardest is the word for water, which is jol, not to be confused with jhal, jhor, jal, etc. I think I’m not pronouncing it correctly. Also, my host family referred to Sprite with the same word, so maybe it just means drinks here? I’m also still getting used to my host family’s accents, which will probably take a few weeks, even though Kolkata Bangla is closer to Standard.