This is a good sign.

Wisdom from the streets of Delhi.

Happy Wednesday.

A chocolatey celebration of the changing seasons.

Despite the fact that it’s consistently been over 100 degrees since we arrived in India, we decided to celebrate the first day of summer by getting directions to a market in our neighborhood from Sandhya, our housekeeper, to find a chocolate shop that got rave reviews on Zomato, the Indian version of Yelp. We weren’t disappointed. Chocolatiers ended up being a tiny hole-in-the-wall run by a sweet old Indian man who spoke excellent English and was more than happy to explain all the flavors to us. Every chocolate was handmade and wrapped in colored foil then cellophane then tied up with a bow. They came in conventional flavors like chocolate truffle and mint and a few more exotic ones like chocolate-covered tangy mango Turkish delight and “gold” (which is actually code for unappetizing whiskey-flavored chocolate). We were offered one of the chocolates labeled “bloody” which ended up being a dark molten chocolate, and we knew we were in the right place. We each chose about six chocolates which were placed in shiny blue boxes and marked with heart stickers in various colors so we could tell them apart. We enjoyed our purchases while watching Pride & Prejudice after dinner.

It’s likely we’ll be on a first-name basis with the chocolate man before we leave.

Happy summer.

C.R. Park, corn, and an accidental caffeine high.

Since we moved across town on Wednesday, Mary Kate and I both opted to take the day off of work to settle in and enjoy lunch with Sree, our new landlady and sweet friend. After spending a potentially embarrassing amount of time trading off napping and reading in our new air-conditioned room, we went on a walk around our new neighborhood. The area we live in now is called Chittranjan Park (or C.R. Park to those in the know). It’s located in South Delhi and was originally established in the 1950s as a settlement reserved exclusively for Bengali refugees. While Bengali heritage is no longer a requirement for residence, it continues to be a hotspot of Bengali culture. It’s known for its quality fish markets (since fish feature heavily in Bengali cuisine) and availability of delicious Kalcutta-style street food. South Delhi is a relatively wealthy and particularly safe region of the city. We love street food and safety, so clearly we feel right at home.

Since we arrived in India and saw our first grilled corn vendor, Mary Kate’s mouth has been watering as she regaled me with tales of her grilled corn consumption all over the world. On our afternoon walk, she finally enjoyed her first cob.

Served fresh off the grill rubbed in lime and masala spices for 20 rupees? I understand the hype.

On Thursday morning, Mary Kate made the commute to the PHFI office in Gurgaon, but I’ve been moved to an office in Sharpur Jaat. It’s significantly closer to our new home and also where the organization I’m working with is housed. I’m grateful for the switch. It’s a 15-minute commute as opposed to a 60-minute one, and working near people on the same project means more progress. I love progress almost as much as I love mango shakes.

Since I’d never been to the new office, my supervisor offered to drive me in on my first day to show me the way. He wasn’t free to take me on Thursday, so I spent the day working from home. To increase my productivity, I opted to find a coffee shop to work in. My curiosity got the better of me and I ended up at the Starbucks that’s just a ten-minute walk from my house.

Obviously I made a great decision. There’s no extra charge for soy milk in this country. And just look at those eyelashes. However, my caffeine tolerance has apparently become quite low despite my tea intake over the last few weeks. I think I was high as a kite for the next few hours.

I made a friend during my visit to Starbucks—a woman named DJ and I bonded over the unfortunate non-functionality of the wifi. She lives in C.R. Park, is trying to start her own business that has something to do with home-dining options, and wants to go to Peru with her husband before they start having kids. She gave me her phone number and told me she hoped we’d run into each other again some time.

Three cheers for delicious corn, settling in, and the unique brand of instantaneous comradery one only finds in a coffee shop.

Happy Monday.

Definitive proof that playing ultimate in a 115-degree country is the best decision I’ve made all summer.

I had hoped that all the posts I crafted during my time in India would exclusively be a chronicle of the wonderful adventures and experiences I had throughout the summer, but, for the sake of continuity and genuine preservation of my Indian summer, I feel the need to devote this post to recent events with a little more gravity. Before I begin summarizing the details, I assure you that the story has the happiest of endings. The very, very happiest.

In my last post, I introduced Lisa, a rising junior at Yale working with a development organization this summer in Delhi. Mary Kate and I met her at a Saturday morning frisbee practice and ended up using the shower in her apartment to clean up before spending all day Saturday enjoying street food and our first “sightseeing” experience with her. The apartment Lisa’s living in is owned by a wonderful woman named Sree who left India when she was 17 to study at NYU and returned to India about ten years ago to live with her father in the apartment building he owned. The place is absolutely beautiful. Mary Kate and I were in awe as Lisa explained the details of her rental agreement and even more surprised when Lisa mentioned that she may be moving out soon. Sree’s sons both live in New York state, and she was planning a trip to visit them for the next four months, starting yesterday. That would leave Lisa alone in the apartment, and she was afraid she would be too lonely without company. She half-jokingly mentioned that there was another room available in the apartment and Mary Kate and I half-seriously considered looking into renting it for the remainder of the summer. Half-seriously.

Throughout the previous week, I had begun having some security issues in the hostel Mary Kate and I had been staying in. The hostel is located in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi that’s considered a business district, and is affiliated with the Indian Institute of Public Health. It’s typically used to house students studying at the institute or people visiting for a short time to attend a workshop or conference. Before coming to intern at PHFI, I was told that living here was my best and seemingly only option, so I accepted the deal I was offered: 1000 Rs. a day for breakfast, dinner, a room, wifi, and a shuttle to and from work. Living in the hostel was challenging, but hadn’t been unmanageable. It was hot, but not unbearable. None of the hostel staff spoke much English, but we had been able to get by. The food was great. The wifi was hit or miss. It wasn’t ideal, but also wasn’t anything I was incapable of managing.

At the end of our first week in the hostel, we were paid a visit by the man who owned the place. He informed us that Mary Kate and I shouldn’t be taking any walks around our neighborhood and that if we wanted to leave the hostel for any reason besides going to work, we needed to have the live-in landlord call him so we could let him know where we were going. Understandably, this felt incredibly limiting and left me with an odd feeling, but we were more than willing to oblige him and did throughout the next week. However, most nights that week, I was kept up by noise being made outside my room. It appeared that some men had made their way onto the wall around my balcony, threw some rocks at my window, hit the outside door to my room, and, one evening, even shone a flashlight into my window. I tried to steel myself and rationalize what was happening, but even my relatively high threshold for sketchiness was being breeched. On Saturday night, the same day we had met Lisa, someone actually came down onto the balcony itself and began knocking on my door. Afraid, I moved down the hall to Mary Kate’s room and whoever was outside followed me over and began knocking on her door and whipping the screen with a rope. We ran downstairs to tell our landlord what was happening and were moved to a room on the other side of the hostel for the night, but both of us agreed that we weren’t going to be able to feel safe staying in the hostel any longer.

While all of this was happening, Lisa had sent me a Facebook message to tell me that Sree would be happy to meet with us on Sunday to discuss moving into her apartment. She agreed to offer us the room, equipped with an air conditioner and a standard shower, and all of our meals for 500 Rs. a day, half the rate we had been paying in the hostel. Meeting with her on Sunday afternoon was wonderful and we made plans to move in on Wednesday. Which we did. And our hearts have felt safe and full and overjoyed ever since.

Every time I think about it, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that we so fortuitously met Lisa that Saturday. We were given an answer to prayer before we even knew we had it. God is good.

When we visited Lisa that first time, I took a bunch of pictures of the apartment, intending to write some snarky post about her wonderful home. Who knew it would be my home four days later?

Three cheers for quick connections made through ultimate, the generosity of strangers that quickly become friends, and the freedom that comes from feeling safe.

Happy Sunday.

The weekend we didn’t go to the Red Fort.

As I was preparing for the summer I would spend in Delhi, many of the details remained vague or undetermined until the last couple weeks before my departure or, for some of them, until I arrived in India. The one thing I knew well in advance, however, was that the city had an ultimate frisbee team and that I wanted to be a part of it. After I settled in, I sent a message to the Delhi Ultimate Facebook account, got practice details, and, before I knew it, Mary Kate and I were meeting Jaidip, one of the captains of the team and the president of the Ultimate Players Association of India, at the metro station at 6:15am to go to practice.

The team is called Stray Dogs in Sweaters, named for the activity of a strange NGO that clothes the stray dogs of Delhi when the temperature drops in the winter. Practices happen every Saturday morning and Sunday evening with various informal meet-ups throughout the week for throwing and workouts. We’ve joined the team right as they’re gearing up for the Bangalore Ultimate Open, the biggest frisbee tournament in India. Next weekend we’ll be traveling with them to Bangalore to play three days of ultimate in south India. The jury’s still out as to whether or not I’m currently living out a dream sequence.

After our first practice, for which we were poorly hydrated and under-fed, Mary Kate and I went and got brunch with some teammates and then headed home to sleep it off. This past weekend, we decided to be a little more ambitious and planned to do some sightseeing after practice. We went to the apartment of our new friend Lisa, an ultimate player from Yale, and showered off before heading into the city in search of street food and aiming to make a stop at the Red Fort.

We wandered for a while before making a food decision, and eventually opted to make our first foray into Indian street food where all the locals seemed to be congregating. We each ordered dahi bhalla, fried lentil balls drowning in a sweet yogurt with spicy tamarind chutney and pomegranate seeds.

The difference in the time stamp between the before and after photos is approximately 11 minutes. Clearly no comment on quality of taste is necessary.

The menu board at our lunch stop promised mango shakes, but the cashier said, “I don’t have that” when we requested them. We were committed to satisfying our cravings for creamy mango sweetness, so we resolved to find a place to stop on our walk to the Red Fort. It didn’t take long to complete our mission.

Yes, they were topped with golden raisins, cashews, and shredded coconut. Yes, they were served in “for here” pint glasses of questionable cleanliness. Yes, they cost the equivalent of 66 cents. Yes, consuming that mango shake was one of the most blissful moments of my short life.

After we sucked up every last drop of mango ambrosia, it was a short walk to the Red Fort. We had been told that there was an entry fee, but we couldn’t find anyone taking money at the entrance, so we slipped our shoes off (this appeared to be customary based on our brief observance of other entrants) and walked right in.

The red tile was blazing hot. Someone had considerately rolled out these rope mats, presumably to preserve one’s feet from being burned beyond recognition. However, scratchy rope mat isn’t a significantly more pleasant sensation. Pick your poison.

These sweet girls ran up to me on the rope mat and began saying, “hello, my name is” over and over and over. I’m not sure what their names are, but I told them mine was Kati.

After sitting for a bit beside the algae-filled fountain, Mary Kate and I headed by metro to meet one of our teammates to go to a clothing exchange for interns that were coming and going and looking to get rid of some extra clothes. We each acquired some excellent finds for the low, low price of absolutely nothing. I went home with three full traditional outfits, all of which got some wear time this past week. I’m a happy camper.

At work on Monday, I was feeling a little curious and did a quick Google search. Turns out we did not, in fact, visit the Red Fort on Saturday. By turning the wrong way out of the metro station, we ended up paying a visit to Fatehpuri Masjid, a 17th century mosque on the western end of the oldest street in Delhi, Chandni Chowk. Apparently we were looking for the eastern end.

This explains the shoe removal, lack of general fort-like qualities, and men praying all over the place.

Happy Friday.

The great tea experiment.

If you’ve been tracking my time in India via social media, you may be acquainted with one of the characters of my daily Indian life, a person I call “the vested tea man”. This gentleman strolls about the office, politely depositing cups of tea and coffee on the desks of everyone on our floor, including myself. Not surprisingly, this has served to make him one of my favorite characters in the story of the summer I’m spending in India.

Yesterday I initiated an experiment with him. Before I explain, let me provide you with some background.

During my first days in the office, the vested man would come to my desk and ask me if I would like him to bring me a cup of tea or some coffee. I was delighted by the novelty of the situation and sometimes requested tea, other times I’d ask for coffee. I never perceived myself to be asking for one more frequently than the other. I enjoyed some variety in my warm beverage consumption (By warm, I actually mean absolutely blazing hot. I don’t know if they just make beverages in India hotter so that they still seem warm relative to the ambient temperature or what, but this will definitely be a summer full of burned fingers and taste bud casualties.).

But one day, he didn’t ask. He just showed up with a cup of coffee for me in the morning. And every day since then, in both the morning and the afternoon, he’s automatically delivered coffee to my desk.

Let me pause to clarify that I am by no means ungrateful or complaining about this state of affairs. I’m downright giddy every time he places that unbelievably hot cup in front of me. But my curious and scientific mind won’t rest. Thus, the experiment.

I found out on Wednesday that one may order additional beverages outside of the routine morning and afternoon deliveries. Here is the experimental procedure:

At least once each day, I will request a cup of tea. I will take record of the time of each petition and count the number of times I ask for tea before he:

A: begins to automatically bring me tea.
OR
B: returns to asking me for my beverage preference.

As of today, I have made two requests for tea: yesterday at 12:30 pm and today at 11:23 am. Yesterday’s was a jilted, awkward interaction. Today there was difficulty determining whether or not I wanted milk in my tea, if the tea should be brewed in the milk or in water with milk added later, and what kind of tea I wanted. In the end, I received steamed milk with some sugar and both a green tea and assam tea bag in it.

We’ll hit our stride soon, my vested friend.

Happy Friday.

Mormons, a mango shake, and a little bit of trespassing.

My sweet friend Mary Kate is Mormon, just like my dearest Bee, so all summer I have the pleasure of continuing to have all sorts of LDS adventures. We had our first this past weekend when we ventured into Delhi for church on Sunday. I took the metro in with Mary Kate, walked her to church, and then headed to a Café Coffee Day to wait for her to finish (Café Coffee Day is a ubiquitous Tim Horton’s-esque coffee chain here, at least in Delhi). I enjoyed air conditioning and comfy chairs and a mango shake while editing pictures from frisbee nationals and reading. My current rate of literary consumption on this trip is approximately two and a half books a week. This does not bode well for the longevity of the seven-book library I squeezed in my suitcase.

A little before 12:30 (the theoretical ending-time for church), I walked back to the church building to find Mary Kate. When I arrived, classes were still in session, so I decided to explore and photograph the building. It was this tall, narrow thing with a staircase that wound up and up for what I perceived to be infinite floors. I took the stairs all the way to the top at which point I noticed a pair of shoes sitting outside the door on the top floor, suggesting that I may not, in fact, be exploring an LDS church, but rather an apartment building in which a LDS church meets. Fearing a potential encounter with a resident that might precipitate a rant in Hindi about invasion of privacy, the sentiment of which I’m certain I still would have gathered despite the fact that my Hindi vocabulary is limited to the words for “hello”, “thank you”, “that’s tasty”, “yes”, “no problem”, “potato”, and “mango”, I headed back down to the floors that definitely housed the Indian Mormons.

But still—clearly a cool place to spend a Sunday.

Happy Thursday.

Ghara.

After Mary Kate and I got back from our walk on Wednesday, I spent some time documenting our hostel.

Nothing like large quantities of barbed wire to make one feel secure.

The building across the alley from ours.

The apartment building across the street. Those balconies do triple duty as a place to leisurely enjoying the sweltering Indian air, a laundry room, and a bath tub.

That guy on the right puts forth a valiant effort to keep me cool each night. I’m certainly grateful for his marginal success.

Happy Tuesday.

Seven days in.

As of yesterday, I have been in India for a week. Here are a few things I saw through my lens in the last seven days.

This little friend wiggled his way into my window on Tuesday night. He crawled between my cupboard and the wall and camped out there until I went to bed. I decided to name him Shukriyaa, the Hindi word for “thank you”. As in “thank you, lizard, for staying on your side of the room all night”.

The very first rickshaw ride. There have already been many more of these since, but the hot breeze on my face never stops being exhilarating.

Welcome to my desk the the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). They gifted me with a piece of paper with my name printed on it, a bottle of water that’s refilled each morning, a box of tissues, and five push pins. I added the picture of Flywheel and a few handouts I created regarding measuring various indicators of child health. When the little vested man bring me coffee every morning, it feels like home.

The general store across the street from the hostel I live in. I ventured over there this evening with Mary Kate, a new friend of mine living just down the hall, and we enjoyed a lovely stroll through town while enjoying mango juice boxes. And then upon returning home, found out that was never to happen again. Three cheers for enjoying freedom while it’s to be had.

And, finally, there were bananas at breakfast on Friday. Clearly my little fruit-loving heart was overjoyed.

Happy Monday.