The most meaningful bananas I’ve ever purchased.

There’s a man who sells fruit outside my house.

He stands beside his bountiful cart just twenty feet from our gate. Sometimes he has a smaller annex cart from which he sells lychee. Like a lychee outlet store.

He’s been there every morning, rain or shine. And he’s there every evening when I get home. And I think I’ve seen him after dark with a lamp jerry-rigged to illuminate his fruit.

I’ve visited his stand a few times over the last few weeks. One afternoon, we bought a couple mangoes and a bunch of lychee as an afternoon snack. On the Fourth of July, he provided me with my kilo of lychee. And on a few mornings, I’ve purchased two bananas before hopping in a rickshaw and going to work.

This morning was a banana morning. I walked over to the stand and waited patiently as my produce-purveying friend helped another customer who seemed to be amassing a rather large quantity of fruit. When he noticed me standing there, he held up one finger, asking his current patron to wait, grabbed two bananas, and walked over to hand them to me with a smile. Shocked by the unprecedented display of friendliness, I think I somehow managed to pull the correct change out of my wallet. Then, as if nothing monumental had occurred, he went back to helping his customer select plums while I skipped off to find a rickshaw.

Three cheers for feeling known in a new home.

And now enjoy some street art from the village our office is in.

Happy Tuesday.

The baseball diamond upon which you stand is hallowed ground.

This will go down in the record books as the year it seemed the Fourth of July would never end.

Last night, the evening of July 5th in India, the US Embassy hosted an Independence Day celebration for all the US citizens living in Delhi. This seemed like a cultural experience too unique to pass up, so Mary Kate, Lisa, and I hopped in a rickshaw and rode over to the embassy district.

The party was hosted on a baseball diamond at the American Citizen Services Center. The place was covered in red, white, and blue with an abundance of balloons and a band covering popular “American” songs.

There were real beef hamburgers and free popcorn by the bucket.

In classic “American” style, the evening’s festivities included eating contests.

Seth and Lisa enthusiastically participated in the watermelon-eating competition.

When presented with the option of a pie-eating contest, I recognized it as an opportunity to acquire large quantities of pie at no cost. So I entered, grabbed my quarter of a pie, nibbled at it until someone won the competition, then grabbed what was left of my oversized slice, the barely-touched one next to mine, and four forks.

I’m not usually an apple pie fan, but there’s something special about a slice in the Delhi heat shared with friends.

The evening ended with fireworks and plenty of dancing.

Oh, and a raffle in which Mary Kate won a free trip for two to Jaipur in an air-conditioned car.

Conclusion: the embassy is a magical place.

Happy Sunday.

Nothing says “America” like ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie.

I think these speak for themselves.

Happy Saturday.

Killing four birds with one cake.

Today is the Fourth of July.

For the last several years, this has been an emotionally complicated day for me. I’ve celebrated it in a number of places; I believe this will be my second one spent abroad. The first I spent in Guatemala. I remember it being a trying day. Considering that trip as a whole, this could have been for any number of reasons. Primarily, I’d attribute it to the fact that I had only recently sorted out my feelings towards my country as a whole and was still entertaining the idea that the best way to travel was to attempt to distance myself as much as possible from my native land by shunning all things remotely reminiscent of my life in the US. Thankfully, I’ve reached a healthy equilibrium on the latter point, and curious parties can investigate the former in this short essay I wrote three and a half years ago. Reading it today, beyond my indecisive capitalization, I’d still summarize my thoughts this way. High five, 19 year-old self.

Having put some distance and a good many thoughts between myself and that first Independence Day abroad, I find myself preferring to celebrate this day away from home. While it’s disappointing to miss out on making s’mores with Amy using star-shaped marshmallows roasted over the burners on our gas stove, the day feels more monumental, more meaningful within the borders of another nation. Spending too much time in the United States desensitizes me to the freedoms I enjoy as a citizen; I appreciate them more when they’re juxtaposed with a markedly different experience. Even within the lingering distrust I harbor towards our government, I find myself able to recognize important ways our leaders maintain my confidence in ways I take for granted because I’d never know the difference if I never lived anywhere else. I approach this day with more reverence; I think I’d be missing out on an important side effect of my travels if I didn’t.

So the suggestion of an “America Day” celebration in my Indian office doesn’t make me cringe as it may have in years past. Instead it results in the purchase of a kilo of lychees from the fruit vendor outside my house to bring to the party. In my mind, this was roughly equivalent to bringing a fruit plate. I’m open to criticism on this one.

Since Canada Day, an office-mate’s birthday, and another office-mate’s hiring anniversary were all on Monday, we turned today’s festivities into a combined America-Day-Canada-Day-birthday-anniversary party. We got a cake and a quiche and all wore varying quantities of red, white, and blue. When I showed up this morning, there were tiny US and Canadian flags lying on a desk from which I was instructed to select one to declare my allegiance.

There were balloons and these funny maple leaves with collages of great things about Canada on them.

Bowls of street fruit and potato chips.

A homemade vegetarian quiche. The spinach content of this thing was on-point.

A golden crown dug out of the “party cupboard”.

And a blueberry-filled confectionary masterpiece.

Three cheers for Oreos, American-style sour cream & onion chips, and learning to love where you’re from.

Happy Fourth.

Qutab Minar.

In light of our previous delightful sightseeing misadventure, the roommates and I have some catching up to do in terms of Delhi tourism. We’re still casually flirting with the city, but things are being checked off the list. A couple weekends ago, we made our way over to Qutab Minar after our Saturday morning practice.

Qutab Minar stands at 73 meters tall, making it the second-tallest minar in India. Its construction began in 1193 after the defeat of Delhi’s last Hindu kingdom, and it was finally completed in 1368. It’s got five stories and is made of sandstone and marble. There’s some debate as to the reason for its construction: some say it’s a victory tower marking the beginning of Muslim rule, others say it’s a minaret intended to call the faithful to prayer. Either way, it’s pretty astounding to stand beside it and overwhelming to think that all of the intricate carvings that cover its face were done by hand.

The grounds surrounding Qutab Minar are beautiful. The first mosque to be built in India stands at the base of the minar, and various ruins cover the entire complex. Which is crawling with an absurd number of a very strange Indian ground rodent. It looks like a cross between a flying squirrel and a chipmunk.

And Wikipedia has just informed me that these are Indian palm squirrels, they’re considered sacred by Hindus in India, and, in terms of likelihood of extinction, they’re classified as “least concern”. The more you know.

We spent the afternoon strolling about the Qutab Minar complex and experienced in full force the strange phenomenon of people either asking to take pictures with us, asking to take pictures of us, or just taking pictures of us without asking. Not surprisingly, this feels a little alienating and objectifying. Whoever decided blondes have more fun likely never attempted to travel through India.

Regardless, it was fun to spend a good bit of time doing some intentional photography. It was enjoyably difficult to be judicious in my picture selection for this post. What a great problem to have.

Happy Thursday.