Say Hello to New Delhi

Namaste!

I have happily arrived in New Delhi, and neither terrorists nor pollution nor insane amounts of homework can upset my good mood.

I am living in Vasant Kunj - an area in South Delhi, with an amazing family consisting of a mother and 19 year old and 12 year old daughters. They are hilarious and find our (mis)adventures in Tanzania pretty much the funniest thing ever. Today, we are making them pie for thanksgiving and they are taking us to chinese food for lunch. Last night, 19 year old joohee (spelling?) showed us the paper mache she made in school and I thought she said paper-my-shitty and we all almost peed ourselves laughing. We went to Chandi Chowk - a beautiful market in old delhi with an awesome old mosque, and while there we thought it would be a good idea to eat sketchy candy on the street made out of milk and mcdonald's "shake shake fries" - both very bad ideas. The candy had gone bad, tasted like sour milk, but we kept trying different pieces hoping it would get better. Then we got home and showed our homestay sister, and she burst into laughter cause they tasted nasty cause they had gone bad, not because indians have bad taste. And shake shake fries are just straight up nasty - mcdonalds india is no better than the original. We are foolish Americans.

Our classes are amazing - we have amazing guest lecturers and our new ecology teacher is the former director of research for earthwatch. Smitu, our program director, had to leave class because he made a presentation to the people from the European Community negotiating the terms of a free trade agreement between India and the EU - badass. This country of contradictions is quite a mystery to me. A mall with Gucci and Diore next to slums. 70% farmers with the second largest number of billionares in the world. My mind may explode with information, but luckily there is lots of chai to compensate for sleep deprivation.