Valentine's Day: A Western perversion

A coworker alerted me to this website (completely serious), which encourages Indians not to celebrate Valentine's Day: http://www.hindujagruti.org/activities/campaigns/religious/valentine-day/

TED

Tonight I went to a TED event--a series of short talks from interesting people doing interesting work in India. The theme was social entrepreneurship. If anyone hasn't heard of TED, do yourself a favor and go to the website. My favorite organization that was profiled was Milaap, which does microfinance throughout India. It works similarly to other microfinance organizations, in that you loan an amount, the recipient pays you back once they can, and then you can choose to reinvest in another person. It's all done online and with just one seed amount you can aid several different people through the repayment and reinvestment cycle. It's also nice because you can read about and choose the people you are giving loans to. http://www.milaap.org/

This event was at a center that's affiliated with the American embassy, which means displaying the presdent and vice president's pictures is required. It made me happy when I saw these tonight and remembered the days when I had to cringe at Bush and Cheney's faces as I entered American buildings abroad!

Having leaders I'm proud of representing America...priceless.

Jaipur!

This weekend I went to Jaipur (see above). We went to the Jaipur Literature Festival: http://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/index/, a really cool event, but with toooo many people. I got to hear some interesting talks by authors--including the "Tiger Mom" and Oprah--and would have liked to go to more but since we were only there for two days, I wanted to get out and see Jaipur a bit as well. The people there are noticeably friendlier there than in Delhi, which if you had told me, I wouldn't have believed you can actually notice, but you really can. We walked around the Old City a bit and went to the Amer Fort. Here's an album with pics from this weekend, plus some random other photos from things I've done in Delhi in the past few weeks.

English as a second language

One of my goals while here is definitely to learn Hindi. What I didn't expect, however, was to have to learn English.
There are some interesting differences from how we speak English in the U.S. to how it is spoken here. A few of my favorite English to English translations:

Indian English : American English
ear bud = q-tip
lamp bulb = light bulb
ground floor = 1st floor, so 1st floor = 2nd floor, 2nd floor = 3rd floor, etc.
"I've just reached"/"Have you reached?" = "I'm here"/"Are you there?"
"just like that only" =  a phrase that doesn't really add any explanation but is added to the end of a lot of sentences as a sort of closing
"I belong to..." = "I am from...."
kitchen roll = roll of paper towels
specs = glasses
"What's your scene?" = "What are you doing?"

We've caved.

Sue and I have caved and hired a cook and I think we agree that it is one of the best decisions ever. She makes amazing food, it's really inexpensive and now I have more free time to learn Hindi and do other things. Win-win! Check out the pic below of what we came home to on a typical night this week....Hopefully I learn how to cook some things from her as well and this doesn't just make me super lazy. We'll see.                                              

Just a Tuesday night.

 Also, it's been super cold in Delhi. I know a lot of people probably don't believe it, especially given the insane cold that's been hitting my family in Alaska and friends in Seattle right now, but really--when there is no heating or when you're riding in an auto (the golf cart-type thing I take for half an hour to work each day) and the wind is blowing in the sides--it is cold! Check out these special socks that women here wear so that they are still able to wear their strappy sandals in the winter--there's a separate spot for the big toe. So funny. Sorry it's fuzzy, I had to sneak this photo on the subway without looking like a creep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yuck.

It is sooo foggy (=smoggy) in Delhi right now. Something about the way the cold interacts with all the pollution in the air creates this super thick haze. My roommate, Sue, had her plane diverted to another city because it was so bad that they couldn't land yesterday morning. I'm wondering how long I can hold my breath... 

See my face in the mirror? haha

How great is this?

I've forgotten to mention until now that one of my favorite things about India is that you can have anything delivered.