Adjusting

It is remarkable what a difference a week makes. Exactly a week ago I left Chicago for this strange land with high expectations and many preconceptions. Once I arrived here I was shocked not only by the amount of things that I gotten right, but also wrong, very very wrong. Though I had been told about the traffic, pollution and general dirtiness of India, I had expected this to exclude the best, most modern parts of the city. HA, if only! Everything here is dirty, busy and smelly (sometimes good and sometimes bad). On the walk to school you have to put a scarf over your mouth and nose not just because of the visible smoke from exhaust pipes, but because of the horrific smell of fecal matter as you walk past certain areas. Sometimes the culprit is one of the thousands of stray dogs running about the city, but it is just as likely that someone on their commute to work decided one of the very poorly maintained urinal areas.

At first all of this disgusted me beyond imagination. I could not think of how it would be possible to live in a city when your walk to school is itself a test. But after a week of this environment I am freakishly comfortable routinely stepping over dog poop, crossing 6 lanes of traffic without a light, and taking rickshaws all over the city. I cannot believe how much progress I have made in the last few days! Just two days ago we took a trip to the main market in Pune, which is HUGE and filled with every kind of good you can imagine, and not once was I negatively overwhelmed. In fact, I embraced, it with all its energy, color, and diversity. The above photo was taken after a very successful trip to Anju's choice bangle shop and then to a fruit stand for some pomegranates (which I ate for the first time). That day everyone also bought Indian suits called salwar kameez and suddenly we all seemed to have started taking on a new Indian identity, one which I think we will carry with us until we leave India.

Love from India