Registration is....different

This is one of the shops in the small market on campus. I've been buying mangos, granola, etc here for the past few days to supplement my high-bean content Indian food.
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Tuesday- July 25, 2006

Oh yeah, today was much easier. I don’t know why people complain so much about the difficulty of registration here. Today I simply:

Here I am in Delhi, trying to ask them about the names of Indian foods in Spanish.

1)Went to the library to fill out three papers to get an ID number.

This picture is for Katie. They call all yogurt products here "curd";so this is sweet curd. It's like carmel flavored thick yogurt. And boy is it good when it's like 100F in the shade. (6rp=under 10 cents)
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2) Re-filled out the forms and waited in line again because I didn’t write in capital letters.

3) Turned in all four copies of my “folio” to the administration office and my center/school.

4) Went with a friend to the Dean of Students office to check on the paper I turned in yesterday requesting my hostel.

5) They requested all four copies of my folio for assigning a hostel including a fifth “hostel copy.”

This is the president of the Rotary Club meeting that Shane and I visited Sunday. I just didn't get to load the picture before. It was fun to watch, but most of the meeting was in Hindi, so that made it a bit tough. Free dinner though. :)
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6) My friend and I ran around for a couple of hours (½ of the time in the rain) trying to re-collect my folio copies.

7) Finally confirmed that because I’m a “casual student” there never was a “hostel copy.”

8) They then agreed to accept the 4 copies but told me that if I want Yamuna, the hostel I requested that I should just come back Friday.

Like I mentioned, I did finally see my first rain of he Monsoon season today. It was really a relief. For a little while after the rain, it temperature did finally drop to a comfortable level. It was about 2:30 when I finally finished admissions work for the day. Lunch is typically from 1:00 to 2:30 for university officials so there isn’t much time in the afternoon to do stuff. I headed for the little market on campus and saw a Korean acquaintance on the way. She was at the bus stop and I asked where she was going. Turns out she was headed to Connaught Place, a British designed shopping area in downtown Delhi. I asked her if she would mind me going along, and she said that would be great.

These are Indian peaches I bought in the campus market. (They aren't as good as the ones at home.) You will notice that they are shaped more like mangos than our round peaches.
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Since I’ve been on my own a lot since I got here, I haven’t done much exploring, especially in the city. My friend had been to India several times before so she knows her way around pretty well. So, we took the city bus for 10rupees (20 cents) to Connaught Place. I finally got to see some of the city on the bus ride. Again, it wasn’t what I expected. Delhi is the national capital after all, so for appearances if nothing else I thought the heart of the city would be well maintained. In all fairness some of the parks, government buildings, and near the embassies were very well kept. However on the ride there you see children playing in the medians on the highway, cows crossing the streets, squatters living in tents, and people sleeping anywhere. The children in the street really bothered me. There were no parents in sight and many girls that looked to be 7 or 8 were carrying babies. In general, even the “nicer” areas just look really dirty and run down. I’m sure that has a lot to do with the air pollution making the buildings look dark and dirty.

The campus really is quite a jungle. Many of the sidewalks are dirt or concrete, but there are pretty ones like this one with brick and flowering trees dropping these gorgeous blossoms everywhere.
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So, we finally did make it and started walking around a bit. There were actually quite a few tourists in this area, which was surprisingly nice to see. Part way through out walk I realized that my phone was missing. We had to have our bags searched when we went to her bank, so I don’t know if the guard took it or if I just dropped it somewhere. So, next step was buying a new phone. Which thankfully is cheaper here. We also decided to grab dinner at a South Indian restaurant. I had the Thali, which is a plate with many small servings of different foods. This one had a chopped beet variation I hadn’t had before. The 5 or 6 small food bowls surround the rotti (baked breads like puffy tortillas), and dal (lentils) are almost always included.

This is one of the coolest trees on campus with those roots that go from the branch down to the ground.
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The coolest sight of the day would probably be when we were walking through a tunnel to get under a busy street and a monkey with a baby clinging on back ran through the tunnel. The baby was soooo cute. I watched them for a second when we came out of the tunnel and they made it across roof-tops of cars in a parking lot.

I guess worst part of the day was the feeling that there still isn’t a lot for me to do. Until I get settled in and have reliable communications, I can’t do much to set up volunteer work or Rotary meetings. Plus, by the time I get done with hours of registration food work, I’m pretty tired. I’m hoping once I get moved into a hostel that I’ll get to meet some other students and have someone to hang out with. I’ve seen people during the day on campus, but not had much to do in the evenings. Though, sitting in my air-conditioned room with the tv on and working on my laptop can kind of be like heaven right now. So, it’s not too bad.

So this is the one guy handling the how ever many foreign students tryng to register Monday. Each reddish folder you see contains all the papers for students of that country. See, who needs computers for organization?
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There just doesn’t seem to be much going on on campus. There isn’t the normal excitement I’m used to surrounding the beginning of the school year. Rather than orientation programs and social events for the “freshers” as they would call them here, there is this big cloud of the lengthy registration process hanging over everyones’ head. It takes a week to finish registration and move into your hostel, which leaves everyone (or at least me) in this weird limbo. But seeing the monkey was still really cool.

You will notice that strange machine on the table. I hear it's a machine that was once used for typing documents. I think it's called a typewriter. interesting.
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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The rains have come to stay apparently. It rained yesterday and the ground was already wet when I got up this morning. I don't mind it. It's much cooler and the puddles help keep your feet clean...er. I am making progress with my adjustment to Indian life. This morning when the tea boy came at 6am, I waited out his 4 sets of loud pounding on my door. Tomorrow I may take the next step and put a sign out for "No Tea" so he just won't knock at all.

Big step of the day was probably picking a hostel. I originally thought I would stay at Yamuna, the all women's hostel. It's closer to campus and has very small private rooms. However, most of the people I have met here live at Chandrabaga Hostel. It's further from campus, but the rules are less rigid and there are more opportunities for socializing. I'll need to share a room with someone, but at this point I would rather welcomE the company.

Who needs a mower when you have a machettee?
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Ah, and I have a language update. I was afraid that in coming to India I would forget all my Spanish. Well, I was waiting at a food stand for my lunch today when a girl came up and asked if I spoke Spanish. I thought she was a kindred spirit. Perhaps a student from Spain? Turns out she is Indian and so was her friend who were studying for an interview for a Spanish speaking job. They just wanted someone else to join in the conversation for practice. DefinItely one of the strangest conversations I've had in awhile. Here I am in Delhi, trying to ask them about the names of Indian foods in Spanish. No, not confusing at all. But, it was fun. They bought me some Indian sweets (like dumpling in a jasmine syrup) and a cup of tea and we talked for awhile. It was actually quite refreshing to understand an entire conversation.

So, anyways, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll move tomorrow or Friday to my hostel and get ready for class next week. Love you  all.

Lora