Baroda

Feb 20-21
I had been wanting to go to Baroda for awhile now, and Haider needed to go to get his friend's diploma from the university there, so we took the bus on Sat. morning. It only takes two hours to get there, and the bus ticket cost just a little over a dollar.

Baroda was formerly ruled by a Maharaja, and this Maharaja really valued education, so to this day they have a really good, big university there - part of which is housed in the Maharaja's old palace (this is the building with the big dome). We had to go to the office because Haider's Iraqi friend recently graduated from this school but had to return to Iraq and asked Haider to get his diploma for him. Now this will give you an idea of how India is - why can't they mail him his certificate, I don't know, that is a good question. Haider has gone to Baroda to try and get this certificate at least five times now, and each time they tell something different why he can't get it. This time they said they will only give them out on Tues. When Haider said he has come all the way from Ahmedabad a number of times, the clerk said, "That's not my problem." We then tried to find someone higher up to help us - we filled out a form to go in to see the Vice Chancellor and only after waiting 30 minutes did we find out that the V-C was not even there. Such is India.

After that we went to Sayaji Park and met an Iraqi friend of Haider's there. It's a nice, big, well-maintained park and there was even a little tiny train you could ride on. We went in the big museum in the park which was pretty nice, lots of old Indian stone carvings and art the royal Gaekwad family had owned. One of the coolest things was a real, blue whale skeleton. You could have lived in its stomach and stood upright.

The city is known as Gujarat's cultural capital and it did seem more cosmopolitan and a lot more western. We found an ice cream parlor in the vein of Coldstone back home, so that was exciting for me! And Haider was right, the pizza hut in Baroda is much better than the one in Ahmedabad. Even the Pepsi was extra syrupy, and we got an actual real, lettuce salad! And pasta without lots of spices, and a good pizza. Let me tell, you that was exciting.

The next day we went to the Lakshmi Villas Palace where the royal family used to live. It was really nice with lots of mosaic and tile work, a fountain, old paintings. We weren't supposed to take pictures inside...but Haider was like a little boy in the weapon room and tried to persuade the guard to let us take just one photo. So instead I took one from the corner where he couldn't see..so excuse the quality...So yes some of these pictures are illegal :P

Hindi Class

So we just completed our first Hindi class. It was 3 months for 3 days a week. I can't say that I've been fully satisfied, and I'm not sure I will take the next level. We learned a lot of words - parts of the body, animals, some everyday phrases, etc. But we only got to verb tenses the last 2 weeks of class. And even as we learned all these words, she never gave us the gender of the noun which is helpful to know as other word endings change with the gender. We did learn how to tell time though. Before taking the class I had just been listening to a teach yourself hindi book, but I had been losing motivation in that, so at least paying for the class kept me coming.
Anyway we had to take a final test which wasn't too bad. We had to write a little conversation in hindi, write an introduction about ourselves in Hindi, tell time, know different verb tenses, and I even wrote everything using devanagari script - the Hindi alphabet. Also we had to make a short little book written in hindi and then had to present it to the class and also just speak some Hindi as well.

So Dr. Anjana, our teacher, had us all, including the other Hindi class she teaches, over to her flat for lunch. So there were maybe 8 Americans, 1 Iraqi, 5 or so Germans, 1 Spaniard, a couple Italians, 1 Belgian, I Iranian....and of course Indians. We had samosas and Cholle Puri for lunch. Puri is like a fried and puffed up tortilla..kind of. Cholle is a chickpea kind of stew thing. And then we had tons of Indian Methii - bite sized sweets - because everyone brought a box for the hostess. These Methii, well I'm kind of in love with. Looking at them you have no clue what the hell they are - many times they have silver foil on them, crazy colors and shapes. Most are made out a paste of cashew and nuts and dried fruit.
Haider is in the picture with the little girl. However by the end of the party she wouldn't come near him, because one of Dr. A's daughters told her in Hindi that Haider wanted to take her home with him.
One of the funniest moments at Dr. Anjana's house was when Dorothy 'hai' brought out cupcakes. Now I think every single person from Europe and America, including the guys, when they saw the cupcakes exclaimed, "You have an OVEN??!!!"
You just don't realize how much we use ovens until you don't have one and also you can cook meat. That really tends to limit any American food you can make...

Not for the passive

I think it would be impossible not to become a more assertive person from staying in India. Sometimes it feels like you are constantly fighting here. With so many people trying to survive and make a living in this country, I guess it's not surprising! You constantly have to argue about things, to get things accomplished, to make sure the price is right, etc. But I think that's a good thing for me, it teaches you to stand up for yourself and ask for what you want. Some examples:

One of the funniest and strangest - I went to Havmor ice cream stand the other day. Now they have all kinds of popsicles, milk shakes, and more in addition to the tubs in the big freezer where the scoop it onto the cone. There were two flavors I wanted to try, so I ordered Cookies Cream and Chocolate Brownie in a cup. He was about to put each flavor in a separate cup, until I said no, no, just put both together. Completely straight-faced, he said, no I can't do that. It's against Havmor policy. I argued, no, I want them both together! What will they do? Fight if they're together??? Finally he said completely serious, ok, but I'm only doing it this one time.

Another thing - If you are waiting in line for something - anything - you cannot leave any space between you and the person in front of you. If you do, everyone will interpret this that you are not actually standing in line - you just happen to be milling around the line for the food stand. They will walk right in front of you and order. Even if you are standing at the counter, people will barge up and push their order and money in front of you. So any time I have to wait in a line now, I am constantly like some territorial animal guarding my space. Otherwise you will stand and wait while the line grows longer in front of you.

The other day I went to the doctor for the second time because of reoccuring stomach problems. After I explained to the doctor (a different one from the first time I want )she said, Well, what do you want me to do? What the hell???!! I thought. No actually I even said, I'm not a doctor! You tell me what I should do!

We haven't been able to cook in our flat for at least 3 days now because our gas cylindar ran out. You have to have a connection in your name in order to order a new one, but ours has apparently run out, and it would takes weeks to begin a new one and get the cylinder. Our neighbors don't have an extra one we can take and once they order once, they can't order another for 15 days. Since day one, Haider contacted his friend for us who said he would get one for us. Every day he says, today after such-and-such time and every time it ends up - no, tomorrow it will come. Our final option is having our apartment broker get it for us. However this will cost about 3 times the normal amount of a gas cylinder.

So you see, you not only do you have to be extremely patient in India, but also very persistent and very assertive!

the gym

In the US I had been going to the gym 3-5 times a week regularly, but stopped when I came here. Initially it had just been way too hot to even think about exerting myself. But now after five months, I am definitely noticing that the lack of exercise is making me feel worse after each month.

So I finally found a gym down the street from my flat. For three months I paid Rs. 2500 so a little over $50. It's a pretty small place - there is a walkway down the middle of the room, and on one side they have 2 treadmills, an elliptical trainer, 3 bikes, and a few weight resistance machines. Now on the other side, are these bed things that you lay down on and it 'works' a certain part of your body by moving it mechanically for you. So basically if you remember those black and white clips from the 40s and 50s of women with a belt around their middles, standing there while it "jiggled away the fat" - yeah basically that concept. And yeah, I would have had to pay extra to have the "advantage" of using those. And there are usually several people using them.

What is also interesting is that mostly I see women here, there are men, but mostly women. Seems like a lot of housewives and they don't wear work-out clothes like we wear, they just wear their regular salwar kameez suits - the long tunic with baggy pants.

I must have missed the times when the personal trainer, who is in his 20s and wants to be a body builder I guess like Arnold Schwarzenegger, was there because I didn't meet him the first several times I went. He's good, but now starting to irritate the hell out of me. But he's very enthusiastic which is good, and he seems very good at showing people the correct form of an exercise. And he was very enthusiastic about teaching me Hindi. There was another man there the other day who spoke no English, so they were all teaching me and explaining what was going on in the Hindi soap on the TV.

However, I only plan on going 3-4 times a week with other things going on here, but ever time I leave, the trainer keeps saying, now come regularly. Which irritates me because I am, I'm just not coming every day. Then the other day he asked me how old I was. When I told him, he seemed very surprised and said, oh I thought you were quite a bit older...yeah, thanks, so much...:P Then when I am doing reps with free weights for bicepts, he has been saying I should do 3 sets of 20 reps! And I've only been coming a few days, seriously! But whatever, it's nice that he's very enthusiastic about it all. And it does go by quickly. The TV is usually set to some Hindi bollywood music videos which I think I could watch for hours..