Still clueless

DISCLAIMER: All of the photos used here were taken from random pictures on the internet, except, of course, for the jogging photo, which is the only authentic photo of me that I have ever seen . . . .

Now that I've been in India for six months, you would think that I knew a few things. But I am constantly reminded that this is a developing country and that there's a lot more to it than one can figure out in six months.
First-world conveniences here, particularly on campus, are common enough that one can almost start to believe that India is developed, just a few glitches. But as I cross the street from the school to the coffee place at the embassy compound . . . (by the way, this is NOT the coffee place at the embassy, where it is VERBOTEN to take pictures because terrorists want nothing more than the formula for making Irish cream lattes, but "Cafe Coffee Day" is Anna's favorite name denoting coffee locations in India), I see -


several women carrying large bundles of wood on their heads.



This does not compute, that people are looking for firewood to keep warm and carrying it on their heads while I am wondering whether to go wild and get a mocha instead of a latte since it's a weekend.











Or I go running with my ipod
Jeez, will they ever stop staring at me?

and pass the dumpsters across the street and am unfazed by the fact that, in the dumpster, there is/are:

a child (maybe 8 or 9) wearing a plastic bag like a shampoo cap, throwing stuff out to his friend (I cannot believe that I found a picture like this randomly on the web - scary);

a dog lying on top of the pile of garbage like king of the hill





an adult or two sorting recyclables to sell





more likely, all of the above.
The dumpster a block away usually is overflowing onto the street, where cows, dogs, and crows feast together - no big deal. And we're walking to the shopping area deciding: Asian fusion? the new restaurant?

OK, it's not just about dumpsters. This afternoon I'm in a cab driving to a movie theatre about 1/2 hour away to see "New York, I love you," English for "Paris, t'aime" . . . mais le film francais est plus meilleurs que le film americain." Or something like that. And we drive past the following on the way:
clothes hanging out to dry on every available surface: rooftops, fences, bus stops, etc.

• a man and woman herding goats past the Oman embassy along a main road (where did they come from and where are they going?)
• 
  
• rows of tent dwellings along a six-lane road, where I observe women doing laundry, cooking a meal over a fire, and recall that the last time I was even IN a tent was in the Himalayas last fall, when someone else was doing all of the work.
• more people than I can count who look like they have not groomed themselves or changed clothes in a LONG time.
  

And I try to assimilate all of this into the same world, wondering what it is like to live in a tent in a tent neighborhood by the highway, and to go to the park to collect firewood for cooking and keeping warm, and to carry a load that's twice my weight on my head, and herd goats past taxi stands on embassy row, or not to have enough water to shower or bathe - and it is
very
difficult.

In fact, after six months here, even though I know where to get my cafe lattes daily, and whine when they give me two percent instead of skim, I still have not

• taken more than a couple long walks to explore, because it's too scary when you get lost and are in the middle of a dusty construction zone and groups of men are staring at you with grim expressions as if to say, "What are you doing here?"
  
• bought fresh milk - just the boxed stuff because (repeat after me, "it's too scary")
  
• mailed a letter through the Indian postal system
• mailed more than 3 letters to the U.S. via the embassy mail system (which means that either I gave up on the holiday card idea or I have very few friends or family members)
• figured out how to call anyone from the phone in my apartment
• learned the names of the school guards to whom I nod and smile every day
• visited a public library
  
• gone to the National Art Gallery
• seen any real museum in Delhi other than the outdoor folk art museum the first week I was here
• made a female Indian friend, other than my students (and counting them is unfair, since they're a captive audience)
• ridden a bike on my own (and I've only ridden once with others)

OK, so I'm slowly figuring things out. Sometimes I almost think I "get" this country.
But then I come back from lunch, sipping chai, and look out the classroom window, my back turned to the Smartboard and my laptop, and I see

several women carrying baskets of soil on their heads



men and women patting the soil into a hill that is being turned from a pile of trash into a newly-landscaped school entrance area.
All of the people working there are thin, I cannot tell their ages because they have rags wrapped around their heads and faces to protect them from the dust. I don't know their names and we'll probably not be introduced.
I'll never know their lives and they won't know mine. But there they are, maybe 10 yards away, working every day.

And then I realize that I may live here but the "real" India is still on the other side of the window and that may be as good as it gets. For many of the Americans living here, that is as close as they want to be.