Chole Bhature

On Friday, we took a walk through our neighborhood with our language nurturer to share in some street food.  The food is called chole bhature and has become one of our favorite foods here.  Chole is actually a breakfast food, but it’s a little more than I can handle for my first meal of the day.  Chole is a spicy chick-pea sauce and bhature is a fried bread that puffs up like a balloon when it is cooked.  The meal also consists of sliced onions covered with a green chutney.  You eat this meal, by tearing off pieces of the bhature and using it to grab bites of the chole and chutney. 

We ate standing at a table right beside the road and next to the cooks.  When we finished we walked over to the outdoor sink to rinse our hands.  Before we left, we had to order a piece of meetha, or Indian sweets, to top off a great meal but most importantly to cool our mouths.  This was a delicious treat for our Friday shared experience.

On the way back to our classroom we stopped by one of the many historical structures in the area, called the Zafar Mahal.  This structure was built by the last Mughal Emperor as his summer palace in 1842.  You will notice the amazingly high door.  It is said that this door was built so that elephants fully decorated with a carriage on top could easily pass through.  The structure is in ruins but it is still an impressive piece of architecture. 

It is a true blessing to have a historian as a language nurturer.  Not only are we getting great instruction in Hindi but we are also learning so much about our new country and culture.

More Vaccinations

In preparation for our move eastward, we had to get one more vaccination: Japanese Encephalitis.  Our travel doctor in the States advised us not to get the shot before we left because she didn’t think it was necessary.  We were delighted not to get another shot, especially Japanese Encephalitis because it was very costly (nearly $1000 per person in the States…a tenth of the cost here in Delhi)!  Since we have been here, we have read reports in the news about more than 250 people dying in the area we are headed as a result of contracting this virus.  So, we decided to find a doctor here in Delhi and get the shots. 

It was actually a wonderful experience…well as wonderful as getting a shot can be! Our doctor was a delightful Indian man who had studied medicine in the States and had a practice in New Mexico.  He said he liked the weather there because it was very similar to Delhi.   

We contacted the doctor yesterday evening by email…he answered us right away...giving us his cell phone number so that we could text him to set up an appointment.  By 9:30 pm, we had our appointment scheduled for the next day.  When we arrived at the doctor’s office we were taken back within 5 minutes and were out the door in less than 30 minutes with smiles on our faces and band-aids on our arms! This will probably go down as one of the best experiences we have ever had with a doctor’s office. 

It only took us 4 hours, 3.5 of which were spent in the car, to get the first round of our Japanese Encephalitis vaccination taken care of.  The doctor’s office was only about 15 kilometers from our house.  Nothing like Delhi traffic! 

An Elephantastic Experience!

Sam recently turned 21 years old and her dream for her time in India (which is rapidly drawing to a close to our great dismay!) was to ride an elephant.  So, we took a two-day trip on a double-decker train to Jaipur last weekend and spent an afternoon with elephants!  First, it was amazing…a day none of us will ever forget!!!  For all the struggles that we endure living in a different culture (not trying to have a pity-party just speaking truth), there are many amazing things that we will get to experience here that make the struggles seem less exhausting.  Spending an afternoon with elephants was one of those experiences! WOW!  Seeing Sam thoroughly enjoy the experience was such a gift as well. Here are a few photos for you...  

 

I have to share with you about our hotel experience as well.  Traveling with a party of 6 is challenging, as some of you well know.  We had to have 2 rooms, which can be quite costly.  I did a lot of research and found a cute, inexpensive "mom and pop" 1940s palace turned into a bed and breakfast that had great reviews.  The greeting was fabulous and the rooms were really nicely decorated…despite smelling of moth balls.  The pool, which was a must for the kids, left a lot to be desired.  We had to be our own “pool boys,” spending hours cleaning the pool of bugs, rocks, even rusty wires and screws.  Fortunately, this did not deter us from spending hours swimming…the kids had a ball…we just had to keep saying please keep the water out of your mouths! The dining room was lacking some very necessary updates, including the need for extermination…as we had a steady trail of ants crawling down the back of the seats that Sam and the kids sat on both mornings for breakfast.  We tried room service the second night to avoid the ants.  We ordered off their menu, but they didn’t have or didn’t even know what several of the items were that we asked for. We ordered sweet and sour chicken and were very excited to get it until it arrived as a soup, with tiny crumbs of chicken and bone in a brown gravy which was neither sweet nor sour! HAHA! 

Despite the few minor let downs from our hotel, we had an amazing experience and a very much needed break from life in Delhi.  I believe experiences like our afternoon with elephants will help the kids love India, in spite of the many difficulties of living in another culture.  We had a wonderful experience including our first ever ride in a double-decker express train!  There are definitely many great things about India to write home about! 

Small Victories

It might not seem like much, but it is a big victory for me.  What you ask? I had a great experience shopping at the market today.  It can be such a struggle, especially for me, because the vegetable sellers like to overcharge foreigners.  I have had several bad experiences where I have walked away from several men because they treated me rudely or talked about me to each other from across the market, right in front of my face.  I have found a few guys who treat me kindly and give me fair prices, so I return to them each time.  I can now comfortably ask for my vegetables in Hindi and ask how much.  It makes the experience so much more fun!  Today, I said I needed two kilos of large potatoes and a half-kilo of onions.  Then I asked the price.  I got a good price and walked away feeling victorious.  I also needed cucumbers so I scanned the market for some decent looking ones.  I found a basket of good cucumbers, so I asked the price.  The young man said fifty rupees per kilo.  I came back with 30 rupees, using my Hindi and he agreed without even arguing.  Victory! While I was picking out my cucumbers, another man walked up and asked the price and the young man gave my price, 30 rupees. It made me smile…again.  I know this may seem silly to you but until you experience the market, especially as a foreigner, you just cannot comprehend how difficult it can be. Praise God for perseverance and for the joy of learning to navigate a new culture.