Moving In

On February 7th, orientation week ended, meaning it was time for us to move into our new homestay! Most of us were paired up with somebody else from the program, and I, luckily, am one of those people. My new roommate's name is Hannah. Hannah is from rural Maine and is junior at Brown University and is great!

We live in a part of New Delhi called Nizamuddin East. I LOVE OUR COLONY (there aren't neighborhoods here, they're called colonies instead)! We live within walking distance from Humayun's Tomb; the colony is beautiful and quite "posh" as it was first described to us. It's very safe and quiet (quiet for Delhi), there are lots of small parks where kids play on swings, a small market with several grocery stores, a general store, Chemist, clothing store called Anokhi, and a cafe called Cafe Turtle. We also live very close to a mosque so we can hear people chanting "Aaaaaaaaalllllllllaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh" and it's really loving to hear at night. We also live relatively close to an upper-scale market called Khan Market which is a very popular market in Delhi.

The host family:
My host family consists of Aunty-ji, her husband Ashok (spelling?) and her son, Ambrit.

Ashok is recovering from a stroke and is not really functional. He can't really talk or move his body, so he rests in his bed with the TV on all day. I've only seen him about five times but he seems like a really cool guy. From old pictures I've seen and other impressions people have given me, it seems that he was really funny and "with-it" type of guy. He's a retired fighter pilot, so the family has lived in various big cities (they lived in Goa for five years and Mumbai for six years) for his work.

Ambrit is about 28 (?) years-old. He currently lives in Australia but he is home for this month to work and help Aunty-ji take care of Ashok. Ambrit is getting married in December (!!!!!!) to a gauri (Hindi slang for white/foreign girl; like saying "gringa") named Katherine from Ohio!! I'm still a little shakey on how they met. I know that she came to New Delhi to work on an archeological site and I think they met out at a bar one night. It would be SOOOOO COOL if I got to go to the wedding! Anyways, Ambrit is really chill and because he lives in Australia he knows all about Western culture, so it's really nice to hang out with him.

Because Ambrit has a weird work schedule, it's usually Aunty-ji, Hannah and me. Aunty-ji is very non-traditional. She doesn't wear a bindi, she has short, cropped hair which she colors about every-other week and drinks a class of whiskey on the rocks shum ko (Hindi for "in the evening"). She's from Kashmir and went to the university to play sitar! I'm fairly certain that she doesn't play sitar anymore but she still likes to show off her classical dance skills. She's really pestering about making sure people eat at all times, but above all, she just wants company and to have fun. She loves to go out (although she has surgery that she's still recovering from) with her friends and to a country club called the Gymkhana Club. She also likes Italian food and always wants Hannah and me to cook food from home so we can teach her how. Hannah and I have made her pasta with marinara sauce and mac and cheese so far. I'm thinking of baking a loaf of French or Italian bread to make homemade grilled cheese sandwiches to go with some homemade tomato soup. Hahaaaa! It was Aunty-ji's birthday a couple of days ago, so I'm going to bake her a cake too!

Ummm, other things:

Our home is a very lovely apartment. Hannah and I share a small bedroom and we have our own bathroom. We have a manual shower head (vs. a bucket) which is very nice. Our house has a balcony in front where we sit out and drink chai and eat biscuits. In India, any family who can afford a home has a maid to clean and do the cooking. So, our family has a maid named Sumitra (spelling?). Sumitra lives in a different apartment upstairs and has worked for the family since she was about 15 (now she's.....20-25?). I think she's a little afraid of Aunty-ji but she's very sweet. She hardly speak any English and since I hardly speak Hindi we don't have in-depth conversations but we still exchange talk when we can. I try to practice Hindi phrases on her by asking her how she's doing and stuff. My moment of pride was when I needed to do laundry so I asked her "sabun kaha hai?" which means "Where is the soap?"

Here is a picture of Aunty-ji the first night we moved in. She was going out with friends so she wore one of her gorgeous saris. Hannah and I had her pose for us so we could take her picture. Hahaaa! You can tell that she loved it!