The video that failed from the last post

If you read the last post, you'll see that I apologize for the movie being poor. 

A Multimedia Educational Experience

That doesn’t describe something cool I did, just the fact that I’m trying to use videos in this one. This past week I did a few cool things.

I went to the Planetarium. It was really relaxing to see stars; that’s something I haven’t been able to do here. It was a really humorous mix of quality technology and production, along with slides from the 1970’s and a continued emphasis on the fact that Pluto has been “demoted.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this woman had secretly resented Pluto’s incorrect status her entire life. Maybe she’s just given too many Planetarium presentations. I’d say the highlight, aside from seeing the stars, was her diligence to the no cell phone policy. There’s a clear sign out front, but when the presentation started, she lectured us about it for a solid minute. “Please turn your phones off. It is disruptive to the show and the people around you. Look, my phone is off, yours should be too. There is a sign clearly saying no cell phones outside. Please respect this sign, and respect the show. There is nothing so important that you could need to use your cell phone during the presenation...” and so on. For a solid minute or two. Several different reasons why we should have our phone off. So when someone’s phone lit up midway through the show, they dealt with accordingly. “Why is your phone on?!?! Why have you turned it on?! There no cell phone policy is clearly marked outside, and I have also made this policy quite clear through my instructions. You have clearly ignored both of these warnings, disrespecting me and the people around you. You have interrupted the show for everyone else…” and so on, for another minute. Good thing I have no reason to use my phone here.

There was a picnic last weekend, with the cultural society my host family is a part of. It was in a ruralish town, outside of Kolkata. We had a total round trip of seven hours of bus riding. Total distance travelled was about 40 miles. The roads are…poor here. And the buses lack suspension, and the knowledge of what suspension is. The highlight was the terrain. Beautiful river and trees, and a monkey. Things you don’t see in the city. Totally worth it. Don’t ask for any more highlights.

Although I did have an excuse to film my host dad Ranjit. I can finally show the world one of the coolest voices it has ever heard. The only thing you don’t get here is his constant wise yet simple commentary.

I filmed another video today, to document part of the walk between where I get off the bus and where service learning is. I apologize for the lack of quality, but I had to hold my camera at my side so that I wouldn’t attract attention. It worked, but it’s a poor strategy for filming a busy Indian market. You’ll get the gist.

(That video isn't going to work. I'm going to try it in a separate post)

That is all. Thank you. 

The Mysterious Second Bathroom....A Cultural Experience

We have a second bathroom in the house, but I never use it. This is mostly because its right next to the kitchen, my host parents use it, I have one right by my bedroom, and I get nervous about changes in routine.

Today I had to use it, because my roommate was in our bathroom, and I needed to go. Self-explanatory. When I entered this mysterious bathroom, I made a shocking discovery, one that will change the way I look at bathrooms forever.

Exactly. The showerhead is above the toilet. The toilet is within the shower curtain. The toilet and the shower, something I always took for granted as separate functional areas of the bathroom, have become here in India, one in the same. This calls to mind some questions:

·      If you shower, would you be filling up the toilet with shower water?

·      Does using the curtain for extra privacy while you poop make you more comfortable, or fearful of what could be on the other side of the curtain?

·      Could I dual-wield the detachable showerhead and the toilet sprayer for a more efficient shower experience?

·      It is feasible to poop and shower at the same time?

·      It you could…would you want to?

·      If I also brushed my teeth in the shower (as some people do), is it feasible to complete an entire morning’s routine in less than a few minutes?

·      If the toilet were secretly clogged, would it be a dangerous time to shower?

·      Could my brother poop while I shower, as he has done throughout my childhood?

·      If my fundamental knowledge of bathrooms has been turned upside down…what is the limit for how far a bathroom can go?

These are the burning questions that I will seek to answer in the remainder of my time in India.

A few things I've done it the past couple weeks

I feel it necessary to post about the things I'm doing, but none of them are interesting enough to sustain themselves on a post, as evidenced by my last two posts about nothing. So I'm just going to spit them all out in case anybody is interested.

There was a fair here, and I attended that fair. It was 90% shops and a few rides, but I found the best and cheapest gifts there, which was nice. The highlight was the ferris wheel. I've recently learned that ferris wheels in India are meant to be a thrill ride. I was certainly thrilled. They go 10x faster than a ferris whell in the US, and have 10x less safety restrictions. We're not talking about a gondola, we're talking about two connected benches, with no seatbelt or harness. It was like taking the benches from a picnic table, removing the table party, giving it the freedom of motion of an ordinary ferris wheel gondola, and then sending it speeding around in a fiery circle of death. My friend Drew rode with me, and Drew is notoriously straight-faced, serious, and not afraid of rides. When I heard him start squealing, I was done being scared, because i was too busy laughing. Holding on was essential.

Its worth mentioning a visit I paid to Central Park, after a previous visit to the fair. Central Park, the only park in our neighborhood, is a cultural experience worth seeing, but only once. See, they say in India you can never find privacy, and that's absolutely true, so teenagers, who want to spend time with girlfriends/boyfriends like any other teenager in the world, just gave up. In the park you'll find every 10-15 feet a couple making out, in broad daylight. Hundreds of couples, its astonishing. For those of you from SJU, imagine Mary 1, with a couple in every room, but no doors or walls. That's what its like. The only other demograph you will see in the park is a few older men, who really like to watch. I saw a man literally hiding in the bushes, his face sticking out of the foliage. Later, he was behind a wall, and the only thing visible was his eyes and up. But nobody cares. For my more conservative readers: sorry for being graphic, but it just seemed necessary for a total understanding of the culture.... I know my "readers" consist exclusively of my parents, so in this case I'm referring to....both of you.

I went to the Park Street Cemetery today after school. The only thing that makes it worth mentioning more than any other ordinary trip to the cemetery is the quality of the tombstones and the history behind it. It was a burial ground for rich British colonialist when they died in Kolkata, so its quite a spectacle. The youngest grave I saw was from 1805. This was the first time in weeks that I had the opportunity to visually document my life.

The other day I was in a play. My host brother said "hey Adam, want to be in a play?" I said sure. It turns out that the production was for a cultural society, with an audience of about 75. I was Earnest in a 15 minute excerpt of "The Importance of Being Ernest". I had to memorize my lines, we practiced a bunch, it was....much more official than I had anticipated. Its still surprising, even now after its over. The event as a whole was like 3 hours of Bengali folk music and dance presentations, then...a play in English that nobody can understand. It went well.

I'm on a basketball team. That's right, competitive sports. Whoever said I can only play Johnball was....pretty correct.

Service learning is still great. I'll talk more about that....sometime.

Thank you.

The Loreto Day School

So I went to my service learning site for a real day of service learning. I assumed my first real day would be similar to my non-real first day, which may include but is not limited to: tour, informational video, forms, explanation of the routine, introductions, coffee, informational beach volleyball, etc. However, on my first day, I went up to the rainbow room (not named after decorations, but after the girls, "rainbows", that live there. These are the girls who live at the school, but they were taken off the street with no family. They're a great group.) and found my supervisor. She said, "ok, you can help the girls with their homework." So I walked to the middle of the floor, sat down (criss-cross applesauce, in Indian tradition of course) to help the girls. I tutored for the next three and a half hours, mostly trying to get them to do homework while they pretended not to speak English. I have a lot to learn about teaching, but I have the being the goofy friend who makes lots of weird noises part down really well, so that's a plus. Highlight of the day was teaching these two 7-9 year old girls how to read the clock. How cool is that?? They were so excited to learn, and by the end of it, they knew how to read the clock quite possibly better than I can. That good.

I look forward to going back, and getting to know the girls more. The ones I had talked to last time remembered me and were excited to see me, so I think I'll become popular pretty quick. It'll be great to compensate for all of the self-esteem problems I had when I was younger.

I may not be giving solar-powered lamps to poor children like some of the girls on my trip, or doing....whatever, like the other people on the trip, but damnit, my girls are going to enter into a world where no clock is too difficult for them to master, no time unreachable. And at the end of the day, when you can say you've done that, I'd say you can rest easy. 

Today, I got my hair cut. All of them.

Whoa. He's blogging two days in a row. Too bad they are by far the least interesting things I've had to say.

I was feeling rather shaggy this afternoon, so I headed down to my barbershop (the guy on the street, from the earlier post). He was really excited to see that I was officially a returning customer, but he laughed at me pretty much the whole time. I'm kind of a big joke to him. While I was waiting for my turn, killing mosquitos like its nobody's business, he was cracking up and talking about me in Bengali to the guy he was working on. At one point he did an impression of me, and then cracked up, as the other guy said, "haha yes. hair cut."Its ok though. He laughs, I laugh. Everybody laughs. I got my hair cut and face shaved in the same sitting, with a head massage at the end, for $1.20. During head massages here (from my extensive experience), most people will make a fist and more or less punch you in the head. It....feels great? Today was no exception, but I'm pretty sure he threw in a few extra smacks, like a playful uncle. That's how I felt. Next time, I'm sure he'll invite me over to meet his family.

If you're still reading these...your diligence is appreciated.

What I do with my time here

For the last few weeks Kolkata has had a book fair. The 2012 International Kolkata Book Fair. Its one of the biggest in the world. There are close to a thousand individual vendors, with thousands of books each. 60% or so are in Bengali, but I'd say a solid 30% are in English. You can find basically any book you want to find.

I'm embarrassed to admit that of the 5 books I purchased, 3 out of the 5 were of the series "Goosebumps, Choose Your Own Adventure!" I have a weakness.

So as I sit here at the end of a normal day, struggling what to tell my family and friends who may or may not want to hear about India, I have to tell what I actually did tonight, without spicing it up with any fantastic stories of riding on top of trains or hiring monkey butlers. I'll set the scene.

Its a Friday night and you don't know what to do. You and your two friends (in the book it was Patty and Brad. I couldn't decide between John and Kate, Tony and Kevin, or Adam and Katy. I went with a mixture of the three.) decide to go check out the amusement park that's opening up tomorrow. After you sneak in (don't try to turn around and go home. They won't let you. The book makes fun of you actually. I was just trying to be responsible!), you are greeted by the manager Big Al, who decides to let you test all of the rides before they open. Needless to say, things got out of hand, and I ended up trying to hide in a Reptile Petting Zoo, which actually turned out to be a Reptile's Petting Zoo. I'm sorry to inform those of you who I imagined as my companions, that we didn't make it. I'll try my luck again tomorrow.

India's not so different from home after all...