India has the most unorganized postal service I've ever seen, in any country I've ever been to.
I spent over an hour today mailing two parcels, and not because I had to wait in a line. It was because: Not all post offices are able to send parcels. Apparently, it turns out, most post offices exist only to purchase stamps. So, I wasted my time going to the first post office I found. They told me where to go to send parcels, and I walked the twenty minutes to the next post office (thank goodness it was in a part of town I knew!) ...and told the teller I wanted to send a parcel. He asked me where the parcel was, and told me I had to go outside the post office a few shops to a man who would 'stitch' up my parcel. Stitching, what?
So I went to this man. He gave me a box for my one parcel, I put my stuff in it, and he proceeded to handsew a sheet of canvas over top of the parcel. Ooooo...kay. I then had to go back into the post office, ask for a customs declaration form, go back to the man, fill it out, give it to him. Then, I needed to photocopy my passport. Did the post office have a photocopier? No. Did this random man on the side of the curb? No. So, another man took me down the block, through a dark alleyway (which, surprisingly, didn't smell like urine) and into a rundown little courtyard filled with workers eating lunch at a street vendor. They stared at me. We went to one shop, did they have a photocopier? No, it was broken. They sent us into an apartment building, up a flight of stairs, down a flight of stairs, and through the back entrance of another shop. I photocopied my passport. What. THEN, for my other little parcel, I had to buy an envelope. So we went to a different shop. Meanwhile, I've left 6 kilos of my stuff with a complete stranger sitting on a stool outside of the post office.
I get all these things.
Then I need an address. Apparently, I can't send a parcel from India without an Indian address. What. I don't have an address, I don't know the address of my hotel. So, they ask for a contact number to be written on the box. My contact number is Canadian. This, too, was unacceptable. So in the end, I wrote my name, my Canadian number, and "New Delhi, India" on the parcel. I paid 120R for this, though I didn't know that until they were finished. This is apparently the only way to send a parcel in India.
I took my box and my envelope back into the post office. They weigh it, slap a few more customs papers on it, and I pay for it. This whole ordeal took nearly an hour, and then the random man with the box told me to wait for him, and then tried to offer me a tour of Delhi. Also, the post office thinks my zeros look like Q's, and so I hope Canada Post isn't confused when they read the paperwork and the postal code hasn't any numbers in it.
Seriously, India. What the hell. I even went so far as, once I was done at the post office, to walk past the random man on the stool stitching parcels, stop, and inform him that while I may like, and even love many things about India, their postal system is retarded, and they should take a clue from the British. Most of the time, India makes Thailand look organized. This is one of those times.
Anyhow, I've escaped the farm, though, that too wasn't without incident.
My last few days with the Grewal family were pretty decent, all things considering. The hot water tank broke again, so in the last week of my stay, I had only two "showers", because it meant boiling water on a fire outside, and then frantically scrubbing myself down with soap in the 5L of clean, hot water I had to wash with. The bathroom I was allowed to use during my stay, was, of course, outside, and therefore almost always freezing. When I had my first, hot shower yesterday in Delhi, (which I wasted excessive amounts of water during, and it was FANTASTIC) ...it was the first time I'd washed more than my face in 4 days. The entire stay at the farm, I only washed my hair once, because it used too much water to do.
There's something to be said about being clean on a daily basis. And about not showering from a bucket in 5L of water.
Surrinder and I started to get along at the very end. I think breaking down in front of her might have procured some kind of reaction on her part: she no longer bothered me if I was in the kitchen cooking, and she stopped asking me to peel vegetables for days on end. I started offering to do more, and we even went shopping in town for an afternoon, which proved to be both infuriating and rather fun at the same time.
The whole time I was there, I never really got very much excitement, so when I was offered a chance to go shopping in town with her for my last day on the farm, I readily agreed. We were dropped off in the fabric market, and we browsed all kinds of fabric shops, and I helped her pick out a bunch of things for some Indian suits she was getting made. Designing, altering, and colour coordinating fabric is something I can do. I don't know if it's much of a skill in this day and age, but hey, I was being asked to do something I feel skilled at, and that's been pretty rare as of late. The day dulled a bit when we were in a yarn shop forever, and she kept asking me if 'insert colour here' matched a variegated wool she had at home, which I couldn't recall to save my life. Just because I touched it for a day doesn't mean I can recall what it looked like. The days I had to spool yarn are a blur: a combo of some serious thought thinking (aka daydreaming), and an iPhone. I don't remember what colour her yarn was, sorry.
We munched on popcorn from a street vendor, with her ever present admonishment of "this is okay, because it is not heavy". The food we ate was always rated by whether it was "tasty", or "heavy" ...and the whole family has this massive belief that food is medicine. You know, sometimes, you just gotta eat a chocolate croissant, okay? Some foods having medicinal properties, sure. I can believe that, and I know it to be true. Sugar isn't medicine. But I digress.
I bought myself a very pretty shawl, though I was completely willing to buy one from the first, cheap shop we went into. I looked at a few things, and then she dragged me out, saying that there were better places. So instead of the 500R I was perfectly willing to pay, I ended up with a 2000R shawl, though, the one I got is a mix of pure wool and pashmina, and it's from a proper company brand in India, not a hole in the wall on the street.
We wandered around for ages, and well after dark. It was a bit like shopping with mom, or mama. A total lack of a sense of direction. She would see something, and say that we could go back to it in a minute, and then forget how to get back to where she was, but she was adamant it was 'insert direction here', only for me to tell her it's not, and then us wandering for 10 minutes until she's thoroughly lost, and...anyhow, my "I told you so"'s were unappreciated. Some people's children.
One cute moment, though: it was after dark, and we were both hungry, but her and her husband never eat out. I saw a dosa stand (those delicious fried pancake things I mentioned a few posts back), and the panicked look on her face was priceless! She wanted to eat them, but that meant eating from a street vendor, and she was worried someone would see her and tell her husband she was eating out. So we ended up at some other street vendor, and ate these fried potato-smothered-in-tamarind sauce things (I love tamarind sauce. I could eat that shit on its own.), but we ate there, because the sitting area was behind the vendor, so if people walked past, they couldn't recognize her and tell on her. The life of an Indian housewife. That was the first time she'd been into town in the entire two weeks I'd stayed there.
The goodbyes were a bit rough, as all goodbyes always are for me. I think I got three massive hugs from Harpal at varying instances before I left, and I told him I really enjoyed staying there, but that I'll admit there was a break-in period in the beginning, and he was glad that Surrinder and I finally got along a bit (we had a discussion about it once when I was really upset) ...and Surrinder got up extra early and cooked me porridge, and made me some aloo paranthas for the road. My train was scheduled for 8AM, which is earlier than we were getting up at the farm. Right before I left, Harpal picked me a rose from the garden, and I carried that rose the entire train ride, to the hotel room, where I pressed it into one of my books. I had wanted to dry it, but I just can't carry that and preserve it while I'm traveling. So I pressed it.
Getting onto the train was a bit of a disaster, though it worked out in the end (obviously). I had been asking for DAYS if I could go into town and reserve my train ticket, and well...things on a farm don't work like that. So, the day before I left, I got my train ticket, and I was on the waiting list, because there weren't any more seats available. I bought the ticket anyhow, and when I got to the station the following morning, I found out I wasn't on the list. Ergo, no train for me that day, but I needed to be on it!
Khan was the one who dropped me at the station, and he advised me to just get on the train anyhow, and talk to the train supervisor. So...with the train being late 30 minutes, I had an agonizingly slow thirty minutes to transform into a nervous wreck about whether or not I was going to get on the only train of the day heading to Delhi, and how I was going to find my way to Delhi otherwise. It looked like the options were: third class bus on bumpy roads, and I was still nauseous from the anti-biotics (oh, yeah, I never mentioned - I suffered two days of ridiculously crippling nausea ...maybe because of the anti-biotics, maybe from the food, I still don't know) ...or second-class train (which is worse than the bus - you know the movies of people hanging off the roof and out the doors? second-class trains, baby.)
The train finally arrived, and we sorted things with the attendant. I had a seat in AC chair until a certain stop, and after that...the great unknown. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, things worked out.
The rest of my time in Delhi has been a bit busy: when I got in yesterday, I checked my email, had a shower (oh sweet showers!) and then headed to the tailor's to pick up my suits. Well, nothing fit correctly. The pants were too tight in the calves - like I told him they would be - and the tailor decided I needed 'variety' so he didn't listen to any of the instructions I had on sleeve length, neckline cut, etc. Both suits were too loose. I made a list of adjustments, and I think they are unaccustomed to people coming in and knowing how to sew - but they said they'd have everything adjusted and ready for tonight. I vegged out on some Subway, for reasons unknown to me, because I hate Subway, and found myself at a bar during karaoke night, of all things. And I have to say - Asians, of all shapes and sizes...man, can they sing. I think karaoke should be their national sport, or something. It was seriously good. What wasn't, however, was my weak wine and weaker manhattan. I gave up after the second drink and went home.
Today, after some breakfast, I went to Khan Market for chocolate soy milk and French pastries, spent a good deal of my time at that damned post office, and spent the remainder of the afternoon in my room trying to find a place to go/stay/sleep in Goa tomorrow. I found a place, but their number isn't working, so I shot them an email, which they haven't responded to. I think I'm just going to show up. Sometimes, that works for me.
I've got the suits now. They fixed everything up. I'm not 100% happy with them, unfortunately. Certain finicky things aren't how I wanted them to be, and I have a hard enough time finding clothes I like as it is. But they fit, now, which is more important to me, I think. I was hoping to be madly in love with them, and I'm not quite. But it's okay - they're comfortable, they look good by Indian standards (just not by my own).
I spent over an hour today mailing two parcels, and not because I had to wait in a line. It was because: Not all post offices are able to send parcels. Apparently, it turns out, most post offices exist only to purchase stamps. So, I wasted my time going to the first post office I found. They told me where to go to send parcels, and I walked the twenty minutes to the next post office (thank goodness it was in a part of town I knew!) ...and told the teller I wanted to send a parcel. He asked me where the parcel was, and told me I had to go outside the post office a few shops to a man who would 'stitch' up my parcel. Stitching, what?
An average meal in India. All the plates are like this.
My henna. It's gone, now.
I get all these things.
Then I need an address. Apparently, I can't send a parcel from India without an Indian address. What. I don't have an address, I don't know the address of my hotel. So, they ask for a contact number to be written on the box. My contact number is Canadian. This, too, was unacceptable. So in the end, I wrote my name, my Canadian number, and "New Delhi, India" on the parcel. I paid 120R for this, though I didn't know that until they were finished. This is apparently the only way to send a parcel in India.
Banana bread
The only picture I took of Harpal: he's hiding under a blanket with his computer in the sunshine.
At Devraj's birthday party.
The only part of housewifery I enjoy: making tea!
My usual existence: unspooling sweaters
I took my box and my envelope back into the post office. They weigh it, slap a few more customs papers on it, and I pay for it. This whole ordeal took nearly an hour, and then the random man with the box told me to wait for him, and then tried to offer me a tour of Delhi. Also, the post office thinks my zeros look like Q's, and so I hope Canada Post isn't confused when they read the paperwork and the postal code hasn't any numbers in it.
What freedom looks like.
My bitching foot tan!
Seriously, India. What the hell. I even went so far as, once I was done at the post office, to walk past the random man on the stool stitching parcels, stop, and inform him that while I may like, and even love many things about India, their postal system is retarded, and they should take a clue from the British. Most of the time, India makes Thailand look organized. This is one of those times.
Anyhow, I've escaped the farm, though, that too wasn't without incident.
My last few days with the Grewal family were pretty decent, all things considering. The hot water tank broke again, so in the last week of my stay, I had only two "showers", because it meant boiling water on a fire outside, and then frantically scrubbing myself down with soap in the 5L of clean, hot water I had to wash with. The bathroom I was allowed to use during my stay, was, of course, outside, and therefore almost always freezing. When I had my first, hot shower yesterday in Delhi, (which I wasted excessive amounts of water during, and it was FANTASTIC) ...it was the first time I'd washed more than my face in 4 days. The entire stay at the farm, I only washed my hair once, because it used too much water to do.
There's something to be said about being clean on a daily basis. And about not showering from a bucket in 5L of water.
Surrinder and I started to get along at the very end. I think breaking down in front of her might have procured some kind of reaction on her part: she no longer bothered me if I was in the kitchen cooking, and she stopped asking me to peel vegetables for days on end. I started offering to do more, and we even went shopping in town for an afternoon, which proved to be both infuriating and rather fun at the same time.
The whole time I was there, I never really got very much excitement, so when I was offered a chance to go shopping in town with her for my last day on the farm, I readily agreed. We were dropped off in the fabric market, and we browsed all kinds of fabric shops, and I helped her pick out a bunch of things for some Indian suits she was getting made. Designing, altering, and colour coordinating fabric is something I can do. I don't know if it's much of a skill in this day and age, but hey, I was being asked to do something I feel skilled at, and that's been pretty rare as of late. The day dulled a bit when we were in a yarn shop forever, and she kept asking me if 'insert colour here' matched a variegated wool she had at home, which I couldn't recall to save my life. Just because I touched it for a day doesn't mean I can recall what it looked like. The days I had to spool yarn are a blur: a combo of some serious thought thinking (aka daydreaming), and an iPhone. I don't remember what colour her yarn was, sorry.
This is what you hear in the background of the ants video. PARROTS!
We munched on popcorn from a street vendor, with her ever present admonishment of "this is okay, because it is not heavy". The food we ate was always rated by whether it was "tasty", or "heavy" ...and the whole family has this massive belief that food is medicine. You know, sometimes, you just gotta eat a chocolate croissant, okay? Some foods having medicinal properties, sure. I can believe that, and I know it to be true. Sugar isn't medicine. But I digress.
I bought myself a very pretty shawl, though I was completely willing to buy one from the first, cheap shop we went into. I looked at a few things, and then she dragged me out, saying that there were better places. So instead of the 500R I was perfectly willing to pay, I ended up with a 2000R shawl, though, the one I got is a mix of pure wool and pashmina, and it's from a proper company brand in India, not a hole in the wall on the street.
My shawl.
One cute moment, though: it was after dark, and we were both hungry, but her and her husband never eat out. I saw a dosa stand (those delicious fried pancake things I mentioned a few posts back), and the panicked look on her face was priceless! She wanted to eat them, but that meant eating from a street vendor, and she was worried someone would see her and tell her husband she was eating out. So we ended up at some other street vendor, and ate these fried potato-smothered-in-tamarind sauce things (I love tamarind sauce. I could eat that shit on its own.), but we ate there, because the sitting area was behind the vendor, so if people walked past, they couldn't recognize her and tell on her. The life of an Indian housewife. That was the first time she'd been into town in the entire two weeks I'd stayed there.
The goodbyes were a bit rough, as all goodbyes always are for me. I think I got three massive hugs from Harpal at varying instances before I left, and I told him I really enjoyed staying there, but that I'll admit there was a break-in period in the beginning, and he was glad that Surrinder and I finally got along a bit (we had a discussion about it once when I was really upset) ...and Surrinder got up extra early and cooked me porridge, and made me some aloo paranthas for the road. My train was scheduled for 8AM, which is earlier than we were getting up at the farm. Right before I left, Harpal picked me a rose from the garden, and I carried that rose the entire train ride, to the hotel room, where I pressed it into one of my books. I had wanted to dry it, but I just can't carry that and preserve it while I'm traveling. So I pressed it.
My pretty rose.
Getting onto the train was a bit of a disaster, though it worked out in the end (obviously). I had been asking for DAYS if I could go into town and reserve my train ticket, and well...things on a farm don't work like that. So, the day before I left, I got my train ticket, and I was on the waiting list, because there weren't any more seats available. I bought the ticket anyhow, and when I got to the station the following morning, I found out I wasn't on the list. Ergo, no train for me that day, but I needed to be on it!
Khan was the one who dropped me at the station, and he advised me to just get on the train anyhow, and talk to the train supervisor. So...with the train being late 30 minutes, I had an agonizingly slow thirty minutes to transform into a nervous wreck about whether or not I was going to get on the only train of the day heading to Delhi, and how I was going to find my way to Delhi otherwise. It looked like the options were: third class bus on bumpy roads, and I was still nauseous from the anti-biotics (oh, yeah, I never mentioned - I suffered two days of ridiculously crippling nausea ...maybe because of the anti-biotics, maybe from the food, I still don't know) ...or second-class train (which is worse than the bus - you know the movies of people hanging off the roof and out the doors? second-class trains, baby.)
The train finally arrived, and we sorted things with the attendant. I had a seat in AC chair until a certain stop, and after that...the great unknown. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, things worked out.
The rest of my time in Delhi has been a bit busy: when I got in yesterday, I checked my email, had a shower (oh sweet showers!) and then headed to the tailor's to pick up my suits. Well, nothing fit correctly. The pants were too tight in the calves - like I told him they would be - and the tailor decided I needed 'variety' so he didn't listen to any of the instructions I had on sleeve length, neckline cut, etc. Both suits were too loose. I made a list of adjustments, and I think they are unaccustomed to people coming in and knowing how to sew - but they said they'd have everything adjusted and ready for tonight. I vegged out on some Subway, for reasons unknown to me, because I hate Subway, and found myself at a bar during karaoke night, of all things. And I have to say - Asians, of all shapes and sizes...man, can they sing. I think karaoke should be their national sport, or something. It was seriously good. What wasn't, however, was my weak wine and weaker manhattan. I gave up after the second drink and went home.
Today, after some breakfast, I went to Khan Market for chocolate soy milk and French pastries, spent a good deal of my time at that damned post office, and spent the remainder of the afternoon in my room trying to find a place to go/stay/sleep in Goa tomorrow. I found a place, but their number isn't working, so I shot them an email, which they haven't responded to. I think I'm just going to show up. Sometimes, that works for me.
These are all terrible photos. Deal with it.
I've got the suits now. They fixed everything up. I'm not 100% happy with them, unfortunately. Certain finicky things aren't how I wanted them to be, and I have a hard enough time finding clothes I like as it is. But they fit, now, which is more important to me, I think. I was hoping to be madly in love with them, and I'm not quite. But it's okay - they're comfortable, they look good by Indian standards (just not by my own).
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