The first weekend

After work on Saturday we went to Dilli Haat which is an enclosed place with all kinds of shops for which you have to pay to enter. Although I needed to buy some shirts for work I felt too silly shopping like a tourist. We met some of Manu and Mukesh’s friends from college. Two women, and I was glad to be around some gossip and giggling for a while since I have missed female companionship. We hung around there until a torenchal storm came through knocking everything over. It was a much welcome respite from the soaring temperatures and temporarily washed the city from its persistent cake of dust and dirt.

Saturday night we went to the neighbor, Tasleem's, house again. It is so generous of her to make us dinner again. Her, her friend from college, four more guys my age and me. They eat so late 9 or 10 so I am starving by then, having had lunch at 1:30 and just a mango for breakfast.

I spend all of my time with Manu and Mukesh. I feel like sort of a burden but I know they see it as sort of their responsibility to take care of me as their guest. So they almost never let me pay for anything, which makes me uncomfortable because they are just students like me.

I tried to make chai yesterday and it was disastrous. I need to learn to cook something so I can be of some use. The guys say they are pretty helpless cooks but we hope to get some of their female friends to teach us. Last night was the first time we made dinner they made some vegetable thing (cooked cucumber like vegetable with onion and chili) with red rice and sambar (a soupy tomato and onion broth). It was pretty good although I hate the texture of cooked vegetables. Although I spend half of the day hungry I get full so quickly because it is hard to eat when it is so hot outside!

We spent the evening talking about movies and other things. The way they talk about movies and books it is like they are talking about the love of their lives. Everything is “lovely” and “very nice” and is said with such a dreamy look that you are filled with such an urgency to see this thing in order to share in this overwhelming feeling of joy.

I was completely unable to control the weight of my eyelids so was forced to leave many hours before the night would end for the rest of them at three in the morning.

Culturally when someone offers you anything you are supposed to say no at least 2 or 3 times before your host overcomes you and you take whatever they are offering. Knowing this I tried to say no to something to drink, I should have known that my host was knowledgeable enough about westerners to know that usually when they say no they mean it! I have quickly learned, however, to fill my plate with only a little each time because I am so encouraged to eat more whenever my plate is empty that I simply cannot say no even though I want to.

Sunday morning I woke up by six to a relatively cool Delhi. I took the opportunity to take pictures of the ruins and lake around my house. I also took furtive pictures of the locals from my various vantage points, delighting in the novelty of the ironing man and the wood gatherers. I tried in vain to capture the neon green parrots that got lost in the background of green trees and fluorescent water.

Some beautiful little girls, after slowly inching closer to my seat, finally got up the nerve to practice their English with me, asking my name, country and finally whether I would take a photo of them. Their mug shot looks something like a team photo with the girls wincing and writhing awkwardly.

It is half past noon here. I think the time stamp on the blog might be off. I saw Dr. Shiva an hour ago. She popped her head in to speak to Mukesh and I gave her a surprised hello. She said hello and that she would be back in the afternoon. So I will wait. I am still trying to make some use of my time in the office by reading the publications about the plight of farmers here by virtue of the massive subsidies by the western countries of their own agriculture.

Three good statistics from one publication:

- Rich countries spend just over $1 billion a year on aid to developing countries agriculture and just under $1 billion a DAY on agricultural subsidies in their own countries.
- Dairy farmers in the EU get an average subsidy of US $2000 per cow, which is 100 times more than foreign aid per person given to Africa.
- America’s cotton farmers receive more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso- a country in which more than 2 million people depend on cotton production. US cotton farmers receive more than three times the budget of USAID’s budget for Africa’s 500 million people.

Last night Mukesh asked me if western countries used to be as bad as things are in India: poverty, disease, poor sanitation, etc. I said yes they were as bad if not worse in places. I wondered aloud if this wasn’t just the cycle of human development. With this comment I cursed myself for what seemed to me the unspoken implication that white people had somehow “developed” faster. I am the first to point out that the model of development of the West is the worst, least sustainable form that we could have wished for. We contemplated in silence the future of India and the global south as they seek to replicate this model. Or at least as those in power seek to have this system replicated.