The wobble

So since Jason and I don’t really talk to anyone besides each other and people speaking English as a second language, we have picked up some of the mannerisms we see often. 

One is the ubiquitous Indian head wobble. We have all seen it on shows such as “Outsourced” and much fun seems to be made about it, but it is not really exaggerated at all. At least in Delhi, the wobble is ubiquitous and can mean anything. We were hoping to skip all the wondering and cut right to the heart of the matter by asking Chetana, a native Indian, what the wobble meant, but she said “that is your challenge to find out.” As if there wasn’t enough to figure out in India. 

It seems there are different degrees of wobble. A slight, quick tilt of the head, a slight, long tilt, a single wobble, and multiple wobbles are all valid and mean different things depending on the context. 

Most times a slight tilt takes the place of a verbal “thank you” or “you’re welcome” and I think the more and longer the head tilts the more they are thankful or…welcome-ed. 

Sometimes a sideways tilt also means yes, like a sideways nod. In fact, I don’t think they ever nod forwards. I don’t recall ever seeing it mean “no” either.

The meaning of longer wobbles is more difficult to pin down. So far as we have figured out, it often means they want to answer you with a response they know you don’t want to hear. For example, in Agra I offered the tour guide and driver a piece of my favorite Orbits gum. They had never had it before and the guide liked it. He asked the driver if he also liked it and the driver did not say no, but wobbled his head in a way that we knew meant he did not like it.

It can also mean something like “sometimes” or “moderately”, depending on what the question is. 

Here is another account of the wobble and some other gestures we haven’t learned yet. 

What we have learned

Basically, in India, if you say or think any thing that you could put “I would assume…” before, you are wrong.

Examples: Since it’s cold in the mountains, hotels would be heated.

The rickshaw shouldn’t be more than 50 rupees.

The bus ride is only thirty minutes.how much could go wrong?

RE: the bus ride: WE SHALL SEE

Hospital and laundry and steak adventure

Our last weekend in Delhi we had planned to go see some of the big sights we had missed previously due to being sick lazy otherwise preoccupied. These plans came to a screeching halt on Thursday night when Jason started complaining of being sicker than normal (WHY IS THERE A NORMAL AMOUNT OF SICK HERE) and started shaking and had a fever. We decided to take him to the doctor the next day and make sure he wasn’t dying.

On the recommendation of Chetana, we went to Apollo Hospital. We expected only the worse after hearing stories of hospitals with black walls, doctors with bloodstained shoes, and employees eating off of the floor, but Chetana assured us that this was the one she and her parents went to and it would be fine. We got there and indeed, besides the occasional pigeon flying near the ceiling, it was actually very reminiscent of American Hospitals I’ve seen. After standing in some rather aggressive queues and shoving paperwork forcibly into overworked attendants faces (why can’t we just wait in a normal line??), we eventually got from the ER to an internal medicine doctor who diagnosed Jason with strep throat and then to some perfectly sterile looking blood work (which we will never know the results of because there is “ABSOLUTELY NO WAY” they would tell us on the phone. We would have to go back.)

————————

The expansive doctor’s office. 

The crowded general waiting area.

——————

We then filled his prescription at the hospital pharmacy which was sort of nice because apparently there was a “foreign patient” attendant who would cut the chaotic prescription payment line for you (how could she know we were foreign??). Who was introduced to me by a very friendly South African guy studying for his masters in Delhi.

The pharmacy only had two of the three drugs we were supposed to get so we decided to try to get it at our local pharmacy (or “chemist”). But we couldn’t read the handwriting of the doctor (apparently this is universal) so we had to get her to explain what it was.

Finally we made it home and we melted on to our couch. The whole thing was about $80 which sure isn’t bad for a hospital visit but we will still try to claim it on our health insurance.

The next day I was pretty sick too, but not as sick as Jason so I went to run the numerous errands that always seem to overwhelmingly pile up before you leave a city. I sent 5 international packages, recharged our phone minutes/data, made a copy of Jason’s entire passport for the insurance claim (Why do they need the whole thing? There are like 8 blank pages!), printed out ticket information for our 1239410 train rides this month, and then after all of those errands we realized we had to do a whole lot of laundry and really quickly so it would dry by the next morning. Thus began our frantic search for laundromat in Delhi. Apparently this is a very new concept (if you want an amusing read, click here) but with a few internet searches and several more frustrating phone calls we found one that was open till 10.

I headed out with the address in mind but once we got to the neighborhood where it was supposed to be, everyone told me it didn’t exist. So we drove around on sketchy directions that were given in the largest collection of tiny, pothole ridden alleys I’ve ever encountered (which maybe isn’t saying that much…). This was probably the most frantic I’ve ever been in Delhi. The driver did not speak English, I was in a part of Delhi that I would never be able to find my way out of, and everyone thought the place I was looking for didn’t exist. So I called the laundromat 3 times and eventually on the third time (even though I asked all three times) the store attendant gave my driver directions. AT LAST! We found the place and I paid the driver super well because he turned down other customers while waiting on me to figure out where the crap I was going and probably needs new suspension now.

Once I got there, the laundry went smoothly (I actually typed this entire post on my phone while sitting there….but then lost it) and so did the ride home, but I was super exhausted from being sick and having such a stressful ride earlier. Jason was feeling much better by now and agreed to cook steak for dinner—one we had been saving for something special like our last night in Delhi.

Well, like most things in India, this did not turn out as planned. Whatever the heck kind of meat I got formed a white crusty layer on the outside and smoked like crazy. When he finally deemed it done, we sat down and cut into it, it was extremely tough. This might have been overlooked but when we tasted it, it was like eating pure salt. As soon as we took a bite we spit it back out. It was SO BAD. WTF. WHAT IS THIS MEAT FOR? We were left with only broccoli (okay) and french fries (awesome) for dinner, but we wanted something additional. Since we had gotten rid of most of our food due to our leaving for a month, we eventually decided on cereal and opened our new box of Special K. BUT IT WAS INDIAN SPECIAL K. I.E. wheat (not rice) based and covered in sugar. Normally this wouldn’t be such a big deal but after that long, vexing day I just wanted my regular Special K.

The next day was Sunday, the day we were scheduled to leave. Jason felt almost well again and I felt rather less than well. But we decided to push on anyway, and now here we are in Bharatpur. The train ride was fine and the owner of the hotel found us and drove us a bit outside of the town to our room for the night. It is so pleasant here compared to Delhi—there are fields everywhere which means GREEN! and there aren’t any buildings blocking the view of the sky, so it’s as if the horizon has expanded all at once. Tomorrow we are going to the bird reserve nearby (have I mentioned I like birds?) and maybe to an old Mughal palace. Hopefully I will also feel a bit better.

Travel tip #3523

If you need to get a visa to enter another country, do not wait until right before you go to the office to gather your materials. Even if you have glanced through the list and determined you have everything you need, make sure all the items are in one place and in the correct format. Doing this will ensure you make it to the visa office at your scheduled time.

For INSTANCE…

If you need to submit copies of your hotel reservation and flight information with the visa application but you don’t have a printer, make sure the shop with the only printer around is open. It will not help to ask every other store in the sizable market whether they will print your documents. They won’t. And even if there is someone in the shop, don’t assume the shop is open for business. They may just tell you to come back in one hour. 

Anyway, we eventually got our printouts and our Thai visa. Phew.

The water situation

I haven’t talked about the water situation here but it is an interesting way that Delhi has chosen to deal with supplying water to its residents as well as a constant source of frustration for us.

In the US water is available in the faucets all the time. When you turn the faucet or shower or garden hose on, the water comes from the water lines that are set up by the government. I never really thought much of it—this is obviously the way water works!

But now we see that it is NOT the way it is everywhere. Due to a constant water shortage, Delhi runs the water through the water network for four hours per day. Two hours in the morning (~6-8am) and two hours in the evening (~4:30-6:30pm). 

People obviously need running water at times outside those ranges so during the running water times, we turn on a pump that fills a tank on our roof with water. (like this one)

 

All but one faucet in the apartment is hooked up to the water coming from the tank. The remaining one we use to tell whether the Delhi water is on or not. This is important because if you run your pump when there’s no water, the pump will be damaged and then you will really have no water. We always try to test whether the Delhi water is actually on before turning on the pump because this precaution seems way less inconvenient than trying to find a plumber to fix the actual pump. 

It mostly works OK as long as you keep up with filling up the tank, which we are supposed to do about every other day. 

One week we tried to test the water on the second day and it wouldn’t come out. Sometimes the time fluctuates so we thought we would just leave the faucet on and when the water turned on, we would hear the water streaming out. The night went by and no water came out. We left it on overnight so we could hear when it turned on in the morning. No water. We left the faucet open for several days and no water came. We were getting pretty worried since we figured our water supply was getting veeeery low and didn’t really know what we would do if we ran out of water completely. We also distinctly heard water running on to the ground each morning from what we could only assume was one of those water main faucets but for some reason we weren’t getting any. Eventually we decided to just turn the pump on during the prescribed time. 

When we did this, in about two minutes the water started exploding out of the water main faucet. Apparently the pump needs to be running to test whether the water is running. Whaaaaat. 

Once we figured this out, things were smooth again and the water seems to actually run very regularly albeit only four hours a day. 

But being so dependent on such a water system (or any water system) makes you really wonder what you would do without water. You can’t flush the toilet. You can’t wash dishes. You can’t boil it for tea or pasta or anything. You can’t wash your hands. You can’t take a shower. Simple, simple things that we all take for granted would be impossible without a steady source of water. Just amazing. 

And following that, I am going to complain about our shower. #firstworldproblems

The hot water in Delhi houses is supplied by “geysers” which are not huge geothermal vents and are sometimes pronounced ”geezer”. You know those kettles you get to boil water and you flip a switch and it gets the water hot? Well its like that but bigger and mounted on the wall near a shower. They’re not too big so showers are necessarily pretty short unless your dummy plumber mounted it about six inches above the shower head causing a shower to be a pathetic trickle. In this (our) case, you can take showers as long as you want because it takes so long for all the hot water to seep out of the geyser. NOT WORTH IT.

Also, it may have been the case in the US that I depended on the steam from the shower to heat up the room so that even though blessed hot water wasn’t on all of me, I could still be warm. In this shower there is no(t enough) steam. Just a dribble. If part of your skin is wet and it’s not directly under the tiny water stream then it’s FREEZING. It is just a terrible shower experience. 

But at least we have water….