Journal 17

Friday, June 30, 2006
Saturday, July 1, 2006
Sunday, July 02, 2006

Dear Journal,

Since we didn’t go on any major excursions this weekend, I decided to write one big Journal entry instead of three separate ones. Like planned, we had a very “unplanned,” spontaneous weekend. And like I had intended, I got a lot of work for my classes done, which feels really good. For once something actually went as planned, but in an unplanned way :)

On Friday I did not get up for breakfast and slept in for the first time since I have been here…it felt great! After lunch I did some research for my paper for the “Contemporary India class.” I decided to write my paper on the Population Control Program in India, because the Idea of a developing nation, a third the size of the United States and an estimated population of 1,103,371,000, trying to control this growth is very interesting. I decided to walk over to the library to try and find some more information on the topic. After a few hours of hard work, we met up with Satya who wanted to take us to watch a movie at the IMAX Theater. This time we made sure that the movie was in English J. We left early in order to get tickets, because it was the opening night of the new Superman movie. When we arrived at the ticket counter we saw that the little screens said that the evening shows were all sold out, however Satya recommended that one of us go up to the counter and sure enough, when I asked for six tickets the guy at the counter whispered something into another mans ear and sold me six tickets for Superman at 7:24 p.m. that night. Interesting….

The IMAX is not just a movie theater; it is more like a very American mall. They have a huge food court with big screen TVs playing soccer matches from the world cup, they have clothing and music stores and everything else you could possibly want. The complex was very clean and decorated in a very “western-looking” way. Before the movie, we ate in the food court and enjoyed chicken burgers and pizza for what is equivalent to about 2,50 US$.

When you enter the movie theater, there are two guys at the entrance handing out 3-D glasses making sure to tell you not to break them!! Once we sat down in the movie theater we heard a distant “Hey look, white people!!!” and saw that a few rows down there was another big group of “white people” and apparently they were very excited to see us. The movie was pretty good and it was kind of nice because for once people seemed to stare at us a little less than usually. This however changed once we left the building, where EVERYONE on that particular street wanted us to ride in his or her rickshaw or taxi. But luckily we had Shandra Shaker to give us a ride…. Oh “Thunder Shaker,” what would we do without you?

Saturday I again slept through breakfast and as soon as I got up started working on my paper. All of us worked pretty hard on our school projects until we left to go and eat out once again at 6:00 p.m. We went and ate at the “Chutney’s” which was great. The food was delicious and so cheap!!! We all had appetizers, soft drinks (POP J), a full meal, dessert and tea and paid about 5 US$ a person. When we left the restaurant and walked up the street to find our taxi, we were surrounded by begging women and children within seconds. They kept saying: “Money, money, money” which makes sense, but then one of the women started saying: “Money, money, chocolate, chocolate”…. chocolate?!?! WHY CHOLCOLATE? I thought that was an odd request, but hey, she wanted chocolate.

It is still very hard for me to try and “ignore” them and not give them all I have, but I know that if you give them something, all they learn is that begging is ok. Also, if you give one person something, you have to give everyone something and that is impossible to do. It was also very strange, because apparently they told Satya, who was the only guy with us, that we were all improper women and that we would not stay with our husbands. Very odd… So after we finally found “Thunder Shaker” we got into the car VERY quickly. We then went to the “touch” for some “evening fun.” It was nice to get out and dance with our group, but it is so annoying, because even at a place like touch, which is a very upper-scale club, we get talked to and stared at. So after a couple of hours we were exhausted and ready to call it a night.

Our Sunday again was spent mostly on finishing up our projects for school and drinking lots of tea J. I did finish all my Participant Observations and Journals for the Ethnography class and I also finished my research paper for the Contemporary India class. Tonight, we will once again eat out, simply because since the Scandinavian students have arrived it is too crowded in the guesthouse. There is room for about 16 students in the dinning hall, but there are about 35 students at the moment. The addition is in progress, but is not going to be done for another ten days, so until then we have been eating in “shifts” and while sitting in the TV room or sitting area. So, we decided to go and see what Italian food in India is like. There is a little place called “little Italy” so we thought we should try that.
We have also been trying to make some plans to celebrate the 4th of July. I think we are going to try and make some Hotdogs (well, they might end up being “Chicken Dogs”), some French fries, corn, Iced tea and maybe get some fireworks. It should be interesting to see how well we do cooking those things in the facilities which we will have available here .