A Few Additions and Amendments

Before I start this post, I want to point you to the 'Photos' tab near the top of my blog.  I know that thus far I have not been a very good photographer, but I have made a goal for myself to take more pictures.  The photos section will contain all the pictures from my year that I deem worthy of posting including, but not limited to, the photos you see in my blog posts.  Especially after trips around India, check to see new photos!

The last few days here have been quite relaxing, and I have made the most of it catching up on sleep and thinking about what I want to gain from my exchange.  Though I am still processing this question, I realized that I forgot a few crucial details when I laid out Indian driving practices, and I am going to take this opportunity to remedy this.

The obvious missing piece to the picture of roads in India I provided you is the rickshaw.  These three-wheeled mini taxis fill the streets of Pune.  They are many more rickshaws than cars and nearly as many as two wheelers.  My host dad informed me that there are 75,000 rickshaws in Pune alone!  That is almost enough to have four rickshaws per person in Northfield!  These are very cheap by American standards and it costs less than Rs 50 (56=$1) to travel most places from my apartment.  I have taken rickshaw a number of times, and it will serve as my primary mode of transportation throughout my exchange.  The problem for me getting home on the rickshaw is that addresses mean nothing here.  I told Aishwarya to come pick me up at 1707 Sadashiv Peth and she just laughed.  My family has informed me that I should tell people I live near SP College next to Kajina Vihir Chowk, a relatively famous building adjacent to mine.  

The other more entertaining piece of Indian driving that slipped my mind involves more biological vessels.  Here is a picture I took of an Indian man riding an elephant.  It is difficult to tell, but the elephant is directly on the road, exactly where people would  be driving.  Apparently it is relatively common for people to ride elephants on the road (quite slowly I might add, elephants are never speedy creatures by choice) and collect money from pedestrians.  It is considered good luck to give money to someone riding an elephant.  However, it is not just elephants and cars that occupy the streets of Pune.  So far in my exchange I have seen: two camels on the busiest bridge in town, several bulls pulling carts, two elephants, approximately five sacred cows simply wandering,  many people pushing carts, and countless stray dogs.  These animals and people do not stay off to the side of the road like you would think, they walk right along with the heaviest of traffic right in the middle of the streets.  

Though most of these are fun to see, the stray dogs are pretty sad.  These are not your well-fed, cared for, shiny-coated domestic dogs, these dogs are skinny, often missing clumps of fur, and none are "fixed".  You see many on the side of the road, walking along with people or lying down in traffic's way, but they are mostly ignored.  The common practice seems to be to pretend they are not there and give them no attention, positive or negative.  This has probably helped them keep their ridiculously high numbers up, because no one stops their incessant breeding.  It is a sad sight to see such ragged and abandoned animals so frequently here when dogs are so well-liked and cared for back home.  

Back to my Pune home, here is a picture of the alley between my building and the adjacent one.  The white car on the right belongs to my family and is parked in the ground floor parking lot of our building.  I live on floor three and my window offers a great view of wall belonging to the building on the other side of mine.

In exchange student news, I have a rough list of the other RYE kids coming to Pune.  There are eight of us who will call Pune our home this year and we are as follows: US-Colby, me, unknown boy; Sweden-Axel (Perry's twin); Brasil-two girls; Mexico-one boy, currently sorting out a problem with his visa; Canada-one girl.  It sounds like a really fun group of people, and I cannot wait to meet everyone else and start our year together.  There is a tentative plan for all of us to get together next week and I really hope it pulls through.  As one of the first students here, I'm sure I will be able to offer some advice to the newer kids or at least understand exactly what they are feeling and what thoughts are going through their heads.  I am extremely excited that this year is finally taking shape and the more it does, the better it looks!  Also, my family learned that I like Chinese food so they are taking me out and I plan on showing off my mad chopsticks skills on some delicious Asian style chicken.  Chinese is apparently pretty popular here as well, but as much as we have American-ized Chinese food, I believe here I will encounter Indian-ized Chinese food.  Regardless, I look forward to trying something new and hopefully something that includes meat!