We lost 1.5 hours last night to put us 12 hours ahead of CST and get rid of that stupid half an hour difference that India is on for no apparent reason.
There are no classes today. They give us this extra day to recover from India since it was the biggest culture shock that we’ve seen yet and because we lose the extra 1.5 hours of sleep. I didn’t really do much… Slept in until someone called me to go to lunch, then wrote a little in my blog, took a nap, then wrote some more. Google is working aboard the ship again, THANKFULLY. Now hopefully I can conserve my internet minutes again. However, having to log in every day while at sea for the past few weeks has certainly taken its toll on my internet minutes and I may have to buy more if I’m not extra careful with my remaining minutes.
Semester at Sea got some good press from the Chennai newspapers. There was a whole article on the ship being in town and the good things that we were doing, such as service projects and home stays, while we were in India.
I’ve heard a little good news concerning Obama’s campaign, just from other people though. Someone was saying that most of Iowa’s delegates that went to Edwards are now saying they’ll switch their vote to Obama. Also, the super delegates have vowed to follow voters and not vote against them. This is just what I heard, maybe someone can confirm that? Great news if it’s true though!
Some quick reflections/comments on an AMAZING experience in India
Malaria is prevalent across all of India. Everyone was required to take their Malaria medication and was recommended to put on bug spray with minimum 25% Deet. So far I haven’t heard of anyone actually getting malaria, so that’s good.
Everyone in India seems to be poor. We never got a chance to see the wealthy neighborhoods of India, but with 1 billion people there is bound to be a poor population. Everywhere we went though, people were living in pretty terrible conditions. Small huts, pitched tents, run down shacks. In my opinion, these people were all much poorer than the people in the favela community that we visited in Brazil. It was pretty shocking.
There are a lot of people who just walk around the streets trying to sell you stuff. These are the most annoying people because they will follow you down the street trying to but whatever it is they’re selling. Even when you’re in your car stopped at a light or something, they will come up to your window and try to sell it to you. Several times I just ignored them and rolled up my window. Then they just knock on your window and continue trying to sell you their stuff. They just don’t get the hint that I don’t want their stuff very easily I guess.
One really nice thing about going to the markets and shops in India is that more often than not you can bargain with them. I was able to develop and use some good bargaining skills while in India. Probably the best technique I’ve learned was showing a lot of interest at one set price, then when they decline your bid you move away from it or even walk out of the store. On more than one occasion when I did this or one of the people I was with did this, they would come out of the store to stop us and sell it for the price that we offered.
I bought a small little souvenir from some guy in the streets in Delhi on our last night. The instant that I brought out my wallet there was a swarm of about 10 people trying to sell me whatever they had. It was pretty intense.
One thing that surprised me was the absence of big construction equipment. I’m not sure if they were just taking a break from the building structures that I saw or if they do a majority of it with manual labor, but I saw more than one building that was clearly still under construction of the frame of the building but didn’t have any cranes or trucks around it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just throw a ton of manual labor on those types of projects. Something I would be interested in looking into though.
There are no big industries in Agra. This is a government restriction. Agra has something like 3 million people. The only kind of businesses you’ll find are hotels, restaurants, and small personal shops. Chennai and Delhi had a ton of billboards for well-known tech companies though. There were also a lot of signs for computer training and stuff like that.
They know when the ship comes every year
Similar to Mauritius, there wasn’t anything really available for us to do right outside of the port again. We had to take a rickshaw or taxi to actually get where there were things to do in Chennai.
I really have absolutely no idea how we didn’t get in a crash while we were in a taxi or rickshaw. The driving is absolute chaos the entire time. I don’t think there’s a single good driver in all of India! hah
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