Street Lights

My computer is back in business (sorta, sound has some static, not as fast as before). Anywho, the past week or so has been quite eventful. We went to South Mumbai on Saturday to visit Anup and Jessie (did sightseeing, etc.). Then suddenly, I got really sick for a few days. We've been working pretty hard this past week in terms of creating a database system for our organization, having marketing strategies, blah blah blah. As much as it is fun to go out to clubs, bars, and tourist attractions, the best place to be in Mumbai is just being outside and seeing the people. There is a road with car repair shops and out of the three lanes on that side of the road, about one and a half are taken up by cars being repaired. You see guys holding hands, guys having their pinkies locked when they cross the streets, street dogs sleeping on the median of the road, tall buildings being built right next to the slums, the slum-dwellers getting their shower in when it rains, and so many more that i can't remember (yeah, even with my memory). Sorry I don't have any British lingo, even though we are living with a British dude. But, he did use "godsend" to describe an Indian dish.

Interlocked pinkies,
V

my post is more interesting than everyone else's

Hello all,

Since arriving at Nandaihe, I have picked up some cool new British lingo that I hope to regularly utilize:
- Ice lolly: perhaps my favorite word ever--it means popsicle.
- Bint: bitch, but to a lesser degree (maybe it's a combination of bitch and cunt?)
- Twat: idiot.
- Dodgy: sketch, creepy.

All I eat these days is peanut butter (combined with either bread, bananas, jelly, or animal crackers depending on how creative I feel), ramen, ice cream, and beer. We are going to a Brazilian steakhouse that has all you can eat steak and beer for $6! Amaaazing. Other than that, I've just been doing the work-sleep-play-sleep routine day after day. I am also teaching the Chinese students some very useful slang: party pooper, awkward (turtle), privates, etc etc. Did you know that in addition to awkward turtle, there's the awkward turkey and the awkward moose? Check this out: http://www.awkwardmoose.net/

- Willa

Warning: Interesting material (don't laugh too hard)

Yo yo yo,

It's been a while since I blogged, because the hard drive on my computer died. Well in the past few days, I've partied with Munj, Pratik, and of course Ruppy, in INDIA. Anup, Jessie, and other Pune people are coming here tonight so that'll be fun. Rup and I visited our village site again on Thursday. Basically, we went there, had some chai, talked with a few people for 30 minutes, had lunch, napped for 2 hours, and then came back and had dinner with the chairman, board member, and their families. This was the longest "work" day for us so far in terms of time. But, we are finally getting assignments for work so, things will start to pick up. It rained only for like 30 minutes today, which is amazing (and the Sun was out for a little bit!). Also, there was a high tide today, highest in 83 years (5 meters). Aight that's it for now.

-I'm amazing

Cloud 9

Whuddup people,

So I am not starting work until Monday. Since things may get pretty busy this weekend, I decided to write another post, as it may be a while since I write again.

I arrived at Delhi yesterday and was picked up by 2 AIESECers! Once I reached my apartment in Lajpat Nagar (where I am staying in Delhi) I was amazed to see how many Trainees there were here. In the building I am staying in, the 3rd floor's 2 apartments are totally owned by us AIESECers, and holds 17 people! So after lugging my 3 bags (hey im staying here for a year ok!) up the 3 flights of stairs, I was dead tired! The weather here is unbelievably hot! Anywho, I met some of the board members from AIESEC-Delhi University, who were very very nice, and some of us trainees and the AIESEC-DU'ers all went out to eat some traditional Indian food - McDonalds. We hung out there for a while then headed to a Trainee party for a Trainee leaving on Monday.

I was so amazed at how many people came to the party! It turns out that weve got about 60 trainees here from all over the world staying in 7 apartments!!! Together we have Trainees from Chec Republic, Hungary, Turkey, America, Greece, Colombia, UK, Canada, Poland, China, Japan, Mexico, Romania, Italy, New Zealand... AND MORE! For those of you AIESECers reading this, this place legit is like living in a live Global Village!!

Everyone here is amazing, and I am learning so much! Today I just chilled and watched a movie with a Polish girl who couldnt go to work today cuz she hurt her leg so we had some fun today.

Aparently the clubs here love foreiners, so if we go to the bars tonight (not really me since I fit in, I more mean the white girls ;-) we get can in for free (otherwise they have crazy expensive covers - like $20) and the drinks are on the house. Oh on a random note the girl to guy ratio is like 60:40, and everyone seems to be attractive, so we are in good hands.

Everyone here influences each other, as we all put our fingers together and point them into the sky like were italian, we allll nod our head from side to side as a way of saying yes, and it seems like everyone here speaks Spanish which is great cuz it allows me to practice my Spanish!!! After hearing everyones cool accents, I feel so boring speaking in my american Accent!!

Ok enough for today people!

- Munj

Delhi

Hey guys!!

So just to getcha guys caught up with everything so far. I left the US last Sunday, and arrived to Bombay (Mumbai) on Monday. I spent 2 days and 3 nights in Mumbai. On day one I went to my grammas (from my moms side) house in Juhu to meet gramma. She is the cutest 82 year old lady in the world! When I arrived she was chillin on her swing set (its called a hichko in gujarati) and she was very happy to see me.

After eating I hung out with my nephew Avi. He is literally the cutest 2 year old ever - he loves toy cars and trucks, and hates teddy bears and stuffed animals... yah hes the ultimate man.

Next I traveled to see my cousins from my dads side by going to see them at their office.

At night time I met up with V-pizzle and Rupizzle, and went out for drinks with the other Mumbai Trainees living in their apartment. We went to a relatively inexpensive bar called Soda and had a really good time. (Random Note: The girl V's next to is from Tanzania! Yup, it really does exist)

The next day (wednesday) I hung around with more family, and then at night time I went out with V, Rup, Pratik (yup P-daddy was in the house) and my family friend Vrinda. On the way to Vrindas house we got lost and had to walk down this super dark ally in the rain which was scary as hell. Anywho, She (Vrinda) took us out to a really classy place called Zenzi. THE LAMEST thing you will ever hear is that bars/clubs close down in Mumbai at 1:30PM. I didnt know this, had I known I wouldda pounded more than 3 beers before we left. On the way to V and Rups Trainee house, Rup was able to ride an auto (riksha) which was pretty funny.

Before I left the boys to head home with Vrinda, we took the following picture, which could be our last harrah, as I dunno when us four will ever be back together again in the future... Sad...

I went to bed at 4AM and woke up at 7AM. Its weird, for some reason I can't sleep in India so far, but I think it was because I only had a few days to hang with fam and friends before I left for Delhi, so I thought sleep was trivial and a waste of time. I left Mumbai and reached Delhi yesterday.

Since I think this post is long enough I will post again soon about my adventures thus far in Delhi!

- M to the Jizzle!

Hola chicos y chicas,

I have officially been in China for about 2 weeks! Yesterday, the entire school and I saw the solar eclipse on the beach: Apparently, I just witnessed the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century; you can read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_July_22,_2009.

Also, facebook is being a piece of crap so I can't respond to messages, I apologize. Today, the topic of class was "loneliness," so of course we had the students do skits using pick-up lines. We had some classy lines such as "Hey, you look a lot like my next girlfriend" and "Is it hot in here or is it just you?" Indeed, we are teaching Chinese students very important life lessons...

One of the other interns, Alex, describes how Asian girls walk here as the "shopping cart walk": First, you must lose all pride. Then, look down, shuffle your feet, and pretend to be pushing a shopping cart hahaha. Aaaaand we want to take a trip to Qinhuangdao to see HP6 because we still haven't seen it yet! DON'T RUB IT IN MY FACE :(

Peace.

- Willa

woww

Best pick up line: Do you like water? (yes) Well, then you already like 75% of me. Best weight loss plan: Come to Yanyuanjinghua school. Every intern has lost weight because the cafeteria food causes stomach problems and is generally nasty. Last night we played 21, a British truth-or-dare game, and it turned into a massive orgy: guys giving other guys lap dances, guys getting hickeys from other guys...girls kissing girls etc etc. Also, the company here is full of lies. Our original workload of teaching 30 hrs a week has exponentially risen, as more and more "optional" classes and extracurricular activities are shoved on us. Teaching English is great though- today we had the students make Valentine's Day love notes for our lesson on American holidays. Off to the beach now ! :)

Willa

Singing with Lobsters

Hey dudes and dudettes,

So, this past saturday, we went to a Hindustani Classical music concert in the afternoon. There were three dudes on stage playing three different instruments: a tabla (indian drums), a tanpura (4 stringed instrument), and a weird trapezoidal-shaped stringed instrument (let's call it the Trapz) which was played sitting down. To our surprise, the guy playing the Trapz was amazing. I mean, he literally was plucking more than 10 strings per second while the guy playing the tanpura was 1 string every 4 secs. It was hilarious when they were all tuning and the Trapz guy suddenly took the tanpura from the other guy and tuned it for him. Another funny thing about Indian concerts is that people in the audience, to show their appreciation for the music, perform very weird actions. For example, this bald uncle (all indian adults are uncles to us), who was sitting down in front of the performers, started nodding his head as if he was saying "no, this is terrible" and putting his hand out w/ his palm face up (as if to say, "what is this piece of crap?!?!"). However, the nodding of the head, as we all found out later, means "great job", and bringing the hand out demonstrates the audience member's acclamation for the music.
Later, we went to a restaurant called Trisha's in some dark alley near the Mumbai Stock Exchange which supposedly had very expensive seafood. Now, after two weeks of living in Mumbai, any food dish above 100 rupees seems very expensive to V and I. So we thought the seafood in here must cost no more than 400 Rs. max. Well, let's just end by saying my first experience with eating both king crab and lobster ended up costing me more than 1500 Rs. I left the restaurant feeling like there was a huge hole in my pocket. Anyways, that's my weekend update. V's been doing a good job posting about what we've been doing so I'll chime in once in a while. Just so you guys know, here are some recent pictures from a news site covering the Mumbai floods:

Munj is rollin out

Hey yalls,

So I will be leaving for India in a couple hours. I am first heading to Bombay for 3 days 2 nights, and then I will head to Delhi.

Now I have got a present for yalls,

http://www.mylifeisdesi.com/

Don't forget that you heard if first from M to the Jizzle

Signing out,
- Munj

Welcome To The Good Life

So You Think You Can Dance- The Rup Edition
Our apartment minus a chinese guy- Check out the handsome guy on the right (the dark one).
Apparently, they have these cars for India's best emergency contraceptive pill. I guess no one uses it.
Traffic as usual. At this intersection, you always get harassed by these transsexuals called hijraas.
The view of the sea from our window.

India so far.

I mean it's hard to post after hearing Willa's awesome stories, but i'll try my best. A couple of days ago, our roommate was hit on the shoulder by a rickshaw while he was walking on the street. The day after, Rup and I got into a minor accident while riding in a rickshaw. Yesterday while getting off at our train station, we saw a catfight. In Mumbai trains, you have to push and shove your way to get out of the train and to enter the train. A skinny girl (s) gets pushed out of the train by this fat chick (f). Skinny girl starts slapping the fat chick, and the fat chick retaliates. They slap for a minute or so, when f calls s a "bastard". Then, s calls f a bitch. f says, "I'll show up the type of bitch I am." s replies, "I can see how much of a bitch you are." Thereafter, Rup and I decide to leave and imitate the verbal argument while walking. It turns out that the skinny girl was walking right by us. Whether, she heard us or not, we don't know. Besides that, work is pretty chill while the commute is a bitch.

-V

china so far.

Wow, this past week has been absolutely crazy. I have finally arrived at the English Village in Nandaihe after my 6-day separation period, along with 18 other interns from all over the world, including Poland, Dominican Republic, Morocco, and the U.K. Turns out I was the only one who had to go to a podunk city in the middle of nowhere alone and bored for 6 days. Some, like these 2 British girls, were sent directly to the hospital in an ambulance upon arriving because of a swine flu scare; others met up and travelled all over China; one unlucky guy had to sleep on the same bed as the company owner for a night.

Even though we are all a bit miffed that we ended up in this small city rather than in Beijing as the job description originally promised, the town itself is on the beach and our apartments overlook the river. Unfortunately, beautiful scenery seems to be the only thing this town really offers…the entertainment side is quite sparse, as we traversed several blocks the other day in search of a bar. The other interns are really chill, and I love that we all get along and have lots of fun together!

We met some of the other teachers that are here too, and well…they aren’t really like us. They are all uber religious and older than us, so we are convinced that they are trying to “teach” both English and religion to the Chinese students. Apparently, one of the teachers was on the phone and said: “What has Jesus done for you today?” We also have Chinese teacher assistants and they are adorable, with cute names like Leaf, Cola, and Forrest. All of us have to perform for the opening ceremony tomorrow and the TAs are doing high school musical hahaha. We decided to do a group dance, because none of us actually want to do solo performances in front of 350+ people.

Some pictures:


Chilling at the beach, which is pretty nice. As you can see, because of all the pollution/smog, you can’t really see the sky all that well.


The beach at Beidahe, a little north of where we are staying. In the U.S., girls wear tiny bikinis while guys have conservative knee-length shorts. Much to our dismay, the men in China wear tiny speedos while the women wear more conservative bathing suits.


Beidahe is where all the government officials go on summer vacation, as well as Russians. The buildings were so Western looking, and most of the buildings had both Russian and Chinese.

- Willa

images

http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/jul/14/slide-show-1-mumbai-waterlogged-again.htm

Monsoon...Make it Rain!

So yesterday, Rup and I step into a rickshaw to go to a shopping center and I mention to Rup that it hasn't rained in a couple for days, the streets are so dry. Then Rup notes that when it rains, it only rains for a few minutes and then stops. Two minutes after those comments, it starts pouring. It rained from that point on and it is still raining--about a day of heavy rain. Don't believe me? check this out:

http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/14/flood-warning-in-mumbai-mithi-overflows.htm

http://ishare.rediff.com/video/news-and-politics/rains-disrupt-normal-life-in-mumbai/646825

Lesson learned, never to talk about a lack of rain.

-V Pizzle

P.S.- We bought soccer jerseys for 3 dollars!

Village Trip

Yesterday, we went on a village trip with some ppl from our organization to somewhere called Tara near Mumbai. During our trip, we were fed 3 times over the course of 4 hours. Now let me tell you something about Indian hospitality. They will, no matter what, try to feed you until you explode. If you ask for more, they will give you more. If you ask for less, they will give you more. If you stay quiet, they'll just simply put more food on your platter. I can only hope to be able to fit through the door of my apartment when I get back. The village itself was amazing: the organization had set up a hospital, soap-processing area, oil-manufacturing area, vocational schools, dormitories, etc. All in all, they were doing a great job of trying to help the ppl. I hope V and I are able to have a positive impact on the organization by the time we get back to the States. Finally, one noteworthy thing happened on our way back to Mumbai. We were sitting in the back of the car and the two uncles that had taken us there were driving/sitting in the front. One of them starts talking about a guy they both know in Mumbai. He goes, "Oh, I really like that man". Uncle B replies, "Yes, do you know he walks 15 km every day by himself!". Uncle A: "O wow, what a man!". Uncle B: "He even paints watercolor pictures". Uncle A: "O wow, what a great man!". They continued talking about their mancrush for 5 min while V and I were trying so hard to control ourselves from breaking into tears from laughter. Well, in a city where thugs walk around holding each others' pinkies what else can you expect?

My first few days in China

Greetings from the other side of the world! I have been in China for 4 days and discovered that 1) facebook is banned here so I will have to limit my creepiness for a month and a half and 2) mosquitoes are the bane of my existence. In just four days I have accumulated 24 bites!

Day 1: After spending nearly 24 hours in the airplane/airport, I am finally in Beijing! There the company manager picks me up and we head over to Baoding, a nearby city where I am staying currently. On the way, we stopped by the Olympic stadium, dubbed the "Bird's Nest."

So it was kinda dark and the flash ruined everything. The company manager, Rita, is on my left.

The stadium at night. It's surrounded by gardens and water so it's really pretty during the day.

Day 2: Because of China's stringent health policy over swine flu, every intern is required to live separately from the school for a week. Hence I end up in a hotel in Baoding, where the school has another office. I open up the window curtains and discover that I have a gorgeous view of ....trash and old buildings:

What boggles my mind is that sometimes when I look outside, I see other people opening their windows and flinging random things out the window, as if the ground was an bottomless trashpit. Anyways, the company people are incredibly kind and they take me out for lunch and show me around town.

Day 3: I have spent a grand total of 2 US dollars because people always take me out to eat! What a feat. I meet some of the students trying to learn English. Our conversation lasts about 4 minutes in English...so I pretty much have to speak Chinese...which means all I do is smile and nod. We go out for "huoguo," where each person has a little boiling pot of soup and you cook your own food. I went to my very first Chinese club called Deep and it was sooo nice/decked out. There are multiple floors: One had a bar/dance floor/pole dancers; one was a lounge; another a performance area where this very effeminate man danced and sang like a little girl--it was kinda disturbing actually. I learned a Chinese drinking game with cups and dice, called "chui nui" which means "bullshit."

Day 4: I spend the entire day sightseeing at this park with a bajillion water lilies. To get there, we take a boat, and man with only 1 eye paddles the company owner, wife, and me at a slow, but peaceful pace. Apparently, he only makes about $20 a day toiling back and forth on the river. I didn't bring my camera so you will just have to use your imagination--the boat ride was amazing and the lilies were so pretty! Today I went on a walk around the university and stumbled upon a park.

And thus with this picture I end my lengthy post. - Willa

P.S. Munj is AWESOME
P.P.S. Cecey is MORE AWESOME

Pay for First Class, Ride in the Second

Rup and I officially can't tell the difference between first class and second class trains from the outside so, we've rode the second class for the second straight day (awesome story Vaibhav). Our view is sick, we live next to the former miss world, and i sleep next to Rup---my expectations are met. Why does it always rain here? It's more important to carry your umbrella here than your cell phone. Our job is going great, we can basically work from home and do what we want. alright negroes, I have to go now. It was nice to meet you guys.

Best Wishes,
-Waibhu

I'm so paid

Hello Friends. I have had a very relaxing day today. I finally slept for 7 hours, just 5 shy of my total for the past 4 days (cool). I stared at the view of the sea while taking in the cool breeze for about an hour before eating a good meal. Then I, along with Rup, proceeded to talk with the landlord's son about us staying here. Finally, I worked out for the first time in weeks. It feels good to be back. Us trainees went to Bandra (West) for some drinks at an English Pub, then had a nice quick meal, before seeing a Hindi movie called Kambakt Ishq. On the way back, it was pouring when we rode the rickshaw. We will start work tomorrow, which is about a 1.5 hour commute, so that'll be fun! Alright boyz and girl, that's it for now. Don't laugh too hard or be too excited when you read this, I know how hard that can be. Fun fact (great words): I wanna be a rickshaw driver when I grow up.

Experience So Far

yo bitches, this is R to the D, Rupazoid signing in. So far, we had no one from AIESEC come see us, we don't know where we'll be living, our office is apparently destroyed, and I have to wake up to a cheap-ass guju humping the wall. Apart from that, experience has been great, V has got his MANGOES and we have seen two guys groping each other on street.

Florida --> China!

After many long hours of packing, I have finally whittled down my stuff into two suitcases for my 6-week long trip to China! I am so excited to be reunited with my wonderful homepeople again. Alas, I can whip out my spotty Chinese and be greeted with blank stares...if this fails I may just have to resort to English. Well, for the next 20 hours or so I will be relishing all the comforts of the airplane...stuffy air, cardboard/inedible food, crying babies. Yessss, this summer will be awesome.

Willa

Munj

Munjal Shah is now in the house.

wowow

If I were a driver here, I would crash every 2 minutes. It's crazy! I love mangoes and pidgeons. That's it for now.