Days 7 and 8

SATURDAY
Uneventful Day
Spent most of the day the same as I would have at home, except I didn’t have Joe’s company. I read a good deal (finish John Grisham’s “The Last Juror”) and watched TV – that’s it! I did do some of my reading outside in the courtyard area in front of the building.

SUNDAY
A Day Around Delhi
I met up with Sim at her parent’s home (where she still lives at age 26…it is actually pretty uncommon for unmarried children to not live at home). Her mom was funny…she seemed pretty traditional if I would have judged her appearance alone, but by our conversation I could tell she was much more western-minded than I would have guessed. A lot of her questions (there were just a few) were about what did I find surprising so far and what types of things I thought were crazy…and then she said “don’t worry about being polite.” Of course I worried about being polite!!! I just told her I found the traffic to be the craziest.

The thing about Delhi is that it is a very old city that has not knocked down old buildings to build new ones. Also, because owning cars is a somewhat recent trend folks have always lived in the city to be close to things…there was never a mass exodus from the city to move to suburbs. Anyhow, what I am getting at is there seems to be little middle-class housing. Or maybe I am defining middle-class housing wrong. Perhaps I need to redefine…middle class might be barrios/ghettos in old apartments/condos, where as the lower class is the folks who cannot afford housing – when I look out any of the windows of my housing here I see make shift housing of tents and like. The truth is the most surprising thing here is how close wealth and poverty live next to each other.

Delhi Monuments
I visited three beautiful sites in Delhu:
Qutb Minar (http://yume-dreams.cool.ne.jp/photo/india/dehli/qutb-minar/t_qutb-minar_24.jpg)
Tomb of Alauddin Khalji (http://www.storyofpakistan.com/images/p0202030201.jpg and http://www.indiatravelogue.com/images1/mp/mandu5.jpg)
Humayun’s Tomb (http://www.pcug.org.au/~alanlevy/Thumbnails/Images/Delhi-Agra-Jaipur/Humayun.JPG)

Driving Around Delhi
To all you Hyundai bashers (Slade, I mean you!): The Hyundai accent is a popular, nice car here!!! That’s right I said nice! A more common car is the Suzuki Alto…There are lots of Hyundais, Suzukis, and Qualises. Not too many cars that would sell for more than $12,000 US. Most of the cars that are common are not even sold in the US. Even the Ford cars that are here are not in the US.

Our driver made an accidental turn into a Muslim neighborhood (Sim explained) that was a bit….unnerving. Anyhow, the young children all started knocking on my window, pointing, and saying hi…It was like they thought I was a movie star or something. None of them begged (as was the case with the last 6 year old who knocked on my window).

The Animals
I got some confirmation on the animals that keep blocking the roads: cows (I have only seen one cow that is white with black spots), buffalo (who know?), and some are oxen as I had guessed!

I’m not nuts….would you have known this is a:
Cow? http://www.5tigers.org/AllAboutTigers/Adventures/habitats/images/cow.jpg
Buffalo? http://www.who.int/multimedia/indiaweb/galleryfeature/animals/who-211944.jpg
Also, I saw monkeys on the side of the road today!