too much

As our time at GDL has well passed the month marker, a bit of reflection never hurts.

What follows is just a collection of random things we've learned so far.

Lesson 1: The best food is cart food (whether in Bagar, a smaller town, or Delhi itself).

Lesson 2: The bus system is amazing, as long as you can stumble through enough Hindi to figure out where the bus goes. You can always get to where you need to go.

Lesson 3: It's much easier to chill with the kids than try to stumble through conversations with their parents (who are usually very busy anyways).

Lesson 4: Wake up at 0600, go to bed at 2200-2330.

Lesson 5: Don't try to spend serious time in Rajasthan without having some kind of grasp on Hindi (or Marwari would work OK I guess).

Lesson 6: "School" is spelled सोकाल and "beauty" is something like बुयतय. Its hard enough to read Hindi, but when it turns out to be transliterations of English words, it's all the more confusing riffling through a dictionary trying to find a meaning.

Lesson 7: Hindi keyboard layouts are finicky. Does anyone know to get a layout that will abbreviate the letters properly? This one won't shorten the स.

Lesson 8: Storms always mean more power cuts than usual.

Lesson 9: The local water around Bagar is perfectly safe to drink. The problem is only with the fluoride content, which only becomes an issue if you drink it for your whole life.

Lesson 10: You cannot deflect the kids when they are set on doing stuff with you. They never get tired of staring and demanding Hindi songs be played. Five of them just barged in and kept plugging in different sets of earbuds. Only Hindi songs are enjoyed. Cameras are also popular. Once, the kids next door took over a hundred pictures in 20 minutes.

Lesson 11: Animals sometimes barge in since we're in a rural area. A very confused goat stumbled into the office a few days ago, stared and then left. Cows come in to eat empty cardboard boxes. Dogs sleep in the hallway outside the bathroom.

Lesson 12: Indian vegetarian food is the best food in the world.

Lesson 13: No matter how early you get up, if the sun has risen, it's hot. It will remain hot 24/7 regardless of the sun. In fact, you generally end up sweating more at night over dinner than during the day.