Talking food, boating India-style and the Rain

That night Kartik knew I was feeling a bit sick of the Indian food. Okay, sick of the food is not the right way to put it, but well, my stomach was feeling the pangs of the curry and I was wishing for some home-style food. So we went for pizza. The pizza here is funny, there’s no sauce and it tastes like it came from the microwave, but its pizza nonetheless. I told Kartik about how big the pizzas are in the states and how they throw them up in the air to make them roll out. The pizzas here are personal size, small things- so this was completely foreign to him as was spaghetti and meatballs, quesadillas and burritos. We had a long conversation about food in the states which made me miss home SO much.. what I would give for a big cheeseburger, oy. I told Kartik if he came to the states and had a good steak he’d never want to go back to India. He’s not a vegetarian like most of the people here.

Anyways, the next morning it was 6am wake up to get to the port. We went for coffee and breakfast and I think I’m finally beginning to figure out what I like to eat. Also, I like the coffee and tea here- but its funny how it works. At home I like my coffee with cream and sugar and my tea black, here it’s nearly black coffee and tea with lots of sugar and milk. This confuses me, but I go with it, it’s all good.

Speaking of sugar here, I find there are many contradictions in how Indian people view sweets. They put so much sugar in their tea, but tell me that coca-cola has too much sugar in it. Then the other night when we had coffee, Kartik put at least 3 sugars in his small cup, and told me that still, Coke had too much sugar. The tamarind sauce that is usually so sweet in the states was barely sweet at all here, and the contradictions seem to continue. The pharmacy was next to the store selling pesticides, the Driver had a Hindu God hanging from the rearview mirror and a Jesus doll on his dashboard, the city can have brand new buildings with some of the newest technology is produced, and have people living in slum-like conditions outside. Sometimes I feel like up is down here.

Anyways, another diversion on my story of the second day at work. We wanted to avoid the long security line for the car today, so instead of going through all the checkpoints, we took a boat with the workers to the island.

This was an experience I won’t soon forget.

Here I am, in my new Indian-style shirt and banana republic capris, covered in the mud from the ground, walking with two engineers and an architect towards a group of poor men getting ready to enter this small boat to get to the island where the work was to be done. I was very uncomfortable with their stares, but I found comfort in laughing about the tiny, small motored boat that we were going in with the team I was working with.

Kartik gave me a piece of paper to sit on so I wouldn’t ruin my clothing, and the mini-adventure began. I sat at the end of the boat and all the men stared the entire time. I tried to avoid their eyes with my sunglasses, but it didn’t seem to matter. I am a spectacle here, and the novelty of it has worn off, but that is a post of its own.

The moment we got to the island it began to drizzle, and soon it was pouring. This continued all day. We got inside the building and began looking around, creating lists of things that needed to get done, all the while everyone who was working was gawking at me.

It amazes me that the architect and the engineer have to come to the building to remind people to do their jobs. I don’t know if this is usual in the States as well, but I feel like there was not a lot of cohesion between the leadership within the project. The plumber’s team did their thing, the electrician theirs, and the builders theirs… I imagine this is customary, but it all seemed to be making for a lot of people standing around and doing nothing. In reality, I found that the reason nobody was doing anything was that it was raining– electrical work cannot be done in the rain, and the roof could not be worked on with the rain, so everyone was just standing around doing nothing. I was confused, why would they plan to build this building in the middle of monsoon season if they can’t work on it during the rain?

Come to find out, there have been many issues with manufacturer deliveries. The project was set to be completed in May, and now we’re well into June, seemingly a couple weeks behind schedule, with still errors in the deliveries that have been made. I’m not sure if it was because these were just errors that happen or if this is something that is characteristic of India. It’s hard to ask these questions.