Life in the City – 10/8/14

                We are all settling into our new lives here in Banaras. We have our new names, new host families, new bikes, new service placements, and a new Hindi guru. Our Hindi names are as follows:

Alex: Abhishek (Meaning “the act of coronation”)

Ben P: Bhanu (Meaning “sun”)

Ben T: Veer (Meaning “strong man”)

Stephen: Shyam (Meaning “Color of Shri Krishna” aka “dark”)

Jenny: Jonhvi (Meaning “Ganga” as in the Ganges)

Chase: Chini (Meaning “sugar”)

Evelyn: Indu (Meaning “moon”)

Caleb: Camal (Meaning “lotus flower”)

Christy: Mishtee (Meaning “sweet” in Bengali)

Dolly-ji named us all throughout our second day in Banaras and it was cool to then later learn the meanings behind our names and ponder why Dolly-ji named us what she did.

                My host family’s last name is Tripathi. I have a 16 year old host sister named Madhu, a 12 year old host brother named Deep, and then a host mom and dad (an uncle might also live at the house but I’m not completely sure). We live in a very tall and skinny house – there are 4 floors that each have a few rooms. My room is situated on the 3^rd floor next to my host sister’s and we share a bathroom. My host dad is a criminal lawyer and my host uncle is a policeman of some kind (my host mom is a housewife). We also have a guinea pig with a name that is very hard to pronounce/understand and a parakeet whose name I’ve never heard them say. I live fairly close to the program house (all the girls do) and am situated right next to a temple that wakes me up every morning. To be more exact, the house is surrounded by three different temples that all love to ring their bells very early in the morning.

                Biking in Varanasi has been exhilarating. As far as I can tell, there are very few traffic laws in India (if there are laws, they can’t be very strictly followed). Motorcycles, cars, tuk-tuks, pedestrians, cycle rickshaws, and bicycles all occupying the same space in a chaotic jumble of horns and wheels. People here greatly prefer using a blaring succession of horn blasts to signal that they are a) coming up behind you b) passing you c) turning off the street d) turning a blind corner or e) just for grins and giggles. It is a generally effective way to manage city traffic, but it’s very confusing and somewhat terrifying at times. You definitely have to be on high alert while biking and it’s really a good idea to wear a helmet, even if you get made fun of by the locals (no one here wears helmets or seatbelts and they give you a funny look when you do). It’s been quite fun exploring the city on bikes. Already I’ve found a splendid dhobi (laundry person), an awesome lassi shop, a superb sweet shop, and the go-to general store near Assi (where we are living).

                After visiting all the service sites and completing a mini application for the ones we liked best, we were each assigned a place to work.

Ben P and Evelyn: Nirman (a school that emphasizes learning through the arts)

Alex: Bal Ashram (an all-boys orphanage/organic farm)

Chase: Guria (an NGO that fights human trafficking)

Stephen: World Literacy Canada (an organization that promotes literacy esp. for women)

Ben T: Little Stars School (a school that teaches impoverished kids)

Jenny: Kiran (a center for the mentally/physically disabled)

I won’t expand more on this because in the future there will be many blogs, yaks, updates, etc. about each of these places.

                Our new Hindi guru, Virendra-ji, is world renowned for his teaching abilities. It’s a fairly unconventional style (at least by American standards) and it’s taken some getting used to. We aren’t allowed to write anything down for the majority of the class because he wants us to focus on listening rather than writing. Additionally, we haven’t really had a single grammar lesson, just starting with a basic sentence and then expanding on that to form new sentences with a similar structure. Sometimes I really really enjoy his teaching style, but other times I just really want to be able to jot something down so that I can go back and review it later on. It will be interesting to compare the academic settings in which I learned Hindi and Spanish at the end of my nine months here.