India has been my new home for less than a week now and I am already falling in love with it. Most of my first week was spent in orientation. One of the things we did during orientation week was going out and buying traditional Indian clothes. In Delhi most women in their 20’s wear western style clothes; however that is not the case in the rural areas. Our teachers recommended that we have at least one Indian outfit to wear when we travel out of Delhi. This was much easier said than done. Certain styles of shirts could only be worn with a certain styles of pants. In a store full of unfamiliar clothing it was difficult to figure out what worked. Luckily we had our female teachers with us to help. I bought a shirt that came with pants and a scarf. I figured this would be the easiest and safest way to go. I am still getting used to wearing the pants because they are the length of my full body!
That night we traveled back on the metro and then took rickshaws to our program center. We were about half way back when we hit a huge traffic jam. We were on a divided road but somehow traffic started to travel the same direction on both sides. This obviously brought some major backups. Eventually some men got out of their cars and started directing the traffic. I am so thankful for these everyday heroes! It took a while for us to get through but thankfully everyone in my group got back without any injuries. Every day here is an adventure waiting to happen. It is impossible to be bored in a city of 17.8 million people!
