Deaf Way and Other Stuff

The Deaf Way Foundation

This is an image of the people I will be working with at the Deaf Way. I must say, I have only just met these people, am not good with names, and these are Indian names - though, that might actually make this easier. The only person I'm going to mention at this point is Arun (a.k.a. "Happy"). He's the man facing left with the blue shirt on the far left. He's the president of Deaf Way and a really nice guy. He took me out for lunch on the 17th (I think). He can hear. It was his son who dissed the Indian food at the picnic, which I mentioned in a previous post.

Sundeep Hotel ~ Block F-8/22, Vasant Vihar

This is my (messy) room at the Sundeep Hotel. The bed and pillows are hard, but comfortable, the lighting confusing, and the room service excellent. As you can see, I have availed myself of all of my electronic equipment. The place is generally noisy, with the occasional man in the morning uttering some kind of prayer. Sounds like "eeeoooome". I haven't asked, but I think it may be some kind of Delhian wake up call - though I just heard one outside and it's almost noon. I'm not getting the feeling that there are many adult Delhians awake at this time.

This is the washroom. This is the Canadian washroom snob of four days ago talking:

[imagine a voice similar to the Millionaire from Gillian's Island]

Note the lack of shower curtain. See that Shower head and the top water knobs? They don't work. You have to turn on this thing (not pictured but to the right) called a geyser for 15-20 minutes to get hot water at all. Oh, and it is not recommended that non-Delhians drink this water or ever brush their teeth with it (though I did that this morning and am waiting to pay the consequences). I still do not know what the bucket on wheels is for.

Yeah, that was me four days ago. I have since cut my teeth a bit by taking at least two cold showers (before I figured out how the geyser works) and by taking a ride on an auto-rickshaw (more on that later). On a side note, I have only taken a New Delhi Dump (if you know what I mean) once - though I'm sure I'll get better acquainted with the toilet soon. I need to buy more books.

I felt pretty clever after this. You see, Indians - as a rule - do not use maps. I couldn't get one of my area (Vasant Vihar), so I took a photograph of one of the dilapidated street signs and have printed it out. Ha ha! As you might be able to see, the area is divided into Blocks; labelled A, B,C and so on. This map will allow me to get lost in entirely new, more creative and embarrassing ways. Directions from locals are not too helpful either. If a local gives you directions to go right then left then left, I generally go right and then ask the next Delhian which way to go. It's not that they're rude or anything (quite the opposite), but English is not their first language and they know the area so intimately, that it's hard to get us foreigners up to speed.

I will leave you with an image I took of myself while I was still jet lagged and couldn't sleep at four in the morning. This guy looks like the life of the party, eh? I'm going to take pics of myself over the course of this thing to chronicle things like weight loss, exhaustion and to see if I can actually grow a beard.