India 1 - Jason 0

In the last 4 years I do not recall being sick. Well 5 days into India I have a sore throat, a runny nose, a constant stomach ache and a case of delhi belly. I made the mistake of drinking the filtered water from the apartment complex over the weekend. The apartment leaves two full containers of filtered water and a 1 liter bottle of bottled water per day. They said the filtered water goes through the osmosis process and is very safe. After talking to the locals here, the Noida water is the most corrosive water around Delhi and should not be drinking under any circumstances. It is nothing but bottled water for me from here on out.

The working hours here are different. The majority of the people work from 9:30am to 7:45pm. Lunch is around 1:00-2:00. There has been an announcement everyday at around 7:30pm for snacks. The couple things I have had so far have been fried, spicy wonton like things. One was like a fried wonton of black pepper. Another had potato and a few other veggies in it. Another was a sweet fried bread. After snack time the place empties out. The a/c is turned off around 8:30. By 9 it feels like it is 90 degrees in there.

I am getting a ride to and from the apartment with a coworker. Just my luck he is the guy that is first in last to go, at least for this week. I have been in by 9 and out by 9. It makes for a long day when trying to recover from jet lag and not feeling 100%. They eat supper around 10 pm around here. I am still trying to figure out an eating pattern. So far it has just been breakfast at the apartment, lunch at the office and a couple granola bars for supper when I get home.

Tonight on the way home there were a couple of jack asses laying down in the middle of the road. There were donkey’s sleeping in the middle of the road with a couple of stray dogs sleeping besides them. I am still waiting to see an elephant.

The interesting part of the ¾ of a mile drive to work is crossing an under pass of a bridge. This part of Noida was just a jungle just 5 years ago. Now it is apartment building after apartment building. The road we drive has an under passing of a bridge that is about 1.5 cars wide. In the morning there are 4-5 lanes of traffic trying to squeeze into the underpass. This ends up blocking the on coming traffic from passing through and then everyone comes to a standstill. A bottleneck in traffic unlike I have ever seen. No one is moving and everyone is honking. The less than a mile drive has taken up to a half an hour as a result.

Another big difference I have noticed is the body language. They nod their heads from shoulder to shoulder to side to say yes, unlike me that nods my head up and down. The people at the apartment brought me something because they thought I was nodding yes when I was nodding no. I haven’t seen any body language for no yet. They also do this head bobble from side to side to say ok or I am listening.

For the most part everyone speaks Hindu at the office, unless they are speaking directly to me. Then it is English.

Attached are a couple pics of the office, a pic of my best friend here so far the a/c unit and a pic of my bathroom. As you can see on the left hand side is a spayer similar to a kitchen faucet sprayer. Every bathroom that I have seen so far has one. I am thinking it is either tp or the sprayer. Your choice.