2 Months Down

It has been 2 months since I first arrived. I am more than 1/3 of the way through. Up to this point in some ways the trip has gone better than I expected and in some ways a little worse. It has definitely been an experience.

Today is Hare Krishna’s birthday. Legend has it that it rained on the date of his birth and every year on his birthday since. We had the rain last night. One of the roads had 6 inches of standing water on it and there were pools of water everywhere else.

I bumped into a guy from the UK this morning eating at the breakfast restaurant. I was excited just to see another white person that spoke English. He is also doing a 6 month secondment for a gas company and only has 1 month to go. He was counting down the days and was craving just a plain bland cheese sandwich after eating curry every day.

I took part in the first round of interviewing yesterday for a couple of entry level finance positions. The questioning is a almost the same with a couple new ones “Tell me about your family and specifically about your father” and “How will you get to work?” were the two that stood out to me. When I interviewed for my position the second question they asked me was tell me about your father’s background. The other difference was the candidates were straight out of college and were not prepared at all for the questioning. One said she taught English on the side, but she could not understand a single word I said and I could barely make out what she was saying.

For the first time I went out to eat lunch at a local Indian restaurant with a couple of co workers. The cups were made of brass and weighed about a pound each, but they kept the water cold without ice. The item I originally picked out and ordered was refused to me. The waiter said it would be too spicy. The waiter picked out the least spicy item on the menu and said they would put less spices on it for me. It was some kind of chicken kabob, chicken roasted in spices and wrapped around a bone. For me it was still medium heat, or my mouth was still feeling the affects an hour afterwards. I also tried a little of a veg curry that another coworker had. That surprisingly had a sweet flavor to it. The ordering process took about 10 minutes for 4 people and involved a lot of talking and sounded like negotiating. It was only in Hindi, I was guessing at what they were saying.

I asked one guy how he thought the quality of the food was. He said ask me in 3 hours. If my stomach isn’t rumbling it is a good meal. He did not like the quality. Unfortunately it did not end up being a good meal for me.

We were gone for about 2 hours and I did not tell the people I sit around that I was leaving. I received a phone call from another coworker wondering where I was. It is good to know a few of them are looking out for me.