From Hannah & Hannah
Hannah Ginder and Caitlin in a Delhi rickshaw
We had quite a while to wait before getting on the overnight train to Varanasi, so we set up a small camp with all of our large bags in the center and the 15 of us standing guard around them. We drew the biggest, most unselfconscious crowd of starers I have ever been stared at by in my life. To be stared at by over 100 people simply because of the color of your skin is one of the strangest, most awkward things I've ever felt. It was a very humbling experience.
A good number of them just wanted us to give them some money, but some were absolutely determined to sell us any number of bizarre things--so determined that phrases like "I actually don't have any money with me right now" wouldn't discourage them in the least.
But once you get past all of this and actually start talking to them, you really learn to appreciate what they have to offer- not the goods they're selling, but the cross-cultural understanding that they genuinely want to achieve. It was a great way to learn about India, and myself.
-Hannah Gordon
The train has definitely been the most intense part of the culture shock for me. On Friday we took a train to Agra. For four hours we were surrounded by Indian men who were very curious about us. Privacy? yeah right. Another thing about the train is that there is no way to escape from the beggars and obnoxious, insistent merchants. They know that you (the westerners) are carrying a lot of cash, so of course you are their main target. Eventually we got more comfortable with the Indian men and started talking to them. I ended up going over some Hindi with one of the guys. If I mispronounced something everyone would be either correcting me or laughing at me. It was quite a way to break into the culture.
~Hannah Ginder