Thursday September 11, New Dehli

Thursday I woke up with a definite something going on in my throat.   I also had lost some of my voice.    This was my 10^th day in India and at this point I was anxious to get out of the country…but not without seeing a bit more of the city.   Sessions and meetings went by pretty fast and the final plenaries were mostly boring.   It absolutely poured all morning (monsoon?) which has some impact on the story later.  After lunch Stephanie, Petra, Franck and I decided to go to the Old City and do some exploring.  We hopped in a cab and asked him to take us to the Red Fort.  Now the Red Fort is impressive in its own right, but we wanted to go to the largest Mosque in India, the Jama Masjid.   The taxi ride was mostly uneventful, other than the horrifying image of a man on a motorcycle with a woman on the back sitting sideways and holding onto him with one arm and an infant in the other!  Oh the other problem was that the rain had created many flash floods.

Flooded streets

The mosque was literally across the street from the Red Fort but to get there we had to navigate an incredibly busy street, and then (due to the earlier monsoon), a muddy, puddle filled mélange of some of the worst smells I had ever experienced.  Franck seemed to know where he was going so we followed him.  Unfortunately so did the rickshaw bikes…they never gave up!  The walk to the mosque was really like walking through an open air sewer.  I've never felt so awful for a people as I did walking that short mile.

The road to the Mosque

Stephanie navigates her way to the mosque

Franck leads us to the mosque

Eventually we got to Gate 2 and started walking up the stairs to the mosque.

Gate 2 of the Mosque

 It was very hot and humid and up to that point I was happy I was in shorts.  Then as I got close a man approached me and signaled that I had to cover my legs.  This resulted in what my friends thought was an absolutely hilarious out fit for me, of a wrapped blue piece of cloth (skirt?) that i had to wear the rest of our time there.   I think that my friends must have taken 15 pics of me in this outfit.  Even the locals thought I looked ridiculous.  

Me and my skirt

Franck, Petra, Me and Stephanie

It is an amazing mosque.  People were praying and they were also drinking out of the pool in the middle of the square.  Of course we had to take our shoes off as well. We headed to the back of the courtyard to try and climb one of the spires of the minarets.   When we got there we agreed to take a guided tour.  The steps were very narrow and I almost wiped out on my skirt a couple of times, but the view was so worth it.    Again all I kept seeing was the squalor...the abject poverty of the city.   This stood in stark contrast to our little problems...the term of the week was #firstworldproblem ....like can't get good data service on our cell phone, or the restaurant only takes cash...the problems we have as Westerners pale in comparison to people who shit in the open, beg for food every day and probably have a very short life expectancy with little hope.   Before we climbed the spire we had to leave our shoes (we had been carrying them) and we paid someone to watch them.  Our guide took our photo and we paid him as well.  After snapping a few photos

View of the top of the Mosque

Climbing the spires of the minarets

At the top of the minaret

at the top we made our way down and started the walk to the taxi which was waiting in the parking lot of the Red Fort.  Again we were assaulted by beggars and rickshaw bike drivers who wanted to take us wherever we wanted.  They were particularly fascinated by Petra (blonde hair) and by Franck who is 6'4".  I can't overestimate how stressful it is to walk in this part of the city.  You feel like anytime something awful will happen, but at the same time you can't give any money to a beggar or you will be overwhelmed with kids asking for handouts (often a part of a scam).  Finally we got to the car and Franck asked the driver to take us to what we thought was an open air market called Dehli Haat. It turned to be another high pressure store for gifts and textiles.  I did end up buying some gifts (probably spent too much).  By the time I got back to my room, my allergies had really kicked in (belly was fine), and Duncan had texted me that we were going to dinner at 7:30pm.  I should have declined and went to bed early but I went ahead anyway.  We went back to the same hotel of Bhukkara this time to the West View The Grill Room there.   Again the contrasts were striking to me.  A couple of hours ago we saw people living in their own shit. Then we were at a fabulous hotel getting our Rack of Lamb grilled to our liking.  There is no middle ground in India.
By the time I got home it was 11:30pm and I still hadn't packed for the trip home.  I was feeling some ear pain (I was clearly congested) and I was hoping I didn't have an ear infection. The germs we had walked through that day, you couldn't wash your hands enough.