Incredible India

I subbed at an elementary school over in La Crosse today, so on my way home I stopped for a little stroll around a park along the Mississippi River.  I couldn't help but be struck by how different it was than my surroundings last week.  Here's a brief compare and contrast:

People:
Pettibone Park: In half an hour, I saw three frisbee golfers and two walkers.  Five people in half an hour.
India: Where do I begin?  As I told our driver after one particularly busy stop, it's hard to find a quiet spot in India.  There are people everywhere.  Some made us feel like rock stars (in a good way), asking to take pictures with us.  Seriously.  We must be on so many people's Facebook pages right now.  Others made us feel like rock stars in a bad way, as in "you're rich so give me some money."  That was the worst part of the trip for me, that everyone assumed we were wealthy and got mad when we left the same tips we'd leave in America.  But then we saw MTV's Punk'd on TV one morning, and Justin Bieber blew up a yacht to punk Taylor Swift and had someone drive a car through a restaurant window to punk Sean Kingston . . . so yeah, I can see where Indians get the idea that Americans have money to blow.  Thanks, entertainment industry.  Add in monkeys, dogs, and lots of meandering cows . . . it's a busy place.

I just covered my eyes and prayed a lot . . .

Traffic:
Pettibone Park: I walked past one parked car.  One truck drove past me.
India: Holy crap, I thought for sure someone was gonna die.  I was praying it wouldn't be me, but I didn't really want to see someone else killed either.  The traffic in India is insane.  I thought I'd seen it all in Ghana, but India was even more chaotic.  Giant trucks and buses, little cars, tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws), motor bikes, bicycles, and people pushing carts -- the streets are full all day every day.  And lane lines?  Mere suggestions.  People use their horns not out of annoyance but as a "hey, I'm coming at you" courtesy blare.  And then they pretty much just pull out in front of anyone and hope they stop and let you in.  From what I could tell, the biggest vehicle usually won: cars yielded to buses, tuk tuks to cars, and bikes were pretty much the biggest loser every time.  I sat in the back seat, grimacing and praying, fearing we'd get nailed by a bus or we'd run over someone on a bike.  It was seriously scary.  When Raj, our driver, dropped us off at the airport, I thanked him for not letting us die and handed him a fat tip.  You couldn't pay me to get behind the wheel in India . . . certain death!

Environment:
Pettibone Park: Fresh, clean air with the sweet smell of fallen leaves, the mighty Mississippi rolling by, and lots of big, tall trees.  And quiet.  Blissful quiet.
India: The triple crown of smells: sewage, car exhaust, and smoke.  The air quality is shockingly bad.  I kept commenting to Kevin that people had to die earlier in India because of it.  I just looked it up and found American male life expectancy is ten years longer than Indian males.  For women, it's twelve years.  I had to cover my face sometimes, but what can you expect when 1.2 billion people are crammed into a country that's only 1/3 the size of the U.S.?  (And we've only got 312 million or so people living here.)  Too many cars, nowhere to put garbage or human waste, and lots of people who depend on fires for warmth and cooking make for polluted air and earth.  We were also there during a festival called Diwali, a celebration featuring fireworks and firecrackers . . . at one point we made a fake war correspondent video on the balcony of our hotel with the constant popping and booming in the background.  It sounded like we were under attack!  Add in the never-ending sound of car horns as mentioned above . . . it was a loud, loud week.  And if you've ever seen the Mississippi and thought it was polluted, you don't want to see the water Indians were bathing and washing clothes in.

Seriously stunning . . .

Raj kept repeating the phrase "Incredible India," which I gathered was the country's tourism campaign.  Despite the bad stuff, it really is an amazing country with so much to see.  We marveled at the architecture of their monuments and historic sites.  We just don't have the history in America that India does . . . I mean, many of their monuments are older than our country.  The Taj Mahal?  Built in 1653.  America wasn't even America yet.  The fact that their builders and artisans were that advanced that early on is really impressive. 

Women in India walk an average of 3.7 miles, morning & night, for water.

But man, it makes me glad I was born here.  Much like my trips to Africa, visiting India reminded me that I won the geographic lottery.  The things I take for granted every day -- water when I turn on the faucet, waste that gets flushed into a sewer system, food I can cook on a stove, traffic rules that are enforced, work that isn't demeaning -- aren't so easy to come by in India. 

It was nice to visit but it was even nicer to come home.

Too Legit to Quit

There's a reason I still own a VCR.

I still have all the classics -- Pretty in Pink, The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing, etc. -- on VHS, so if I threw out my VCR, how would I watch them?

I know what you're thinking: enter the new era of technology, Tiffany!  You're two trends behind!

I probably wouldn't even have a DVD player if it hadn't been given to me as a gift.  I hate the idea of throwing out and replacing my stuff just because someone came up with something "better."  If I had replaced my VHS collection with DVDs, then I would have had to throw all of them out and replace them with Blue Ray discs, right?  What a waste.  And you know something better will come out in the next couple of years to replace these Blue Ray things.

I'm obviously not big into technology.

Up until one month ago, the only cell phones I ever owned were the ones that came free with the Verizon plan.  I didn't even own a cell phone for a long time.  I bucked the trend, telling people that if I was at work, they could call me at work, and if I was at home, they could call me at home; if I wasn't in either of those places, then I was probably doing something fun and didn't want you calling me anyway.

I caved and bought a big blue brick of a phone that I only got because it made my mom feel better when I drove from Colorado home to Iowa (not that I got any service through most of Nebraska anyway . . . ).

And then after several years I upgraded to what I think they call a flip phone.  It folded in half.  Snazzy.  Way better than the brick, but still bad enough for the kids I worked with to make fun of me.

But you know what?  I could have cared less about the "coolness" of my phone.

And then I married Kevin.

Kevin bought an iPhone right before we got married.  Suddenly my free phone seemed really crappy.  He could do all sorts of fun things with his phone, and all mine could do was call or text people.  How boring is that?

So I caved.  I bought an older model of the iPhone, too.  (They were on sale super cheap after those iPhone 5's came out . . . you were thinking I bought the new kind?  I haven't totally lost my frugal mind.)

Now, of course, I am completely addicted to the thing.  I haven't slept well for a month, staying up past 10PM challenging friends in SongPop and Words With Friends.  I'm looking into 12-step programs.

My new phone also contributed to a rather embarrassing moment yesterday.  I was subbing for a teacher at the high school who has a student teacher this semester.  That meant that my job for the day was basically to sit in the back of the classroom and observe the college kid to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.  It wasn't exactly rocket science.

The morning classes were pretty exciting with freshmen debating hot topics in the election and then mock voting.  In the afternoon, the juniors had a test.  I watched 'em like a hawk for cheating, but it was pretty dull.  Most of them finished quickly and then worked quietly on an assignment, waiting for the last three kids in the room to get done with their tests.

So I got bored and snuck a quick peek at Facebook.  And then I played a move in Words With Friends.  And then I checked out the world clock to see what time it was in India, where my hubby is this week.

I pocketed my phone and walked over to the computer to check on something.  It was then that I heard a quiet but definitely audible sound, like someone's ringtone going off.

I looked around to see who the culprit was.  Phones in class are definitely a no-no.

No one was grabbing for their pockets, though.  I listened more intently . . . it sounded like a muffled MC Hammer . . . coming from my left . . . where there was nothing but a wall . . .

What the heck??  MC Hammer was playing in my pants!  I turned toward the wall and whipped out my iPhone, jabbing at buttons.

Was that President Obama's face I saw on my screen??

The ringer was off.  I'd turned it to vibrate.  I'm not that stupid.  But still MC Hammer was streaming out of it somehow.

I frantically turned the volume all the way down, continuing to jab at buttons and wondering if I had somehow gotten a virus on my new iPhone.  MC Hammer and President Obama?  Was this some sort of Election Day prank?

Quiet now, I shoved it back in my pocket.  I turned around to see how many kids had caught me, but they were all working on the assignment.

Good thing kids generally don't give a rip about the sub.

After school, I asked the student teacher if he'd heard my phone.  I explained the situation and my virus concerns.

"Are you sure you didn't hit Pandora?" he asked.

"I don't think so," I said, touching the Pandora button.

And there he was.  A "Vote Obama" ad filled my screen.

And underneath the advertisement?  Pandora was paused on MC Hammer's "Turn This Mutha Out."

Lesson learned?  Put my phone in my purse, not my pocket.  I'd heard of pocket dialing, but not pocket Pandora-ing.  Geesh.

Also?  Turning off the ringer does not completely silence the phone.  Hmmmm.

Now please excuse me while I go try to figure out how to delete the MC Hammer station from my Pandora playlist . . .