"India has too many people — the country is going to sink from all the weight! You turn on the faucet and you're afraid people are going to trickle out. I think we should send half a billion people to Australia. They have a lot of coastline; the people can fish."
He's actually hilarious. He seems pretty self-conscious a lot the time, but he's really knowledgeable about the history of India and Delhi and world events in general. Today we talked about the presence of several Christian organizations in their neighborhood, Warren Buffet and Obama's proposed tax increases, traffic in Delhi, Indian weather, American weather, the caste system, population control, the university he works at, Christmas in London, and plenty of other interesting and random topics. The other day he told us that Columbia University flew him to New York to interview for a position teaching Hindi, Urdu, and literature, but he ultimately turned them down because his mom wanted him to stay in India (he said the people at Columbia were quite mad because it's hard to find people who can teach both Hindi and Urdu, which saves the university money).
I also made a deal with my host mom to meet up in Morocco in a few years. We'll see how that turns out. Khadeeja is going to take Rachael and I to get our noses pierced this week! I'm still on the fence about the whole thing, and I want to run it by my mom because it seems like a common courtesy to let her know if I plan to punch holes in the body she gestated (this might not be a transitive verb but I don't care) for so long, but I think I'll end up doing it. Hi Mom! I figure I can have it here and if I don't want to deal with it, I'll just take it out. Khadeeja said she'll take us to a reputable place, and I actually don't think it will be at all sketchy because literally 75% of women here have their noses pierced, so the piercing people definitely have experience. Also Khadeeja is planning to get her nose re-pierced so if she's doing it, it must be safe (she has high standards).
Oh they put the baby on the floor just now! I'm going to go play with her and see if she will crawl. She's about 7.5 months old and doesn't crawl yet, but she was premature by a month so apparently they start counting developmental things from the due date, not the day the baby is actually born. Crawling normally happens at 6 months, I guess. I'll let you know how this goes. She usually just lays there when we want her to crawl.
Anonymous | September 21, 2011 at 9:23 PM
Dear Emily - you have finally moved me to hit the "comment" button. A nose piercing, huh? Well, if you can fly halfway around the world, learn Hindi, haggle over taxi fares and other things multiple times a day, negotiate the streets of New Dehli, and still remember to ask your mom about a nose piercing, I think you are responsible enough make the decision for yourself. It sounds fine to me. On a side note, please remember how I feel about tatoos. Love, Mom