Life at the office: drowning squirrels and twice-daily chai

For the past few weeks, the Patna Team has been happily settling into office-based life. To inaugurate the new space, we did a simplified version of a ritual called ग्रेह प्रवेश (Greh Pravesh), which literally means something like "to go into the home," but is referring to purifying a home before you go in for the first time. Nikhil, one of the project assistants, suggested that we should call it कार्यालय प्रवेश, Caryaalay (office) Pravesh. We only did a small portion of the ritual, but it was still pretty fun; check out these photos:

Fluenzy English School

Although our posts often involve the theme of language, we rarely take the time to focus on particular words that cause us an inordinate amount of frustration or amusement. Nor do we often share stories about how (especially VA's) extremely colloquial American English often bewilders those we interact with. So here are two examples:

Making friends, मानव (human) and मच्छर (mosquito)

Yesterday I came back from another two-day field visit, this time to try to get access to records of development spending. It is legally required to be made publically available, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get. The meetings themselves were time-consuming and frustrating, but ultimately somewhat successful, and I'll be going back next week to get things straightened out. However, I'm not going to tell you about my meetings. Because this time, we didn't stay in a hotel. We stayed at the home of the cousin of my Project Assistant, Rashmi and wow was that an experience.

The Cost of Haircuts and Exercise

Haircuts are often used in intro econ courses to explain the Balassa-Samuelson effect and to justify the use of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) estimates of developing country incomes in lieu of the actual exchange rate. Basically, developing country wages are depressed due to relatively low productivity in tradable sectors despite near-equivalent productivity in non-tradable sectors. To me, this means that I got a Rs 20 haircut today (my first in a foreign country!), even though I pay 46 times this in the US (ie $20). The purpose of my haircut was to keep cool since I am starting a running regimen, and so it gave me an opportunity to think about the relative prices people pay here to exercise.

Hair Spa

In general, I am not given over to extravagance (I just finished reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and I'm afraid the phrasing has seeped into my vocabulary…). However, there is one indulgence that I thoroughly enjoy, and that the low cost here allows me to partake of on occasion: day spa treatments. Jeff and I had been hunting for a gym, and we visited one near our apartment called Addiction Fitness (Rs. 5,000 for 3 months, or roughly $36/month - which Jeff says is too expensive). I noticed that upstairs there was a "ladies only" salon, and made a mental note. So here I am, in the capital of India's poorest state, and I manage to find a day spa with prices way more affordable than the US (the entire experience I describe below cost about $15 total).

Barf Pastries

The team is starting to move into the new office. Right now we are in the psychosomatic phase of our move: molding our psyches to coexist seamlessly with the psyche of the office; gradually increasing our awareness of the space and internalizing the concept of Place; joining our minds with the body of the building and allowing the mind of the building to unite with our bodies in a gloriously efficient synergy...

Sundi Proteins - Halal, Hygenic

* This title comes from the sign above a really sketchy looking shop (sorry to ruin your surprise, Erik; it has no bearing on the post)

JEFF AND I JUST GOT CARE PACKAGES. Yes, I'm acting like I'm a 13 year old who just started boarding school. I don't freaking care. We received two packages within a few days of each other (one from my mom, and one from my dad), and we are reveling in the wonderfulness that is American food.