Acclimation

I’m sitting in our pitch dark room at the Nu Tech Mediworld hospital in Green Park, Delhi, India rehashing the first few days of acclimating to the extreme hustle and bustle of my new temporary home. It’s 6 a.m., Ryan’s still asleep and I thought I’d may as well just get up instead of fool myself into thinking I can sleep some more. The room is perfectly comfortable. Our circadian clocks, however, are royally screwed, to put it lightly, since our 14-hour flight flew against the spin of the Earth, causing us to lose 13 and a half hours. It’s 7:30 p.m. E.S.T. I feel so cheated!

That’s not true, I feel so lucky to be so comfortably uncomfortable. The air quality in Delhi is the poorest I’ve seen…by far! Cars, rickshaws, bicycles, tractors and every other automobile whizz by at breakneck speeds, bob and weave through spaces you’d believe they’d never fit, all the while their drivers unceasingly laying on the horn. I’m convinced that some horns are eternally “on” with a button to occasionally silence them. There are shanty towns around every corner and garbage is everywhere. This place is raw and I love it…for now anyways! I’ll likely be in search of reprieve when Ryan leaves mid January.

But the positives far outweigh these negatives. The negatives are the positives, in a way possibly. Hmm, hard to understand and harder to explain. Of the initial explorations and observations, the people here appear curiously content. They just seem to be “ok”, with whatever it is they’re doing; even the lowest of the low on the totem pole. There are oases of vibrant color among deserts of the most drab. Mouthwatering smells of teas and spices amidst exhaust and smog. Patches of lush greenery, exotic birds and ancient temples surrounded by the dilapidation of the modern world. These first few days have been a complete awakening of the senses.