Shocker

I've started to feel my first twinges of total culture shock. I think when you get into a new environment you instantly compare it to everything you already know as, or believe is, real. And then you start judging it -- putting everything you know from home as superior, and categorizing all that is new as inferior, backwards. So I've decided to just get it all off my chest and then deal with it and move on.

But I want to preface this list with the fact that I absolutely love it here. I've only been in India for about two and a half weeks, and it is still completely bizarre and new, but there is something that is addicting and I know for certain this will not be my last time in India. Every day I become more accustomed to the way of life here -- the chaos, beauty, dirt, and fervor. I no longer hesitate eating only with my right hand, and I'm not fazed when I walk into a bathroom and there's a hole in the ground and no toilet paper.  While Pune might be lacking many things we take for granted in the States, it is undeniably an extremely vibrant city.

But here it goes. 

My Culture Shock =

• No toilet paper... anywhere
• Bucket showers, aka literally filling a bucket with water (semi good chance I can get the hot water heater to work) and pouring it on my body
• Drivers speeding up on the roads when they see a pedestrian coming, and then proceeding to blare their horn for a good five seconds even after you have sprinted by
• Little kids defecating on the sidewalks
• Beggars touching your hair and body, following you down the road for money. And then the worst, the quick hardening of the heart to the point where seeing a starving beggar barely even triggers a response from you whatsoever
• Indigestion
• Curfew is 10pm. I honestly don't think I've had this early of a curfew since 7th grade. Add on top of that, Indian women really don't drink that much. 
• Full-on slums on the sides of the bridge
• Zero traffic laws
• Having to eat everything with only your right hand. I don't know if I'll ever get fully comfortable using my hand to pick up sticky rice and dahl, but we'll see
• Holes in the ground for toilets
• Ratio of men to women on the streets
• Western women are instantly looked at as whores, unless you want to go super crunchy, which I do not
• Naked beggar children
• No salads or super fresh vegetables -- and if there are some, you can almost be certain they're infected with a random strain of bacteria 
• Regular power outages
• Thousands of stray dogs and cats
• Coating of dirt on everything outside
• Everything in a language I currently don't understand... at all
• No dryers --> constantly damp clothing, possessions, passports, towels, shoes, bodies
• Being a minority and the never-waning stares that follow you everywhere, anytime
• Inability to drink tap water or eat anything that could potentially have come in to contact with tap water
• Entirely new apparel -- no showing of shoulders, legs above the mid-calf, stomachs, lines of the body, cleavage
• People taking pictures/videos of you while you walk down the street
• Trash piles everywhere
• Metal detectors at the entrance of shopping malls
• No concept of to-go beverages
• No wifi 
• Streets with no street names