First day in Mumbai

I arrive yesterday afternoon at the place where I will stay until my allocation. It is over my expectation. I stay in an apartment alone for now; I heard that someone has to come today.

The apartment is very clean, it has everything, and when I say everything it really means everything: starting with special antibacterial soap, teeth brush, clean towels and bed sheets, filtered water, ending with 3 guys that are here to be sure nothing is missing to us. All the floor is TCS’s and they clean, cook for us; help us in everything we need.

Everything is different here. These are the plugs from my room. I still don’t know what all those buttons do.

The living room

My room. The windows have strong mosquito’s nets. They have nothing to do with our poor so called windows nets.

The bathroom from my room. There are a lot of tap that I don’t know what they do. It took me half of hour to discover how to haul water.

The kitchen. Everything is very very clean.

This is a machine that I don’t know what it does. I think it filter the water.

The ingredients for cooking

The dishes

An antibacterial hand gel.

The filtered water.

The gas system. It looks a little bit dangerous for me, but they say it is safe.

They have a place to hold something, in the kitchen, but I don’t know why or how they use it.

The Indian God

A special solution for mosquitoes.

A Turkish cookie

The entrance room has an entire security system.

Every morning I receive newspapers

The house has some rules regarding the dressing code (I cannot get out of my room in pajama or in sport wear, they are only for doing sport, nobody can sleep at me during the night).

In India all men wear shirt, including those who clean the street.

That machine spreads some gas for mosquitoes and other insects.

I’m leaving in a closed zone. There are a doorman in the entrance of the zone and one in the block of flats.

Yesterday night I eat something that they call dal fry (it is like a soup) with Indian bead (chapatti) and rise. It was delicious! The rise is clear white and it is nourish. It isn’t like ours that makes you feel like eating amidon.

Today in the morning I eat poa, which is rise with something that looks like pennants, but smaller, with other unknown ingredients that make it very tasty. It had no chili, special for me. Indians put chili in everything! Everything is extremely spicy. Imagine that in this morning I drank a tea with milk (since I know myself there is a rule: no tea/water with milk) with chili J of course.

India is definitely another world. I’m feeling like rediscovering the world. Everything is different, people are different, they have different habits, and everything is more complex and complicated here (see the buttons from my room or the tapes from bathroom), but all of there is because they are a complex culture too.