Around Faridabad

You know when you're a kid and you arent happy or your hurt or scared and then you maintain yourself until you see your mother, then you cry and cry and cry. That is today for me. Except mom is not around. They picked us up early from the apartment to take us to the orphan home. We drive to an area called Faridabad and if I can describe this place without any pictures, I say think national geographic. I'm sitting in a 70s van filled with volunteers on top of each other with luggage roped on top this poor vehicle and we're just screaming "foreigners." We honest to goodness look like refugees, and we continue to laugh amongst each other at this description. The 2 guy volunteers tease me about making sure I'm okay and comfortable in these conditions..i call them wise guys.. Alex from the east coast tells me he's going to hire an orphan kid to just stand over me and fan me all night. LOL I tell him thats mean but hmmmm, maybe not a bad idea. On the way we continue to see people living and working in conditions unimaginable to westerners but just an everyday norm to them. Cows with their rib bones sticking out graze the roadside, camels carrying straw, pigs eating garbage all around the ground, kids playing on top of their living area (shack), truck drivers, women carrying bowls of something on their heads, rickshaws and motorcycles with families FILLED in them....etc...you name it, its there. The picture opportunties are endless and I can come back with a really good photography storybook i think to myself. So then.......

We pull into this area loaded with men who look like they havent gotten lucky in a long time. If ever. I'm sitting at the window. Staring would be a tiny understatement and i start feeling queesy. I remember a month ago at home getting my shots and my doctor asked me if i wanted hepatitis a or b shot. Asked the difference and he said "A for mishandling of food and B for intimate contact and needles." I had said "oh noooooo, i only need A. No plans sleeping with the natives or doing heroine." Now I think....i should have gotten the B shot.

The rocket scientist driver we have cant find the orphan home and stops to ask every guy on the freakin road where the orphan home is. I'm thinking oh my god, they're all going to know where we're staying , dear god help me. I'm a freakin paranoid american, I'm terrified.

The orphan home refuses us till tomorrow. Seriously.

So 3 of us girls, they split the rest of everyone else up into different orphan homes, are staying at someone else's house now until tomorrow. The house is fine, tolerable, who cares at this point. Just the guys hanging around the house area makes me paranoid. Only because we're 3 girls all alone and don't know anyone.

Coming to this internet cafe has been the highlight of this day. There are other americans i hear talking in this cafe that i havent met and i'm going to hunt them down and become best friends in a matter of minutes. If you watched Euro-trip movie, this place Faridabad is like that place in the movie where the kids bought the whole town for 5cents............yeah.

This is it.

We're here....woo hoo. ;)

Namaste!

....means Hello :)

I got out of confinement and am having a blast minus the heat. My senses are all heightened to say the least. I am amazed by what I've seen in Old delhi and New Delhi in just the last 2 days. We were taken to a newer area built by the English which was green and gorgeous and then a poverty stricken area inside Old Delhi. Of course I was drawn to the people in poverty area more. I couldnt help but stare and think. Women that i saw here in those specific areas are amazing. I look at them taking care of the kids in the heat trying to sell a toy to make some money or working on the side of the street jackhammering in their saris and then I begin to take a look at myself and the life I live and why I feel so stressed out so much of the time. Actually you'd all be able to relate the same way I am if you were here instead. This is a whole different life. I'm speaking for the ones on the streets that earn their living. It really makes you appreciate the life you live and the things you take for granted. But my head does feel much lighter here. Simpler. I haven't been all over but I'm already immersed in the culture and am not as homesick anymore. It didnt help the first few days when i looked up from my floor mattress up at a wall map hanging above me and cringed whenever I saw how far home was from me. But now I find it fascinating. Ive been to so many countries but there's none so far like India. Its overwhelming emotionally. The kids are beautiful and some of them steal your breath away with their big brown eyes smiling at you. Everyone should make a trip here once in their life. I say this after having been out in the streets for 2 days. Oh and never ever ever ever come here in the summer. Its the biggest jackass move you can ever make so Dec or January might be a better option. I can't wait to see more on the weekends that I'm not working at the orphanage.
I don't want to fail to mention that as excited as we are to photograph the people, THEY are so much more excited to photograph us, especially the blond girls in the group. I mean seriously folks, wrap a sari around me and put on some heavy makeup and I'll blend right in with the natives... ;)
Speaking of saris, I got sized for one that I can wear the next time I shoot an Indian wedding back home. Will someone get married already??!!
The food is fabulous. I am loving it.

In the meantime, thanks for staying in touch with me and here are a few snapshots from the point and shoot.

In Delhi...

The last 4 days in Delhi have not been so great. Actually it's been nothing short of frustrating. After an hour of finally finding the man who was supposed to pick me up from the airport, I arrrived at someone's apartment. WTH? I ask the driver where he was taking me and he said Rajans apartment. Rajan is the program coordinator. Its 9pm and raining and humid and I just want a shower and sleep but I walk into an apartment with a few other volunteer girls who were just as unsure and scared as I seemed to be. I thought for a minute about those episodes they air on 20/20 where you think you're going to a project and end up as someone's prostitute, but I shake that thought. I can go on and on about the accomodations. Seriously I am so disappointed, not because I expected luxury in any way shape or form, but because the bathroom was disgusting and the sleeping arrangements were unreal. They crammed 5 girl in a 10x10 room with 4twin beds. Luckily the first night I slept next to a girl that lived 6 miles away from me in Arizona. How ironic we met in some random apartment in india, huh? I knew the accomodations at the orphan home wouldn't be great, but I didn't know I would be staying in the reps apartment. New people keep coming and and I don't know how they fit us all in this place. In ARizona, thats illegal. But we're not in Arizona, I know. I know.
Since I've arrived, Ive met some really fabulous people from all over the world who are doing the same thing as I am. We all ask why and we all answer with the same reason: I wanted to do something important in the world.

This past week and until Saturday, we are immersed in a class of hindi culture and language....at the apartment. Its so different than the US and I'm trying to be open minded but in all honesty, if I wasn't pouring sweat out of every pore in my body 24/7, then I'd likely be more open minded to sitting on the floor and taking notes during the day in a room with 20 people and no air conditioning and windows closed. I want to scream "Where are the kids? I want to see the kids! Get me out of this apartment!" But I'd likely be taken away with a strait jacket and sent to the ward, so I pass on this action.
I will see the kids over the weekend and my orphan project will begin then.
They moved me to another room where I slept by myself last night and the rep came into the room and told me he wanted to add a roommate. I said Sure. He said "its a boy." I am thinking since i will not be seeing Mike for a month, the last thing I need in the same room is something with a penis attached to it. I look up from my floor mattress at the rep and just say "please don't."

ARG. So now I have a Danish girl roomate but I still can't sleep a wink with the intense heat. I told the rep this morning that I'm getting a hotel with AC tonight. I need one night of sleep, one night.

I haven't really gotten out much yet. We are in a rural suburbish kind of area if that makes sense: Its busy but its villagey. The people have been so nice of what I've seen so far but tomorrow I will venture out on a day trip into Old Delhi. I will then start photographing. It feels so surreal to be in India. I can't explain it. I'm dying to get out of the apartment and into the world.

In the meantime, thanks for letting me vent without pictures. Please be thankful that you have random things like air conditioning and shower heads and bowel movements. Yes I said bowel movements. These are all things I've taken for granted and would give anything to get them all back!! LOL My shower exists of a pipe coming out of the wall and shooting out of the shower area and onto the floor. I shower with flip flops on. Please no visuals, it aint cute.
I am glad I have a fantastic group of girls with me who I laugh hysterically with and because we're all on the same page.
Rajan the program rep is actually very very nice. I like him. I have some major adjustments to get use to and I'm sure I will be fine in time. I am so not the 'roughing it' type of girl. Soooooo not that type! And I'm perfectly fine with that.
Peace.

Until we meet again...in India!

First off, I wanted to say THANK YOU for all the nice comments on the blog in regards to traveling to India for the orphan project. And to those who sent emails, I also appreciate your enthusiasm and support as well. I have to confess, I didn't think it was that big of a deal except to me. I greatly appreciate the kind words but please note I am not a saint and don't want you to think I am one. Far from it actually. I am a normal person that has time and a ticket, and just doing something tiny to help out in the world. You are all capable of doing the same exact thing. :)

I leave tomorrow morning and other than the long plane ride there and waiting in line at customs, I cannot wait to see a new place and meet new faces, especially the little ones. The closest I've been to India was having traveled all over the middle east and that was fascinating enough. I can only imagine what else awaits in this land of beauty.

My friends and I met up one night this week to see each other. I am SO thankful for the women in my life who have no idea how important they are to me. I will be thinking of you. And for the ones I didn't get to see that evening, I missed you too.

I will try to do a travel journal with some point and shoot pictures on my blog from India. I will leave the artsy fartsy stuff for when I come back and will be blogging on India until Christmas. LOL

Leave me comments when I'm gone and let me know you were on here. xoxo














I have to tell you the story behind this: My close aunt use to work for an international airline company years ago. One of her clients was going to India and asked her if she'd like anything back from there. She laughed and said "yeah, bring me back the taj mahal." So he did. LOL
So fast forward to 2 years ago. She was ill. Every week I would go visit her and once in a while I'd say "I really love that wooden Taj." She'd joke around and say "well don't worry, when I die, it goes to you." We laughed and that was it.

Then one day I'm over at her house and she says "Honey, it's time for you to take this."
I cried.
So now she's gone and it sits on my shelf and has a special meaning behind it.

I can't wait to see the real Taj. I read that the Shah Jehan had this grand masterpiece built as a burial for his wife who died giving birth to their 14th child.
Wow.
Now that's some serious love and devotion, folks.






One of my favorite quotes on the keychain which I got last year. Who knew?

Good by dodge charger....hello rickshaw! Can't wait.

Kelli

Meet Kelli. We photographed yesterday at a mansion. Yes.

She is going to have her own TV show air soon and wanted to do some images for her website and marketing type materials. She's very personable and pretty, kind of a tossup between Jennifer Aniston and Heather Locklear. I processed all images differently, and then did some studio lighting some natural light.

And her hubby Mike below too! Beautiful couple.

Why women need catalogs!

I'm laughing so hard, tears are rolling down my face.

My MIL forwarded this short video and it's the funniest thing I've gotten in a while.
You must see!

Few more women pictures

These were all taken within the last month either at a function i was involved in or while I was out with them. All very sweet ladies.


My cousin Lana




My friend Jennie who modeled this vintage wedding dress at a fashion show





My friend Renee at someone's home




Marina from a fashion show