Saturday, June 6, 2009

New Chick in Town

I once heard somewhere that there is a special technique for introducing new chicks to an already established coop. In the middle of the night, you must sneak the chicks in, being careful not to wake the others. The next morning the chickens will wake up and instantly accept the chicks, wrongly believing that the new arrivals had always been there. Bring the new chicks in during the day, however, and the newbies will be pecked at and harassed by the rest of the flock.

Arriving in Delhi last Tuesday, I could not help but think of this. Two other UNICEF interns and I emerged from the airport at about 10:30 pm, and we piled ourselves and two months worth of luggage into a taxi cab. As we braced ourselves against the high-speed traffic, the chaotic round abouts, and the aggressive honking, we made our first dim impressions of India. By the time we reached the International Youth Centre (a confusing journey that required our driver to ask for directions multiple times), all was dark and quiet. A man behind the reception desk handed us our keys and almost silently we made our way to our rooms.

For the next three days, in a haze of jet lag, we were ushered from one air conditioned room to another, as the UNICEF staff offered lectures to help orient ourselves to India, UNICEF and the work we will be doing over the summer. We were eased into our surroundings, not really exploring the more populated areas of the city till the end of orientation. By that time, we felt pretty secure with wandering around on our own, and Delhi in its hectic, carefree sort of way seemed more than willing to accept us.

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