Week 6: To and Fro, Here and There
I came back from Rishikesh sore from hiking but refreshed from the beautiful sights.
Now, it was time to get back to work!
I only had a couple of weeks in India before I would be going back home, and I had lots of data to sort through and analyze before presenting my findings.
At this point in my internship, the homesickness was starting to hit. I knew that the reverse would certainly occur once I would be back to the mundane calm of the midwest, but I was having intense cravings for ranch and unseasoned, plain ol', vegetable stew.
Although I had a couple of weeks left, Adalyn was getting ready to present and return home on Wednesday night.
Bisruti would be leaving that Sunday, and than I would be all alone!
Monday and Tuesday were mostly comprised of work. My field visits had been going really well, but I still needed to visit a non-intervention village to be able to compare my results. Although I still had lots of work to do at this point, having finalized data in front of me was a rewarding feeling. It began to dawn on me that I would be leaving India in just a couple of weeks as I put together the pieces of my data together and started preparing my final presentation.
On Wednesday, Adalyn was presenting her final results, and the rest of the day we were going to explore Delhi with our fellow Borlaug-Ruan Intern Dev!
Exploring a city with someone who knows every cozy bookshop and the best restaurants is always the best way to get to know a new place, and we were very fortunate that Dev isn't too far away.
Back in Ames, we have a wonderful downtown with all sorts of shops, cafes, and fun places to buy tea, books, Ukrainian baked goods, and more. Khan Market felt like an elevated equivalent to the cozy downtown I grew up with, but the shops here were like no other.
Our first stop was a bookstore that looked like it was straight out of a movie.
As JP my French teacher would say, it had a certain je ne sais quoi.
There were piles and piles of books everywhere of all different sorts. The clutter of the books combined with the smell of leather and paper created an unforgettable atmosphere that you only experience in places like these.
Bookstores are a dangerous place for me. I am often prone to draining paychecks whenever I go to Dog Eared Books in Ames or the local BAM.
Here was no different. I found a beautiful book of Irish folk stories about fairies, a collection of stories by R. K. Narayan, and a feminist Southern Gothic.
My favorite thing to do in markets is to hop from one shop to another exploring all sorts of wares. We came across a really neat shop that contained magnets that looked exactly like different Indian dishes! It was a store full of all sorts of trinkets; it reminded me a lot of a little shop back home called Paradox, which has plenty of trinkets and knick knacks from who knows where.
We went and got some lunch at this incredible chinese restaurant that had an incredible assortment of things to order. I had the best orange chicken of my life alongside a scrumptious boba. Whenever food makes me cry (which is quite often), than it's a 5 star rating from me.
Our next stop was ice cream. We went to a small shop that had all sorts of sweets. The interior was my favorite part. The shelves were painted this beautiful mix of lime and light sage, and the walls were covered in these very derpy looking parrots.
It was the coolest ice cream shop ever, and it was also scrumptious.
After adventuring a bit more and exploring some other places in New Delhi, we made our way to India Gate.
The monument was massive, and the scaling done to fit the Subhas Chandra Bose statue in the center of the opening of the gate was incredible to see in person. Just like the Taj Mahal, it looked like it was right out of a 3D picture book.
After a full day of adventuring, it was time for Adalyn to get ready to go back home! After she left, it was just me and Bisruti left on campus. Once Arujun packed her bags in the car and drove her to the airport, I realized that my journey would be ending soon as well.
The next day, I would be going to the field to do my FGD activity in a non-intervention village!
Except I couldn't, because it was raining cats and dogs.
I even prepared a day in the life video script and everything! Although I love the rain, the monsoon season was making it difficult to head to the field very often.
The rest of the week, I mostly just sorted through data, worked on my powerpoint and paper, and mentally prepared for my presentation that would be occurring next Tuesday!
That Sunday, Bisruti left, and since I was the only one left on my floor I would have to move to the guest house so that I wouldn't be all alone.
On Sunday evenings, us Borlaug-Ruan Interns all get together to chat about our experience and get to know each other!
Being able to talk and meet with the others in our cohort was such a treat. I am so glad Anna, our fellow intern in Hyderabad researching at ICRISAT, had an idea to bring us all together virtually each Sunday. Our cohort is comprised of some seriously cool people, and they have been great company even though we are scattered all around the world.
HUGE thanks to Emily for listening to my presentation before I presented. We found out that we were presenting on the same day, and she was kind enough to listen to a quick walkthrough to help me cut down on my ridiculous amount of slides. Befriending students who study vastly different fields of study than my own can come in handy, especially if you come across a mysterious plant with promising medicinal properties. When Emily becomes a super talented plant scientist someday, perhaps she will crack the biochemical code of punarnava and create something amazing.
Now there was just one week left. And this week was one of the busiest weeks of my entire life.
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