Intense week at the fair and bollywood dancing

Coming home from NLDS (AIESEC conference) I went directly into two fairs for my work. We were showcasing our products and trying to sell them on the spot. It meant working 9.00-21.30 every day which made the week very intense. I even had to work on public holidays and Sunday. It was interesting to meet all these people, especially at the property fair since at least there they spoke decent English. When I had to move to the 'A touch of class' fair the language became a problem and it was quite boring. I entertained myself by handing out flyers and making it a sport to give them out to as many people as possible without getting rejected. It took many confident smiles and well placed hellos and other words of courtesy. I also learnt some useful phrases of Hindi to break the ice.

I lost my camera battery and charger so I don't have any new pictures to share this time! :(

I made a good friend with a guy with limited English level that I was working with. He taught me a lot of bad words in Hindi and was very social in general. One of the girls I exchanged business cards with during the fair actually called me one night wanting me to come visit her. I didn't know how to react, but I agreed to meeting her the day after if she would send her address. She never sent her address though, so I did not go. Then she called again few days after wanting to set up another meeting, but reception was bad so she said she would call again. I don't know her intentions so I'll just let it be and see what happens... =)

During the fair I found out that Amit that I am working with is a successful chess player, so we'll make sure to play some later on. I also got to meet two of our new colleagues. Sankeit and Tarun. Sankeit was at an AIESEC internship few years ago and is a fun and social guy that I get along well with. Tarun is a very straight forward guy saying what is on his mind and asking a lot of direct questions not wrapped into anything. Even if that is far from the way Swedes normally communicates I don't mind working with him and he is a good guy.

At home we are practising bollywood dancing for the landlords son's wedding the next week. We have six different dances to learn and we practise two hours every night. Due to the fair I missed many days in the beginning, so I have a lot to catch up with. It is a lot of fun though, even if its hard to follow since everyone else practised a lot more and most of the instructions and talking is in Hindi...
 
Me and my housemates also had some nice music evenings where we play guitar, flute and sing. It feels so great to get the chance to play guitar again. If Eva, the girl with the guitar, doesn't bring it back to Switzerland when she moves back in a few weeks I will propose to buy it from her. Nittin aka Lucky, another housemate of mine, showed me a nearby gym, so as soon as my cold is over I will get back into physical exercise.
  
Here are some pictures from my house that I took a few weeks ago. We are a bunch of AIESEC people living on the upper floor of a big two floor house. I am sharing the room with an Indian guy, Gautam, who also used to be an active AIESECer.

Our combined desk and closet

My bed

The common kitchen

The inner "garden"

What else puzzled me recently is the male-female relationships and customs. Before going to India I read that approximately 70% of the weddings are still arranged ones, so I had the prejudice that boyfriends/girlfriends do not happen that much. (I guess I don't really know what arranged wedding means either) Having been here for over a month I still have not figured how things works. Some people are in relationships, some girls gives hugs when saying goodbye and others only shakes hands. I was also asked to remove the pictures I uploaded from the prom in the last blog post from my facebook pictures, since she would get in trouble if her parents saw them. The whole thing makes me very curious so I think I will have to find some "expert" here and get the system explained! =)