Bad A**

Tattoos, climbing, face scarves, and....the hoki-poki.
The reasons I have titled this a bad a** post. (It has been edited for G-rated audiences).


There is not too much to report from this week. Work was work. We spent the first half of each day doing office/computer work (which was difficult with all the power outages, and failing of the share-drive), then the second part of the day working with the kids.
They always make my day.

So one day after we had finished a decent amount of studying and working, the one of the girls from the second batch, Varsha, pulled out a strip of colourful, glittery stick-on tattoos, as she showed off the five or six she had running up her slender little arms. All the girls quickly turned on Yvette and I and without waiting for our consent began slapping roes and butterflies on to us.
The tattoos addition to the re-styling of my hair, preformed by 4-5 little Indian cosmetologists at once, made for an very endearing afternoon.
And of course I looked very rough and tumble with my new ink.
















After all the personal adornment was completed, we decided to engage in another too-cool-for-school activity...the hoki-poki. Yes.
And man, do these kids love it. I have never been so hoki-pokied out.


Then comes the weekend where it is always a game of determining how to fill the vast expanse of free time. This particular Saturday the game was easy. I had a mission: find the climbing gym.
We had heard fantastical rumors of a climbing gym operated by the mysterious Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), which was supposedly located quite close to us on the University of Delhi's south campus.
We ventured out to find it.

When we arrived to the area, which was a very short rickshaw ride from home, we were lucky enough to have two Indian girls kindly show us the appropriate University entrancement, most of which are gated. After hiking up a nice little forested driveway, we came upon the IMF headquarters. The grounds were green, well-kept and beautifully landscaped; as for the the climbing wall, well it was hard to miss.

Lazying around the structure, hoping on a climb here and there, were two Frenchmen, doing so bad a**, pumpy-looking roofed and overhanging climbs; and several young Indians (and one girl, hooray our kind is welcome!). The air was very relaxed, just chill. It seemed as if everyone knew everyone. I would even venture to say that it must be a very close-knit group that hangs around this wall. The people were friendly and asked if we needed help, we mentioned that we were interested in climbing. The gave us forms to fill out and mentioned that monthly passes were only 500 rupees ($12.50), but we were supposed to come and climb for a few days to a week before were could be awarded the coveted monthly pass. We have to prove ourselves as loyal and consistent apparently.

We also wandered into the IMF HQ it self. It was a very spacious, building lined with pictures and descriptions of various climbing exploits.

Quite satisfied with ourselves, the success of our quest and the fact that we would be climbing very soon, we headed back into the depths of New Delhi, done up to protect ourselves from the heat, in the most bad a** of styles of course.