goodbye, stringent american cleanliness!

I think I'm slowly sweating off that hypochondria we americans call hygiene. We eat most of our meals out, and everything—from rice to runny yogurt to curries—is eaten with your hands. Then you rinse them off in a dirt-covered bathroom, wipe them on your tunic and squat to pee into a hole in the ground. Usually someone brings along hand-sanitizer. Then after walking through refuse-filled streets in flip-flops, you pile seven people into a three-seater rickshaw that is absolutely never cleaned and breeze through the smoggy night air. The showers are frigid at night and in the morning though, so sometimes tiredness wins over that sticky film that you're covered with at the end of a day out. Everything is absolutely filthy here—but I can honestly say it’s liberating. I never shave, (because we're covered from head to toe--no one would know if I did! I have blisters and bites all over my feet, and every time you go anywhere—even just around campus, you’re drenched in sweat by the time you arrive. These Indian bicycles don’t have much air in their tires—to compensate for the bumpy terrain, I think--so making your way up and down huge hills around campus is slightly grueling.
But I love it. It’s like a constant stream of endorphins all day, including when you take your meals, because EVERYTHING is spicy and causes you to sweat even more. I usually order northern Indian food when we eat out, (i.e. less spicy) and even then there’s the occasional unfortunate that makes its way to the back of your throat and causes tears to start streaming. ..haha. Everything here is intense. That's the best word I've come up with so far, and I think I stole it from my roommate.