Megan Is Going to India

Revelations from the home front

2010-02-17T13:58:00.002-07:00

Hi everyone!

I know it's been a while, but I have gotten a few requests for "updates" from back in Cheeseburger land. I know there are a few of you lurking out there still waiting to see if this update ever comes, and so, with gusto, here it is.

I am, to put it quite simply, perhaps the happiest I've ever been. I'm living off campus with my friend Margaux, my roommate from last year. I'm co-chair of CC's Honor Council, a passion of mine since I came to CC nearly three years ago. I'm back working at the Circulation desk at the library, a job that seems less like a job and more like a hobby. And I'm applying for a summer fellowship to work at CC's Admissions office this summer--something I've been excited about applying for since freshman year.

Last block I took Archaeology of the African Diaspora, a class that I didn't expect to love but came out inspired for further study. I was supposed to take Nutrition this block but actually dropped it in favor of another diaspora-based class, Africana Philosophy. This class is constantly blowing my mind, and I love everything about it. It's crazy to think that these are the kinds of courses that could inspire the next ten years of my education, but there you go. I've almost decided that academia is the life for me. I love school too much and too deeply to give it up. I'm not talking about grad school right after college, but I do think school is where I belong. It's brought me to a sort of peace with my education. I'm doing exactly what a liberal arts education begs you to do--take the classes you love and find a way to make it what you do, instead of trying to learn to love something you simply don't.

I finally feel as though I've found a balance in my life. A balance between social and alone time and the right (at least for me) balance between work and play. I found out I'm going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for spring break with my best friend. Not for the traditional ten days of drunken debauchery expected of my peers, but rather for a relaxing few days on the beach learning how to surf and scuba dive with Jessie.

It's strange to consider, but in these days, as I move from meeting to meeting and place to place, that these might be the happiest days of my life. But as soon as I have that thought, I reject it--because now that I know what it's like to be happy (really, truly happy. Who knew this place actually existed for an echo boomer with strong perfectionist and idealistic streaks?), I want to believe that I will be able to recreate this balance from here forward. No, not everything is perfect in my life. Not everything is going exactly according to plan. But India (yes, India) brought me to this place. Let me see if I can explain:

I think I wrote a little before I left about feeling that everything was just going to be okay. I reached this point near the end of my travels where I gave up on worrying and gave up trying to control every situation. I started to feel like everything would just work itself out. Obviously, I have to play a significant role in my own life (and if I want something, I have to work for it), but it's like the serenity prayer... God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things that I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. I don't necessarily believe in God any more than I did before I left for the subcontinent, but I think I may have finally found the "wisdom" to tell the difference.

It's incredibly freeing to be so "zen," in this swirling vortex of academia. All I can say is that India somehow taught me, in all it's frustrating moments and times when I wanted nothing more than to give up on it, that I am strong enough to deal with whatever comes my way. And I know that in these passing moments I may feel overwhelmed... but I also know that no matter what, everything will be okay in the end.

I don't know how accurately I'm able to define these "zen" moments, but I hope my description has been good enough to assure you all that I am happy and healthy. I am feeling at peace with the present, thankful for the past and my experiences, and excited to see what the future holds. I know, somehow, that things will work out for the best.

The end is near.

2009-12-18T19:49:00.002-07:00

Hi friends!

Well, can you believe it? Today is December 19th and I'm leaving for home today! I really, really can't believe this day is finally here. This date seemed so far away when we bought my ticket back in June and now here it is. Everyone warned me that my time here would fly, and as cheesy as it was... they were right. The past few weeks have been a blur of Indian monuments and sightseeing, bus rides and train rides, samosas and wada (mmmm). But here we go... my last blog (in India). I can't promise I'll stop writing after I get home. :)

Delhi, like I mentioned in my last blog, was overwhelming. Like Mumbai, just knowing you're in one of the 5 largest cities in the world (Mumbai has 19 million residents approximately, Delhi around 15 million) can start to play with your mind. After Ben left, Nate and I had very little energy to do anything... we actually attempted to see the new Twilight movie, simply to escape what I think was finally culture shock, and ended up stumbling into Americaland. There was a movie theater surrounded by American food... McDonald's, Sbarro, Pizza Hut, Ruby Tuesday's and a Bennigan's. We laughed and decided to go for some Pizza Hut... then promptly ordered the most Indian pizza on the menu. I guess some habits are hard to break? We didn't see the movie though, as it turns out they were only showing the OLD Twilight movie and neither of us were willing to shell out 150 rupes ($3) for that one.

The next day we decided it was definitely time to GET OUT, so we headed to the train station to buy some tickets. We were informed by a helpful guy working at the Station (actually wearing a uniform... oh my GOD!) who told us that tickets to Jhansi, the next town, weren't sold at that Station. Instead, we needed to go to one of Delhi's SIX other stations to get the tickets. Or, he suggested, we could go to the International Tourism Office, which often helps tourists from around the world book things like this. We took his advice and headed over there. The man who helped us was great but was unfortunately the bearer of bad news. Every train we wanted to take out of Delhi was booked solid.... for the next ten days. We were at a loss. This had never happened in India before. After a few hours of negotiating on the phone, we finally came to a solution--the only option, really--that included 2-Tier AC tickets (essentially 1st class in the Indian rail system... usually we travel 2nd Class, 3-Tier, one step above the lowest Unreserved tickets. They were ridiculously expensive by Indian standards, about 1300 rupees, but we just went with it. After Jhansi we would head to Khajuraho, Varansi, then Kanha and home. It worked out because at least we already had all of our tickets booked. We were optimistic as we left that afternoon for Jhansi.

AC turned out to be hardly worth the extra money, save the fact that it got us out of Delhi. The people in our compartment were rather unfriendly and rude. Nate and I slept most of the way and listened to Ender's Shadow on audiobook... yes, this has become one of our favorite train ride hobbies. We got into Jhansi at about 10pm and knew right away we would have a problem. We ended up, after a long series of mishaps, staying at the worst hotel of my entire time in India. For 500 rupees--far more than what it was worth. I will save you the details, but the most I can say for that hotel was that we weren't there long. The bus to Khajuraho left the next morning early, so we were in and out of the hotel in about 5 hours. The bus to Khajuraho was uneventful and long.

Khajuraho, a series of temples named for the town they reside in, ended up being quite the polar opposite of Jhansi. The people were helpful, friendly, and everything, to our surprise, was dirt cheap. A clean room in a Yoga Retreat cost us 100 rupees apiece. Because of the way they had booked our trains at the office in Delhi, we were seriously rushed at this point in our travels. We got into the hotel around noon, spent a few hours in the temple complex, then left the next morning as early as we had begun THAT morning. The temples were wonderful, though. I won't get into details of what the sculptures actually depict, but I can tell you that they're all images from the Kama Sutra and when a British officer stumbled upon the temples, he referred to them as "utterly obscene and completely offensive." You can see why we thought this trip would be a funny one.

When we were in the temples, we just sort of wandered around for a while. We stumbled upon a pretty obscene picture that made us laugh, but when I first saw it, I pointed at it and loudly said, "WHOA!" Nate and I heard laughter behind us and we realized that two Indian men hadn't paid to get into the complex but were standing outside the fence by the most obscene pictures, waiting for tourists to go by so they could see their reactions. Priceless.

The next day was absurdly early again (I think I've seen 8 sunrises out of the last 10...), and we were off to Varansi. After two rickety bus rides and a train ride in which an old Muslim Dada (grandfather in Hindi) told Nate that he was the "image of God," we finally got into Varanasi at around 10 pm. We were worried about Varanasi, after having been warned by every Indian we talked to that Varansi was dirty and the people there not to be trusted. We negotiated with a rickshaw to take us to an internet cafe, so we could figure out what hotel Allison and Garrett were in. We got in a fight with the guy, who wanted to charge us too much, so we wandered around for a while until we found another. He took us deep into the heart of the old city, winding lanes and cobblestone streets with no signs pointing the way. I started to get worried about our destination actually being findable when we turned down the smallest lane I've ever seen a rickshaw drive down and he came to an alley and pointed us down it, saying that Shiva International Guest House was down the lane. We asked him to wait... Nate and I were both very skeptical. We wandered through the alley, I tripped a few times, and then we came into a small living area. Once we got inside, an Indian lady asked us, "Are you friends of Simon's?" We said no but then said, "Allison and Garrett?" She smiled widely and pointed us to a door and then, in seconds, our friends opened the door laughing. I was absolutely amazed. India is like this sometimes... where you are SURE you won't find a place, but then all of a sudden you'll stumble down a dark alley and emerge at the end to find you're in a hospitible, cheap hotel where your friends are staying.

Our stay in Varansi was fantastic. The hotel was possibly my favorite that we stayed at, even though our room didn't have an attached batroom. The people were super friendly and hospitable, and we ate some of the best food of our travels at Shiva International. Allison and Garrett had heard about the place from an Irishman they met in Nepal--the mythical Simon. We met him and his friend Shinae, who had gone trekking with Garrett and Allie. We all spent our time in Varanasi cruising the Ganges--the second most polluted river in the world--in a rowboat. We set off the oil lamps with rose petals inside and watched a special Varanasi pooja from the boat that evening. Again, our time was rushed so we didn't get a chance to enjoy Varanasi as much as we'd hoped, but it worked out well.

Garrett ended up wanting to fly back to Pune, so Allison joined us for the last leg of our trip instead. She was excellent company and relieved Nate and I from our stupor induced by too many sunrise bus rides and not enough laughing. We had more long travel ahead of us--7 hours by train to Jabalpur and then another 5 hours by bus to Kanha. We had trouble deciding what to do that day. We considered seriously just trying to stay on our train to Jabalpur all the way to Mumbai and then catch a train back to Pune, but we decided to suck it up and make Kanha happen despite our travel exhaustion. Another early morning bus ride to Kanha put us into the national park around noon, and again we had only an afternoon to enjoy the park. It was worth it--even though we didn't see any of the park's famous tigers, we did see some great wildlife like the huge Sambar deer and lots of birds. We shared our jeep with two birdwatchers--another Irishman and an Indian professor from Calcutta. They made the trip so much better! Even though we undoubtedly would have enjoyed the scenery, their knowledge and excitement about birds made the whole thing much more interesting. The next day--our last day--started bright and early and we commenced with 24 hours of travel all the way back to Pune.

The last two days have seriously been a blur. They've been wonderful and tragic, saying goodbye to Sucheta, Seema, Anju, Tukaram and Subhan at ACM, Allison, Garrett and Nate. This morning, I've already said goodbye to my Aie who has to be at work all day and am not looking forward to saying goodbye to my precious host sisters. All good things must come to an end, I suppose, but I don't know if I'm ready for it to. I wish that my life at home and my life in India could coexist; I could live both lives at once and never have to be away from anyone that I love. But here we are, and I'm leaving the subcontinent for who knows how long... but at least I know that my return will be wonderful.

In the end, I think I have come full-circle: I leave India as I left America four months ago. Happy to be departing but sad to leave, anxious for the coming semester, and excited to see what the future holds. For now, though, it's time for my last Indian breakfast.

Signing off... see you all back in America!

North India: More expensive than regular India

2009-12-09T02:02:00.002-07:00

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry it's been so long since the last time I wrote... the last month of school was an absolutely INSANE month of school. I basically ended up condensing a whole semester's worth of work into one month. This would have been like the block plan had I only had one class, but instead, I had three to worry about. Ah, well, everything worked out pretty fantastically in the end, though not without stressing me out/absolutely exhausting me. But it's over now! My semester officially ended on December 1, and I've been traveling in North India for about a week now with my friends Ben and Nate.

We started out our journey in Rajesthan, India's famous desert state. That state is basically exactly the opposite of Kerala, where we were in the South. The temperatures are also approximately the opposite. Our train ride from Mumbai to Udaipur was completely frigid. And, because we are Americans in India, we assumed that everywhere in India is pretty much the same in terms of temperature except for the Himalayas in the Winter, so we didn't really both too much to prepare except to bring sweatshirts. The night was passed by me curled up inside my sweatshirt and underneath my towel. It didn't work. At about 4 AM, Ben and Nate both ended up huddling together with me on my bed for warmth while the smart Indians around us slept peacefully under their big blankets. This was not the only cold journey we've had: turns out, at night in December, north India is COLD. Oh, well. We're making it through!

Udaipur, despite the terrible trip up there, was an absolutely fantastic city. We all fell in love. My Rough Guides book calls it "the most romantic city in India," and I think that's probably true. The '82 James Bond--Octopussy--was filmed here, and they're completely obsessed with it. We hired a taxi driver named Mr. Singh to show us around for the day, and he actually drove Roger Moore in a rickshaw during filming once. The city is typically old-school India: the buildings are crammed together in a winding mess of alleyways that would take years to learn. Mr. Singh knew them all, of course, and found us a great hotel at pretty cheap. The buildings are mostly whitewashed and set near three beautiful lakes in a mountain valley. We spent the day with Mr. Singh seeing the sights and SHOPPING. I've never seen so much amazing shopping in a single day in India... but the wares and the shopkeepers were irresistible. We made friends with a few of the vendors near our hotel and made sure to go back to them before buying anything. Udaipur also inspired me for the next time I visit India: I'm bringing a fund specifically to get a coat tailored. Yeah, of all things, in Udaipur they have dozens of high-end tailors that make things like dresses and peacoats for about $100. Very, very cool.

The only thing that was disconcerting about Udaipur was how touristy it was; it was the first city on our tour and we saw soo many white people, it was a little unnerving. Since I've been living in a city where usually the only other white people I see are in my class, it's weird to be a part of the tourist track again. I feel somehow like "my" India has been invaded, though of course it's nothing like that. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like, being in the States again.

From Udaipur, we made our way to Pushkar--a city famous for a camel festival that happens every November and attracts more than 20,000 camels and people coming to trade wares. The city is tiny when it's not the festival, and it too was overrun with tourists. But we had a good time in Pushkar--we took a nice camel trek out into the desert for a few hours. Most of the more "intense" tourists take the time to go out to Jaisalmer, which is much closer to Pakistan, but we simply didn't have the time to do that. Instead we settled for the less authentic, cheaper version... but drank a beer and watched the sun set behind silhouettes of camels in the Rajesthani desert, nonetheless. It was a great moment. Pushkar also had a million things for sale, and my Indian compulsive shopping needed to be put on serious hold for the sake of my bank account. My backpack is now comfortably full of gorgeous wares from all over Rajesthan, though, and I'm happy with my purchases so far.

From Pushkar we took an overnight bus to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. In short, the bus ride was awful and the Taj was just as wonderful as I always hoped it would be. Of course, we ended up in the only sleeper units on the bus that didn't have any sort of barrier between them and the rest of the bus (usually they have glass or a curtain or something) and, of course, the windows were broken and wouldn't close properly, so we all spent the entire night huddled up, sleeping on our backpacks and shivering. This also happened to be the bumpiest bus ride I've ever been on. I took two dramamine about an hour before getting on the bus and it made me woozy but kept away the nausea I usually suffer on bus rides like that. Naturally, I spent the whole night drugged but certainly not sleeping. Not the most comfortable of times, but I think I've mentioned that India is making me an incredibly tolerant person? This is one reason why. Somehow though, I don't think I would trade this experience--even all the really terrible moments like that bus ride. Because somehow, the next day, when we finally struggled out of bed after napping for an hour and eating breakfast.... the Taj was even more beautiful than I ever possibly could have guessed.

It is, without a doubt, the most stunning and most surreal place I've ever been. I can't think of much to say, other than that--but I can say that my ticket into the Taj, at 750 rupees, was one of the most expensive single purchases I've made while in India and it was so, so worth it. The whole thing was overrun by chattering Indian tourists and other travelers with huge cameras trying to catch the Taj's famous reflection in one of the pools. As per India, where nothing is working 100% of the time, they were cleaning one of the outer gates and several of the pools didn't even have water in them. But despite everything, this building that has been the object of awe of so many for so many centuries awed me just as much and left tears in my eyes. We hired another taxi in Agra, Vicky, and he took us all over Agra for only a few hundred rupees. We saw the outside of the Agra Fort, where Shah Jahan (designer of the Taj), was imprisoned by his zealot of a son after the completion of the Taj. From here you can also see a great view of the backside of the Taj from across the river. We couldn't muster up the energy to go see the Taj at dawn, though we did watch the sunset from a rooftop cafe nearby.

After a night in a somewhat shady hotel, we were off to Delhi, where I sit now. We left on a 6 am inter-city train, which is not a train typically taken by tourists--I'll tell you that, right now. We were crammed in and I was next to the window that, as you can probably guess, didn't close all the way. The train was quickly crowded and we tried to sleep on the way to Delhi but struggled a lot. Finally I gave in to not being able to sleep, and as the train eventually got noisy with morning commuters, I put my headphones in for a few minutes of zen. I watched as the train rolled past beautiful hills and valleys with farmland for huge stretches of time. The whole thing was shrouded in mist and fog, and as the sun came up it started to burn off slightly. Again, we were freezing the entire ride.

When I finally took my headphones out, I looked over and noticed that both Ben and Nate seemed really irritated. I quickly learned that a group of guys had been standing near them in the aisle of the train had spent the better part of an hour laughing very obviously at them. After four months of dealing with people staring at us... well, we're kind of over it. It's hard to remember that even though we're used to India, sometimes it's still not used to us. We got into Delhi, cranky and annoyed, at around 11 AM yesterday. All we wanted to do was find a hotel that was nice enough and close to the train station, preferably with a hot shower and a TV. We found one that was most of these qualities... we got the shaft on the hot water. We ended up spending a large part of our day yesterday complaining about Delhi (though of course it isn't Delhi that we were annoyed with) and daydreaming about being at home for Christmas, where at least where, when it is freezing, we have coats.

We saw some movie in English and in the last scene, they all made hamburgers on the grill in a park... and we snapped. I casually asked if Nate and Ben wanted to hit McDonalds, and about 20 minutes later we were lining up. Of course, they don't have cheeseburgers, but a nice dose of American trans fats via the mayo on my chicken sandwhich somehow made me feel better. I guess, in a sad way, it tasted like home. On a "Super-Size Me"-like high from our Mickey D's, we immediately fell in love with Delhi. What we loved about Delhi was the city's fashionable center, where we found tons of shops with cheap souvenirs from all over India and friendly Indian merchants who were more than used to the average English-speaking tourist. We've gotten in the habit, for some reason, of telling people we're from Wales, and most Indians don't know English accents well enough to place us based on our American "twang."

This morning, we watched more TV and, sadly, said goodbye to Ben. He's headed back to Mumbai as I type this, and then he's off home in two days! It's wild to see everyone leaving, and I'm already missing people from the program. It's wild how close we've all gotten and the sheer amount of time I've had with my fellow ACM-ers.

Now, it's just Nate and I on our own for a few days. The last week or so, we've been having a lot of difficulty deciding on where to go after Delhi. We're both ready to move on--big cities in India are overwhelming and we're both tired and ready to go home soon. We were originally planning on heading up to Himachal Pradesh to the North of Delhi, but based on weather forecasts and temperatures "down here," we've decided to stick to this area. Tomorrow we're headed East to a city of ruins called Orchha, followed by a Kama Sutra temple in a town called Kajuraho. On the 13th, we're meeting Allison and Garrett (who've been in Calcutta and Nepal) in Varanasi--India's most holy city and one of the world's oldest living cities. From there, Garrett's joining us and we're going to Kanha National Park, in hopes of spotting some tigers. After Kanha it's back to Pune on the 17th and then home on the 19th!

Look for another blog before I come home... I'll try to keep you all updated on my whereabouts!

Thanks again for reading all semester, this sure has been one crazy ride. 10 days to go!

A break from insanely long blog posts.

2009-11-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

While you're trying to wade your way through my insanely long past two blogs, check out the ACM India studies article about our work on the 350 campaign here in Pune!!

ACM Students Take to the Streets in India — ACM — Associated Colleges of the Midwest

Finally, a blog about my travels... part 2!

2009-11-11T09:48:00.003-07:00

Hey everyone. I know I've been awful with this blog thing recently. I just can't even tell you how busy my past few weeks have been! It feels like normal life back at CC where I'm constantly running around. Between classes, homework, yoga classes, life with my homestay and oh--living in India--the blog's just gotten a little lost lately. On the plus side, this week, Scott and Carol are visiting from ACM's Chicago office this week! They're absolutely wonderful and have been treating us to some delicious food these past few days. Tomorrow, they're paying a visit to my host family and we'll all have tea. This year is the 40TH ANNIVERSARY of ACM's program in India! How crazy is that?? The past few days too have been absolutely drenched--there's been a cyclone hovering over the Mumbai area absolutely drenching us in rain. After dinner out last night, Logan and I got caught in some of the heaviest rain ever, and I was drenched down to my underwear. Of course it was late and no rickshaws would take us.... ah, well, I guess that's one of those experiences that just makes this so much more "India," if you know what I mean.

Well, now that I've updated you on this crazy, crazy week, time for another blog about my fall break travels! If I remember correctly, I left off with Madurai. And if you thought the first week was crazy....

The second week was a lot more intense travel. We were finally feeling confident about being able to navigate our way around train stations and whatnot, despite our little Marathi being completely useless. We started off the second week of our travels heading up to Kodaikanal, our first hill station. Since Madurai was so completely and oppressively hot, we were looking forward to a change in scenery (and temperature). Hill Stations, like I think I mentioned a few blogs ago, were created by the British. Apparently, Indians were completely uninterested in the mountains until the Brits came. The British, however, were seriously unprepared for the heat of the Indian summer and thus, they ventured to higher altitudes to escape the heat. Not only are they cooler, but the Western Ghats (the mountain range that dominates middle India--Ghats translates literally to "steps") was also named as one of the world's most naturally biodiverse areas. The Ghats are where a lot of tea plantations are in Southern India, as well as more cold-climate fruit and vegetable farms are, where imported produce from Europe and the Americas is grown. Kodaikanal is at a whopping 6700 ft above sea level--the same as Colorado Springs--but rises up directly from one of India's hottest places, the plains of Tamil Nadu. The bus ride up into the hills was gorgeous and insane all at once. We went from dusty, sweaty, and too hot to perfectly cool, to driving through a foggy and drizzling rain that splattered into the bus from outside. We drove up and over the fog and into some of the most beautiful green hills.

When we got into Kodaikanal, we were surrounded immediately by the usual hawkers, looking to sell us on whatever hotel was nearby. Luckily for us, we got a good vibe from a nice guy wearing a Cosby sweater and ended up staying in an old British cottage, situated on the side of this hill down a steep narrow path and surrounded by flowers. We could see a whole valley from the side and we were absolutely sold on how gorgeous and surprisingly cheap it was. We spent the day wandering around the town and exploring the gorgeous lake. If you're looking through my pictures, this is the lake that looks like it should be in Upstate New York or somewhere. We were enchanted by the friendly, sweater-wearing Indians who were always willing to give us directions. We got horribly lost that night, thanks to my Rough Guides map (long story), but luckily since we drove out of the fog it was simply pleasant to walk around in and relish in the season of autumn. The next day was similarly spent, only we all made sure to buy a Cosby sweater as a souvenir. I swear, I think that each Hill Station in India simply went to a bunch of Goodwills in the US, bought every ugly sweater they could find, and turned around and sold it for 40 rupees to Indians who aren't used to temperatures falling below 70 degrees!

We tried to get on a bus the next day, but because we were white the conductor insisted that we sit--and tried to kick these three little old ladies off the bus to make room for us. We weren't having it though, and we just caught the next bus down to a small junction town called Pollachi. Pollachi was, after Bangalore, my least favorite Indian city by far. Not only did I get horribly, horribly motion sick on the drive down from Kodaikanal, but the entire city basically consisted of a giant bus station. When we got off the bus, we were instantly surrounded by three dozen people, none of whom spoke English or could point us in the direction of a hotel. I was irritated and sick and exhausted. We walked for a while trying to find a hotel because Rough Guides had absolutely nothing to say about Pollachi, and eventually stumbled on a street with a few run-down places. We took a look at a few that were insanely cheap--we're talking less than 200 rupees for all 4 of us--but we simply couldn't do it. Most of them looked like they would definitely have bed bugs and definitely didn't have showers. After some searching, we found a nicer place for about the same price that thankfully had a shower--albeit a cold bucket shower. Since we knew we wouldn't be spending much time there, we were alright with the joint.

The next morning, bright and early, we headed out at 5 AM to catch one of three government busses all day that went from Pollachi to Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary. We'd heard a lot about this Sanctuary, including that we would get to ride elephants here. Unluckily for us, the day was a rainy, drizzly one. The hour-long bus ride was, hands down, the most insane road I've ever been on. It was incredibly pot hole-ridden and one hairpin turn after another. And this bus driver was somehow just careening around the turns (while wearing, get this, coke-bottle glasses. I don't know if I've ever feared for my life quite so much). Somehow, we made it, and once we were off the bus we were surrounded by--absolutley no one. Yeah, the whole place was completely deserted. It was so, so surreal. The surroundings were beautiful--green hills with wild boars randomly running around and this awesome fog shrouding the area... but there was no one. After a little exploring, we finally came across a few park "rangers," who seemed pretty much just like bad-tempered guys with moustaches, who informed us that there was no way for us to either ride elephants or go trekking. Nate was all about trekking anyway, but they told us that the reason we couldn't trek was because the rain made the LEECHES come out. I put my foot down.

Our main options exhausted, we mostly just had to bum around this deserted sanctuary for a few hours waiting for another bus to come by. Some other apparently misinformed Indians came up to the park also and wanted to share a jeep tour with us, so we decided to go ahead and go with it. That ended up being fun, but all we saw were some chained-up elephants in a village that made for good photographs but certainly not any real "wildlife adventure." We caught the same nerve-wracking, falling-apart bus back to Pollachi midday and were then back in the same awful bus stand trying to figure out where to go next. We decided to go ahead and try to get to Ooty that day, instead of trying to stay in Pollachi again, so we hopped on three more busses and traveled the rest of that day to get to the famous Hill Station.

Ooty was much like Kodaikanal, only the bus ride was much more horrific. I was ten times as nauseous getting off the bus in Ooty as I was in Kodaikanal and I was in no mood for the hawkers to try and rip me off because I'm blonde. It was a good decision--we walked a little ways and ended up at a nice hotel with a scary staircase (it might as well have been a ladder) and giant St. Bernard. Ooty was a little colder than Kodaikanal, and a lot bigger, so we didn't do as much wandering. Instead of seeing it more as a destination in and of itself, we used it more as a jumping off point the next day to get to Mudhumalai Wildlife Sanctuary.

Mudhumalai is situated about halfway between Ooty and Mysore, so the route is pretty well fed by regular busses going back and forth, without it being overly crowded. We got incredibly lucky and ended up on a private, but still cheap, bus--complete with individual seats and enough room to stretch our legs out a bit. We got some much-needed naptime, too. We also almost missed our stop in Mudhumalai. As irritated as I get when people here try and kick other Indians out of chairs for us or try and make us pay double for a rickshaw because we're white, I am just as overjoyed when people go out of their way to make sure that we get off at the right bus stop. We hopped off and were hoping for good luck, because we realized when we got there that this was certainly not the place that lots of random hotels would be situated.

We did, in fact, get lucky again--we ran into a trekking guide who told us about this dorm system that they have at Mudhumalai that was dirt cheap. We got 4 beds in one room for 65 rs. apiece. That's about $1.30. Yeah. Anyway, we ended up sharing the building with only one other German lady who was traveling alone, and she was a great help too. We ate dinner at this house that was nearby and got to watch the park's famous domesticated elephants getting fed. The next day we were up brutually early again for a 5 km. trek through the forest in search of wild elephants and a sight of some of the park's other animals. No luck there however--obviously it had already been exhausted by our travel luck--and instead we saw some pictures of these two Swedish people who were there just a minute before us and got to see a leopard and sloth bear. The hike was nice though, and we saw some gorgeous scenery. Oh, and I got poked by this big tree that looks like a tree but acts like a cactus.

We caught the same bus that brought us to Mudhumalai to Mysore, and it was an easy ride. The last few minutes as we were coming into Mysore were filled with the famous scents of lavendar and sandalwood, and I was already in love with the place. It was neither too hot nor too cold, and on a trip filled with some extremes, it was nice to be a little in-between. We also planned on staying Mysore for a glorious 3 days, so we got to really get a sense of the city and wander around from place to place. My sense of geography there is much better because I spent some time there. We had a great time just exploring the city and especially the city's famous flower market. I've never seen so many fresh flowers in my entire life! You have to see my pictures for that to be sure. I don't even think I can describe it! The whole place just smelled like fresh blooms and people were running from place to place buying oils and incense and flowers. Mysore also has two really famous, huge palaces. I've read they're rather like Versailles, though--gorgeous on the outside with beautiful flowers, but the inside is rather dull once you've seen one room. We decided not to go for the few hundred rupees cover charge to get in and instead spent the extra cash on a nicer hotel and a few nice dinners. Mysore was a really great town and it was the perfect end to a rather hectic trip.

We planned on getting to Bangalore only a few hours before we had to catch our train back to Pune. We originally thought we'd be getting back to Pune on Sunday to get to class on Monday. Instead, we ended up getting on the right train and sitting down in the right compartment--only to find out that our train was actually booked for the next night. Baffled and more than a little embarassed, we then set out to find a hotel close to the bus station so it would be easy to get back the next day. Like I mentioned earlier, Bangalore was my least favorite city I visited... and it's because all I saw of it was a giant wall of BUSES. I'm not even joking. Apparently the traffic was "bad" because it was Diwali--aka lots of people were setting off random fireworks--but still. We literally got out of the train station and could see about 50 hotels just waiting for us on the other side of the street... but couldn't get to them. We walked for more than half an hour in one direction trying to find a crosswalk or intersection where we could get across and we simply couldn't do it. By the time we found our hotel I was exhausted and frustrated so much that we spent the whole next day bumming around in the hotel room (and then getting KFC for dinner... what?!) just trying to get rid of the traveling exhaustion!

The train back to Pune (this time on the right night) was easy and we were very happy to be back on trains after almost a solid week full of bus travel. By the time I left I was much better at several card games and a trillion times closer to Nate, Sydney and Logan. I absolutely count this experience, including the frustrations, as one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I can't believe how lucky I am to be here. And now, looking forward to traveling next month, I realize that I have three huge papers still to write but all I want to do is think about what NORTH India is going to be like!!

Thanks to everyone who stuck through this insanely long blog. I'll post again soon... when something as interesting as all this happens!!

Finally! A blog about my travels.

2009-11-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I want to apologize first to everyone who’s been reading my blog this whole semester for the past few weeks. I’ve seriously been lacking when it comes to updates, and if it makes you feel any better, I do have a pretty legitimate excuse for my bad blog behavior. As soon as I got back from vacation, I realized with a bang how much SCHOOLWORK I have to do now! I’ve been very seriously into school the past two weeks, and I’m realizing that I’ve got so much left to work on. I’ve been doing a lot of work on my Independent Study Project (an environmental science project) as well as two other papers I have due, plus trying to learn even more Marathi before my exam at the end of the month. I’ve never had to deal with finals before, and it’s definitely catching up to me. Thank God for the block plan—semester schedule is HARD!

Anyway. Now to talk about my travels.

I started off my travels the way I generally start off on new projects—anxious and generally over-prepared. This is a tendency that generally serves me well (and did on this trip, though we’ll get to the over-prepared part later). My anxiety led me to read my travel book like a Bible. I thought that I would be able to handle absolutely any situation we could get ourselves into. This outlook was a little naïve, and so all I am is glad that nothing went seriously wrong. Yet, despite this naiveté, I found out that I’m a pretty resourceful person who can use all the tools that I’m given. Know how I found THAT one out? I walked into the train station in Pune with my backpack on and my travel book in hand and realized that I had no idea how to find our train.

Like I said in my last blog, train stations really do make sense in India. But I think part of me will never really get over the idea that not everybody speaks English. This mindset definitely comes from living in a country where mono-lingualism isn’t just the norm, it’s almost encouraged. So there we are, standing in the train station, tickets in hand, looking at one another in total bewilderment. My first instinct was to find someone wearing a uniform and ask them for help—but of course, no one who worked at the station was around. We ended up piecing the whole process together, using a variety of numbers listed anonymously on our ticket and by asking people who looked like they spoke English if this was the train going to Kochi.

Obviously, we figured it out. It wasn’t, in the scheme of things, difficult at all really to find our train. Of course, it was sitting right there on the first platform, waiting for us. But that small little step was definitely a reality check. It gave me confidence that we would definitely be able to find our way around India, but it made me more aware that everything would not be as easy as it would be where every sign is in English and everybody around speaks English like a native (ha ha).

The train to Kochi was a long one. We were delayed more than twelve hours overnight because of intense flooding happening in Karnataka. It rained much harder than I’ve ever witnessed that night and I froze sleeping on the bottom bunk next to the window. It ended up taking us a glorious 41 hours to reach Kochi, which ended up being fortuitous because we got into Kerala around noon instead of around 1 AM. We shared our compartment that day with a family from Kerala that could point out the exact point between Tamil Nadu and Kerala—it was actually shocking how it transformed from sparse trees and mountains into a serious tropical forest.

Kochi is a beautiful port town, right on the Arabian Ocean. It’s famous because of it’s islands and waterways that separate different parts of Kochi. These waterways eventually lead into the tiny canals and rivers that make up the backwaters of Kerala, some of the most lush forests in India. When we got off the train it smelled like salt water and cooking fish, so we immediately fell in love with the place. We found a decent hotel pretty quickly and established early our penchant for cheap hotels. The place in Kochi was fairly average—the four of us paid 600 rs. a night to share a room (that’s about $12 a night, split 4 ways. Awesome, right?). We spent our time in Kochi getting accustomed to what it was like to travel on our own. I suggested that we check out the tourism office, and they pointed us in the right direction for classic Keralan dance (Kathakali – look it up! Absolutely amazing stuff) as well as a day-long backwaters tour.

The tour of the backwaters we did was fantastic, mostly because we were by ourselves for the majority of the day. In the morning we shared our motor boat with an Indian couple that seemed seriously uninterested in the natural beauty of the backwaters—the husband talked on his cell phone all morning and his wife proceeded to simply look bored. The afternoon was much better; we started off with one of the most delicious lunches I’ve ever had and a quiet tour given by a man who pushed the four of us in a canoe down narrow waterways into the forest. I think the most surreal part of this experience was seeing all the HOUSES there were in the backwaters. We saw schoolkids walking along a path next to the canals, and I realized—this is so normal for them. What is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been is absolutely typical for them. How strange.

Our original plan was for us to go to Periyar after Kochi, which is a wildlife sanctuary in Kerala. We found out, however, that it was closed. It turns out that a few weeks ago, 40 people drowned in the Periyar Lake—the guide on a tourist boat warned the people not to run too quickly to one side of the boat if they should spy some wildlife, but of course, they didn’t listen as soon as they saw some wild elephants. It is tragic but utterly stupid. So we were confronted pretty quickly with the need to change our plans quickly. We decided to move on to Trivendrum in southern Kerala. We only stayed their for a single night though, on the way to Kanyakomari.

Kanyakomari is a beach town situated at the very southern tip of the Subcontinent. It’s considered a holy place for Hindus and just a pretty cool tourist town in general. Three oceans meet at Kanyakomari: the Indian Ocean to the South, the Bay of Bengal to the East, and the Arabian Sea to the West. Since it’s touristy, it’s filled with guys selling the most hilarious trinkets. Kanyakomari frustrated me at first because it was so full of tourists, but it ended up being great—we enjoyed our hotel and had some funny encounters on the beach. Most importantly, I put my feet in three oceans in one day!

From Kanyakomari, we headed to Madurai. This city in Tamil Nadu is incredibly famous for it’s Meenakshi Temple, which rises up in the middle of the city in all its ornate and complexly colored glory. It was built when Madurai was at the center of a teeming trading empire in the 15^th century. We stayed at perhaps the sketchiest hotel ever, but only had to pay 450 rs. a night for it, and nothing bad came of the experience. After the sea breezes of Kanyakomari, Madurai was oppressively hot. It was around 95 degrees when we checked into our hotel—at 9 pm. It was also strange to be back in a big city after a few days of relative peace in Kochi, the backwaters, and Kanyakomari. There were simply so many PEOPLE.

After checking into our hotel, we found a restaurant and ate delicious dosas. Dosas are a specialty of South India: a superthin rice pancake that’s crispy on one side folded over a little pocket of masala, which is usually a mix of spicy tomatoes and potatoes. They’re absolutely delicious and we ate them almost every day in the South, but the one in Madurai was especially delicious. I never thought I would say anything like this, but veg balls are amazing! I have no idea how they make them, but every time I’ve eaten veg balls they’ve been awesome. Anyway, moving on….

This is the part where overprepared certainly came in. We were approached by a guy on the street who was incredibly excited that we were Americans. His enthusiasm was infectious so we decided to follow him. He promised to show us the Meenakshi temple from the top of a shop close to the temple. I had read in my travel book that hawkers do this often in Madurai to obvious tourists, and though they promise it’s free, they harass you on your way out until you buy something. I was worried the entire time that that’s what would happen to us, but I was wrong! We stood on the roof of a government shop (so lots of tribal art items) for around half an hour, then left peacefully and found our way back to our hotel.

That night, the most ridiculous thing happened. We woke up in the middle of the night to hear the loudest, reverberating bangs on metal piping ever. In my somewhat unconscious mind, the sound sounded exactly like the sound the heaters make in my house when it’s cold outside and they’re warming up. But as I woke up more, I realized they were not only completely unnecessary (I would put the heat at still around 85 degrees), but much, much louder. We realized that there was a plumber, somewhere in the building, working on the piping. We’re still confounded as to why he was banging away at one AM, but I guess there are a lot of things about India I’ll never understand!

The next day, we visited the temple in earnest. It costs more for foreigners to go inside temples and monuments, and you always have to pay for cameras, so we only took one camera inside and wandered around for a while. There were a lot of different parts of the temple that only Hindus could go into, so it wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped. BUT, on our way out, we noticed a small crowd, and wandered over. It was the temple elephant—all decorated and chained to a pillar. For 10 rs, he would bless you by putting his trunk on your head and take a photo with you. Seeing him chained and inside in the dark room depressed us, but Logan, Sydney and I decided to go for it. I handed the elephant 10 rs and his soft, strange trunk grabbed it from me, and the next thing I knew—his trunk was on my head. That was definitely a strange experience.

We were excited to get out of Madurai, so we left that day for Kodaikanal. But for now, I’ve got to go! I’m getting ready to leave this weekend for Malabeshwar, a hill station close to Pune. We’re going this weekend for a retreat to discuss our big Independent Study Projects that are due at the end of the month. I’ll be sure to write another blog this weekend sometime about the second half of my trip and post it early next week…. I PROMISE!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Trains, busses, and travel in India.

2009-10-19T08:20:00.003-06:00

Before I begin, I would like to mention Pam Christensen. For those of you that knew her, you undoubtedly remember what a wonderful person she was. The community of Clear Creek has been struck by tragedy with her passing away, because Pam was one of the most genuinely heartwarming, generous people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. She affected me deeply as both a coach and a friend. I regret not being able to be present for her memorial on Nov 1, but I know that Pam was one of my biggest supporters when it came to coming to India. I will always remember Pam as being someone with an easy smile and quick wit, someone who was always ready to help those who needed it. I am sure that without her reassurance and coaching in high school, I would not be the person I am today. She will be sorely missed.

That aside, I wanted to write a quick blog before I begin the detail of my travels in South India the past few weeks. I will probably write between three and five blogs about the places I went, and I'll be posting them over the next few days-so keep an eye out for new entries. This first blog, however, I wanted to focus more on what it's like just to travel in India. After two weeks in buses and trains, I feel at least more confident than I felt a few weeks ago when I first stepped off the platform at Pune Central Station.

As with other things in India, trains really are deeply practical, though they don't seem so at first glance. There are numbers on every train and clearly marked signs telling you the end destination of the train. There are car numbers and signs posted with reservations on one side of the car. Yet, like everything else in India-they are superficially extremely complicated. Tickets you have rarely tell you the name of the train, the end destination of the train, or the platform it's leaving from. Rather, you have to show your ticket to an official who can then tell you where the train is leaving-and these officials can be hard to find or unwilling to speak English. Then there are the ticket sellers who seem generally dissatisfied with their jobs, so they're impatient to just deal with your problem and move on, even if you really don't know what you're doing. Once you figure all of that out, then there's the matter of getting on the train-no problem if you have reserved seats, but if you're taking a local train or passenger train during the middle of the day with no reserved seating, this is almost impossible. People literally lift their children through emergency windows to get them to save seats for the whole family. We Americans sat on the floor by the bathroom rather than battle with the Indians for the benches.

But, like everything in India-as complicated as it is and as frustrating as it can be, it has so much character, you really can't help but love it. We met so many people on the trains who simply wanted to talk to us and find out about us, people who wanted to help us and people who wanted to take pictures with us. It is the strangest experience. And once you're on the right train, you can't help but feel a little bit victorious as you roll away from the station. Indian Railways, at 1.6 million employees, is the biggest employer in the entire world. It's easy to see why. Every train, especially overnight trains, have an entire staff that walks up and down the aisles calling out their food and drink for sale. My friend once noted that trains have their own distinctive music, and that's definitely what it is. There's the roar of the wind and the clanking as the wheels roll over the tracks. There are soft voices of the passengers, maybe the far-off cry of an infant. Then there are the sellers, constantly calling out as they stroll through the aisles, time and time again. "Chaicoffee!!" "BiryanibiryaniCHICKENbiryani!" and dozens of trinkets and magazines and snacks and "paniwater," too. Somewhere three or four compartments down is invariably playing music on their cell phone like some kind of mini-boom box, and in all the shuffle and the distinctly Indian flavor of the whole experience, it's hard not to love. Traveling on trains ended up being an immense joy, especially compared to buses.

Buses are a very different experience. While trains are generally convenient, buses serve the hill stations and other areas that there are simply no tracks for trains. This includes large tracts of Rajesthan (which is almost all sandy desert), the Himalayas, and the higher mountains in the Ghats-which is where we were for a portion of our trip. Buses also generally run more often than trains do, so that was usually just simply more convenient if we had to be somewhere by a certain time. Buses certainly have their own character. Seats are between two and four to a bench, depending on how crowded the bus is. The key is to try and find a bus with enough space in between the bench and the seat-more often than once, the distance from the back of the bench to the bench in front of me was shorter than the length of my thigh, leaving the experience to be rather uncomfortable. This isn't always possible though, and we all felt rather Indian doing it. You pay once you're on the bus, as opposed to before it, and there are always a billion buses pulling in and out of any given station, so it's always a trick finding the right one. Luckily, some of the most helpful people we met were people at bus stands who simply saw we looked lost, and came and asked if they could help us. Bus stands stressed me out and at the same time renewed my love for the Indian people (and their fascination with anyone blond).

Indians in general were very helpful. One unnerving fact of India is that we get stared at, absolutely everywhere we go. When you just get off a long, dusty, hot bus ride and are sweaty, tired, and have absolutely no idea what you're doing but need to find a hotel, that is more than enough. To then have everyone in the surrounding city block then proceed to stare at you as you walk by-that often put me a little over the edge. The thing with staring here though, is that I would guess that 95% of the time, it's not malicious or even mean-spirited in the slightest. People are simply interested in us, which is really not the way we behave in the US. What is weird is who people choose to stare at. In this country with 1 billion people, there are hundreds of street beggars in every city with every manner of physical disability. Indians are completely indifferent to this kind of disfigurement. Instead, who do they stare at? White people. They've seen these beggars a million times before. They are a dime a dozen compared to white tourists, particularly in more rural areas. But because people are just interested in you, there is a very simple quick fix to the staring: eye contact and a genuine smile. They love it. They'll want to meet you and see pictures of your whole family and hear your whole life story. It is incredibly rewarding to go from feeling absolutely ostracized and alien, to feeling like a member of someone's family that they haven't seen in a long time. Yet it makes all the difference when it comes to traveling here.

Ok, well, I was going to talk for a while about food, but I think I'll leave that to a time when it's more appropriate and fits more fully with the place I'm talking about. Thanks to everyone for reading/being patient with my lack of updates. Look for another soon!

Fall break itinerary!

2009-10-01T07:24:00.002-06:00

Namaskaar!

TOMORROW is Gandhi's birthday, and a national holiday, and the start of my fall break! I thought I would post up my itinerary with a few comments so you all know what these names actually mean. Also, for reference, I'll be in four different Indian states over the next two weeks: Maharasthra (where Pune is), Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karanatka. States in India are based on languages, so all the Marathi I've been learning... completely useless! I guess a lot of people in the South of India speak quite a bit of English, so we should be okay, but still! Anyway...

Oct 4 – Arrive in Kochi (Kerala)
Oct 5 – Backwaters (Canoe trip on a river in the jungle, basically.)
Oct 6- Kochi to Tekkadi (Elephant rides in the jungle!)
Oct 8 – Periyar to Kumbli (Visit to a spice village.)
Oct 9 – Kumbli to Trivendum/Kodikand (During the British Raj, the British officers created what are called "hill stations," or small cities at higher elevations so they could get out of the heat in the summer. They are supposed to be some of the most beautiful country in India, and Kodikand is one of them in Kerala, though they're located all over.)
Oct 10 – Trivendum to Kanyakumari (Southernmost beach in India, where the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and Bay of Bengal meet.)
Oct 11, 12 – Kanyakumari
Oct 12 – Kanyakumari to Madurai (Southern city in Tamil Nadu known for it's huge Hindu temples--google search these!)
Oct 13 – Madurai to Ooty (Another hill station, this one in Tamil Nadu.)
Oct 14 – Ooty
Oct 15 – Ooty to Madhumalai (Forest bordering Tamil Nadu and Kerala. We're going to stay in a treehouse!!)
Oct 16 – Madhumalai
Oct 17, 18 – Mysore (City famous for its colorful markets.)
Oct 19 – Bangalore to Pune

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be online much, if at all, over the next few weeks. We're going to be very busy traveling and exploring India, often outside of cities, so I doubt that I'll be able to get online. Look forward to long blogs about everywhere I go as soon as I'm back!

I hope you all have a fantastic few weeks. Talk to you on the 20th!!

Falling in love with paradise.

2009-09-29T09:54:00.002-06:00

Goa, I will begin by saying, is an absolute paradise.

This past weekend is definitely in the running for "best weekend ever." I will start by admitting that we had very, very few plans when we boarded our bus to Goa on Friday evening. We knew that the five of us had an appetite for Indian adventure and an urge to meet people and see everything we could. But we didn't have a plan. I'll admit--I'm a planner. I love to plan things, I love to know when we're going, where we're going, what we're doing when we're there. But I came to India to learn things, so last week I made a conscious effort to not worry at all about what or where we were going exactly. I am still in shock at how well things have turned out and simultaneously, how wonderful things worked out when we simply chose to trust Indians.

We left Pune around 8 pm on an air-conditioned bus that we almost couldn't find. After much running and rushing to make sure we made it on time, we were off on the coldest bus ride of my entire life. I only slept a few hours and was comforted only by the fact that I saw my friend Logan wasn't sleeping next to me either. She and I bonded over this fact the next morning when we got into a thoroughly deserted 6 am Goa. I looked around when we arrived and was absolutely sure that we would never figure out where we were going. All we had was the name of a beach town where some other Americans we met had already booked a hotel. Two minutes of looking around found us in a taxi, negotiating a price to take us to look at a few guest houses. Twenty minutes later and we had two rooms at an inexpensive guest house a minute's walk from the beach and... five motorized scooters.

This was perhaps one of the best decisions I've ever made. I was incredibly nervous about driving the scooter, but ten minutes on the back roads and we were all experts. We just reminded each other every time we got on one--"Remember to drive on the left." (As a side note, there was very little traffic in Goa. I would not have felt comfortable driving with a lot of other cars around, but almost no one was on the roads because we are still technically in the rainy off-season.) That first morning we put in several hours before noon of scootering around the small beach town we stayed in, making it up to a fort that was resting right on the ocean as we waved hello to Africa and the Middle East across the Arabian Sea. We saw a huge, old lighthouse as part of our tour and then we were off to the beach.

The first few hours on the beach were awkward, all 11 of us Americans (5 of us from ACM, 6 from another group studying here in Pune) acting thoroughly American by wearing bikinis and sunbathing. We were getting a lot of stares and even more people harassing us about buying things, so we decided to walk down the beach about 10 minutes away from the crowd. There, we found a deserted beach and the friendliest beach shack selling fresh seafood and pina coladas. We sat around all day in the shade of that shack, getting to know the proprietors and just basking in the glorious-ness that was our experience there. In the evenings we would scooter around to a bunch of different restaurants to find food. The next day? Repeat.

The weekend was wonderfully refreshing and made me fall in love with India all over again. We met some of the nicest people, all were so willing to help us out. It was great, too, because there were so few tourists since it is still the very tail end of the rainy season.

I'll write again once more this week with an updated itinerary of where we'll be in the next few weeks!

Time to explore India!

2009-09-23T23:19:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to write a quick blog to let you all know that I will be out of town pretty soon. This weekend, I'm headed to Goa. It's a former Portuguese colony a little South of Mumbai on the coast. It's supposed to be gorgeous-white sand beaches and palm trees all over. I'm excited for a little R&R. We'll be back on Tuesday, and I'll probably write a blog sometime next week talking about Goa.

After that, starting next Friday, I'll be traveling around South India for 2 1/2 weeks. I probably won't have much time to write, because we'll be very busy going place to place, but I'm looking forward to writing when I'm home in Pune again!

It's crazy how quickly this semester is going since I started the regular semester. After I'm back from traveling, we only have 5 more weeks in Pune! Then I'm off to travel AGAIN, next time in the North for 2 weeks or so. It's funny to think that everyone at home will spend the next three months in school... and I'll essentially only spend another month actually in school. I love that ACM is keeping us engaged when we're in Pune, but making sure that we have enough time to travel and really be IN India. I know it is undoubtedly a tough balance for them to strike, but I'm loving it here. I feel like I've definitely gotten into my stride.

Ok, I've got to go, it's almost time for a planning meeting to discuss my travel details for the month of October.

Honk ok please!

2009-09-16T10:19:00.004-06:00

I had a request a few weeks ago for a bit of a Marathi lesson, so here goes a (relatively) short blog on what I've learned so far in Marathi.

Since I can't figure out a way to use Marathi/Hindi script (they're the same, it's called devanagari script and it looks like this: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/script/images/hindi_trans.gif), I won't even bother. Instead, just trust me when I say you don't want to learn how to say retroflex letters. But phonetic alphabets are surprisingly easy to learn. Instead of memorizing tons of characters like in Chinese or something, I'm just memorize what are essentially letters. Only, in Marathi, J could be J or it might be Z (yes, I'm fully planning on calling my brother Zohn when I return). X is always K and W doesn't exist at all. And there are four letters for D. So anyway, I'm not going to bother with trying to teach you all that. Instead, here's some basic stuff:

The first sentence we learned in Marathi is "I want water." Only, if you were to translate it directly into English, you would be saying I water want. Yes, the grammar goes subject object verb, and yes it can be very difficult putting verbs at the ends of sentences. To say I want water in Marathi, you would say "Mala panee pahijay." Yeah. A few verbs worth knowing if you're ever going to speak Marathi are: nako (don't want-this doesn't conjugate--yes!!), kha (to eat), ja (to go) and as (to be). If you want me to translate any basic sentences, I can probably do it. I know a solid 40 verbs now! My favorite verbs are ones like to call (phone kar) which literally translates to "to make a phone," and study (abhyas kar), which literally translates to "to make a study." The subjects in Marathi are:
Mi - I / Amhi - We
Tu - You / Tumhi - Plural you/respectful you
To - He / Tay - They (group of boys)
Tee - She / Tya - They (group of girls)
Tay - It / Tee - They (mixed gruop)

In terms of vocab, I'm actually surprised by how much I've learned so far!
Namaskaar, of course, is hello. Suprabhat is good morning. Mitra means friend and paus means rain (but dho dho is the sound that rain makes). Tea is chaha but coffee is just coffee. Mango is amba, sugar is sakhar, and vegetables is bahji. Bahji is also what dishes are called in cooking when you're making something with a veggie base. Today I learned how to make a bahji dish that had eggplant, tomatoes, and onion in it (yummm).

Practical things are harder to learn, becuase they're usually phrases, but they often turn out to be the most fun to say. To say, "I can speak a little Marathi," you would say, "Mi thoda thoda Marathi bolto (m)/ bolte (f)." To ask how someone is, you would say "Kai kartes?" which literally translates to "what do you think?" (To reply, a good answer is "chaan!" which means good, and can be used in pretty much any situation--to compliment the cooking, to compliment someone's house, etc. It's what Sucheta says to us when we're doing well in Marathi class, also. If whatever it is is absolutely amazing, you could add "khoop", which means very. My sisters say "soooo nice," in English when they would say "khoop chaan" in Marathi. This is very amusing to me.) To ask what time it is, you would say "kiti vasileh?", and people will generally look at you and just point at their watch. A good word to know in India is "tiketh" (pronounced with an emphasis on the last th), which means spicy. My absolute favorite phrases in Marathi thus far are "bap re!" and "oye ghrr!" which are exclamations. "Bap re," translates to "oh father!" which you use when you're surprised or angry. "Oye ghrr" means, "Oh mother!" which you use when you're very sad or very happy. Sucheta explained that your father isn't supposed to be interested in your feelings, only when you're upset or need protection--unlike your mother who wants to hear about your feelings.

(Rant) This is actually something really interesting about Marathi and about language in general. I think there is definitely feminist theory to be found about the construction of language. In Marathi, you only use the respectful tumhi pronoun when you're speaking to your father, not your mother. You would use it for any teacher, but only for older males, not older females. In my linguistics classes, we talked quite a bit about how language constructs the way you think about the world. What does it say about your culture when you're brought up to automatically respect every older male but not every older female? I think this might be one reason India is still a largely male-dominated society. I could go on and on about this topic for hours, but you get the picture. Just food for thought! (End Rant)

I think I said this in another blog, but I'll reiterate for those of you who missed what a strange adjustment this is. In Marathi, there isn't a word for "please," or even "thank you." Instead you sort of soften the phrase by saying "huhh" after it, which really just makes me feel awkward. I'm still working on how to handle this. I will let you know if and when I make any progress.

I could go into a lot of complicated grammatical structures that have been puzzling me for weeks, but I'll just tell you that things like possessive pronouns are conjugated based on the sex of the noun. For those of you who haven't taken linguistics, that means that there are SIX words for "my," in Marathi. Plurals are also entirely dependent on the sex of the noun, so there are three ways to add an "s" to a word. A final puzzle for you English speakers: there are no prepositions, only POSTpositions.... so all those words that I learned a song about in English class in the 9th grade (around, on, above, to, before, during, under, etc etc) are words that you add to the END of another word, further complicating possessive pronouns. To say, for example, "for my grandmother," you would say "majhee adjeesuti."

Ok, well, I think that's enough for now and it's time for me to get to bed, so I'll leave you with a simple "Yete!" (Yehtay) which literally means, "I'll come back," and is used instead of a word for goodbye.

Yete!

P.S. If you're wondering about the title to this post, "Honk ok please," or "Horn ok please" is on the back of almost every big truck that I've seen thus far, and I think that it basically means, "it's fine to honk at me to let me know you exist because I can't really see behind me." Indian ENGLISH might be just as interesting, if not more interesting to me, than Marathi is. As my sisters would say, "this blog post was soooo nice," so you should leave me a comment to let me know you're all still reading. Much love. =)

Ajanta, Ellora, and a little bit of reflection

2009-09-14T07:34:00.006-06:00

So the past week or so has been mostly unexciting. I feel like I'm finally starting to settle into a definite routine here in Pune. I feel much better when my life has a pattern that is easy to follow, and to be honest, India is a lot easier to digest when I don't have to constantly think about the little things. The first few weeks are difficult because everything you do is difficult. Now that I know when to get up in the morning, what I'll be eating for breakfast (more or less), how to take the rickshaw to ACM, etc etc, I'm finally starting to open up my eyes to the things that I think I was kind of blocking out my first few weeks here. I think I'm finally starting to see India, to really be here. I had a very interesting conversation with my friend Ben on the bus ride to Ajanta and Ellora this weekend about how India is making us reflect on the things that we're going through. I'm realizing how American I am, even in the simplest of ways. I get anxious, for example, when a rickshaw I'm in is going really slowly up the hill to ACM, even though I'm constantly 15 minutes early to class. Why? I walk very quickly everywhere I go, even when where I'm going is NOWHERE. These things seem so pointless. People in India are constantly late, but at least they seem to enjoy the ride there. Instead of getting anxious or upset when there's a ton of traffic, they placidly deal with it and move on. I think I'm beginning to adopt this attitude, though it's certainly taking some effort to turn off the switch that makes me anxious or upset at the slightest bit of inconvenience. I think I'm going to come home a very patient person.

All that self-reflection aside, I originally wanted to blog about my weekend at Ajanta and Ellora caves in Northeastern Maharasthra! The caves are truly a fascinating place, but I'll go in order. We departed from Pune last Thursday short one ACM-er, because Liz was feeling sick. So the 8 of us, plus Gene (our American program director) and Anju, ACM's Indian travel guru, we were off in one of the mini buses featuring the goddess' watchful eyes on the rear view mirror. Most of us slept a lot of the long bus ride, but Ben and I had a very interesting conversation like I already mentioned. We stopped for several hours in the afternoon at a place called Daulatabad Fort. It was similar in a lot of ways to Sinhagad that I wrote about several weeks ago, but a lot cooler in some ways. Our tour guide told us all about how when the fort was built way back in the 14th century, the guy who built it built it to be the strongest fort in the world. It was never conquered, despite the rush of invaders featured in Maharasthra during the past few centuries. The fort had 5 outer walls that one had to conquer, a moat filled with poisonous water snakes and crocodiles, and probably the most intense, a series of pitch-black caves that encouraged you to kill your own men in an effort to conquer the place. Delhi was forcibly removed under Muslim leadership to this fort for several years because of it's excellent protection. The whole area, of course, was stunningly beautiful, surrounded by miles of lush green forest accented with the dark brick of the forest. We had an amazing time hiking around the fort and exploring the ruins for several hours. This was also perhaps the sweatiest I've ever been in my entire life!! After that, Anju took us to an amazing factory where we saw the most beautiful silk saris and scarves being hand woven by Indian women. Of course, everyone had an absolute field day buying gifts for mothers and grandmothers.

That night we arrived at our hotel, a picturesque series of bungalows in the middle of the jungle, facing the Ellora caves and a magnificent waterfall. The beds were the comfiest I've experienced in India and the whole place was filled with quite an aura of mystique.We enjoyed a late evening of each other's company and hit the sack for another early morning.

From the hotel we left early (after a breakfast with, get it, EGGS!!) for our drive to Ajanta caves. After more than six hours on the bus Thursday, we were not looking forward to another two and a half on the bus today, but it went quick enough and we were rewarded with stunning views of the caves from above. The caves themselves were carved, from the cliff, by Buddhists from the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD. Each features some sort of tribute to the Buddha and there are more than twenty of them!! They were all really amazing, some of them had really great paintings of the Buddha's lives on the inside and we had a wonderful guide who explained everything to us. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take flash photography inside the caves, so most of my pictures from inside them didn't turn out at all. We found out that the caves were abandoned for centuries until this English explorer was hunting tigers in the 1800s (awesome) and saw a tiger disappear. He followed it and happened upon this whole series of caves that were completely overgrown. Pretty soon there were all sorts of English archaeologists crawling all over it. The day was hot and humid so there were very few other tourists around. We had the whole day to explore the place and eat the most complicated packed lunch I've ever seen (two sandwiches, an apple, a muffin, two tins of curry and a few chapati, chips, a hard boiled egg, apple juice, and spiced buttermilk. I'm not even kidding), given to us by the hotel management who knew Anju very well.

Outside of Ajanta, there's a tiny area where everyone who wants to sell souvenirs has to sit and wait for tourists to pass through on their way back to the parking lot. Because it's been hot and dry, not to mention the whole swine flu debacle, we were absolutely SURROUNDED the second we entered the compound. Men trying to get us to come to their shops, all of which sold essentially the same thing, for ridiculously inflated prices. Case in point: I bought some pretty cool stone elephants that a man originally offered me for 2000 rps a piece at a whopping 400 rps for the pair. I'd say 10% of the originally offered price is a not-too-shabby bargain, though I'm sure even THIS price was inflated. The experience was seriously overwhelming though, and I couldn't take more than a few minutes of the men basically pulling us back and forth between their shops and following us around before I had to escape to the bus.

The next day was a trip to the Ellora caves, which are similar mainly in location. Both the caves are carved out of basalt cliffs, a type of rock formed by ancient volcanic activity. The Ellora caves aren't just Buddhist, though, they're also Jain and Hindu. Jainism is a really interesting religion that developed mainly to escape the caste system associated with Hinduism. It's followers don't believe in killing anything, so very devout Jains are supposed to sweep in front of them as they walk so they don't kill any insects. Interestingly enough, they are also the wealthiest per capita religion in India, though they believe in giving up one's possessions and living only through begging. Many Jains apparently do give up their wealthy lifestyles near the end of their lives. Anyway, the Jain caves feature some pretty amazing , as do their Hindu counterparts. The Hindu caves feature amazing depictions of the two Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabaratha, as well as pretty fantastic carvings of a variety of Indian gods and goddesses (oh, and the Kama Sutra, which was used as a sort of sex education in India back in the day).

After one more night at the hotel and a fantastic long morning drinking tea in the garden, we were off back to Pune on perhaps the longest, dustiest, sweatiest, hottest bus ride of my entire life. I considered it something of an omen when as we drove into Pune it began to rain, washing away the heat of the long weekend in central India. On the way home we stopped at the "Poor Man's Taj Mahal," which was constructed by the same guy who built the REAL Taj up North in Agra. It's actually a cool building in and of itself, but it's hard to love a plaster imitation of the real thing I'll be seeing in December. It was a fun excursion none-the-less, and got us out of the stuffy bus and out into open, albeit incredibly hot, air. The whole experience this weekend was an absolutely fantastic one. I feel refreshed with India, and like I mentioned at the beginning of this epically long blog, so ready to start the next few weeks. I only have TWO weeks until my travel in the South! I can't believe how fast the semester is going, even though it feels like a year since I've arrived. I think that these next few weeks will certainly be a test... it's time to open my eyes wide to India and see what I find.

Love to you all, wishing you could be here on this crazy adventure! If you can, be sure to check out my most recent pictures on Facebook, which feature all my adventures thus far--some pics of my home life in Pune, my trip to Phaltan, and this most recent trip to Ajanta, Ellora, Dautalabad and the Fake Taj Mahal.

Just... wow.

2009-09-04T02:26:00.002-06:00

Last night was perhaps the craziest and most surreal night of my life. But I'll get back to that.

As I've mentioned in this blog before, these past ten days or so have been Ganpati (I found out I've been spelling it wrong... who knew), Ganesh's festival that is celebrated here in Maharasthra. Almost every home keeps a statue of Ganesha in their homes that is given offerings every night of the festival. Until now, this festival for me has focused mainly on my homestay family and their family around the area. But last night was the crux, the absolute climax, of the whole festival.

We've heard people talking about a "procession," the past few days, but as per India, no one ever really explained what that meant. They also said that because of Swine Flu, the "procession" would be much smaller than in previous years, about 50% of the normal crowd. We had absolutely no idea what, exactly, we were getting ourselves into. Yesterday started out normal enough, with Marathi class, but after that we were all heading out to my friend Allison's house, which is located about a block off of Laxmi (Lockshmee) Rd., a major drag through town. We kept trying to catch a rickshaw to take us, but every time they refused and told us that Laxmi Rd was closed and they wouldn't go near it. So, we decided to walk. As we walked we came across a decent sized crowd, walking around a huge Ganpati statue, pulling it along with a truck like a float in a parade and everyone playing drums as they pulled it along. Well, okay.

By the time we made it to Allison's and ate lunch, it was clear that this was going to be quite the party. For reference, as it turns out, "procession" in India refers to 1 million people +, dancing and partying in the streets while pulling giant Ganpati statues along behind them. And this was smaller than previous years. I was already overwhelmed in mid-Afternoon on our first trek out. We got pulled into the crowd to dance in the middle of a huge group of Indians, jumping and pushing and having the time of their life to the beat of the most amazing drums I've ever heard. The girls were mostly pulled into a group of kids and women dancing nearer to the front of the parade, where we ended up surrounded by trumpeteers and drummers pounding out a beat like nothing I've ever heard before. The beat dropped like a hip-hop song, but after a few seconds picked up and was suddenly Indian again, and everyone would start dancing. It started to rain and everyone was dripping wet and splashing in puddles in the middle of the street. We stopped to dance in the middle of one of the biggest bridges in Pune, closed to traffic for the festival. Soon we had a huge audience watching us dance with the Indian girls, mostly guys, completely circling the entire area. The dancing was incredibly exhilarating and I had an amazing time. The girls were so happy and excited to have us there celebrating with them, I think everyone felt a flash of what it must feel like to be a celebrity.

After a while though, we realized that we had lost half our group. Most of the guys and one girl, Liz, had gotten pulled back further in the procession to dance with more of the men. Our friend Aaron had missed the first part of the procession to go to the doctor and was trying to find us again, but he kept getting pulled into the middle of similar dance parties... because there were probably several hundred of these giant Ganpati statues all over the city, and every single one of them was making its way down to the river, where traditionally all the Ganpati statues are released into the river to float away (or sink and cause a lot of pollution, as it were). For years, this practice caused a lot of pollution in the drinking water of thousands in Maharasthra, and now some environmental groups are "fishing" for Ganesh the weekend after the festival ends so that they can keep the drinking water cleaner.

Anyway. After we had re-assembled our group, we decided to head back to Allison's for a few hours of much-needed rest after about two hours of solid dancing with strangers. We decided to head out a few more times just to see what the party was like as it progressed. I never expected anything like it. The streets were crowded with dancers and specatators, and as it got dark, the Ganesh statues got bigger and bigger and soon they were lit up in all sorts of colors and each had a theme: I imagine this as an Indian sort of Mardi Gras, each Ganesh more and more fantastic than the last. And each with a bigger and bigger group of people dancing and celebrating and moving with the Ganesh, down to the river. Each of the parties had it's own flavor, based largely on the type of Ganesh. There were more traditional ones with long strings of Christmas lights and flowers, and there were ones with all sorts of decorations--one that was decorated just like a Mardi Gras float with green and purple and gold decorations; one that was in the middle of an Egyptian scene, complete with Sphynx; strangely, the one with the biggest crowd had the smallest Ganpati, in the middle of a huge decorative platform for it. It turned out that this "procession," was a bit like a parade, where the spectators are the ones who make the parade worth coming to--though the Ganpati statues themselves were gorgeous, it was more interesting to watch the huge groups of people dancing and jumping with the music.

Everywhere we went, we were celebrities. We were in the English paper yesterday, an article about American students getting ready for the festival. Our picture was featured and we were recognized several times. But the rest of the time, I think it was just because we were Americans, ready and willing to dance with everyone we met. Only every time we would enter a crowd, a huuuge circle would fill out around us, hundreds of people stopping their own party to watch US. Sometimes a few men would jump in the circle and get close to us girls, and they would instantly get pulled away by cops or other spectators. The problem was not that most of them got too close, it was simply the staring! I have had a hard time adjusting to getting stared at, but last night was too much for me.

The later it got, the more the crowd was concentrated and difficult to move in, and the more intense it became when we would go somewhere. As the minutes ticked by, bigger and bigger crowds would form around us whenever we did anything--including our stop for water at a stall, we were almost instantly surrounded by about 50 guys just watching us, apparently fascinated. I had enough. I felt awkward being stared at all the time, so my friends Garrett, Sydney and I went back to Allison's place around midnight. The rest of the group returned about an hour later. The party, however, lasted all night and into this morning, loud techno music and drumbeats drifting through the windows long after I wanted to be asleep.

I cannot possibly imagine this party 50% bigger. I also think I might be able to imagine a million people now.

I am the English-speaking slave of a 5-year-old.

2009-08-30T11:55:00.002-06:00

This weekend, I went with my host family to Phaltan (like Fulton with an Indian accent). My Ahi's mother and father in law live there, and they own a small farm outside of town. This was the last weekend of Gonpati, though the festival continues until Wednesday or so. Because Phaltan is a much smaller town (a measly 50,000 residents as of 2000), there is quite a sense of importance surrounding the Gonpati festival and rituals. Every home participates in a competition over the size and quality of their shrines to Ganesh. Outside on the front porch they all draw intricate pictures with different colors of sand. And the most interesting thing? They all dress up and visit each other's shrines on Friday night.

Imagine you have a friend. You don't know her very well, but she seems nice. After you've known her about a week, she insists that you visit her grandparents with her, in a town about 60 miles (but 3 hours) away. Once you arrive she proceeds to speak to her relatives in a foreign tongue you can't understand, and doesn't ever really explain anything that happens. But on Friday night she helps you into her clothes (which don't really fit you and certainly aren't your style) so that you can go and visit all of her grandparent's friends.

Once you go into their friends' houses, all the strangers stare at you, while you stare at a giant shrine in the middle of the living room. The shrine usually features a big statue of an elephant wearing a turban, flanked by two female statues about 2 feet high wearing saris, around 20-30 different types of homemade Indian sweets, shiny tinsel all over the walls, and a variety of blinking Christmas lights. Sometimes there are stuffed Valentine's Day bears or statues of birds, sometimes there are American things like action figures of random movie characters. When you walk in, everyone speaks again in this strange tongue and you smile and nod, and sometimes in English they ask you what you've come to India to study. You sheepishly answer: Indian culture. They smile and nod and ask what your parents do, how much money they make, what college you attend, how you're liking India, etc., etc., etc. Then, smiling, they touch between your brows with red and yellow dust, and hand you a leaf, a nut, and some white powder. You stand up to leave and fold all of the treats into the leaf, then put it in a bag (rather like a bag of Halloween candy--the white powder is actually a mix of coconut, sugar, and cashews). I think this process is something like going to a neighborhood to see all their Christmas lights--only you go inside and the strangers give you candy and ask you questions about your parents.

The ritual itself is strange, too. Sometimes you do the ritual three or four times a day. It involves everyone standing around the statue of the elephant wearing a turban, where everyone sings and claps in unison. The song changes pace and tune three times and there are a few 360-degree turns you're never quite expecting. Then everyone's given flowers or food or rupees to give to the elephant at the right moment, and burning incense is passed around. You wave your hands over the incense then through your hair... you hand the flowers to the elephant and greet him with your palms together in Namaste.

I'm kind of starting to love Hinduism.

This weekend wasn't all about Gonpati, though that seemed to be the main excuse for coming to Phaltan. For me, it was a weekend of both my highest and my lowest points in India thus far. My highest point went something like this:

While we were out visiting various Ganesh shrines all over town, we were interrupted in one house by my Ahi's father-in-law, who beckoned us back to the house in a hurry. I, of course, was given no explanation, but when we entered, I saw the cause of his laughter and his urgency: there were about 30 boys, between the ages of 3 and 16, seated in their living room (the only furnature, I might add, was a single couch and six red plastic chairs. The rest were on the floor). When I entered, they all turned to me and stared. Instantly, I blushed deeply, all the way to the roots of my hair. I participated in the Gonpati ceremony (the singing-and-turning-in-circles one), and then sat down. Instantly, about twelve of the boys were seated around me, asking me questions in Marathi. Realizing I understood very little, one of the older boys translated a bit. They were asking the same probing questions their parents did, but with more emphasis on what I can say in Marathi and when my birthday is. They made me laugh a lot, and suddenly it seemed there was no language barrier at all, even though I could only understand one of them. They laughed at my terrible accent and the things that I can say--what time is it? I want some water. Truly!?! May I go to the movies? Turn right here. These boys absolutely brightened up my day.

I learned later that the boy who translated goes to the college where my Ahi's mother-in-law works as a Marathi professor and lives upstairs. He also does some charity work as a leader of a boy's group called the R.S.S., where all these boys meet and play games, sing songs, and do yoga together. They came every evening to talk to me and stare at me, and I left Phaltan feeling wonderfully attached to them.

My lowest point went something like this:

I was sitting on my bed, alone, reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book was comforting, mostly because it was in English. I felt incredibly lonely, for my first time in India. I missed my parents, my brother, and my friends terribly. I missed adult conversation in English. I missed understanding everyone around me and being understood by everyone too. Here in this strange world, none of the adults were interested in speaking English to me unless they were addressing me directly. They were too absorbed in family time to notice that I was lonely. Instead, the only person who spoke to me often in English was my 5-year-old host sister, Srushti. You can imagine all the stimulating conversations we had. We played Slap Jack and Go Fish about a million times and she forced me to play with her and I realized... I am the English-speaking slave of a 5-year-old.

Another strange, though I suppose not entirely bad moment, was shopping. I bought my first punjabe, from a botique in Phaltan (much pricier than I was hoping to spend). I tried on about 50 ready-made punjabes in about a million colors, almost none of which I liked. The salesgirl forced me into one she insisted was "very fashionable" in India right now, but just looking at it I could imagine the wrinkled noses of my mother and grandmother, had they been in the dressing room with me. Almost all that I tried on I could hear my mom saying, "We can do better," or my Mimi saying, "Oh, Megan! That's just horrid!" I bought only one: a rather expensive beaded peace that fit me like a glove. It's blue and gold and yes, I'll put up a picture soon. It's really not for everyday wear, but the whole thing only came to $28.... though seeing a price tag that says 1,400, no matter what currency, is a little bit perturbing.

The other interesting experience was the bus ride, which was exactly like you just imagined it: a red, rickety old Indian bus, crammed full of Indians with even a few on top, travelling over dirt roads. It was an experience, I'll tell you that much. I somehow managed to sleep through most of the crowded ride, though I laughed at the image in my head of my dad and brother, both over 6 feet tall, riding in this bus: at 5'6'' my knees were already pressing up against the seat in front of me. I felt lonely, then, too... crowded on a bus, surrounded by strangers who wouldn't understand me if I spoke, sure that I was the only one feeling like my personal space was being invaded.

Now I'm "home" again, back in Pune and ready for some adult conversation in English. I'm lucky that my friend Sydney who lives around the corner came over tonight or I might have lost my mind with missing home and being understood. I think I've found what I was looking for when I came to India... this is certainly going to be a challege.

Gonpati continues, Megan is still not Indian.

2009-08-25T06:45:00.002-06:00

So I've been writing down lists in my moleskine recently about things I need to blog about/weird things about India/reasons why I'm still not Indian (but am seeing the light). I'll move through what I've thought of so far, and hopefully have some things in the future.

1. I think I've figured out why India is such a strange country to foreigners, especially in the west.
I haven't been to the rest of Asia, so for those of you who have visited China or Japan, you'll have to tell me if this is true for you as well. But what I think is vaguely unsettling about India to a lot of visitors is that it is oddly, oddly similar to some things in West, but so radically different in some ways. It's strange, it's almost like a not-quite-real immitation of an American or European city. There are too many trees and too much trash, the buildings aren't quite high enough and the sidewalks are in disrepair. The traffic is heavy but filled with motorbikes and rickshaws, the storefronts are open but there are too many colors, too much shiny tinsel, too many fake flowers in electric colors. It creates an effect that is purely Indian--but once in a while I will get glimpses of home that remind me of how loud traffic used to sound, before I spent two weeks in this city where people honk instead of use turn signals...

2. S.T.D. - Sexually Transmitted Disease? Nope. A phone booth for calling internationally.

3. Please and Thank You - Though I can't speak for all Indian dialects, one of our first Marathi lessons was that in Marathi, there is no word for please or thank you. They use the English words, in a heavy Indian accent of course. This is probably the hardest part of my homestay. Sucheta warned us that using please and thank you too often in our homestay would come across as stiff and formal. Just try to go a single day without saying either of these phrases in the United States and you'll come across as rude and cold. Strange, strange cultural difference. I don't know how to act when my Ahi (mother) brings me something at the table or helps me with my homework. I don't know how to ask for something to be passed across the table without interjecting a "please."
More interesting Marathi facts: we learned today that in Marathi, there is no verb, "to have," or "to own," or "to possess." Instead, you say that something is near you or with you. The effect is interesting and I plan to consider the effects of this simple linguistic difference. Linguists often study cultural differences like this, and there are often a lot of very interesting studies done on cultures that, for example, have no past tense. These two features of Marathi are already making for an interesting experience. Add the "head bobble" to that, and learning to "speak" like an Indian is difficult just in English.

4. The beds, insofar as I have tested, are hard as ROCKS. The first few nights I hardly slept at all, and now I am finally adjusting. I don't think I'll ever get used to the pillows though, which feel like I'm sleeping on books. Apparently there is a Bed, Bath, and Beyond in Pune somewhere, and sometime soon I plan on fully succumbing to this one American luxury. It's just uncomfortable to sleep and I wake up with aches in my neck and shoulders.

5. TV is about 10x as interesting as American TV. The shows are incredibly cheesy and dramatic, and since I can't understand a single word, highly enjoyable. I guess at what they're talking or arguing about. The best is the soap operas on in the evenings that everyone's Ahis watch. They feature sinister looking men with moustaches and pretty, distressed women. Last night we watched the Indian version of American Idol. To be honest, I have absolutely NO conception of what's good Indian singing versus what's bad Indian singing, so I was happy that my Ahi laughed at the bad ones that featured sad or comical music at people's apparently poor attempts to sing. They honestly sounded almost identical to me, except for one guy who was clearly just yelling. I fully intend on watching this show again, even though I have no interest in American Idol in the US.

6. Squat toilets/commodes. Probably the biggest and strangest difference to the United States, there are squat toilets everywhere! When I first saw one, I didn't understand it at all, but now that I've seen more (and practiced), they make much more sense. I can't shake the feeling of peeing in the woods every time I use it though, and it just reminds me of how unlike India is from camping. Oh, well. At least they have that in common. Most Indians seem to call western toilets "commodes," which may or may not be the funniest phrase of all time. Oh, and if you're ever in India, don't forget to toss the toilet paper instead of putting it in the toilet... it clogs the toilet because nobody uses it here! Instead there are things a bit like bidets in Europe or simply faucets with little plastic cups you fill with water. If this is getting to graphic for you, I apologize... but I'm actually enjoying the transitition to not using toilet paper. One less way I'm generating needless waste, right?

7. Trash. There is one trash can in my entire flat, and it is the size most American households reserve for the bathroom. I have no idea how this continues to work for an entire family for more than a day, but it does. The Indian people are incredibly resourceful and waste very little in their own households. We turn off electrical outlets when something isn't plugged in because needless electricity is generated to power the outlet for no reason. No toilet paper, etc. etc. I'm generating enough waste by myself that I feel embarassed to throw it away in the house; I've been hoarding it in an empty ziploc bag in my room so I can throw it out somewhere outside the house. But then there are piles and piles of trash on the streets and in the slums, hundreds of thousands of water bottles in the oceans.... I'm considering changing my Independent Study Project to something about the people's attitudes about trash and waste. I don't see how they can waste so little and yet still litter and ignore dirty streets in the public sphere. This is something to explore further.

Just to finish up, as a side note, I was going to take Sociology while I was here, but I've been talked into the Environmental Science course! The teacher seems engaging and interesting and it has a TON of field trips!! I'm really excited to travel around Maharasthra to see a variety of wildlife refuges and different environmental aspects.

Also of note, I've decided on my travel plans for my fall break. My friends Nate, Sydney, Logan and I are going to Kerala's backwaters, a national park where we can ride elephants, the very southernmost tip of India (where the beaches from three different seas meet with different colors of sand), Madurai where there are some amazing Hindu temples, Bangalore and Mysore. Wikipedia it! There are some cool places. I'm glad to be going South for the break and then in December, we head North to the more famous destinations like Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, etc.

All my love!

Homestay & Gonpati

2009-08-23T03:25:00.002-06:00

Namaskar!

The three days have been absolutely overwhelming (in a good way)! On Friday, we visited Sihagad (or something) fort, about 30 km from Pune. It was probably THE most beautiful place I've ever been, and Anju, one of the women who works for ACM and knows basically everything, told us that there are other forts and such even more beautiful. The 'fort' was miles and miles of stone ruins, built in the 14th century high in the mountains above Pune and eventually conquored by the Mughals. I was going to do a blog post featuring pictures from this trip, but the internet takes forever to upload pictures on blogspot, so instead those are the pictures I just loaded on facebook. Be sure to check them out!

Yesterday, I met and moved in with my host family! I was very shy at first, not knowing what to say, but after only a few hours I started feeling more at home. My Ahi (mother)'s name is Meghana, which is pretty much exactly what every Indian kid calls me here. They say they don't understand my name, so they say it just like hers. She has two daughters, Mahika who is 8 and Shrushti who is 5. Her husband is away in Saudi Arabia, so for now it is just the three of them, and now me. They have a wonderful flat about 20 mins by rickshaw from ACM.

At first, I was very overwhelmed. The girls know English but were shy with me yesterday, so they spoke only Marathi to their mother, who translated to me in English. She is such a nice lady and wonderfully accomodating. She knows I'm interested in food, so she tells me all sorts of things about what she's cooking and what the ingredients are in everything. My sisters quickly warmed to me when they realized I was willing to play tag and give them piggy-back rides. I ran around with them and their friends for more than an hour yesterday afternoon, and the effect with the heat was incredibly tiring. Soon though, Mahika, Shrushti and I were fast friends and now all they want to do is play Go Fish and Uno with me, or translate cartoons. Yesterday Mahika and I watched Tom and Jerry on Cartoon Network for more than an hour, and it was nice to watch something we both understood for a change! The girls like to watch a lot of Nickelodeon, which istead of showing Nick shows from home, seems to show imported Japanese TV shows for kids. TV is incredibly interesting, you can switch from one language to another since there are so many dialects here. English is an audio output option, but it just seems to make them speak Marathi.

I think that living here will help me learn Marathi very quickly. I think my accent on what little I know is already getting better, since the girls giggle at my feeble attempts to pronounce things like them. They also speak rapid Marathi with their mother, and I think I will have to learn quickly so I can actually participate in the family dialogue.

Today was the start of Gonpati, a Hindu holiday. Ganesh is the Hindu god that removes obstacles, and he is the patron saint of both students and Pune (you have probably seen a picture of him--he has the head of an elephant and rides on a rat). Gonpati is another name for him, and the name of the festival held in his honor. Hindus from all over India come to Maharasthra to enjoy Gonpati, because it is celebrated most heavily here. It is a 10-day festival where all the streets are decorated and special foods are eaten. Boys and men play huuge drums in the streets and people parade and move through the streets with camels and Ganesh idols. Apparently the party this year is seriously tuned down because of swine flu, which is a shame because the festival decorations are very beautiful.

For lunch, we visited my ahi's ahi and baba, so Mahika and Shrushti's grandparents. They were wonderfully accomidating and welcomed me into their home like one of their own children. They cooked for me and taught me how to eat everything, including one of the favorite foods that Hindus eat only during Gonpati. It is apprently Ganesh's favorite food. There is a dough made out of rice I believe, and it is folded up into a rounded dumpling shape and holds coconut and sugar inside. Ahi and Adji (grandmother) encourage me to try absolutely everything, giving me tastes of spices and sugars in the kitchen. I am absolutley a five-year-old again, and have the eating skills of one. Learning to eat properly with one's hands is proving difficult, so I have to be taught, not unlike Shrusti. The girls give me a taste of every cookie and sweet. It is wonderful to have Indians teaching me these things, and not minding that I'm making a fool of myself. They teach me the Marathi and English names for everything they cook, and make sure I like and enjoy everything.

I need to go now, I don't want to use Ahi's internet for too long, but I will be working on finding a cyber cafe somewhere near my new home so that I can plug in my laptop and upload more pictures as I take them.

The monsoon deserves its own blog post.

2009-08-20T09:26:00.005-06:00

Every day, in the time before dinner, the hotel burns a kind of fragrant incense. Somewhere between smoky and bitter, though not unpleasant, the smell permeates the whole building and comes in plumes up the stairs and out the front door all at once. I found out the smoke kills mosquitoes and have started to welcome the unfamiliar, heady scent. Today the effect is heavy as monsoon clouds descend upon the city and the light begins to fade. The humidity in the air hangs expectant of the rain to come—the past two days have ended in downpours like I’ve never even imagined.

The rain begins slowly but quickly builds to a sheet of falling drops. It crashes down with a force I never knew rain could build and in such quick succession you’re unprepared to suddenly be caught outside. The rain is warm at first, a caress on your skin like silk. It falls straight down in sheets so thick you can’t see across the street. Soon the streets are full of rushing water, creating canals with currents strong enough to encourage motorcyclists towards the sidewalk to avoid being swept away. Soon the balconies and sidewalks are slick with water, soon water is sliding off of every roof and soon you are soaked to the bone. The flashes of lightening and crash of thunder, so bright and loud they could wake you out of the deepest sleep begin. The lightning flashes three, four, five times in a row bringing the streets to full daylight in an instant. Then it is gone and replaced by a clap of thunder that could make you jump out of your skin. Last night it happened between about 2 and 4 am, and Allison (sleeping next to me this week in the hotel) saw me sit straight up in bed and within seconds joined me, both of us just stared in wonder at the falling rain, wondering how in the world the sky could hold so much water.

The rain clears out the air, if only for a little while. If it rains late in the evening or overnight, you wake up the next day and there are waves of mud like sand that's been washed by waves on the beach all over the streets. The cobblestone sidewalk, already an adventure interrupted by huge tree roots and areas where it simply disappears, becomes treacherous. The stones are slick with rainwater, hours after it's rained. Any sun at all and the water begins to evaporate, leaving a hazy fog in all the streets, lingering in the branches of the trees. I can't imagine a more complete humidity, instantly making your body sheen over in sweat. Even when the heat isn't bad, it's impossible to escape. I'm adjusting to it, but it's interesting--especially coming from Colorado, aka the land with zero humidity. Rickshaws are a relief from walking to the ACM office from the hotel, the only breeze in this country seems to originate from racing along the streets in one.

I have to go now, but I wanted to thank you all for reading and also let you know that my massage was fantastic (and I fully intend to get another one in the very near future).

2009-08-18T03:22:00.002-06:00

Namaskaar! (Hello!)

It is very hard to believe I have only been here for a few days!

I feel like I'm starting to adjust to life here very quickly, but I think the westernized hotel is a very easy way to help me to adjust. The group is also bonding really quickly, so I feel like I know the personalities of my other ACM-ers fairly well. The group is very congenial, and we like to go out together. Though I am loving getting to know everyone, I am anxious to move in with my home stay family this Saturday because I know that it will be nice to spend more time with Indians and exploring places on my own (this is mostly why I haven't posted any pictures yet--I haven't had time to go out and take pictures on my own and I don't want to carry it everywhere with me yet).

The past few days have been a long and tiring blur, though I know that here I will constantly be running from place to place in hopes of keeping up with all the things I want to do! I hope that in the next week I will experiment on a bike (though the traffic is a little unnerving). There are dozens of heavy old cruiser bikes in oily gray you can buy here for about $20, or rent for 20 rupees/a day, which is only about $.50 a day. This is only one example of the way prices seem so skewed from normal. Later today, I am getting a 50 minute full body massage for 250Rs, or $5. What?! It is funny that many things seem to be "expensive," even though when you think about translating the prices they are almost nothing at all. The only truly expensive things are cell phones and American products (we saw a Nike store up the road). Ben bought a Snapple at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day, what seems to be the Starbucks of India) that cost 120 Rs, more than 5 times the cost of some of the meals you can get on the street, or about $2.40. [As a reference, $1 = approx. 50 Rs, though of course it's changing every day].

Yesterday we started classes. All the staff here in India seems incredibly knowledgeable about all facets of things we might be interested in. We began with a lecture on the colonial influence in India, and I was surprised to find that the book I've been reading recently (Life, Inc.) is actually very informative on this topic. This was followed by a chaha (chaha is Marathi for Hindi chai, or essentially tea. Here is is served seeped very strong with lots of steamed milk and sugar, between 3 and 5 times a day for about 15 Rs in the hotel or 2-5 Rs on the street) break. Then we had Marathi class. Sucheta is the teacher for Marathi, and the language is incredibly fascinating and I love her class! She is a fantastic language teacher with lots of experience teaching Marathi to American ACM students. We are learning useful phrases and verbs and the script slowly, which is very interesting. Sometime soon I hope to post a more linguistic blog entry about my Marathi studies so far, but I think for now I will just start incorporating some Marathi phrases into my posts.

The afternoons have been full of shopping, or what are essentially outings to practice crossing the street. This is a bit like Europe on steroids, and there isn't such thing as "pedestrian right of way" I've enjoyed so much at CC. You have to sort of run/jog across the street in gaps between bicycles, motorcycles, vespas, cars, busses, and rickshaws all going at different speeds and swerving around one another (oh, and on the left of course). I'm sure I will be deathly afraid of traffic for weeks after getting back to the United States, where here I'm sure I will be honked at and run into if not paying attention.

Shopping is interesting, because we are quite aware that people are trying to rip us off and get us to pay more. I'm interested to start learning Marathi and prices a little better from living with my family so I can get things for the "actual" price. I know it seems stingy, but I'm going to be here for another 18 weeks or so and want to save my money as much as possible. I'm saving off on most of my shopping for later, though I'm already excited to start buying textiles and clothing here (particularly scarves, which are absolutely beautiful).

I have to go, because like I mentioned I am about to get a massage from a massage student coming very soon. I will write more on specific topics soon, and hopefully in the next week or so get a chance to post a few pictures of my life here in Pune. I also bought a cell phone yesterday and will be getting it activated tomorrow, so I will send my number to many of you in the near future so we can potentially talk on the phone (for 6 Rs/minute) sometime soon. Love to you all!!

Indian plane food? Not so delicious.

2009-08-16T04:15:00.002-06:00

Because I'm not really sure how to start this blog entry, I guess I'll just say that to begin with, I'm safe, happy, and loving India thus far. Now, I'll back track, and tell you about the 20+ hour journey it took to get me all the way here....

We left my house around 8:45 am on Friday morning. This was probably a little early in retrospect, but anxiety forced us out the door and down to Grandma's a little early. My brother was working that day, so he and I said our goodbyes in the kitchen after the obligatory family photos before my departure. We picked up my grandmother, then made a pit stop at the jewelry store where my ring was getting repaired. They didn't open until 10 and we were there around 9:45, so we just sat around and talked about how the employees didn't seem to care that we were clearly in a rush.

When we arrived at DIA, we obviously expected to say goodbye before security, but a thoughtful Continental employee let my family come out to the gate with me. We bantered a bit with the security guys and ate a very American lunch at Panda Express. After exchanging a few dollars for Rupees (about $7 worth, or 250 rps) and giving 50 of the Gandhi-adorned notes, we finally made our way to the gate. A short while and a few thousand pictures more and I was saying goodbye to my parents at the gate.

The flight to Newark was very uneventful. I took a dramamine and slept for about an hour, and made friends with the New Hampshire teenager and 20-something Manhattanite I was sitting next to. Once we were in Newark, I found a pay phone to call my parents, since my beloved (but tragically, American) Blackberry is still sitting on my bedside table back in Evergreen. I had to pay an entire dollar for a three minute conversation, which seemed more than ridiculous--not to mention obsolete, I actually got a few stares from New Yorkers trying to figure out why a girl, clearly in her 20s, was using a pay phone. Then it was time to find my gate, and typically, it was on the opposite side of the concourse (even though I flew into gate C113 and departed from C98).

The flight attendants were checking passports and visas when I got to my gate, so I joined the throng of passengers. Soon, I was joined by Liz, another girl on my program who was taking the same flight. We verified our passports and travel documents with the crew and then found somewhere to sit. A few minutes later, Nate, another ACM-er, joined the party and we all chatted while we waited for first class to board. I quickly found my seat, an aisle in an exit row and right behind the bathrooms midway through the plane, and settled in. I popped two more dramamine before stowing my backpack above me, and before I knew it, we were off. Because it was trans-Atlantic, and I may have the worst luck on flights ever, I was seated next to the obligatory crying baby on the plane. It was hard to be irritated though, his parents were young and looked as though they would be soon introducing him to family in India and were very apologetic for his crying.

Thanks to dramamine and a lack of lights, I got a nice 8 or so hours of sleep on the flight. The total time on the plane was about 14 hours, so I watched a few movies on the private touch-screen viewers they had for every seat. The rest of the time was spent draining the energy on my now-dead iPod and solidifying my sleep patterns with American time zones. As a side note... Indian plane food? Not so delicious.

The flight ended surprisingly quickly, and with breakfast, despite the fact that we arrived around 8:30pm Mumbai time. Liz, Nate and I found one another relatively quickly and made our way to customs. We were greeted, immediately off the plane, by uniformed Indians carrying machine guns and wearing surgical masks. That's right--H1N1, swine flu, has hit India. There have only been a few cases so far, but most of the locals are taking extreme measures to prohibit the spread of the flu as much as possible. Obviously, in a country like India, the masses of poor in slums are easy targets for large numbers of infected individuals in only a few weeks. All of the customs agents were also wearing masks, and we were forced to fill out forms assessing our H1N1 risk along with regular customs forms. Many Indians debarking from the plane were also wearing masks and protecting younger children.

Besides the surprising factor of the surgical masks, customs was very easygoing. We were ushered through fairly quickly and found the process surprisingly easy. The hardest part was finding our bags in a throng of people from our flight crowded around the carousel. And then...

Welcome to Mumbai. The last hour or so of easygoing airport officials did not prepare me for the sensory overload that is outside the Mumbai airport. The first thing that hits you is the heat, the humidity. It was instantly overwhelming and you could feel it on your skin long before making your way outside. Sometime during your first breath of 'fresh' Mumbai air, the volume hits you. Hundreds of Indians are crowded around gates keeping them from overcrowding the door leading outside. Many of them are waiting for family members or waving to friends arriving from some flight. Most of them are working for hotels or touring companies, holding signs with Western names on them that they would shake excitedly if I looked at them. Nowhere could Liz, Nate and I find a sign denoting that ACM students should follow them, we stood around looking sufficiently lost.

A friendly Indian airport worker was quick to our rescue, as he pointed out another student looking for our same group. Allison had been traveling for two weeks prior to the program's start by herself, and was meeting us at the airport. Once we were all together in a group, we decided to simply stand still and let the directors find us instead. Soon, Gene, Sucheta, and Aaron (the other CC-ite I had never met) were wandering towards us, and suitable introductions were then made. Soon we were following the rapidly disappearing backs of Indians from our hotel in Mumbai towards the van taking us to check in. The drive was incredibly stressful, that's all I can really say about it. There seem to be no rules, other than that you should generally drive on the left side of the road and usually stop at red lights. Honking seems to be the way of directing traffic around here, a way of signifying to cars and motorcycles that you are about to pass them on the right in the same lane they're currently driving in. Turns are tight and maps are nearly unreadable, but the drivers seem cool and collected and more than prepared to drive in what I can only see as utter chaos.

The next few hours were mostly uneventful. I got to hang out with the other kids in the program, which was a welcome rest from the long, solitary silence of the flight. Soon, Ben and Garrett joined us from their flights that got in around 11pm, and then eventually we were joined by Sydney and Logan, who both got in around 1am. Soon enough we had the whole group together in one room and were making introductions. Of course, to our American brains (except for Allison, who's accustomed to the time zone already) the middle of the night seemed like the middle of the day, so 3am after a shower turned out to be an acceptable bedtime. I only slept for about 3 hours, using this morning as time to catch up on a little reading and enjoy some Indian TV (which is an amazing mix of Hindi and English).

This morning, we were treated to Indian breakfast at the hotel, which was an interesting experience. A little later, we were repacked and jumping into a bus for the 3 hour trip to Pune. The ride was a good experience, and overwhelming in a lot of ways. It was a chance for more bonding with the rest of the group, as well as observation of the outer limits of Mumbai and the countryside on the way to Pune. I was surprised and amazed at the miles and miles of slums that lined the expressways, so obviously wracked with terrible poverty. These lean-tos quickly gave way to miles and miles of the most beautiful forest I've ever seen. We are, quite literally, in the middle of the jungle here.

Now that we're checked into our hotel in Pune, we have regular internet and comfortable beds. I have to go now to a meeting with the doctor about staying safe and healthy in this H1N1 scare, as well as digestive and traveling health in general. I hope to hear from you all soon, and happy travels to those of you who haven't left yet.

Down to the wire

2009-08-08T11:04:00.003-06:00

It is officially less than a week until I leave for Pune.

I don't really know quite how to feel at this point. Amazingly, this trip is not quite real yet... I think it probably won't be until I'm actually getting on the plane!

I'm in the beginning vestiges of packing. The first step is laundry, of which there is a lot to do. I've been sort of gathering a lot of my stuff I don't need on a daily basis off to one side of my room. I think I'm going to officially start packing this coming Tuesday. Tomorrow is my going-away party, hosted by my parents, and then I'm helping out with my dad's business on Monday. That and I'm mostly afraid that if I start packing too early, I'll finish too early, and then have nothing to do from Wednesday until Friday. Which, when I type it out, doesn't seem like much time at all, but know from experience that two days when you're completely overwhelmed with nerves is really not the most fun thing to do. I'll be much happier if I actually have something to do (and packing, and then re-packing to double check everything) will keep my head somewhat occupied.

I can't believe it's almost time for me to leave! Here I am, making plans and last goodbyes to people I won't see for months. It's funny to think that in any other era I would be, for the most part, completely cut off from all the friends and family I'm leaving here in the U.S. But thankfully, the interwebs provides quite an easy way to talk to everyone.

I guess I'm off to go hang around the house for a while. Lunch with a friend this afternoon!

3 weeks, and counting!

2009-07-22T14:55:00.002-06:00

We're getting down to crunch time! It's been pretty crazy over the past few weeks, and I've done a lot of preparations recently for this whole thing.

I started out by buying some new clothes. The ACM packet mentioned that we should wear lose clothes, no spaghetti straps or short shorts. Not that I generally wear that kind of thing anyway, but my mom and I went on a quest to find more "appropriate" wear for being abroad. We ended up with some cute button-up shirts that look like I'm going on a safari and a bunch of guys' shorts, since I couldn't find any bermuda ones I liked in the girls' section. With my dad, I bought a pair of seriously cool Chacos, that I think will be great for walking around in, and a new backpack for the longer travel I'll be doing near the end of the semester. I've tried it out bringing it to Colorado Springs a few times to visit campus, and so far, I'm loving the size and shape of it.

My mom has been spending a lot of time looking at international insurance, and getting freaked out by options created just in case my body needs to be shipped back to the United States. Awesome, right? We went to the bank today to let them know that I would be traveling, and a teller told me about her brother's year-long trip to India. She joked with my mom that by the time I came back she would probably be completely grey-haired with worry. I called Verizon today to make sure they knew I was going as well, and it turns out they're actually very helpful when you want to suspend your account for six months. Instead of keeping my American cell phone with me in Pune, I'll be buying a phone abroad and using that instead. Maybe today is just my lucky day, but so far, everyone has been helpful!

I also called Continental, because I was starting to get worried that the sketchy Indian company I used hadn't sent me a copy of my ticket yet. Turns out, I am definitely on their passenger manifest and will, in fact, be flying to India on August 14. That is a relief, to know that I have a seat on the flights.

I also finally filled my Malaria prophylaxis, which is a relief. I also got away with a steal! Apparently King Soopers has the kind that I'm taking on their $4/month prescription list, so I got 160 pills for like, $30. My mom and I were expecting this to be more like $200, so it was pretty cool when the whole thing turned out to be only about $40. We flipped out a little bit and the pharmacist was seriously confused. I think he thought we thought it was super expensive, so he was trying to reassure us that it was indeed only $30 for the Malaria pills. Wow!

There are very few things I have left to buy. I need to find out what I need to get in terms of voltage converters and plugs for India. If you have any advice on this front, it would be greatly appreciated. I only need to plug in a few things (camera battery charger, computer), but they're expensive so I want to make sure that I don't fry them the first time I go to plug them in on the subcontinent. I am also anxiously awaiting a meeting where I'll be awarded a $1000 scholarship for my time abroad! I'm very excited about this, as my summer job hasn't turned out to be quite the cash cow I expected.

Now, all that's left is to buy gifts for my host family, finish reading my two books for India, (Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry and India: From Midnight to the Millenium by Shashi Tharoor) and take my Typhoid vaccination! Oh, and pack, of course! :)

Visas, passport pictures, and more.

2009-06-20T08:46:00.003-06:00

A few days ago, we started the quest for my visa to be in India for six months. The whole process seemed simple enough: fill out this form online, print it, then mail it to the consulate in San Francisco (the closest consulate to Denver, apparently). That being said, it was of course not easy.

I started off the day by working at 5:30 AM. Waking up at like 4 was brutal, but once I was up it was alright. Loooong morning serving breakfast to old people, then I came home, totally beat. My mom's first suggestion was that we deal with the whole visa thing. Of course, this seemed like a good idea since I thought it would take a total of 10 minutes, running to Evergreen. I was wrong.

First, I double checked all my information against the packet that ACM sent, regarding how to answer the questions on the questionnaire. That packet turned out to be very helpful (thanks Heather!). There were what I assume are normal questions to ask while applying for a visa, but many of them were phrased strangely. I also had to enter a 5 line address for the program director in Pune, which I never would have known without it. Anyway, so after double checking all the info online, I then printed three copies (just in case), and double checked the info again as per my mom's request. Finally I checked the checklist.

Not only do I need the form, and my actual passport to be sent in (with emphasis on both being SIGNED), I need a Money Order for $150, proof of my residence, two passport-sized pictures, and a letter from my program saying I was accepted. I promptly asked my dad what a money order is, and he struggled to remember for a few minutes before telling me to google it, haha. It was the perfect reaction--who actually uses money orders these days? ... the Indian consulate.

We took care of the pictures first. We went to Walgreens, since it is close and convenient. The thing about getting your picture taken at Walgreens is this: the people act a little strange while taking your actual picture, and they don't use a flash. So I'm standing in front of this white pulldown thing, and the lady goes to take my picture. I smile, but then she says to relax my face. I try to do this, but don't really want to stop smiling. She shows the picture to me, which is very dark on the screen (especially under the white florescent lights at Walgreens), and I just accept the picture since I can't see it. We order ten copies of the picture, in 2x2 size. We need two for the visa, one for ACM, and four for the Pune Police. That leaves us with 3 extra copies that I'm sure I'll need. Anyway, so after about 10 minutes, the pictures come out. The lady shows them to me, and what has come out is a washed-out picture of me smiling in a bit of a sarcastic way. She had used the computer to lighten the image and my expression is just priceless. I hope that's the expression I can wear if I have to deal with the Pune Police... sarcastic, not terrified.

Anyway, once we had the pictures and all this nonsense assembled, we went to Mailboxes Etc. to mail the whole thing off. We thought they might do money orders there, but they didn't, so we walked a ways to King Soopers. Turns out, to get a money order (which is basically a notarized check that you don't have to wait to clear), you have to use either cash or a debit card with a pin number. I can guess that this is because they want to make sure that the money order will clear on the other side, not get bounced back to them. Long story short... my mom's card didn't work, and neither did mine. Finally, I had to try my Well's Fargo account, which I only use at school and had a whopping $1.59 in the checking account. There isn't a Wells Fargo near my house, so we had to drive to Denver to put enough money in the account so that it would clear.

Yeah.

The whole ordeal ended up taking more than two hours, but I'm glad we got the whole thing off. My mom laughed as we finally pulled into my driveway, saying this was probably just an early taste of Indian bureaucracy. She's probably right.... I can't wait!

Two months and counting!

2009-06-14T13:22:00.002-06:00

I leave for India in exactly 2 months.

I just bought my plane ticket the other day. My mom and I, in an effort to find the cheapest ticket for the itinerary I need, bought the ticket from a slightly sketchy Indian website. I hope I actually got a spot on the plane. I have to fax them these forms (TO INDIA, what!) before the weekend is over. I'm slightly confused but I hope it will work out. This plane ticket was also officially the most expensive thing I've ever bought. Almost $1,300. Oyy. I am officially broke.

I'm also officially starting to get nervous. Having a plane ticket makes the whole thing a lot more real, somehow. I just can't believe that I'm actually going. Me. To India. For six months. Whoa! I'm off to go start filling out paperwork, I'm sending in my visa application this week! :)

Adventures thus far

2009-05-21T20:38:00.001-06:00

In case you haven’t heard, starting in August, I’ll be more than 7,000 miles away from home in Pune, India. I’m living there from August 16th to early December (after which I plan on spending at least a few weeks traveling around India–a dream of mine). Pune’s about 3 hours southeast of Mumbai by train. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for anything, ever.

I’m not entirely sure why the study abroad process has to be so painful, but it is. Unnecessarily painful. I’m sure my fellow CC study abroad-ers can attest to this as well. The process started almost a year ago, with thinking and looking through all of the options and places to do study abroad. Here it is, a year later, and I’m finally actually preparing for my trip to India.

Everyone that I’ve talked to that’s been to India (Americans, at least), they say you can’t prepare. So I’ve stopped trying. Instead, I just plan on blogging my way through the experience, hoping that I’ll figure things out as I go.

As it is, I’m 86 days from my departure to India. Things I’ve already accomplished: applying to program, getting accepted to program, discussed plans with financial aid and the registrar, figured out credits to work with my major, completed first steps to getting a visa, and visited the doctor for my vaccinations. I’m currently vaccinated against typhoid, Hepatitis A, and gotten my polio update, have a prescription for 160 days of malaria prophylaxis–oh, and gotten a nice handout on all of the diseases they can’t vaccinate me against (Dengue fever, anyone?). Things I still need to conquer: irrational fear of parasites. There are tons of other preparations I haven’t even thought about yet, though I’m sure my mom is currently making a mental list of absolutely everything.

One thing that required a lot of thought was my letter to Sucheta, one of the program directors, about my host family. One of the coolest parts about the program I'm doing with ACM is the fact that instead of staying in an apartment or a dorm, I get to stay with a host family. I wrote to Sucheta that essentially the only thing I'm really concerned with is having kids my age. I hope that if they have kids around my age, maybe a bit younger, I'll get to see some really good parts of Pune. I want to spend time with Indians, and though I'm sure I'll have a blast with the other Americans on my trip, I want to get out of my comfort zone. I hope that living with kids my age will help with that aspect of my trip. I hope I get placed with a Hindu vegetarian family, because why not? Veg is healthy when done right and it is India, after all.

Time to go look for some flights....