Out of India

Well, I have been intending to write one last entry for about two months now, and my Mum has been constantly helping me remember that, so here it is finally... I am very sorry that it took so long!

Everything was very slow the last few weeks of the program... just finishing everything up, buying last minute gifts, holding out until the end.  Our independent study projects were due on Wednesday of the last week and by the end it was certainly a relief to have them finished, turned in, and beyond our control.  I actually felt quite good about my project upon turning it in.  The difficulties and confusions were worked out (for the most part, at least) and I was able to write a paper that was at least the length it was meant to be if not the best academic work ever created.  The last week, right in the middle of finishing up everything, we had a talent show where we all showed off the various skills that we had been working on acquiring throughout the term.  Two friends and I had taken Bollywood dancing and were the closing number to the rest of the show, which included Tabla (drums), Bonsuri (flute), Yoga, and classical Kathuk dancing.  It was a lot of fun to see what everyone had been doing and to have a closing event where all the students and their host families could get together and have dinner and take photos. We all dressed up... don't we look fantastic?

Afterward, most of the students went out just to spend time together, something we actually did several times during that last week.  Our last night all together, we went to the Hotel Raviraj, our first home in Pune.  We had snacks and drinks, went up onto the roof for the last time, and just enjoyed one anothers' company.  It was the perfect way to close our all of our adventures together.  After all of that was done, we had a couple of days to just say goodbye and get ready to head home.  As much as goodbyes were sad, when the time came to board our planes we were all ready to leave.

I feel so blessed to have gotten the chance to know all the people that I did this term.  From the staff at the office to my host family to the other students, each one has had an effect on the person that I will be after this trip.  It was unlike any other experience I have had in a group.  The students talked a lot about the relationship of our group, mostly during the last week.  We all agreed that it felt more like a family than anything else.  Everyone had their bad days, everyone had points when they just needed to stay away from someone else in the group, but we accepted it as fact that these were the people in whose company we were spending basically all of our life throughout those three and a half months.  If we couldn't tolerate one another, the entire group would have been miserable, and everyone knew that.  Whenever those bad days hit, you knew that there were people who would listen to whatever you needed to talk about and forgive your short temper.  It was wonderful to be in an environment where there was only a miniscule amount of drama and everyone was just friends.  I know that some of the people I have gotten close to on this trip will be my friends for the rest of our lives.

Now it has been nearly two months since I got home and and sometimes it still seems like I need to look at my photos just to remember that it really happened.  But it did, and I miss it more every time I do look at my photos.  It still seems very strange that the three and a half months there could pass so quickly, and even stranger at how normal my American life seems.  I really had no problems readjusting to America; even my jet lag was limited to me finally being able to get to sleep on time and get up at a reasonable hour, something I can never quite seem to achieve on my own.  Although, I seem to have been more the exception than the rule, because most of my friends had varying amounts of difficulty readjusting.  One of them pretty much just made Indian food for the first month that he was back and quite a few got very frustrated with the materialism here.  I've been lucky to be at home for these two months, so I have been able to do a lot of thinking and processing in peace before I head back to school.

So, in the interest of wrapping up, I will leave you with a couple last tips...

29) Prepare to be unprepared.  No matter what you think you might know about where you’re going, no matter what you expect, your experience is guaranteed to be almost the polar opposite in some way.  No amount of study, travel books, or photographs can truly capture what will be your own experience.  Not even visiting somewhere is adequate preparation for what you will face when you are actually living in that place.  So... the fewer expectations that you have to begin with, the fewer will be broken and the less difficulty you will have reconciling yourself with the result.  Whatever the result is, I promise that there will nearly always be something amazing there no matter how dreadful or hopeless it seems.  So try to find those moments of beauty that you might be missing and make the best of it.  Granted, you may still have a dreadful time, I won’t deny that, but you will be far less likely to if you have a positive attitude.  Trust me, during reflection you will find that the beautiful moments stand out in your memory and all of the worst moments served to make you stronger.

30) Expect to change.  While this may sound cliché and hopelessly obvious, none of us are coming back as the same person that we were when we arrived.  One of the conversations that we had ove during the last weeks was in what way we felt we had each changed most.  I definitely think I have come through it as a better person with a better understanding of myself and others.  This is a great opportunity, so be sure to open yourself up to it and don’t shut down because it is uncomfortable, which it is.  Hopefully, you will like yourself, not to mention others, a lot better when you are through.

So thank you for reading my blog throughout this term.  It has been great to hear from people that they have been reading it and enjoying it.  I hope I have at least provided some amusement even if you never put any of my advice into practice.  This has definitely been one of the most impacting experiences of my life and probably will be no matter what else I do.  Hopefully, someday I will be able to go back to Pune and relive at least some of the adventures that we had.  Still, I am happy to be home and am enjoying seeing everyone again.  While this journey has ended, who knows what will be next or when next will be, so I very well may be back sooner than you expect.

Accha bhetuya,

*L*

P.S. If you are friends with me on facebook, you can see many more photos there.

A Southbird Adventure

Diwali is another part of the Hindu festival season: basically like an enormous Christmas and New Years’ celebration, as it is the traditional beginning of the Hindu calendar.  We got one week off from school to travel as well as the weekends on either end, so I and six other girls raced around southern India as quickly as we could possibly go.  It was a great group, although a smaller group would have made things logistically easier, and we all melded together really well.  We had some great conversations and got to discuss our views on certain aspects of our program here to a length that we really had not gotten the chance to before.  However, it was a pretty insane trip; to capture the details as fully as I could, I wrote day-by-day entries...

22 October

The railway absolutely my favourite means of transportation.  We spent hours today just sitting in the open doorway of the train car watching the beautiful scenery flash past and the sunset.  Also, it is a significantly less smoother ride than cars because there are no potholes on the railway.  The seven of us girls took over a set of seats (of which only one was actually ours), so we have needed to explain several times that we wanted to be together for safety.  Fortunately, almost everyone has been very nice about it and switched with us without complaining.  The two guys are a little further down the car... they came to hang out and play cards a few times.  We are more relaxed than we have been in a long time, just able to just enjoy ourselves and ignore the stares and attention.  We were really loud at points, but it was alright.  We made a friend as well, a little boy who was sitting by the guys.  He basically moved to sit by us after a while and stayed until after most of us were worn out.  He was really sweet, even though he was very insistent on having all of our attention, and gave us candy in the evening for Diwali because I “gifted” him a pen.  We brought enough food to keep a small army going; we didn’t realize just how much we had until we got on, though, and it just kept appearing out of people’s luggage.

27) Don’t take food out in public railway stations.  You will get a lot of unwanted attention from people who would love to relieve you of it.

23 October

We had an abrupt awakening this morning when the train pulled into Bangalore at 6:25, at least an hour and a half before we were expecting.  We panicked because we didn’t realize it was the last stop, so we stuffed everything into our bags and tumbled out onto the platform before even fully waking up.  Then we got into rickshaws and went to the bus station where we didn’t even get through the front gate before we were climbing onto a bus bound for Mysore.  That was around three hours, following the eighteen-hour train ride.  So by the time we got to Mysore and checked into our hotel, we were very grateful to lie down for a little while and then spend the afternoon walking around.  We got invited into a wedding (where we had to insistently refuse photographs up on-stage with the wedding party) and got to visit the Mysore Palace.  Mysore Palace is stunning... the one standing now was commissioned in 1897 (completed in 1912) by Henry Irwin after the original wooden structure burnt down.  It was amazing to see.  The best part of the building was the marriage hall, where there was the most detailed stained glass that I have ever seen.  However, I have no photographs of that because cameras were “not allowed” inside.  We soon figured out that this was not really true as everyone had their cell phones out when we got in.  The downside to Mysore Palace was that everyone there was on vacation, so we soon became more interesting subjects than the Palace itself.  We ended up blowing up a couple times and one of my friends smacked someone who would not leave us alone.  By the time we left, it was pretty much just to get away from it all as we were so irritated that we weren’t enjoying it anymore.  Dinner for half of us was really good pizza in our hotel room while we watched football, so that raised our spirits a bit.

Mysore Palace.

The palace lit up at night... it was beautiful.

Mysore: We could have hung around for another day most likely, but I didn’t really enjoy it as much as other places I have been.  The palace was stunning though.

24 October

Today we got a bus from Mysore to the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, where we are staying in a dormitory at the ranger station in the middle of the forest.  We took a fantastic van safari this afternoon where we got to see lots of wildlife and just spend time in the forest.  Then we got to watch them feed the elephants in the evening; there were even a couple of babies.  We found out early on that we needed to keep the windows closed though, because we had a group of monkeys attempt to climb through and grab our snacks.  We had to fight them off.  Speaking of food, we had a bit of a comic set of circumstances regarding our meals here.  For lunch, we went to the only restaurant around here where, after we had read the menu that they had given us for ten minutes, they informed us that they only had one meal (which was not true as we saw other people in the restaurant eating other things).  Then we thought that we had communicated to the lady who runs the dormitory that we would eat there, but she did not understand us and went home, so we ended up just eating peanut butter with spoons for dinner.  Hopefully she will show up before breakfast tomorrow because we’re pretty hungry at this point.  But our rooms are great: spacious with a great floor for dancing, so we did some swing for a while, and we watched a movie after the power came back on (it was off when we arrived, along with the water, which hasn’t come back on, so we have been manually filling the toilet tank from the rain bucket so that it flushes).

Mudumali: While it was certainly beautiful and elements of the stay were great, like the safari, I wouldn’t really recommend it as a place to stay.  A good idea would have been to stay in the Ooty Hill Station and take a day trip to Mudumali.
  

25 October

Well, today was absolutely an adventure.  It began with an elephant ride, for which we got one elephant where we had been told we would get two.  The reason for this shift of events was that the District Judges decided that they had a right to claim all the elephants excepting one.  So, instead of each getting a half-hour ride, we split the time so that everyone got fifteen minutes (which we weren’t really supposed to do, but we did anyway).  Then we waited for a while for the bus that we needed to come by and munched on biscuits because breakfast did not happen (the lady didn’t show up and the one restaurant basically told us they weren’t going to make food).  The ride that we originally thought would take about a half-hour took three, but it was beautiful.  When we arrived in Ooty, we discovered that there were no busses to Kochi, as we had been told, so we had to catch one to Palaghut and had one hour to grab food, which we did along with chocolate and more biscuits.  Remember my description of getting on buses in India?  Yeah, we needed to do that again.  But all of us got on.  I took car sickness medicine about an hour or so in and it made me unexpectedly drowsy, so all I remember about the drive is through a drugged haze... I hallucinated a couple of times also, so I can’t distinguish very well.  Eventually, after the sun had set, we got to the bus station... but it was only about halfway to where our hotel was that night.  So one of the girls moms had contacted her travel agent who had, on the spot, booked us a hotel for tonight and a car for tomorrow morning to take us to our next spot.  The hotel is called the Fort Palace Hotel and is definitely more expensive than we would have booked for ourselves, but it’s nice to stay in such an upscale place for a night.   We are all exhausted and irritated, not least because the staff member from school who we have been working with on this trip since the beginning of the term (this part of our trip has not changed since the beginning, either) gave us the wrong information about buses and distance and then when we called to ask for advice, shifted the blame to us, saying that we only gave her our itinerary two days before we left (which was when she asked for it).  Anyway, we have learned our lesson about having her help us with our trips and taking advice from her.

Ooty: We only had about an hour there since we were just passing through, but we ended up wishing that we had stayed there for a night as we originally hoped to.  I have no idea of what is there, but it was very cool temperature-wise and looked very interesting.

28) Check directions, distances, destinations, and all other details yourself.  I really cannot emphasize that enough.  Do not take anyone’s word for anything... it sounds so critical, but it really is true.  If the person you are checking facts against turns out to be correct, that is great.  If they turn out to be wrong, you save yourself an enormous headache and probably a lot of money.  If you can’t figure it out yourself, try and find a travel agent in the U.S. that knows about India.  I hate to sound so dreadful, but we have had almost no positive experiences with travel agents and other people booking things for us.  The only ones that I would recommend are Kedar, who booked our bike trip, and the one who found our hotel for tonight faster that I knew was possible, but I have no idea what his name was (aren’t I helpful...).  However, if you are working with someone in India, be sure to be overly specific about what you are looking for, price range, etc. so that you don’t have any surprises whether because of language or more malicious intentions.

26 October

We got on the road at around 7:30 this morning, after being cheated out of a frustrating amount of money by the hotel.  Our driver was exceptional though; very amiable and when he didn’t know where to go, he just asked for the number for the houseboat and called to get directions himself.  He was wonderful.  We just took the drive to relax and reboot.  It was very stress-relieving to just not need to worry about it... and we are relieved that we can laugh about it all.  We’re pretty proud of ourselves having gotten this far, particularly considering yesterday... the bus ride was just unreal for everyone.  As one of my friends told her mom on the phone today, “I am ashamed to tell you this, but I pushed an old man out of the way to get on and I may have elbowed a child in the face... I’m not sure.  You just can’t be human.”  But we made it and so we are back on track, relaxing on the houseboat for a night in the backwaters of Kerela.  It is wonderful; everything that we were afraid to hope for and just what we needed.  We sat in silence for most of the afternoon, watching the houses and rice fields float by and listening to the sound of the waves against the side of the boat.  It has been just what we needed after the last couple of days.  Our captain is really funny and was chuckling with and at us all day long.  In the evening, a couple of the girls went swimming, but I did not as I was strictly instructed by my Passport Health nurse to not swim in the rivers... see?  I follow directions.

   

It was wonderfully quiet and peaceful on the houseboat... we basically sat in silence the entire day.

 27 October

If you ever go to India, you should really go to Kerela and spend at least one night on a houseboat.  Although there are many different companies, we went with Coco Houseboats and I very highly recommend them... they were phenomenal and extremely helpful.  (http://www.cocohouseboatskerala.com/)  Some people apparently spend up to fifteen days on these houseboats, which I think would be too much.  However, I could have definitely spent two or three.  We checked out at nine this morning and made our way to the “beach resort” that we had booked (the manager of Coco Houseboats called and got exact directions for us and then called to have two rickshaws pick us up, gave them directions, and fixed the price so that we would not get cheated... we were stunned.).  The rickshaw drive took us past some absolutely beautiful churches, as a large part of Kerela is Christian.  The amusing thing is that it is also largely Communist, so crosses are often seen mere metres from the hammer and sickle sign of the Communist party and red pennants (the colour of the party) hang everywhere.  It is about ten minutes walk through the small back roads of the fishing village to the beach, which is beautiful in a very mysterious way.  The resort is not really anything special and we are being severely cheated on food, but its clientele pretty much only consists of white tourists, so it has been very pleasant to talk to some of them.  We met a Danish family who are living in Delhi, so that was interesting to hear about their lives.  The owner has a bit of a strange music selection: all American (but not really anything good) and blasted very loudly on the front porch, which is the only place to sit outside, which makes sitting and talking virtually impossible.  Apparently, there is a music room where we can plug in our ipods and party until 4:00 am, but we are, for the most part, exhausted at this point and we are hoping to get an early start tomorrow so that we have the day to explore Cochin, so we will probably all get to sleep early.

Alleppy, Kerala: The houseboats were wonderful... I can’t recommend them enough.  The beach is beautiful, but I wouldn’t really recommend our resort (It’s called Vallis Gardens).  I would venture to guess that some of the other ones are better, but I really have no scope on that.  If you are going to Kerala, I would just say spend time on a houseboat and then an afternoon at the beach: skip the resorts.  Just as a note, I am speaking from the viewpoint of a college student with a limited budget.  If you are willing to spend more, I have heard that you can get top-quality service at extremely fancy resorts here in Kerala and that this is one of the best places for that.

28 October

We hired another car from the resort to our final hotel in Cochin.  The hotel is fantastic... the most Western one we have stayed in on the trip apart from the Fort Palace and, somehow, more comfortable than that one.  Perhaps it’s because the manager is really nice, they aren’t cheating us out of any money, and this one has computers with internet in the lobby.  But we didn’t spend all that much time there, really, instead spending the entire day walking around Jew Town and Fort Cochin (which is not actually a fort, I found out).  What did we do all day, you might ask?  Well... we shopped.  More than I have ever shopped in one day in my entire life (I would like to say that all I bought were gifts).  But it was fantastic... the adrenaline rush from bargaining (which I am astronomically better at now, thank you very much) and the overall relaxed pace of the day.  Also, the general attitude of the people here is so nice.  We ended up meeting this family (of about twenty people) on vacation from Tamil Nadu and it was great... they were friendly and very interested in us but not pushy.  They didn’t approach us or ask us for photographs until we asked them.  Then we ended up getting a few more photographs than we bargained for, but it was still great.  There were a lot of children in this family, so we pretty much made their day.  Overall, people were wonderful in Kerala... we got to meet a whole lot of people because we were much more relaxed because we didn’t feel so on display.  And the sunset was beautiful... we have seen so many amazing sunsets during this term.  The conclusion to the evening was a great: a birthday dinner for one of the girls at a really good restaurant and an evening spent talking and showing off our purchases while the rain poured outside.

Cochin, Kerala: Definitely spend more than one day here, even just for the experience of walking around and looking at all the buildings.  Apart from the house boat, this was my favourite day of the trip.  I highly recommend staying at Biju’s Tourist Home, at least if you want a nice, fairly western stay.  Obviously, it was affordable, and it was wonderfully located.  Just a note: Cochin is also called Kochi depending on where you look.

29 October

Back on the train!  I have to confess myself not enjoying it as much as I did the first time.  We are, for the most part, exhausted and ready to be done travelling as we have done a tonne in the past nine days.  Unfortunately, this trip is even longer than the last and we are going to cram us all into six bunks this time instead of attempting to find a seventh one.  Oh, also... on an Indian train you need to sleep with all of your luggage locked and under your head.  Someone kindly informed us of that on our first train.  However, I am sharing a bunk with another girl, so mine is affixed to the metal grate on the back of the seat and strapped to the back edge of the seat... I think I may have done a little too good of a job because I tried taking it off to get something and couldn’t make it move.  I gave up because I was tired, but hopefully I will be able to get it off in the morning.

30 October

Well, the trip is finished.  We reached our station around 4:00 and got rickshaws home.  My host family is in Goa now, so I am unpacking and repacking to go stay at my Tai’s mother’s house for the next few days.  It will be nice to not live out of a suitcase for two months at home.  I am exhausted.

So, see what I mean?  Not just any vacation.  Here is a list of the most bizarre elements of our trip:

-The very insistent chaiwalas (tea sellers) on the train... “Chai, chai, chai. CHAIII!”

-Bus full of college boys yelling “Ehhy!” and trying to grab our hands through the open windows every time our buses passed one another.  It happened five or six times.

-Mudumalai had no food.

-Monkeys attempting to get into one girl’s bag and nearly attacking us through our window.

-District Judges taking our elephant.

-20 men climbing up the rickety stairway to the tiny attic restaurant while we waited to go down... they just kept coming!

-The journey to Alleppy taking 13.5 hours over two days instead of 6 hours.

-Watching over 30 people jumping into a moving bus.

-Rioting to push onto the bus.

-Parents hoisting children through the window onto the bus to save seats.

-A drunk man playing footsie with one of the girls on the bus while he stared at them and snapped in their faces.

-Another drunk, very friendly old man offering one of the girls ayurvedic medicine yet again on the same bus.

-The 14 “hair-pin turns” also on that bus ride.

-A nine-year-old throwing up on the same bus.

-2 kids asking for one of the girls ipod as a “free gift” for Diwali, one of which being the aforementioned girl after she threw up.  (It was an insane bus ride... and this was the one during which I was drugged.)

-One of the girls got a staple stuck in her teeth.

-A rickshaw driver in Jew town pretending to reel us in on a rope as we were walking toward his rickshaw... then when he charged us too much, he followed us yelling until we got another rickshaw.  Then we ran into him at least three more times on the other side of town where he was waiting to give us a ride.  A little creepy.

And to think that our original plan included twice as many destinations.  Still, overall it was fun.  We are to the point where we can look back at almost everything and just laugh it off, even if it is only for the reason that it was so ridiculous we cannot really even believe it happened... the refrain is that this will make a fantastic story to tell everyone when we get back.  However, the lack of food was apparently a little more than we realized... when I got back to school yesterday, our director took one look at me and said “Lorenza, you have lost weight.”  I don’t know exactly how true that is, but there you go.

  

We were dubbed "The Magnificent Seven" by one of our staff members.  :)  Gymnastics reference, anyone?

And now it is November and time to dig deep into our ISPs and turn our research into tangible final results while still attempting to enjoy and experience our last few weeks here in India to the fullest extent.  I hope everyone is doing well; I miss you all and cannot wait to see you again.

*L*

Deuce!

An important part of our program is that the students get to live in home stays instead of in dorms or apartments.  I am really enjoying it... I have two younger brothers: twelve and a half and six years old.  They are both a lot of fun, even if my youngest brother is a little too energetic at points and thus gets tired and grumpy easily.  We’ve played football and I’ve been “taught” Cricket and a board game called Carrom.  However, I am learning that teaching me a new game means giving me the instructions so that we can begin (how to hold the Cricket bat, for instance) but not actually telling me the rules until I break them.  I would just like to say that Cricket may be one of the most boring/pointless games in existence... I don’t really understand why people play it.  I am sorry if I offend you but, really, you should try and find something a little more exciting to do with your free time.  One of my good friends here is British and he agrees; I rest my case.

In Carrom, each player takes turns flicking a shooting disc at the rest of the pieces, (which are worth different point values dependent on the colour) trying to knock them into the side pockets (a bit like billiards, I suppose).  It’s a really fun game, but after a while your fingers hurt from flicking the shooting disc and I kept knocking it into the side pocket the first time that we played, which meant both my brothers shouted “Deuce!” quite loudly and I had to put one of my captured pieces back onto the board (I played against my middle brother and my youngest brother provided highly enthusiastic commentary and advice).  Also, the red piece in the middle is worth the most points, so in order to capture that one, you need to knock that one into a pocket and then another one in immediately afterward (every time you knock a piece in, you get an extra turn), otherwise you don’t get the red piece.  Consequently, no one gets the red piece so once you get down to the last two pieces, the only one that you can shoot at is the red one because you need to have one left to shoot in after.  The last fifteen minutes of the game just consisted of the two of us trying (and failing) to knock the last two pieces in successively (except that I kept hitting deuces, so more pieces were thrown in at points).  My youngest brother got bored after about five minutes of this, leading him to pronounce it a “very stupid game.”  Eventually, though, I won, much to the chagrin of my middle brother and the delight of my youngest, both because he was rooting for me and because the game was finally over.

Carrom... the white stuff is talcum powder to make the pieces slide better.

My younger brothers are also helping me out with my Marathi and Sanskrit.  The first sentence I learned from my youngest brother was “Tu es makdur (mockur)”... most of you can probably figure that out (hint: makdur means monkey).  We have only had a few lessons, but those were complete with my youngest brother making me repeat everything about fifty times and giving me an exam at the end (I occasionally had exams on days when I didn’t have lessons as well).  He is very thorough... more difficult to satisfy than my teacher at school because he won’t let me stop repeating something until I pronounce it absolutely perfectly... which I’m having difficulty with because what I say the first time sounds correct.  We went through animals on the first night (which began when my youngest brother pulled the sentence “The elephant is my friend.” out of thin air).

My first Marathi lesson with my brothers.  As you can see, I was graded... several times, actually.  Slightly redundant as they told me how to spell everything, but at least I got full marks.

The food here is very good.  Most of the cooking is done by the servants and most of it isn’t spicy at all and we have a variety of styles.  And they love to feed people here.  Every meal, I leave feeling almost over-full.  I learned quickly to be clear about when I’m full or else I end up with more on my plate (sometimes I do anyway).

Our house is very clean and my room is very nice.  It’s cool, comfortable, and I have plenty of space and storage, including my own bathroom.  My door even has a lock on it (in case nothing else will keep my youngest brother out was how it was sold to me).  The only thing that’s frustrating is that there is a flock of birds which go crazy each time the sun rises (around 5:30) right outside my window.  I don’t ever hear anything from them except for that.  I think they’re either crows or magpies, but I haven’t quite figured that out since I’ve been too irritated and groggy to look, but there are a lot of them and they’re really loud.  Also, it’s quite common to have people roaring down the street at strange hours on their motorbikes, and since they aren’t necessarily the quietest of vehicles, I’ve been woken up by those many times as well.  I am learning to use my ipod with my noise-proof headphones (well, those are broken now, but still) to its fullest advantage... I don’t think it has been used so much ever in its lifetime.

My sheets... selected by my youngest brother.  My Tai told me that he was adamant that I have princess sheets since I'm a girl.  I've never been particularly fond of Ariel, but I really like these sheets.

My Tai (elder sister... since my host mother is not very much older than me, I call her this instead of Ai (i-e), which means mother.) went to an international school in Bangkok when she was younger, so she has a very interesting point of view on India, as well as other countries, and studying abroad.  We have had quite a few long talks and I learn new things about Indian society every time.  I really enjoy getting to talk to her and know her. Another result of that is that she makes very sure that I have space and privacy when I need it.  Privacy is not something that is understood here to the extent that we are used to back home and a few of the other students have gotten frustrated by this, so I am very grateful.  She is really great.

My Dada (elder brother, my host father) works in Mumbai, so he is only home on the weekends.  As far as I can tell, this is a fairly common phenomenon here.  Obviously this means that I don’t get to see him very much, particularly lately.  He is pretty quiet, but he is very nice and gives great travel advice.  Other than that, I don’t know too much about him except that he was the state table tennis champion in college (which is pretty neat), and that I learned from my Tai.

My Dadi (grandmother) is very sweet, but I don’t really see all that much of her.  She works all day (she’s out the door at 5:30 or sometime around there every morning) and then comes home and watches Marathi soap operas in her room all evening.  I’ve watched with her a couple times and have decided that I like soap operas even less when I can’t understand them, which is saying something because I detest the English ones...

My brothers are great (most of the time, at least).  The elder one spent a few weeks near the beginning of my time here studying hard for exams (their school is year-round so they have exams every six months) and I got to help him study for English, so I felt quite useful then... he felt like he did pretty well and I enjoyed the experience a lot.  We did vocabulary and reading comprehension for the most part.  Other than that, however, I was spending most of my time during that stage with my youngest brother when I was at home.  We found quite a bit to do... usually we read, but he got bored of that a couple of times.  One night he decided he was going to help me untangle my jewellery, so that was fun.  We play house and blocks and everything like that or he combs my hair (he has a thing for hair... which means that I keep it bound up most of the time).  We have recently picked up the Power Rangers, so we watch and play that (I get to be the evil one)... a cool concept, but the show is pretty dreadful acting-wise, dialogue-wise – well, there’s really not that much that’s fantastic about that show, although perhaps the original was better.  During my computer’s ill streak, they both tried helping me fix it, the main method being taking out the battery and shaking it, then replacing it (they wanted to shake the computer itself, but I wasn’t very keen on that idea).  Lately, of course, I have been gone every weekend, which limits the amount of time I get to spend with them.  However, I get to help them with homework on occasion and play wii with the elder one.  I get to read bedtime stories with them and my Tai every night... Dr. Seuss (which I read one night to see how fast I could go) and History of India.  It is my favourite part of the day.

One element of family life here that is difficult to adjust to is how different the concept of discipline is.  Whining is a common method of complaint... it doesn’t work all of the time in our house, but it still works a little better than I am used to.  I am a little less fun than I was initially because as my novelty value has faded, they have realized that, if anything, I am less likely to do what they want if they are whining.

I will be coming back to the United States with a new obsession: football!!!  Real football, not American football.  My family watches the British Premier League and has gotten me addicted to the point that I will be watching every single game when I get home.  Unfortunately, the games are all on weekend evenings, so I haven’t been home for them lately, but once I am finished being gone for the weekends I plan to watch all of the games that I can.  I can already tell that the decoration theme of my dorm room will be changed in the spring.

Overall, I like my host situation a lot; it’s turned out to be really great, although I was a little bit overwhelmed and slightly sceptical at the beginning.  Considering a few of the other host situations, I feel very lucky... some of them haven’t turned out the best.

23) Whether you are a student living with a host family or a family hosting a student, give the situation at least two weeks before passing any judgement.  Awkward situations and misunderstandings at the beginning may not hold and if you let it negatively bias you, you won’t enjoy the experience as much.  Also, for a student, it’s going to take a couple weeks to acclimate to the living environment and lifestyles of the family, so both sides need to be kind and understanding.

24) Make sure to spend enough time with your host family.  At the beginning it is a little difficult, both for the reason that there is a lot to do initially and that when you’re homesick it’s better to spend time with friends.  But your family gets attached to you, so don’t miss out on the experience of getting to know them.  If you are hosting, at least attempt to include your student in different activities.  One of my friends ends up staying home while her Ai goes out all the time and doesn’t really enjoy that.

25) Be very grateful for all of the things that you have at home, wherever that may be, because there is no guarantee that those items will be present when you go abroad.  For me, the list includes dryers, fitted sheets, shower curtains, windex, and fabric freshener.  Not having these things doesn’t exactly make life more difficult (except perhaps the dryer... I have had some of my clothes grow mold because they took too long to dry), but I wasn’t expecting to need to go without them.

26) House slippers or just flip-flops to wear around the house are a great idea, as are everyday shoes that can get wet, actually.  It’s a good idea if the latter can stand up to a bit of hiking/climbing flights of mountain stairs to ancient caves.  I wore flip-flops the first time... bad idea.  I just went barefoot up most of the first mountain, which was fine, but I should have had good shoes.  Here are some good ideas: crocs (there are a bunch of different styles, not just the original ones), Keens, Tevas, and Chacos... I think I’m going to get some Chacos when I get back home.

We have servants, which I still haven’t gotten used to and don’t think I will.  They are really only here while I am at school and have worked for the family for something like fifty years so they’re completely trustworthy, but it’s still a very odd concept for me to get my head around... people doing my laundry and cleaning.  I am pretty sure that I will never have servants.  The entire situation is made even more awkward by the fact that they don’t seem to quite understand that I truly don’t speak Marathi, and so they talk to me quite quickly and then look at me expectantly and I just stand there shaking my head awkwardly.  Oh well, all part of the experience.

Look at me...  I wasn’t even this consistant at the beginning.  However, I will be gone for the next week, so I most likely won’t write anything until I am back.  By the way, comments are always appreciated... it lets me know that people still read this.  *Hint, hint*  If you ask me questions, I will even answer them in my next entry, I promise.

*L*