back home...missing India

In case anyone has not realized by my lack of recent posts, I have made it home from Chennai safely. My (several) flights back were uneventful and all my luggage actually made it which was quite a pleasant surprise.

Following my moms suggestion, I am posting a few final thoughts because frankly, I am extremely long winded and I know that when I see people in person I can't convey things as well in conversation as I can in writing. Go figure.

****

Something I didn't expect: I miss it already. I was glad to get home because I hadn't seen my family in months. But somehow I miss the chaos of that crazy city. I miss the kids I was living with; it was like being in the dorms all over again. I miss buying lunch for pennies. I got very used to the lifestyle of working with children during the day, going out at night and traveling on the weekends.

I think I can attribute such a positive experience to being in a great group. First of all, IAPA as an organization did a pretty job of making sure we were taken care of, well fed, safe and healthy. We, the students, made sure we had SO MUCH FUN.

I know I keep talking about "the group" but the other teachers really were terrific to work with. If i hadn't been there with 20 other intelligent, passionate and worldly people, it wouldn't have been the same. As a whole, the other kids spoke several languages, Spanish, French Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati (sp?) most of which were very useful in our part of India.

We also because really close, as you could imagine. When I think back to all the time we spent traveling together and working together and living in close quarters together; I think I could write a book about everyone, their life story, their goals, their pet peeves, their jr. high crushes. ...and then some. And then we had to split up. The last day we were all in CSI was like summer camp, where we all had to return each others stuff that we had borrowed throughout the course of the program. Ellen, my friend from ASU, lamented that she and three others would miss us all the most because she didn't go to UA and wouldn't see us as frequently. I think it will be sad when all of us aren't living down the hall from each other any more. For this reason, I promised her that Deepa and I would call her up everyone once in a while and say,

"wanna walk to Spencer's for lunch? Do you have bug spray I can use? Who stole my progression poster??"

It will be just like sweating it out in Chennai all over again...

The following are a few "happy snaps" of me and all my new best friends. [Thanks Deeps]

I MISS YOU ALL!!

<3>

[Believe it or not I still have more closing thoughts to write about... so keep checking back to the good ole blog. Once I sort through all my pictures I am going to start posting a slide show of the highlights. However that might take a while because I have thousands of pictures. Literally. Thousands. ]

still more later

-S

this language...

I have finally figured out what the transliteration button on blogger.com is for.

Check this out...

டுடே இ காட் எ எ சிங்கபபூரான் பெடிகிரே. இ புட் மி பீட் இன் எ த் புல் ஒப் வாட்டர் பிள்ளேட் வித் பிஷ் அண்ட் தே அதே த தேஅது ஸ்கின் ஆப் த போட்டோம்ஸ் ஒப் மி பீட். இட் வாஸ் திரிப்பி!!



This is Tamil, the very flowery writing used by people in South India. According to wikipedia, the language is spoken by 66 million people, mostly in Tamil Nadu India and some in Sri Lanka with a few people in Vietnam. Its roots are a mix of Dravidian and Sanskrit, and contains 247 characters (no wonder so many people are illiterate...)

Here is my name - சர் which is written as the two syllables.

Tamil is different than Hindi, most notably because of the line running through the top of Hindi letters. जुस्त लिखे थिस। व्हिच माय नेम वौल्ड बे सरह स्मिथ

Fascinating!!

but we only just got here!

So our summer of teaching has come to an end. We taught at our last school yesterday (I don't know about the other teaching groups, but Abeshiek and I went our with a bang...I don't think that class will ever forget us...)

On Friday we had a day of closing ceremony stuff. It was really just a chance to start saying goodbyes to our counterparts and in-country staff. We met for lunch at a small byraini place near the beach and then went to go play cricket.

[Just to give you an idea about cricket: it is a near-obsession here in India and people take their cricket very seriously and watch it religiously. It's like watching European football, or... Ohio State fans.

Us Americans thought we were just going to play a few rounds, hit the wicket and call it a day. But Alwin and Louis had other plans...which included teams, bowler rotation and score keeping. It was a little complicated to pick up at first (apparently official games can last many hours because teams can play to 60 points or more), but eventually I think we understood the gist of the game. It reminded me of my high school fastpitch softball days. However my team stuck me in left field...or the equivalent of left field. Do they even have fielding positions in cricket? All the kids whose families are from India (or the UK for that matter) seemed to know what they were doing. It took the rest of us a little longer to figure it out.

We had two teams; Brown Town and The Lilly White Crew. I'll give you two guesses as to which team I was on. :) [Alwin teaching Jason to swing. Harder than it looks...]

After we were comfortable with bowling, wicket hitting and swinging the paddle (it is called a paddle? Clearly I wasn't paying enough attention) we had a lot of fun. Like most things we have done in India, we drew a small crowd of locals who wanted to watch us play. I imagine it would be something like sitting at a park and watching a bunch of Indians and foreign white people trying to teach each other how to play basketball.

After cricket lessons, we went back to CSI for the viewing of the summer slide show. A compilation of pictures from the entire summer covering everything we had done; teaching, partying, traveling. It was then, that I started to get emotional about leaving. I know that I want to go home to see my family (I haven't seen them since Christmas) but I know I don't want to leave this incredible place. This place full of anomalies and adventure and new best friends. It feels like we only just got here!! I really can't write any more on that topic for now...too early to get emotional.

Anyway, after slideshow we got ready to go out for dinner with the whole group. This would be our last dinner with all the students, counterparts, and Indian staff. Us girls were stoked about going to a nice restaurant, this means we actually have a legit chance to wear our fancy Indian clothes!

We went to a very special place for dinner that was picked out by Sanjay in advance - A Barbecue place. That's right. Our last formal meal in Chennai and we go get BBQ. It was actually pretty cool, the servers put meat and fish and veggies on little kebabs at your tables. Plus there was a buffet. Like most other buffet places here in Chennai, Indians can grossly underestimate how much us American college students can eat.

During dinner, some final speeches were made and we gave gifts to our in-country staff who has worked so hard this summer. This includes Seema, our adopted mother, Louis, who makes sure we get places on time yet can never be on time himself, and Alwin, who spends countless hours in the IAPA office taking care of all those details with the schools.

After dinner, the group decided to end the evening by hitting up a nightclub. We chose to be sentimental for our last night of partying. GRT Grand is where we went out the very first weekend we were in Chennai, and now it's the final place we went out.

About nightlife in Chennai; well, it's not great. This isn't Bombay after all. Alcohol here is strictly regulated by the government. I heard someone say that by law, any place that serves booze must have rooms for people to sleep on the premises. This is why most bars/nightclubs are in the big fancy hotels. Also, the nicer bars only permit couples to enter, groups of men cannot come in unless there are women with them. There are only about five decent clubs in town and we saw them all.
Our group has "experienced the nightlife" so frequently over the course of the summer that our picture is actually on the wall at a bar near our end of town.

[The picture that will forever be on the wall of Zaras. IT'S LAMINATED!]

Our final night of clubbin' was a very sentimental one. Like I said, we went to GRT's (no one knows what it stands for) and many of our counterparts and staff came with us. Louis and Seema actually made it out to the dance floor and boogied with us a couple times.

We had an amazing time, and the evening prepared us to start saying our goodbyes. It also prompted me to start a list of all the things I am going to miss about India when I get back to the states.

1. first of all, everything is cheaper here. if i didn't explain it earlier, we get 42 rupees to the dollar and have the power to bargain for just about anything and everything you purchase

2. mangoes 24/7

3. walking in to a nightclub/restaurant/elementary school/bus station/market and getting every ones attention based solely on my skin color

4. rooming with Deepa and Lila (those two are the best:)

5. train rides

6. cows all over the streets (which reminds me to add something to my list of things I won't miss...cow s**! all over the streets)

7. tea breaks

8. Kingfisher

9. DOOM MACHALE! (google it)

10. And finally, I am going to miss all the students who are now
my new best friends and all the staff who worked so hard to make sure that we had the time of our lives this summer. Which we did.

more later (tear)

-S

Indian Baby Ceremony

Last night I had the pleasure of going to an Indian baby shower for a woman in Seema's neighborhood. [Seema is one of our in-country directors. She is amazingly generous and cares so much about us. She also likes to take us out places so we can be exposed to more Indian culture]


An Indian baby shower is very different from a Western one. Here, the families of the mother and father -to be host a small ceremony where friends can come and bless the mother and father. Guests also bring gifts for the mother such as bangles and jewelry because they think that if the mother is pleased, then the baby will be happy too. It is also believed that if the mother wears many bangles then the baby can hear them clinking and it will know that it is welcomed.

Carrie and I were ecstatic that Seema wanted to take us to something so significant in a persons life and as usual we were grateful to her for asking in advance if we could take pics :)
At first, we were apprehensive about going. We know what kind of reaction we elicit when we go places; Americans wearing Indian dress, showing up where everyone is not used to seeing white people... we usually manage to become the center of attention. The last thing we wanted was to steal the spotlight from the pregnant guest of honor. But Seema insisted, and we know now that if an Indian extends an invitation, you had better not decline...



This particular baby-welcoming ceremony was not like usual as Seema informed us. Apparently the marriage of the two people having the baby had caused a bit of a scandal in the neighborhood. This is because the two did not have an arranged marriage which is the usual custom. Instead the two eloped and got married in secret because he is a Christian man and she comes from a Hindi family. Even now, one year after the secret wedding, the two families don't completely accept the nuptials and even the girls parents chose to be absent from the ceremony to show their displeasure.


After hearing this I felt sorry for Preeta. It seems as though her family abandoned her when she needed them the most. But that's really not the way they see it. Apparently it would have even been more auspicious if Preeta's parents had attended even if they wanted to. Since the marriage was not arranged by them, then they have little ties with how the marriage is carried out.


Either way, it was a delicate situation because it was the first time both of the families were even meeting each other (minus Preeta's parents of course). Upon hearing this, I realized why Seema had encouraged us to come. I think Carrie and I were used as a buffer to break some awkward tensions that arose between guests. More than a few times, Seema approached groups of ladies and introduced s and told us to say hi in the few words of Tamil that we knew. Also the girls family was seated on one side and the mans family was on the other side and when we showed up, Carried and I were seated in the middle of the crowd. This of course, encouraged mingling because ladies and little girls approached us to say hi and ask our names.

Glad I could be of service. :)


All scandal aside, it was a beautiful ceremony. The extended family prepared lots of food and delicacies and placed them out at the feet of the mother. These are gifts for her and also a way for the family to show off their wealth and show that the baby will be born into a family with security. Guests bring other gifts such as bangles and saris. Seema was very generous, she brought 500 rupees for the couple as her offering.


Once all of the guests have arrived, the mother-to-be sits on a chair in front of all the gifts and the guests take turns going up in front and blessing her. [Usually the parents of the bride are the first to do this blessing. Oddly enough no one wanted to be the first to do it because the didn't want to seem like they were on one side or the other. So what do they do? Make the foreign girls go first to break the ice...]

So even though I didn't understand what I was doing, I took a turn preforming a blessing. One of the aunts showed me how to do it...

First I had to dip my finger in red powder and touch Preeta's cheeks. Then I had to sprinkle water on her head and place two glass bangles on each wrist. I later learned that she has to keep all the bangles on until the baby arrives; it would be bad luck to take them off. Lucky for her that is only going to be another week or so because she was already up to her elbows in the sparkly jewelry.

In return for blessing the mother-to-be, I was given a little 'party favor'. It was a banana, two glass bangles, and a little box of red talcum powder used for the dot on the forehead. It was in a large green leaf wrapped in a string of jasmine flowers. (cute huh?)






A traditional baby ceremony could go on for hours due to all the blessings and gift giving etc. However after our turn Seema wanted to leave. Her personal opinion is that these things can be unnecessarily drawn out. Also Seema said a lot of the attendees may have only been half-hearted in their blessings because they disapproved of a marriage between the two religions.


However I would have never known anything was out of the ordinary (mostly because I had no idea how these things are usually run) but also because it was still a beautiful ceremony. Preeta was absolutely stunning and couldn't stop smiling. The father-to-be was extremely gracious and offered us a bottle of orange soda before we left.

[Just a note: People in Chennai are much more conservative than the rest in India. In most other cities, inter-religious unions are very common and don't receive the same disapproval]

All in all, it was an interesting evening and gave us more exposure to the complicated and fascinating culture that is South India.


-S

---The countdown till home has begun!!

weekend in New Delhi

This past weekend a small group of us took off on another mini-vaca to the city of New Delhi to see the Taj Mahal. Jason, Carrie, Neicea, Ryan, Lauren and I took off on Friday morning and arrived in Delhi that afternoon for a whirlwind weekend of being tourists. :)

A little info on Delhi:
The city of Delhi is the capital of India. It has a population of 7.1 million and is at good 1700 miles north of Chennai, so the only practical way to get there is to fly. However it is not actually the home to the Taj Mahal. The it is located in Agra, which is a small city to the northwest of Delhi. That's all the info I can remember. Google it if you want.

It occurred to us that we should have put a little more planning into this weekend trip. As soon as we got off the plane we had to look for a place to stay because we were already tired and in need of showers. The YMCA and other places Lonely Planet-approved were booked, so we walked up and down Main Bizarre Road (which is just how it sounds) until we found a hostel with a spare room. Which was lucky for us. However the place didn’t come with towels or bedsheets, but it did have a/c.

The city of Delhi is not like Chennai in the least. The first thing I noticed is how much cleaner it is than Chennai. There aren’t piles of garbage and construction rubble everywhere. There is a lot more green space and fewer people mulling about the roads and sidewalks. But don’t get the impression that we preferred this city over others. Delhi is still harsher than the other places we have been. Within an hour of touching down, one guy’s wallet was stolen right out of his pocket on the tube. We had to make a detour to an Internet café where he could promptly cancel every credit card in his wallet. Everywhere we went there were children trying to sell us something; fruit or ice cream or little cheap toys or postcards and they would follow us Pied Piper style.

Since there are far more tourists in this city, there is an entire industry of people working to rip you off. We learned this first hand when on the day we went to Agra. Ryan at least had the foresight to book train tickets in advance, considering they fill up on Saturdays. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it to the proper train station on time, which rendered the pre-ordered tickets useless. (In actuality, we did make it to a train station on time. Little did we know that New Delhi Station and Delhi Station are two different places). So we wound up paying an arm and a leg to have a man drive us the four hours to Agra because there was no possible way to get six new seats on a train.

Anyway, we figured it cost each of us 48 American dollars total, which really isn’t that much to experience one of the most incredible tombs ever built. However Jayson says that he talked to the night manager at the hostel later and he outright laughed at us for how much we spent.

I guess I don’t need to say the the Taj Mahal itself is really incredible. By the time we arrived in Agra the six of us were really hot and tired but just walking into the first entrance gate was enough to shake us from our coma.

The structure was completed in 1649 by Shah Jahan to be used as a mausoleum for his wife. She died while trying to deliver her 13th child. The king was so upset that he had the structure built for her and was finally completed 22 years after her death. It’s made of white marble and the entire thing is decorated in semi-precious stones. It is surrounded on two sides by two “baby tajs” which are smaller red sandstone buildings designed exactly like the original. One is a Mosque for worship, and one is a guesthouse. The emperor had planned to build a second Taj Mahal for his own tomb and he wanted it in all black marble, however he was imprisoned before construction ever really got underway. All the remains today is a small concrete foundation that was started across the river. When the emperor was imprisoned by his son, he was placed in a jail tower with a room facing the Taj so he could spend his final days of life staring at the resting place of his wife.
Charming, right?

In addition to seeing the Taj, our tour guide/driver took us to a small marble factory and store where a family has been making marble carvings for generations. One of the workers showed us how they etched their designs into the stone and added the stones that make up the intricate pattern work of the Taj interior. I think we would have enjoyed it more if we weren’t tired and sweaty and completely uninterested in spending any more money.

Throughout the weekend, we also got a chance to see the India Gate, which is a large monument in the city that looks exactly like the Arc de Triumph in Paris. (sp?). It is in memory of all the soldiers whose lives were lost in World War II.

We also saw a Baha'i Temple called the Lotus Temple, which is a place of worship that is shaped completely like a gigantic lotus flower. The Baha'i temple was by far one of the nicest places to visit, because it was unlike any tourist attraction. We never waited in any lines or bought any tickets. We weren’t accosted by any small children trying to sell us postcards or snow globes. They didn’t even ask for any donations. The guards just politely asked us to remove our shoes before going in and to keep our voices low to accommodate those in prayer. The Baha'i faith is really fascinating and peaceful and if you have time, read more about it and the other incredible temples built all over the world.
http://www.bahai.org/

After a very frustrating day of traveling all over that stubborn city, my friends and I decided to have a nice chill dinner at a highly recommended joint near our hostel. The place was called Metropolis, and is a North Indian restaurant in the Main Bizarre area. (You should google that too. I've never seen a street with more character). We were pleased to be seated at an amazing table on the roof of a four story building that could overlook the busy streets below us. However we must have seen enough scenery for one day because I all remember of that place was eating my weight in paneer masala and paratta and Kingfisher. It was super good north Indian food (which I have decided is far superior to south Indian food. I can’t seem to explain why. It just is.) It was probably the first meal i have had in a very long time that involved tablecloths and metal silverware. Plus, our waiter there informed us that when Richard Ghere and Claire Danes come to Delhi, they eat at Metropolis. I can't tell if he was making that up or not, but it's cool either way.

Now that we are back it is hard to believe we only have one more week of teaching before our program comes to an end. I still feel like I have so much left to do!

[The view of the courtyard from my window at CSI hostel]

-S

lockdown

Unfortunately today we are on security lockdown here at CSI. I don’t know how many people have heard about this but there has been some terror bombings that took place in two cities in India. Don’t be alarmed, we are all fine and we are hundreds of miles away from all the action but here is a summary of what The Times of India has reported so far:

Back-to-back Terror Bombings leave urban India feeling vulnerable.
The Indian army has been called in after more than 50 people were killed in two cities. Ahmedabad, in the State of Gujarat, suffered the worst when 17 small bombs went off periodically throughout Saturday. The next day, more bombs went off in Bangalore. The Times says that the bombs were placed in cars and bicycles throughout the city and exploded at different points in the day. Other news outlets have said that there is a Muslim extremist group that took credit for the attacks and say that if things don’t change, then more is to come. Exactly what “things” they are referring to, we don’t know. The tv stations have also rumored that three men here in Chennai have been arrested for being associated with the incidents in Ahmedabad. Those are about all the details we know of. If you want to read more about the situation go to
www.epaper.timesofindia.com.
However if you are my mother I do not recommend you go read more because it will just make you worry.

For now, we are not leaving CSI unless we have to teach. In which case we are no longer taking the city buses and IAPA has organized a private van to transport us from here on out. We are also forbidden from the movie theaters, Spencers Plaza Mall, and the bizarres (basically anywhere with big crowds).
No one here is really all that worried though. The locals seem unperturbed and the other students and I are just irritated that our plans for the day are getting messed up.
I guess this gives me more time to write. Next up - stories from Delhi, where we went for the weekend to see the Taj Mahal and experienced out first domestic air travel here in India!

keep the peace everyone

-S

[Oh yes, I just found out that here at the hostel, there is a small ‘communications room’ near the Church main office where they will let us use computers with a decent Internet connection. I am thrilled that they will let us use it but a little upset that I have only discovered this seven weeks into the trip...go figure ]

more on Kerala

After we left Somatheeram, the incredible Auyrvedic Resort and Spa, we boarded a houseboat and drifted down the backwaters of the South Indian marsh for a few days.

(In case you can't tell, this trip was planned out by a travel agent back in Chennai so all details of travel were taken care of in advance)

What we call the backwaters is much different than the beaches or rivers. The backwaters are canals that run through the rice fields of Kerala. There are many towns full of people that live in small houses on top of concrete slabs that are above the waters. There they work in the rice fields and fish

Our houseboat was pretty spectacular, if not just a little bit crowded for 15 people. It had several bedrooms and a kitchen and a large dining/sitting area where we spent the entire day lounging above the water. However we didn’t get much use out of the kitchen, the houseboat staff cooked all of our meals. For lunch they made us fried fish and rice, cooked okra and lots of pineapple and mango. We ate our meal drifting down the waters and looking out at the few people along the banks.

Some kids really wanted to swim in the water, despite warnings of the fish and algae floating past us. So our boat driver pulled over and docked our houseboat next to a concrete dock in a backwater channel. We got out and walked around the small area but
Unfortunately we didn’t really swim, Deepa jumped down the steps of the boat and then requested to be pulled back in. However she says the water was nice. The floating piles of moss and algae and other things kept me from taking the plunge. While we were docked, the boat men cooked us dinner and we partied on our amazing little boat. We continued to celebrate for the boys birthdays and slept on the boat.

In the morning we docked back in the town of Kerala and we were deposited at a small beach resort to play for the rest of the day until we had to be taken to our train to go home. I spent the time sleeping in a hammock under a palm tree. Kerala is an amazing place and I was so depressed when we had to leave. That's all I have for now so enjoy these pictures and I will have more updates on how teaching is going :)

[I can't believe I have been here for SEVEN WEEKS!!]

-S

communism doesn't seem so bad

So Kerala was amazing. I have returned from our weekend of r&r.

[But first of all, let me say that I have not checked my email in six days. My blog has gone unattended for the better part of a week. My friend here told me she feels liberated by her separation with technology. I, personally, was about to have an anxiety attack. I can't stand being away from the electronic world for very long, no matter how high-maintenance that makes me appear. On the train ride home I made a silent vow to myself to never let it happen again. Amen.]

We left Chennai on Thursday night and took an overnight train ride to Kerala. The ride was 14 hours long, but this was another sleeper train so it went by quickly. (Plus I made sure I wasn't sleeping across from any strangers this time...) We arrived early in the morning and were taken by bus to our resort. Upon arrival we were greeted with necklaces of fresh flowers and fresh coconut juice. We spent the rest of the afternoon running around the little resort and bumping into all the Europeans that were less than happy to see a bunch of loud Americans there.

A little background on the area. Kerala is another state in India, just like Tamil Nadu. The capital city is Thiruvananthapuram, and there are about 32 million people there. I was surprised to learn that the entire state has a nearly 100% literacy rate and unusually high life expectancy for men and women (72 and 76, respectively). This is because Kerala is a communist state and things like education and health care are practically free. I asked our tour guide many questions about how the communist party works there. I did not understand it fully, but I think the way it works is there is a Democratic election every five years and the communist candidate is currently in power. Therefore, all school and health care is free for its residents. Also the maintenance everything in the city is taken care of. The place is cleaner than most in India because the state pays for its upkeep.

Other interesting facts about the state of Kerala:

• Religious breakdown: half are Hindu, one quarter are Christian, one quarter are Muslim. All are VERY spiritual. On Sundays the Churches are packed with worshippers and on Fridays the Temples have lines out the door of those waiting to get in.


• The official state tree is a coconut tree, of which there are dozens of varieties. When a coconut tree is cut down, every single part of the tree is used. And when a person dies, they are cremated and their ashed are placed on top of a recently planted coconut tree to expedite the reincarnation process.


• There are 28 varieties of mango in Kerala.


• The official language is Mallallium. It sounds nothing like Tamil or Hindi because it is only partially Sanskrit based, but to us it just sounds like "mahamallama mahamalamma..."
  

For this reason, the town was VERY tourist friendly. As I mentioned earlier, the resort where we stayed was amazing. It was full of foreigners, mostly European, looking for Ayurvedic treatment. Ayurvedic medicine is the traditional form of medicine practiced by Indians for thousands of years. There are special clinics and colleges set up for the study of Ayurveda (don't know if that is the correct medical term?). It includes practices of oil treatment, massage, yoga, meditation and nutrition.

On our day of sightseeing, we visited the obligatory Hindu temple in town which was fascinating. (However I hate to say this but once you have seen five or six temples it's hard to differentiate between them after a while...). This temple was dedicated to one of the Hindu gods and over seven stories tall with hundreds of wood carving statures adorning the roof. We also saw the coastline with an old fashioned British lighthouse, fish market, and we checked out the local history museum. But what impressed everyone the most was finding an elephant! SO we didn't get to ride it, because this particular elephant belonged to another temple in town. Rajish, our tour guide managed to talk the keeper into letting us touch it and get out picture taken with it [we are SUCH tourists]

This particular elephant is around 35 years old and had been a guard of the temple for most of its life.

[Fun fact: They can keep track of an elephants age by the length and shape of its toenails!]

Since we had no tv, internet, dvds, or even ipod speakers, at Somatheeram, the weekend was mostly just time to relax. We played on the beach and laid in our hammocks and ate plates and plates of fresh cut fruit by the water. We also did a little celebrating as well. Jason and Ryan had birthdays while we were staying at Soma. The resort employees brought us a cake with their names on it and we drank Kingfisher and rum in our bungalows all night long. Basically the most relaxed I have been since I arrived in India...

http://www.somatheeram.in/,

[The women in orange saris clean the walkways with long branches of coconut trees, another one of its many uses.]

On a side note, we have discovered why it is not “high season” around here. We seem to have forgotten that this time of year is rainy season in India. Unlike Chennai, Kerala doesn't get hard monsoons but rather periodic light rains that never seem to go away except for occasionally around noon when the sun is strongest. It is always a little humid and a little cloudy, especially around the beach where the gigantic waves crash on huge boulders that are the size of houses.

However if it's the light rain that keeps the crowds away and the prices low this time of year then I am all for it. I don’t really mind that much; my time in the city has made me accustomed to having frizzy hair and a foggy camera lens most of the time.

I have to go soon, my battery is about to die due to the 11:00 power outage. That is one thing I am not going to miss back home...

More later

-S

vacation in paradise

This will be a short one because I am literally being charged by the minute for the internet connection.

We are in Kerala! We have been teaching in Chennai for six weeks (I cant believe it has gone by so quickly) so 15 of us took off on a small vacation during our long weekend to this beach town south of Chennai. (go look it up on a map).



This place is breathtaking. We are staying in a ayurvedic beach resort (once again, go look up what an ayurvedic resort is...no time to explain right now). Since July is considered the "off-season" in South India, this resort is almost empty and we feel like we run the place. Each room is its own little bungalow hut with a small patio overlooking the blue waters (which means it is clean to swim in!!). All of the little huts have hammocks in the front yard and incense and little garden of native plants and Hindi statues. We get lots of fantastic room service meals of both Indian and Western cuisine and after the food at CSI, we can't get enough, especially since it is inculded in the package



Deepa and I just got done eating an order of spring rolls and pineapple juice on our patio while taking in the view and getting ready for the traditional dance performance which we will be attending tonight. You can count on pictures of that :)



I will write more later when I find a more affordable place to use the internet. Tomorrow we are spending the morning sightseeing and hopefully finding an elephant to ride and in the afternoon we are hanging out by the beach.



If you are getting really jealous, which you should be, just know that we only have four short days here. Then its back to work in Chennai.



more later



-S



p.s. for those of you that expect regular phone calls, don't expect any for a while. Not only have I run out of minutes on my Indian phone, but I am currently battling a serious case of laryngitis and have no voice at all. It actually hurts to speak and no one can really understand me anyway.

thoughts on teaching

Someone recently wrote to me and asked me if, between all our day trips and weekend trips and partying if I am doing any work. That is a very good question and the answer is most certainly yes. I just haven't yet organized my thoughts on how it is going...

In general teaching is going really well. I think this may be because we prepared so well back in AZ and because we (usually) get a high level of cooperation from the schools here.

Here is my teaching schedule for the upcoming week. I will teach with my partners Abhisheik and Briana and our translators Mani and Priya, unless otherwise instructed.

Monday: Chettinad School, 9-10:30 9^th standard class

10:45 – 12:00 10^th standard class, both English speaking

Tuesday: Don Bosco Nagar School, 12:30 – 3:15 separate genders

Wednesday: back to Chettinad School, same classes

Thursday: SMIS Clinic for HIV+ women, 3-5

Friday: final day at Chettinad School

Each school allows us different amounts of time with the classes. Some give us a total of eight hours to teach the entire curriculum, some just two or three. The challenge then is to get across the most important information in the short amount of time. Also, some headmasters of the more conservative private schools give us restrictions on what we can teach (no sex ed, can’t use the word condom, etc.) This is sometimes remedied by splitting up the boys and the girls like at Don Bosco Nagar. I generally prefer this because the girl students are always much better behaved. Even when they are not split up, the girls sit and listen to us like little angels and the boys are the ones that yell stuff and mess with each other and cause commotion.

However, in their defense, the kids we teach here in India are still better behaved than American kids. The other day I saw a kid get smacked by a teacher for trying to leave the classroom without permission. Also at a more rural school where the kids are more rowdy, all the teachers carry rulers and hit the tables to command attention. I think I am going to start doing that myself…

In general, Indian students are VERY bright. They pick up on new concepts very quickly and ask intelligent questions. Even very complicated biology and immunology doesn’t seem to challenge them.

The average ages of the kids we see are 12 – 16 but they always look much younger because they are so little. Also class sizes range from 18 – 50 students. (Now you might start to understand why it’s so important to be flexible. We might show up with three teaching groups ready to do the first half of the curriculum in two hours. But the headmaster might inform us that classes have been rearranged and we are now splitting up genders and they only wants two teachers per class for three hours total. Then we have to consider the student’s level of English. Maybe the school isn’t as English-medium as we though and we have to factor time into the lesson for sentence-by-sentence translation…This is not unusual).

The easiest classes are at the private religious schools that teach in English. That way our counterparts have to do little or no translating and they can just teach along with us in English. Also the classes seem better behaved at these schools – corporal punishment is my guess. And another note about religious schools, almost all are very Catholic. …

We get asked all kinds of questions too. My teaching group and I made the mistake of having a question box one time. We passed it around at the end of a session and allowed students to insert anonymous questions. Most of them had little to do with AIDS and prevention, but rather "who is your favorite rock star?" "how do you like India?" and “do you have a boyfriend?”.

[The boys really like Abhishek]

Despite all the obstacles, I honestly do think we are getting the message across a majority of the time. There are a lot of barriers that can get in the way, but when it comes down to it, we are Americans coming to little schools in this town and we want to talk to young students. For that reason alone, we get peoples attention. Maybe the ninth standard class didn’t understand everything about immunology, but they saw some older students talking about HIV/AIDS. So they start to realize that this disease is a problem in our society and there is something they can do to protect themselves. Perhaps our teaching will prompt more students to talk about it with their friends or families. We’re hoping that this way, myths can be dispelled and facts can be taken seriously. At least, that is what we tell ourselves for right now so we can keep our sanity...

-S

I got lost in a slum today

It was quite an adventure...

My friends went to teach to the people that live there. I went to take pictures :)

A slum here is just how it sounds; large communities assembled under bridges or along river banks or anywhere where no one would actually pay to live there. Some call them squatters, but neighborhoods are very permanent and many generations live in these squalid conditions. The small tent-like houses are made from concrete slabs or woven palm tree branches or large scraps or sheet metal (or some combination of the three).

I went with two teaching groups who met with the children first, then only the women. We met at a small brick building that they called the schoolhouse and brought posters to aid in teaching that had been carefully and meticulously translated in Tamil. Little did we know that most people in the slums are illiterate in their own native language...Just one more of those little things we didn't predict.

[our translator Priya, Sarah W., Briana talking to the women about common STI's. And yes, that is a poster of the female anatomy.]

At one point I wandered off by myself to look around the complex maze that is a slum. There are so many little tents on so many small roads all squished together and literally living on top of one another. The children there are adorable. They aren’t like the gypsy children that hang around the bus stations and ask for money. These children just want to say hi and ask your name and hold your hand. There are goats and chickens running around everywhere and lots of stray dogs. I saw many children playing in the small puddles of murky water and lots of men lounge around on straw mats. Almost all of the women I saw were either plucking chickens or scrubbing buckets full of clothes. This guy was hard at work making shoes and offered to sell me some. He also told me that it takes around three hours to make one pair of shoes.

I started walking around amongst the houses and before I knew it I was totally lost. The slums are not logically laid out, after all. I assumed that if I made four lefts turns I would eventually end up back where I started but of course that is not the case. I got so turned around and all the rows of houses start to look the same. I had to find my way back to the brick schoolhouse where my friends were before it got dark, because then I would be totally screwed. --The last thing I needed was to be wandering around a slum by myself at night...

So, I would talk to some people and try and explain in English that I was lost and that I needed to get back to the brick schoolhouse. Unlike the rest of the city, very few people speak English there by the way. And if they do, it is limited to “hi” and “what’s your name?”

Anyway, I was asking around to try and figure out if I had gone two streets past the smelly river or three, when a lady recognized my English and her eyes lit up in recognition. She motioned for me to wait here and she ran in her shack. I was relieved because I thought she was going to bring out one of her relatives who could converse with me and tell me how to get back. I was a little disappointed when she brought out her granddaughter who looked like she could be about seven. Unfortunately this girl's English was pretty limited as well but still better than other residents. When I asked her which way was the school, she told me there is no school here. She is correct in that, because what the children learn in is no more than four brick walls with no roof. Not a school by any standards, but I had to find my way back before dark.

She tried to tell me a little bit about directions but i think she could tell by the confused look on my face that navigating that place was out of the question. Finally she just took my hand and led me around for a little while until I saw a cluster of goats that I recognized and found the building.

Moral of the story is, I successfully maneuvered my way around an Indian slum. I felt pretty good about myself. Which leads me to my next point. Even though I am only here for a few more weeks, I am learning more Tamil just in case I get the inclination to explore on my own again.

Today’s lesson in Tamil grammar: subject of the sentence always comes first.

How do I get to Spencers Plaza? = Spencers Plaza ku eppadi porathu?

How much is this? = (object) evalavu?

Directions for rickshaw drivers:

Stop here = nertingay

Let’s go = Purem

Go left/right/straight = left le ponga, right le ponga, straight le ponga

Verbs:

To go = ponga (most often used when arguing with rickshaw drivers, to ensure they know where we want to go)

To give = kodu (also used when talking with rickshaw drivers, “give me my change!”)

To need something = veenum (usually used with the Tamil word for water, tani, which then requires the Tamil word for ‘bottled’, which is just pronouncing bottle with an Indian accent. No joke).

More later.

-S

"Love Story 2050"

Last night my friends and I had the pleasure of going out to the movies! I managed to get 12 tickets from my in-country friend who clearly has all kinds of connections - (thanks Kunal!)

We saw "Love Story 2050", a Hindi movie about a man who find a time machine and go to the year 2050 in order to save his loves life. However the evil villain tries to steal the time machine so they fight him off and have a rock concert in the meantime. Like most Bollywood movies, it was SUPER CORNY! I'd say it was a cross between Moulin Rouge and Star Wars. It was full of all the stereotypes of what the future should look like; dancing robots, flying cars, people in tin foil pants. The characters were even named QT and SecC (get it?). The characters break out into song every few scenes and the dance segments are totally over-the-top. But it kept us entertained and we got to sit in an air conditioned theater for three hours (that's right, the saga was 2 hours, 45 minutes plus an intermission). And the snacks they serve are phenomenal! Cakes and pastries and coffee in addition to the standard popcorn and soda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF-ybCghsg8&feature=related
Link to a YouTube video promo. I don't know why the trailer is in English because the movie was definitely in Hindi. But if you really want a laugh, check it out.

We tried to get our picture taken with the movie poster but the theater employees ran us off - I guess that's not allowed. This will have to do...

On another note, the weather here has mellowed out a bit. As we get closer to August, the air cools down and clouds of dust and haze seem less smothering. This of course means that the monsoons are rolling in and there is a possibility of getting drenched where ever we go.
The other night our entire group went to Sarongs grandparents house. They live here in Chennai and they insisted on serving us all dinner, despite the fact that there are about 25 of us and they have a very tiny little flat in the city.
Anyway, we get dressed up and look nice to go out and meet someones family and the second we get outside, it begins to pour. Another downpour, another drenched evening trying to look our best in wet clothes. Another thing we are just getting used to.

Deepa says hi, by the way. My "super cool" roommate is sitting next to me here at the Internet cafe and wants to be included in today's installment.

More later, from me and perhaps Deepa.

-S

good weekend

This past weekend we had a few free days to do whatever we wanted so instead of going out to a pub each night and spending too much money on Kingfisher, we decided to show a little restraint and have a very cultured weekend of sightseeing.

Saturday night some girls and I went to an outdoor concert of Indian Carnatic Music that was being hosted by a local music school. We went with our across-the-hall neighbor Tharika, (the British-Indian med-student). She read in the paper that many music schools host free concerts all the time, so we decided to check it out

[On a side note, my girls and I were shocked to learn Tharika is fluent in Tamil. We felt very comfortable traveling across the city with her because she can tell the rickshaw drivers exactly where to go and even yell at them when they try to charge us too much].

The carnatic music presentation was amazing. We arrived a few minutes late, as usual, but were relieved to find that the style of concert is very casual and people come and go whenever they want. This is because carnatic concerts can often last many hours, typically ending around midnight. The concert hall was simply a stage and dozens of plastic folding chairs full of mostly older balding Indian men, who sat and listened and clapped along or nodded to the beat. The music itself is very unique. This particular concert consisted of four women in jeweled colored saris sitting on blankets on stage. Two of the women played instruments, one sang and one just sat and clapped along. It is a very unique combination, not at all like traditional western music. I even recorded a few minutes and I am going to try and upload a clip of what we were hearing.

http://www.carnaticcorner.com/ this is a website I found that has a few definitions and pics and audio clips. Somewhere in there is a picture of all the different instruments. I think we saw just violins and percussion but in larger scale performances there are bigger orchestras.

*This isn't actually from the concert we went to. I found this via Google, but it is very similar to what we saw.

On Sunday we went to the Chennai Government Museum. It was surprisingly close to where we are staying. Caly read about it in Lonely Planet but we were a little disappointed with the museum. Half the place was closed down, permanently it seems. The other half was a small contemporary art museum with many artifacts and paintings from when India was under British rule. (We keep forgetting that India has only been independent of the "Crown" since 1950 so there are still many remnants of English culture). The art was interesting, but I think what the other girls liked better was the bronze statue collection.

Later that evening I went to a tailor who was recommended to us by IAPA students from last year. After teaching for a few weeks, I realize that I don't have very many clothing choices that are especially appropriate for the schools where we are going. Most of the time the teachers and headmasters are in full saris and the students wear uniforms with skirts, blouses, stockings and matching hair ribbons. Even the guys in our group that teach wear collard shirts and dress shoes everyday, so its a little embarrassing for me to keep wearing the same salwar and yoga pants.

At the tailors shop, all I had to do was pic out the fabrics I liked that were in my price range and the lady took my measurements. I have to go back on Thursday and I will have three brand new salwar kameez made to fit me. FYI -A salwar kameez is a long tunic in a bright color with matching scarf and loose fitting pants. The scarf is worn around the neck but draped over the back instead of the front. They are recommended for us foreigners to wear since we cant handle the responsibility of a sari.

The fabrics they had to choose from were amazing. So many rich deep colors, the women there even recommended some to match my coloring (she called me pink-skinned... I had never been called pink before but I guess it seems reasonable considering her usual clientele) . Each fabric choice came with a matching fabric for the pants and scarf to be made from. I settled on a red one with a black and red scarf and gold trim, a black one with a high collar and white pants, and a pink a green one with lots of glitter. I feel like I could actually, literally stop traffic in that one. And the entire ensemble only cost me around $1200 rupees! (about $26)

Pictures of the Day:

Group shot t at a teaching site

Little boy getting dressed on top of a roof in Mahablapurem

More later.

-S

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Thats right, even ten thousand miles away from home we remembered to celebrate!

We spent the morning teaching at Don Bosco and told many of our students that today was a holiday for us so we weren't going to quiz them at the end. Too bad we did anyway....

We had our own American celebration this evening, it was very patriotic. We got KFC and Pepsi and ate it on blankets at Elliots Beach. We had sparklers and a little iPod boombox and played Tom Petty and Brittany Spears and even sang a very off-key rendition of the Star Spangled Banner once.
[KFC is surprisingly popular here. In Spencers Plaza Mall, there is a KFC in the food court and there is ALWAYS and long line and tables full of Indians up to their elbows in finger-lickin' fried chicken]


Shot of all us girls. It wasn't raining, but there is just enough moisture in the air to ruin a really good picture.

Anyway, we had a blast on the beach. Probably the most unique Fourth celebration ever. This prompted a discussion on the things we miss and the things we are going to do once we return to the US.

Most popular included:

• See family
  
• drive a car
• cook macaroni and cheese
  
• eat at Chipotle
  
• wear shorts/tank tops without worrying about being considered INDECENT
  

I'm sure this list will grow in the next few weeks.

More later.

-S

the church of Mocha.

I have finally found sanctuary where I can come and relax and feel relieved and refreshed. It is not a church belonging to someones god, but rather a small cafe called Mocha, the first truly calm and sophisticated place in this whole city. I am here with a borrowed laptop, [I am still kicking myself for not bringing my own], using the free wi-fi and I plan to sit here all day long because it is Saturday. I don't have to hurry and get to a classroom nor am I paying per half-hour to use the Internet and I don't have someone telling me to hurry up. Here, I can count on being left alone for hours at a time because the service here is terrible and none of the locals will bother me. All I have to do it keep ordering mango cakes and lattes and I can count on some peace and quiet. Plus, this place is air conditioned so I might just park myself here for the rest of the weekend.

Mocha has a huge (and pricey) menu of all the fancy coffee drinks that I have gone so many weeks without. I am sitting on a small bean bag chair in a little booth and there are hookahs adorning the walls and sparkle curtains separating booths for people that want more privacy. I am all alone in this half of the cafe because there is a flat screen tv in the next room and everyone is crowded around it watching the latest cricket match.
Inside the cafe, the lights are kind of dim and it is a little hard to see the anything but my blaring computer screen, it is dark in here even though it is noon and bright outside. In addition, they are playing the most cliche cafe music ever invented, Coldplay, Jack Johnson, Regina Spektor...

Outside on the patio there are tables full of kids smoking sheesha (flavored tobacco) under painted balconies and there is a small waterfall full of lotus flowers running through the middle of the courtyard. It is so pretty... something from a tourist magazine, full of all the stereotypes on what South India should look like.

I am stoked to have some time to chill. I have very little time here in India to be alone and do whatever I want. Even on our days off we often travel in groups to other towns and we have to work around each others schedules and priorities. I have forgotten how much I like being able to decide when and where I will do something. I think I am going to do this more often.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2005/12/22/stories/2005122200460100.htm

Link to an article about Mocha in The Hindu. I think there's a picture in there somewhere.


My mango smoothie has arrived! Gotta go.

-S

Yea! more pictures!

Yea more pictures!

(I have also inserted some into previous blogs where they are more relevant)



This was the most adorable baby ever. We were playing at an orphanage for kids whose parents have died from AIDS or other diseases. Most of the kids there were HIV+ as well, but none looked or acted sick and they all wanted to play with us. (Ten seconds after this pic was taken she started bawling hysterically so I put her down)

Meals. This is actually at a restaurant in town. We don't usually eat like this on an average night at CSI.
One of my teaching partners, Abesheik, is on the left in the gray and I am in blue. We were teaching the immunology game, where kids pretend to be different white blood cells fighting a virus (only a med student could have thought up something like this...).



more later

-S

more on Ooty

This is very disappointing. I took a rickshaw all by myself all the way across town to the only internet cafe that allows me to use a USB port and upload pictures and, of course, it is not working today. That is what we have come to call "totally India". Things just rarely go according to plan. Buses break down, luggage gets lost, schools change their schedules, something you thought was safe to eat....wasn't. I am learning lessons in being flexible, because that is the only way we are going to be productive here.

I digress. More on Ooty:

This past weekend gave me a look into the family structure in India. As I mentioned, we went with a friend, Neely and visited with his huge extended family. He has three uncles that all live together in Ooty, as well as an aunt that lives in Pennsylvania. Neelys family moved to Arizona before he was born, but the rest of the family live together there. Not only are they very close and all business owners, the three uncles and their families all live on the same [massive] tract of land in the outskirts of town.


The first uncle, who we call "First Uncle" has the largest and nicest house and he and his family fed us breakfast the first day we were there. He is the one who opened the first and only private hospital in town. He is an ophthalmologist and his wife works there as well, she is a gynecologist. He took us on a tour of the small hospital; it wasn't much bigger than some churches but we could see the crowds outside and some of the patients inside and its clear the work they do is vital to the town. Also the daughter-in-law of First Uncle opened a spa there, which we visited. It is connected to the hospital and we all got a few treatments during our spare time (I got the nicest and most inexpensive mani/pedi of my life :)

Since there were around 15 of us there Friday morning, we ate at First Uncles house traditional Indian style...sitting around the floor eating with our hands, which I am liking more and more every day. It was also the nicest breakfast meal we have eaten yet, (only to be outdone by Second Uncle's breakfast the next day...). We had idly which are little rice pancakes that don't really have much flavor until you dip them into a sambar or chutney sauce that is made from coconut or lentils or something. We also had dosa, and these little friend doughnut things that remind me of southern hush puppies. We also had fruit, hard boiled eggs, chicken stew, and lots and lots of poori (fried bread used to dip in, well, anything). And as usual, the entire meal was followed by tea.

The Second Uncles house is right next door, he is the one who owns the tea factory if I remember correctly. The houses are just a few steps away yet they have their own household of cooks and drivers etc. They also share a little garden and greenhouse and balcony that looks over a cliff down into the town.

Third Uncle and his family live in a smaller house behind the first two and the last day we were there, the family served us a massive crab buffet with rice and chicken and fruit, which we also ate with our hands, sitting around the floor. (There is a girl on our trip from Maryland, probably less then five feet tall and usually a dainty eater. But when they brought out the crab, she put away more seafood than I have ever seen in my life).
This particular Uncle works in real estate and I believe his son (Neely cousin) is the one who own a hotel in Ooty, which we got to visit and enjoy another meal there.

Another interesting thing about meals and Indian hospitality; the entire family helps serve the guests. The Anand family seemed to have a houseful of cooks and cleaners and yet the father and all the sons still served us. They kept coming around the circles of eaters offering us more food and refilling our water and making sure we had everything we could possibly want.




BTW, Any hope of me shedding pounds in India has gone OUT THE WINDOW!!


We are all soooo envious of Neely; he gets to come here in the summers and live as the 'Prince of Ooty' and enjoy all the food and weather and amazingly hospitable and interesting family. Our group openly did not want to return to humid and stinky Chennai, and for a while, we thought we weren't going to have to. At some point our travel agent, who booked our train tickets, called to inform us that we were actually still on the waiting list for the train to get us back home (somehow she failed to mention this before we left for the weekend....). We got excited about the thought of being "stuck" in Ooty for one more night, but instead we just had to split up and take several buses back to Chennai.

[hiking in Ooty. Me, Deepa, Kaylee, Ruchi]

Also: I definitely left my Indian cell phone back in Ooty. To be specific, I left it at a boathouse on the shore of a lake and when I went back for it, it was gone. If anyone had my number, don't bother calling it. I'll update if I get a new phone, but its not likely because I'll have to pay 1200 Rupees for it.

-S

amazing ooty

The weekend in Ooty was AMAZING!! This little town is go green, green, green. As I mentioned before, a member of our group's family lives there and he took us for a few days to visit. It was just one big adventure and the weather was so cool and refreshing. LOVED IT.

The train ride there was an experience in itself. We took sleeper cars because it was a ten hour journey and left in the evening to arrive on Friday morning. The trains are very very crowed, and are set up as bunk beds, three bunks high and each ticket is a bed. However "bed" is a very loose interpretation. It is really just a vinyl bench that you are expected to sleep on, however with all the bumping and clamoring and babies crying and people coming by to sell you fruit and coffee, no one really sleeps. I especially, did not sleep because my assigned bed was across from a stranger. So I was lying about three feet away from some old Indian man who kind of smelled and I had this feeling he was eying my bookbag the whole time. Since I couldn't sit up and read or write (bunk beds remember?) I clutched my things and looked out the window nearly the entire ten hours.

[This is what train cabins look like. Not fancy and VERY close together]

Somehow the train ride was worth is because the town of Ooty is the very opposite of Chennai. It is high up in the mountains on the west side of India. The town is not much bigger than that of little Hazlehurst Mississippi but it is perched on the side of a big slippery mountain. It reminded me very much of some places in Latin America because it was surrounded by jungle and cloud forest. The people there were so friendly and adorable. If anyone ever wants to film a movie in India, I highly recommend you go there, because everyone loves to be photographed and they will force feed you tea and cookies. Some people even gave Deepa and I flowers, called it the "Ooty rose".[view from the hillside]

Before I go on about all the sights and adventures, its important to know that this trip was made possible by Neely and his family who arranged for all 15 of us to come and visit them. The whole weekend we joked that Neely was the "Prince of Ooty". I say this because his three uncles who live there own what seems like all of the important and thriving businesses in town (hospital, tea factory, hotel, real estate, spa etc.). They arranged for a private bus to pick us up from the train station and drive us all around town for the entire weekend. They also organized our hotel stay which was just a 30 second walk from their property. They were amazing tour guides and continually made sure we were fed (and god knows we were FED). Basically, they made sure we had an amazing time and we were so thankful for their hospitality.

We ate most of our meals at First or Second Uncles house. (I call them this because they all had really long names that we couldn't pronounce very well but to our relief they insisted we call them Uncle. Plus they introduced themselves to us in order of their birth and so that is how we remember them).

We did so much hiking, it was amazing to be outside in cool fresh calm air. The mountains are gorgeous, complete with waterfalls, lakes, cliffs, and monkeys (OOHH the monkeys...). The center of town is full of shops and tea stalls and churches of many denominations. We saw flocks of kids going to and from schools and they were usually followed by flocks of dogs and sometime mules (we never did figure out why there are so many donkeys there. They are not pets. They are not used as work animals. No one eats them. They just hang out everywhere and poop in inconvenient places). However we spent most of our time in the outskirts of town where our hotel and our hosts lived.

On Saturday, we went to Neelys family's tea factory. The Anand family owns the plantations, the factory and the distribution business. We saw the process of planting, picking and making the precious green tea the makes the little town thrive. When I talk about tea, I don't mean the thin watery stuff that comes from tea bags. Their tea is creamy and sweet. It is mixed with milk, served piping hot and is loaded with antioxidants (all workers at the factory told me "tea good for health!"). It is more like what we know as Chai tea and I purchased a lot to bring back. They even gave us a discount because we were with the owner. I took that as a justification to buy more :)

Saturday night we tried to go out to a club (if you haven't picked up on this: we have a very lively group, love to dance and be rowdy Americans on occasion). We should have know that would fail. Neely took us to the only dance floor in town - it was in the basement of the only Holiday Inn in town and you guessed it...we were the only people there. But we still had fun and had a few Kingfishers (the only beer widely accepted in India).

The monkeys there are a constant source of amusement (although some people were just plain petrified of them.) I don't know what breed they are, but there are little and wrinkly and remind me of the flying ones from the Wizard of Oz (minus the wings). Anyway, we had an odd encounter with some of the family who lived on the roof of the hotel. One morning the ringleader monkey ran in to our room and took bananas and potato chips that were sitting on the sofa. It ran out with them and ate them on the porch right in front of us. I am not making this up. I took many pictures and am still a little bitter that they stole the only junk food I could get my hand on in that entire town.

[one of the monkeys that stole my food]

More later.

-S