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Seeing the American flag in the Newark airport almost put me over the edge as I walked happily through the airport with the goofiest grin stretching ear to ear. I saw the other returning Americans stealing sideways glances wondering who this crazy girl was, but the smiling never stopped and the occasional giggles continued. Until I realized that I had two huge, heavy bags and the carts to carry them were $10.00.

While waiting for the flight to Denver, I had the most delicious bagel I have ever eaten, and the thickest chocolate milk. I savored every bite and let out occasional moans of happiness (which also got me a lot of staring).

A few hours later I landed in Aspen, and within minutes I was devouring my first hamburger in 10 months. Against all odds I didn't get sick from it, and have had beef every day since.

I was ready to leave India and I am SO, SO happy to be back in Aspen!!! It is the same, but I see it through new eyes. The first few days I was overwhelmed by all the green, and existence of parks and places to just hang out. The atmosphere is just so relaxed and calm... I am no longer dealing with millions of people and cows on the street! Which is a plus for driving which I am doing again! Except I do need someone to be in the car with me to make sure I stop for pedestrians, at stop signs, and drive on the right side of the road.

Closing thoughts: I have learned a ton about myself and another culture, and it has really made me see how lucky I am to live in Colorado and LOVE MY LIFE!! 

An ode to Julia

In a hot little city
Which wasn't so pretty
Two little white girls stayed.

Among only brown faces
And foreign strange places
In India they were on exchange.

They tried to make friends
And follow the trends
And most the time they succeeded.

But in those tough times
With home hard to find
It was only each other they needed.

In their schools they were great
Although Tamil was a hard trait
To learn in just a small time.

They picked up a little
And learned how to piddle
With no toilet and too much of grime.

They toured East to West
Finding the best of the best
On busses and busses they rode.

Temples and forts galore
The North they explored
With friends from every corner of the globe.

South was no small feat
And they got sick from the meat
Then were healed by the marvelous beaches.

The shopping was done fantastically
They changed their wardrobes drastically
Of their parents' money they were leeches.

They finished each other's words
They were beauties and nerds
Like birds of a similar feather.

The trek was a sign
To make the best of their time
Only three weeks left to be together.

Oh how they laughed
At the times they were daft
Which made it hard to say goodbye.

But they know that again
They would meet in ten
And for Ireland they'd try.

Gone to the Himalayas!!

A collection of small differences

At the end of my year in India which has gone by surprisingly fast, I am looking back at the little things that are so different than America. These things have now become normal to me, whereas I'm sure the usual things in Aspen will shock me when I come back in a month.

1. Eating with hands instead of silverware.
2. Drinking water without touching lips to the glass or bottle.
3. Men hold hands and touch (although they are not gay)
4. Men peeing and spitting on the roads.
5. Mattresses are made from coconut fiber.
6. Boiling milk before drinking it. This creates a skin on top which we have to blow away when pouring the milk. Then there are still chunks of solidified milk and skin floating around.
7. Animals in the road, just chillin. Donkeys, cows, goats, chickens, dogs,  and cats are the regulars.
8. Transportation for things such as sugarcane and other loads by ox carts.
9. The best meals are the cheapest ones. (My favorite meal was my school lunch which was about 25 cents)
10. In the summer there is always a fan or the A/C on.
11. Indians love their A/C whether it's 100 degrees or 60 and raining.
12. Spicy pizza and pasta.
13. Lack of appliances such as dishwashers, dryers, ovens.
14. Very little of their food is processed. Most of it is made fresh every day by the cooks.
15. Servants and the Caste system. The motto here is basically, "why do it if you don't have to?"
16. Lack of exercise. Indians don't hardly ever work out. But many of them go on short walks around the neighborhood at night.
17. Male-female relations- for the most part non-existent.
18. Arranged marriage is the norm. I know people who get married at age 18 to a guy they've never met before even though they are in love with their boyfriend/girlfriend. (A concept my mom really likes)
19. Any couple, married or not, abstains from any form of a public display of affection.
20. Mehendi. Usually for weddings and other occasions they will put henna in traditional designs on the hands and sometimes feet. I just learned how to put it.
21. The wealthier residents of India live in "colonies" which are gated communities that provide a safe environment.
22. Dancing does not mean grinding. Indians truly know how to dance with expression and have a great time moving every part of the body and spirit.
23. All Indian music comes from the movies. There aren't independent artists or albums or concerts.
24. In one religion - Sikhism- the men don't cut their hair. Period. They fold their beards under their chins and wear turbans.
25. People are not allowed to walk in the hills without a guide because of all the dangerous animals. But when we walk the only animals we see are birds and ants.
26. They put elephants in some Hindu temples to "bless" people who give it money. The person holds out a few rupees the elephant will take it with it's trunk then touch it's trunk to your forehead. A terrifying new experience!
27. Computers are a commodity. Many schools and most offices don't have them. The Police commissioner's office didn't have a computer, instead there were three or four rooms filled with paperwork.
28. Many upper class women don't work.
29. Many lower class women are employed at construction sites. They carry rocks, bricks, sand, etc. in baskets on their heads.
30. Respect is very important here, and people who are in higher positions absolutely demand it.
31. The color of one's skin is very important. As it is considered hot to be tan in the US, it is considered beautiful to be as light as possible here. They even have a brand of skin cremes called Fair and Lovely.
32. Nose rings are considered beautiful and worn by the majority of women (especially in the North). It used to be a sign of marriage.
33. Instead of engagement and wedding rings, the women wear gold chain around their necks.
34. Indian women wear bindis and when they are married they have a mark of red powder in the center of their forehead at the hair line, or at the hollow in their throat.
35. Tupperware hardly exists. Food doesn't keep for long, so there's no point. To store things they have metal containers. The problem with these is you have to open each one to find what you're looking for.
36. Soda here is made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.
37. People are classified as Veg or Non-Veg depending on their diet.
38. It is inappropriate to show much skin, especially in the South. Modesty is very important. It will be difficult to go back home and wear even soccer shorts.
39. They don't have sweet food for breakfast.
40. There are very few baked goods. Cookies come from factories only.
41. They put eyeliner and black circles on the cheek to ward off bad spirits from babies and toddlers.
42. Men drink a lot, especially when they get together. It is a rare woman who will have a drink.
43. There is a thing called paan which is like tobacco chew and is chewed by people generally in the lower class. It turns the inside of the mouth red and rots the teeth. However, it is also eaten sometimes at the end of a meal and is considered a digestive thing.
44. Michael Jackson, Justin Beiber, and Hannah Montana are hugely loved by the Indian population.
45. Every day there is a power outage for two or three hours.
46. The roads aren't cleaned, and are generally littered with trash. Although this is getting better in some of the larger cities.
47. North Indians and South Indians are very different. In the south they are very conservative whereas in the North there are more big cities with a lot of Western influence.
48. Each state has it's own language and therefore each has it's own little Bollywood. Bollywood is actually Hindi movies. Kollywood is for movies in Tamil.
49. Cars are stick shift and are driven on the left side of the road and the right side of the car. Driving in India is mostly about honking. They honk every time they go around a corner, coming up on another car, turning, just ate lunch, are in a bad mood, just feel like it, etc. It's almost like another language. "honk" means, "I'm behind you". "Honk" from the other car means, "I see you".
50. On the back of lorries (trucks that transport vegetables and fruits) it is always written 'please sound horn' or 'horn ok horn' or something of that nature. Their lorries are very colorful.

Guest blogger: Mama

The robin’s egg blue waters of the Ganges, running through the middle of Rishikesh, has a magnetic pull on a person’s attention:  for some, it is the promise of spiritual awakening, for others, it is the potential adventure that it holds.  The river is big.  Right now, I would guess that it is running about 40,000 cfs, but the high waterline is way above the current river level.  One of our river guides told us that, during high water 2 years ago, it took them about 20 minutes to run an 18 kilometer section of river…  it must have been like riding the top of a speeding train.

My Anna has had kayaking on her mind since her first trip to Rishikesh about a month ago.  I was not willing to commit to a kayak trip without first scouting the rapids and giving it some serious thought.  We signed up for a raft trip the following day to check it out.

The next day was warm and sunny.  The deep water of the Ganges pulled our raft forward through a series of rapids:  roller coaster and golf course being the two biggest.  As we approached each rapid, our guide asked if we would rather take the tiger line or the chicken line.  Anna’s voice could be heard above the others as she said, “Tiger line.”  One of the German girls did not like that, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.  The tiger line took us through a series of Grand Canyon style haystacks…  class 2 and 2+.  The river was rollicking and lovely.

The next consideration for us was gear.  Most of the guides here paddle in creek boats.  A few have smaller play boats and I even saw an old boat that looked like a Dancer from a distance.  When we asked to see the boats that we would be paddling, they were either being used on the river or stored somewhere else.  hhhmm   I did not want to disappoint Anna, but I also didn’t want to set us up for an unwanted epic adventure.  Finally, I made the decision to go. 

We showed up at the shop one morning, signed a few papers and were whisked away by a taxi.  The driver approached two young men standing on the side of the road with 2 boats and a pile of gear.  We tried on gear and loaded up, still 2 boats and 2 paddles short.  We stopped at another guide’s house and picked up another tiny Dagger.

At the put-in, there was much gear swapping and adjusting.  The gear varied from a top-of-the-line paddle to a paddle that looked like it was purchased with a rubber raft at Walmart.  Luckily, Anna and I ended up with, apparently, the better choices  After a few practice rolls we headed down the river.  Our guide looked wary.

  The first rapid was a rollicking class one+.   The waves were big and the feeling was irie.  I noticed that my boat was filling up with water…  pretty rapidly.  I think that this was a combination of a leaky boat and a porous spray skirt.  The next rapid, Roller Coaster, was a straight-forward series of haystacks.  But like many straightforward big rapids, the tricky part is at the end, where the currents can get swirly and unpredictable.  Anna followed the guide, I followed Anna and the apprentice brought up the rear.   We dropped down the first glassy wave into a series of monster waves.  As we crested the top of each wave, we could get a view of the river below as well as each other.  As I braced against each frothy wave I could get glimpses of Anna bobbing along in front of me.  Towards the bottom of the rapid, the view changed from seeing Anna, to seeing the bottom of Annas boat and her head bobbing nearby.  Anna was being blessed by the Ganges, purified by the water…  her nasal passage and eyesockets were being cleansed as she was taking in big gulps of the blessed water.  Anna was purified, cleansed, blessed and spanked by that lovely blue/green water.

As Anna was clutching her cramping stomach that evening, I was wondering if I had made the right decision and I would have to say I did.  Anna experienced the ganges to it’s fullest extent…  it was awesome in it’s power and beauty, as well as humbling.

Happy Holi

Julia and I stayed in Pune for a week after the North tour specifically for the festival called Holi. Like most others, the festival of color isn’t much celebrated in the South, and we wanted to celebrate our last one in style. It felt like Easter as we were woken up by screams of children’s laughter and went to the street of our host’s apartment building to check out the scene. Being a) the only white people, and b) the only people above the age of ten, Julia and I were unsure of how much we would be invited to participate in the celebrations. However, our little host brother and his friends made sure we weren’t left out. The 25 of them ambushed us with their water guns and refused to let up until we were forced to run away and hide an hour later. It was full-on war, and of course we came unprepared. Usually Holi is known for throwing color, but these kids weren’t allowed to use color because some of the buildings had recently been repainted.

Around town we could easily distinguish all the people on bikes who had played Holi. There would be one guy on a bike looking totally normal, then there would be a pink and blue one. Another normal looking businessman before three more pink teenagers. It was pretty funny.

Part two of the day took place with people more our age, color, and music. We found two other exchange students and a bunch of Indian friends completely covered in the brightly colored powders. After the awkward introductions to the people Julia and I didn’t know, we got to throwing some color. The powder came in bags which we ripped open and smeared on all our friends and threw in the air. The boys ambushed us with raw eggs, which they cracked on the girls’ heads, and then we broke out the watering hose. At the end we couldn’t tell who was who, and the magenta sidewalk looked like the scene of Barney’s violent death.  

Aftermath: I had pink ears for two weeks and blue feet for a few days, but other than that I was able to wash most of it off. The clothes I was wearing have been washed six times and still have irreversible stains, which I must admit I love. 

The End of the North

The purpose of going to Haridwar was to see the Ganga river arthi that took place there. It's at the higher, cleaner part of the river, and throughout the entire day you can see people dunking themselves. I can't even begin to explain how great it felt to touch water again, because rivers don't really exist in the South. Julia and I bought straw baskets filled with flowers, incense, and a lamp to float down the river when it came time. At six thirty there was a relatively large crowd around the section of river which they do the arthi. There was a man every twenty feet yelling prayers about the Ganga, although to us it just sounded like we were being scolded in Hindi. Then, they spent ten minutes collecting donations before they let us light the candle and incense and put our baskets in the river. It was so beautiful to see all the floating lights, but also kind of crazy. Everything was loud and confusing because there were people everywhere shoving things into our faces and asking for money and it was just a circus! The main thing is everyone wanted money. Haridwar is a touristy place, and where there are tourists there are beggars. It was unfortunate and sad, but it's a total Catch-22. Do we want to be the stingy foreigners, or the people who get taken advantage of? And then if we give money to one person there will be a swarm around us two seconds later. So we went back to the hotel with our pockets considerably lighter.

Rishikesh was the place I was looking forward to most on the entire trip, because I would get to be in a river again! I was expecting the raft guide to bring us on some lame rapidless stretch of river, but I was pleasantly surprised to find enormous waves and tons of cold splashing! The river is probably 30 feet wide and 30 meters deep, which means there weren't any rocks or obstacles to avoid. It was just 20 foot waves and screams of laughter. Towards the end we got to float in the Ganga for a while with our huge life vests and goofy-looking helmets. The water was moving really fast so it was easy to get away from the boat, and also freezing cold. I have to admit that I was worried about a skeleton hand reaching up and pulling me under forever, but thankfully our trip was dead body-free. At the take-out we cliff jumped 15 feet into the freezing holy river.  I keep telling everyone here about how much I miss the Punchbowl and other adrenaline-creating things, so true to form I climbed up to the top of the cliff and showed all the other scardies how it was done. Unfortunately, at the end we opened up the dry bag and my poor camera came out covered in soggy cookies and completely water-logged. Major Bummer. But still a fantastic day, and a fantastic trip. 

North Part 2

I'm not really very big into these huge tourist places, maybe because I live in one, so I wasn't absolutely thrilled to go to the Taj Mahal. (Is that terrible?) Looking beyond the gate, it was like another heaven. Slowly the Taj appeared, separating itself from the light blue sky behind. We fought our way through the tourists (mostly Indian, surprisingly) taking pictures of holding the top of the building and on through the garden. It felt like I was walking towards a big postcard, instead of a real, 3-dimensional work of art. Up close the marble was cool on our feet and thankfully not as crowded as I thought it would be. After walking around it on three different levels we went inside. To be honest, the inside isn't anything special. Two tombs, that's it. We were given 2 hours here, which was far too much, so our whole group napped in the shade behind the building. It was pretty cool. 

Next stop was Delhi where we visited the Quitab Minar which was a tall minaret surrounded by a broken-down temple. Next, we visited the Lotus Temple which looked great from the outside, but resembled a conference hall inside with every sound echoing five times. 

Stop #3 was the India Gate which was a monument dedicated to the Indian soldiers fighting with England against Hitler and the Germans in World War II. I had no idea India was involved at all with WWII, so that was an interesting piece of knowledge. 

The Akshar Dham temple was one of the most beautiful monuments we had seen on the trip. Outside it looked just like a big temple with carvings all around the outside and a beautiful, well-manicured lawn. Inside, however, was pretty unique. There was one huge gold statue of... an important man surrounded by the most glittery jewels, glass, and mirrors. There were another 8 statues of gods and goddesses around the inside of the temple which each was like their own prism of light. I had to put my sunglasses on this place was sparkling so brightly! 

Rat Temple

So there we are, 15 people waiting to go into a rat temple in Bikaner at 9pm. First, there was a metal detector for some ungodly reason, then we walk to the gate, which looks dirty but otherwise unremarkable. THEN we walk inside to find rats of all shapes and sizes scurrying around in their gross little furry bodies under our feet and pooping their hauntavirus poops everywhere! To the right we could see nothing but a surging black mass and what looked like a little rat playground. To the left were bowls of water and milk which were set out as offerings to these horrible creatures. Up ahead was the actual worshipping area. There were metal gates on either side of the line of people wishing to offer blessings, which looked like the favorite place of the creeps- they were everywhere! I found out only after standing in this line for 15 minutes of being afraid to move forward should the rats attack, that foreigners aren't allowed to pray here. I thanked the rat gods and literally ran outside where the genius whoever built the place didn't think of a foot-wash to remove the rat waste off my feet. 

Camel Riding!

The desert in Rajasthan looks a lot like Utah, until you hit the camels. Julia and I shared one, and we were both totally freaked out when it stood up. At first we have to lean waaay back, then waaay forward, then finally settle at the general animal-riding position. Unfortunately, the camel driver wouldn't make it run, so it was slow going with a lot of unpleasant rubbing on the lower limbs, but then I reminded myself, "Anna, you are riding a camel in the deserts of India right now," and the pain went away. It was about an hour journey to the small village native to the camel boys where we met their families, may or may not have had some things stolen, and drank tea. The houses here strongly resembled the adobe houses of the Native Americans, or "Red Indians" as they call them here. The tea, however, did not. I didn't really register the quantity of goats and the lack of cows until they gave us goat-milk tea, which was absolutely terrible. It was salty with another unplaceable horrible taste that should never be in tea.  We all choked it down after our tour guide told us they would be really offended if we didn't drink it. On our way back to camp we stopped for about an hour at some small sand dunes where we took pictures and watched the sun go down. Back at camp we saw a traditional Rajasthani dance and then went back to one of our tents to chill for a while before bed. After a while, Julia starts randomly screaming and jumping around. We knew something was wrong but no one predicted that there would be a huge, yellow tarantula probably 3 inches in diameter chilling on the bed with us. We called our tour guide to kill it, but he just scared it under the bed where no one could find it. Thank God we didn't have to sleep in that particular tent, I don't know how those girls did. 

Tour d'North Part I

It all began with a train. Train #00150 from Pune, Maharastra to somewhere in Rajasthan. We were in the 3-tier section where six people squish into a 6x4 compartment for 22 hours. I was with three other exchange students and a large Indian couple who deemed it necessary to invite their entire extended family into our cramped little space. I was compressed into a 1x2 area of space in the dirty corner while our Indian friends and all of their brothers, sisters, children, and grandchildren tried as hard as they could to squeeze in. We quickly realized the problem which appeared when everyone was talking at once, each one convinced that what they had to say was the most important and therefore should be said the loudest- including the little ones.  It was a loud, cramped, and unfortunate way to begin our trip, to say the least. However, once we understood that the fam were only saying goodbye and wouldn't be staying it was easy to see the humorous side of the situation until a few hours later when they started snoring like lawnmowers under our heads.

Our first stop was Ranakpur where we visited one of the most beautiful temples I have ever seen. It was made purely from marble and everything from the floor to the windows and columns to each ceiling was intricately hand carved. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, but I really thought I was in heaven for a few minutes there.

A full day on the bus later, we reached Jodhpur where we took one of our many fort tours. It was an enormous castle-like dwelling which was situated on the top of a hill and overlooking the city beneath it. On the left most of the houses and rooftops were painted blue, whereas on the right they were all different colors. We could see forever, and it was an amazing view helped by the setting sun. The fort was full of different rooms which each had their own theme and carvings in the walls.

Jaisalmer was our next stop, and while shopping here we encountered the most tourists of the trip so far. Julia and I are the only two white people in Coimbatore, so it was really weird seeing other foreigners. Every time we saw one we would point and say excitedly, "white person!" Sounds like an odd thing for a fellow whitie to be doing, but we were deprived. Our tour guide took us to the "Golden City" fort which was by far my favorite thing we saw on the entire trip. It was one of the few forts in India where people still live, and was comprised mainly of houses, tiny narrow paths, tourist shops, and yucky smells. We had to navigate our ways around the open sewer systems, cow pies, venders saying "madam, I will help you spend your money," goats, and cows. The cows were everywhere! I don't know how they knew how to navigate around the paths they could fit into and random drop-offs, but it was pretty cool to just turn a blind corner and there would be a cow chilling in the middle of the road with an oncoming scooter blaring it's horn. We went to these huge centuries-old family housing next. Apparently it began with one small house, then when their children grew up the parents built another house on either side, then when those children grew up they would build new floors and on and on. It reminded me of a beehive, sort of. Our guide repeated a few times the significance of there not being windows in most of the houses. In the "olden days" the women weren't allowed to participate in functions and celebrations of the village, so they made windows which were mostly covered so the women could see out but people couldn't see into the houses.

Bharatanatyam

When I think of dance I think of being loose and relaxed, moving in natural ways which make me feel one with the music. Bharathanatyam is a special kind of Indian classical dance which I decided early on was "just not dance". The most important thing in this dance is being able to half-sit the entire time, pointing your knees as far out as possible and stamping around. You have to hold your body as stiff as possible and keep a perfect posture. Not exactly dancing to Reggae. However, after a month of trying it out and thinking of it as more of a workout than a dance, I have decided that it is really pretty cool. Although a completely different form of dancing than I have ever even considered, I have really warmed up to it (which is the job of being an exchange student). After watching some of the graduated girls do it, it looks much more like dancing than I ever thought, and makes me want to keep going. Unfortunately, I only have another week in the South before my big month and a half in the North of India, and it takes at least seven years to learn the entire dance.

Mosquito Madness

Yesterday I was out in the colony with my friends and we hear this roaring coming from the "mosquito killer" truck which rolls through my neighborhood every few weeks blowing out thick clouds of some repellant. Last night it was so thick we couldn't even see our hands in front of us. The mosquitoes successfully pass out for a while, but I'm sure that breathing in that stuff can NOT be good for us. Remembering our sweet, clean air in mosquto-free Aspen makes me remember what a crazy, new experience I am having. 

Sickness

All the time I have recently spent under the hot sun and around sick babies has finally caught up with my immune system. Although it is no more serious than a waterfall cascading from my nose, everyone who sees me either has some remedy or some cause that they must tell me. The remedies are generally one of five or six types of pills. Indians set- in my opinion- far too much store in hospitals and doctor-prescribed medication. Where we would just wait out a common cold and drink 10 gallons of tea every day, they find the need to go to the hospital and get some medicine at the first sign of anything even slightly wrong. For high blood pressure it is essential to go on some pill or another, but there is apparently no need to increase the exercise. I have been brought up to believe that going to the doctor is like last-case-scenario, but here it's the first thing anyone does.

The cause of my cold has been diagnosed as dozens of things by dozens of people. They range from taking a shower at night to not wearing a hat in the morning (or in the sun) to not wearing shoes in the house. It's interesting to hear everyone's opinions, though. 

Education Movie

I am newly inspired to make a short film about the Indian education system. The exchange student from New York and I will begin to work on it shortly, and we are both pretty much in the dark. As complete amateurs, I'm sure we will have our share of difficulties and confusions, but we want to be able to come back to the US and show the schools we have been studying in and the education system here because it is SO different from America's. We also want to become most highly respected film makers. :)
Are there any questions in particular anyone wants answered about education in India?

My New Nursing Project

My classmates have started studying for their yearly exams which means no classes, only studying. I am not taking them, so I feel there is no point in me going to school to watch them study or draw their faces, which is what I have done the last few days I went. To counter the boredom that is sure to come with an empty day, I have been set up with the nursing school at my new fantastic host Auntie's hospital. Every day I go with the nursing students to nearby villages. I was kind of told, "here is something for you to do, make a project out of it".

I had no idea at all where to start, so I figured why not start with what vaccines babies have taken in the village, with an emphasis on Polio. However, it quickly occurred to me that all of them had had most of the necessary vaccinations. I asked the doctor of the village's primary health care center, and she said the main problems in the village were: malnutrition, diabetes, common cold, respiratory diseases, and blood pressure. I chose to focus on malnutrition of children under 5 years of age mainly because right across the street was a preschool. The doctor miss told me the very basics of malnutrition and how to test for it. She told me about the difference between protein and vitamin deficiencies, and what to look for for a deficiency of each vitamin.

I expected my little study to be me watching the nursing students see if the babies were malnourished and write down their data, but to my surprise the teacher in charge walked me over to the balvardee (preschool), explained to the teacher there what I was doing as best she could, and walked away. I was left with a measuring tape, scale (weighing machine is what they call it), and notebook. Height and weight were easy to test, provided the child was not terrified of the scale- many of the littler ones are. I also learned how to look for anemia, skin diseases, and measure a child's midarm circumference. After realizing many of them had common colds and tooth decay, I began looking for those in every child as well.

I have not really analyzed my information yet, because to be honest I don't know how. However, only one girl I noticed was severely malnourished in the whole 50-student balvardee. Many of them were only one or two kgs underweight, which is pretty normal for that age I think. I am surprised because I  assumed the percentage of malnourished kids to be way more.

I finally feel like a real doctor (my ultimate goal in academic life) and it's really amazing to be able to begin some work in India to help satiate my thirst for helping people through medicine. Ahh love it!

Pongalo Pongal!

Pongal was the most recent festival here in Coimbatore. Being a harvest festival, it is mostly popular among the villages of south India, the inhabitants of whom own or work on large rice fields or coconut plantations.

The first day of this festival is called Bhogi Pongal, and this is the time when many people clean out their homes and burn their unneeded or unwanted belongings. The reason for cleaning their homes is because it is the New Year for many Tamilians and Keralites. Most people do this every day, but during festivals every household gets out the tumeric-cow dung mixture to spread across their gateway area. After laying the base, women will then make a design using rice flower and sometimes flower petals. I am not exactly sure what it is for, but some welcoming thing for Gods.

The second day of Pongal is dedicated to the sun god for bringing light to their crops. In the morning of this day, people boil rice milk which is water that has been mixed in rice then separated, leaving it milky in color. They then add rice to make a dish called Pongal, which is a lot like oatmeal. When the Pongal boils over, the people are supposed to yell, "Pongalo Pongal!" and watch which side it spills over. If it goes to the North it will be a very prosperous year. South- not at all prosperous. East or west means the harvest will neither be great nor terrible. After it boils over, we offer the Pongal to Surya, the sun god, and then either feed cows and elephants the food or eat it ourselves. After our Pongal cooking in the morning, bullacarts came to give rides to kids around the neighborhood.

The third and last day is called Mattu Pongal, and celebrates the cattle and other animals who help farmers be successful. The cow's horns are painted and they get a day off from work, which is a rare thing on an Indian farm. On this particular day I was brought to a nearby elephant camp to feed them sugarcane and put a certain paint on their trunks. It was also an honor to stir the pongal which they were mass producing for the elephants. Our group finished the day at a Rotarian's farm house where we watched and danced with a troop of drummers and dancers all dressed up for the event. Once darkness fell, the entire group went on a long procession around the farm with drums, pots, candles, and other various pooja items.

And so concludes the three day Pongal festival. Most of the people who live in cities don't celebrate it much, but it is still a meaningful time for the farm owners and villagers. 

History Lesson (kind of)

The trinity of Gods- Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva- are the three main Gods in Hinduism. They originate from a feminine form of pure energy called Shakti. 

Lord Brahma is the creator.  Has four heads so he can see all 4 directions. He is usually depicted meditating on a lotus with his wife, Saraswathi, the Goddess of knowledge, sitting at his feet. In one of his hands he holds water to signify it's necessity in life. There are only two temples in the world for him, because he was cursed by Shiva for falling in love with his own creation- a beautiful woman. 

Lord Vishnu is the protector. His weapon is the discus. He has had nine forms, or avatars, on Earth. All of them have been born and died, explaining that all forms on Earth which are born must die. When he takes his tenth avatar, the world will end. His wife is Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Lord Vishnu lives in an ocean of milk, and his bed is a five-headed snake. 

Lord Shiva is the destroyer. He is covered in ash of the dead whose spirits he is protecting. He lives at one of the tallest areas in the Himalayas, Mt. Kailash. The Ganges flows from his head. Goddess Parvathi is his wife. Lord Shiva has a third eye which he opens only when he is angry, because it can kill anything which it touches. (Like the basalisk in Harry Potter).  The trident is his weapon. 

When women are married, their first and foremost responsibility is taking care of  their children and husbands. But they cannot do that when their third eye is open because they will be in a state of bliss and look beyond their responsibilities, hence the bindi. Bindis activate and at the same time close the third eye for women. Similarly, men wear a stripe of ash across their foreheads. Once their children are gone however, they are supposed to enter into a state of meditativeness and bliss for the rest of their lives. Of course, hardly anyone does this these days, but that is how the ancient stories go. 

Backtrack to Bangalore

I was in Bangalore, Karnataka for the new year, and one of the coolest things I did there, apart from partying all night, was visit Bannerghatta National Park. We drove about an hour out of the city in search of tigers, elephants, lions, and many more unknown predators- or at least that was what I was interested in. Instead of the traditional walk through the zoo, this place had a safari through five or six relatively small enclosures where vegetarian animals (deer, etc), bears, lions, tigers, and more tigers were able to roam freely in their natural habitat. We obviously weren't at liberty to exit the van unless we wanted to become the first live meal the tigers had eaten in a while, but they got so close to the van it really didn't matter. In the lion's enclosure there were cubs- which were born there- playing. They were in a better state than their mom who was throwing up on the other side of the road...  now that's not something everyone can claim to have seen. One cool fact about this place is that most if not all of the animals were rescued from circuses, or temples in the elephants' case. Our guide was really excited to have a foreigner in his van, and really helped us out by taking great pictures on my camera. Sometimes it can be good to be a white girl in India. :)

Yogini

I am almost halfway through my exchange, and finally I have started the practice of yoga. The yoga school insisted that I start at the very beginning, which was a sun salutation called Surya Namaskar, and the cobra pose. From what I can tell, there's not much difference between this class and O2, except it is 10x cheaper in Coimbatore, and starts pretty slow. My teacher is a tiny man, age about fifty, and thankfully refrains from wearing a lungi to class. (For those of you who don't know, a lungi is a long piece of cloth that men tie around their waists instead of pants. Sometimes they wear it floor-length, but most of the time it is folded halfway, short enough to be in danger although no Tamilian men seem too concerned.) My guru walks around sometimes and is always repeating this phrase: "pradeeeeeeeeep jaroo". I thought that was "inhale" and "exhale" in Tamil, but my host Auntie right now just explained that he was probably saying "breathe deeeeeeeeeeeep, breathe out". I will have to pay closer attention tomorrow.

Christmas in Chennai

For my 2010 Christmas, my new host family took me to Chennai! It was such a great experience.. though we didn't really celebrate Christmas. We were with all their family the whole time though, because the host Uncle's niece was pregnant. The second day we were in Chennai, there was a bangle ceremony for her. What exactly a bangle ceremony consists of is the entire family from the girl's side comes to their house to offer blessings, listen to some mantras and a story about baby Krishna, meet family, and eat food. At the end all the women of the family put a few bangles on the lady because it is said that the clinking sound is soothing for the baby.

On Christmas day they took me to another mall (shopping was our only activity in Chennai), where we were lucky enough to find an ice skating rink! I got so excited, so my little host bro and I strapped up our skates to putz around on what turned out to be plastic. But still, fake ice and skates with hardly any edge was better than nothing. And to satisfy the after-skate hunger, we ventured into Mickey D's. That first taste of the chocolate fudge sundae was indescribably satisfying.