BIG mistake!!!

the zip code is 302004!!! SOrry if you have sent something.

1st IMPRESSSIONS...gone.

SOO…A LOT of first impressions and expectations have changed since I first got here.

FOOD—the food is delicious here!!! (for the most part, the other night I had some concoction that did NOT even seem Indian) I actually said the other day that I don’t know if I will be able to go back to normal American food. I know, crazy huh? My biggest nightmare at the beginning has turned into the biggest blessing. And even if I OVEReat EVERY meal, I will probably still loose weight by the time I get back. Haha…I am living THE most organic life that you could possibly live. They buy EVERYTHING they make like 30 minutes before they cook it. ALL the vegetables and fruit are SOO fresh. Lunch is definitely my least favorite meals during the week at school but during the weekends we eat at home and its DELICIOUS! This just proves that God will provide for you and will NOT give you something that you cannot handle…haha…veggies! (that’s so lame that I cant handle veggies, BUT I CAN NOW!)

WEATHER—so its supposed to be REALLY hot this past week and the next weeks or so, but we have only had like 2 REALLY hot days!! Otherwise GOD is filling the skies with clouds and keeping us cool. I mean I still SWEAT when I walk outside and I still need the fan on when we go to bed, but at least its somewhat cooler!

HINDI—ummm, well I guess you could say that I can read Hindi script now. We only have two-three more days of Hindi. When I am reading a book in Hindi class it reminds me of sitting at the round table in the back of Mrs. Lofftus’ classroom reading the paper thin books that would rhyme and once you conquered the first book then you would get the next one. I have to sit there and sound out EVERY letter and then I STILL don’t say it right. I am the WORST Hindi speaker in my class (there’s only two of us). Our teacher makes ME do MORE of everything and always tells me to listen to Molly, because he knows that I am WORSE! Its sometimes VERY frustrating, but then there are times that I am not as frustrated, because I am having a good Hindi day. Ha. SOME of our homework these past few days have been to learn to make tea and khir (a sweet dish) in HINDI…so I have the recipes WRITTEN IN HINDI if anyone wants them. HAHA. I am encouraged when I think of how long it took me to learn the alphabet in Kindergarten and how LITTLE time it has taken me to learn the Hindi alphabet. Haha, but other than that I get rather discouraged with Hindi.

KIDS—there are poor children that sleep on the corner that we pass every day at school. EVERY morning and afternoon that we walk by they RUN up to us usually half undressed and wearing clothes that are WAY too big or WAY too small and wave to us and say “Hiii!” “Hello” “Hi.” Hello” “Hiiii!” “Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi”…all different ages, while there moms just sit there and smile at us as we walk past. One day I tried to exercise my Hindi and I asked them the simple question of “how are you?” and they just stared at me as though I was speaking English. So that went over well…haha. I am determined to be their friends. They are poor, but they do not come up to us and beg us for money like all the other poor families do and so it is nice to be able to begin a friendship with them.

WALKING—We walk everywhere unless its really far away OR we don’t know where we are going. The language barrier is annoying (all the rickshaw drivers want to cheat us) and its easier to avoid it by walking. So while we walk…the most common smell is either the OVERflowing trash can, URINE (being heated by the sun, EVERY man here PEES on the street and somehow they KNOW where to pee because ALL of them pee on the same walls, and its AWFUL!...sorry for the details but I am just taking you on a walk with me), the closest vendor’s food or just BLACK air. EVERYONE stares. You know how your mom always told you to “Stop Staring” when you were younger…WELL, that is not ever said here. People just stare (mainly men, but don’t underestimate the women they stare too). Their necks are like OWLS and turn 180 degrees while driving their motorcycles…it DANGEROUS! There is NO doubt that if we walk10 yards, we will be awkwardly stared at, even if they have seen us walk by every day since we have been here. We will be asked by ANY rickshaw driver (bike or auto) if we need a ride. Molly and I discovered that if we walk the opposite way of traffic A LOT less rickshaw drivers bug us. May times we are TRYING to cross the street and a rickshaw drives up to us to ask if we need a ride and BLOCKS us from crossing the road and then we have to wait for the nest WAVE of traffic. SO FRUSTRATING! Lastly we have to strategically cross the street wherever we go, which can be really easy sometimes and really hard other times, but adventures nonetheless.

TRAVELING—SO like I said Molly and I only have a few more days of Hindi and then they gave us a week to travel!! As we have been trying to find out what we want to do and how we want to get there and all of that, we have discovered that although India has MANY options to get places, it takes FOREVER. We are traveling towards the south to a beach community in the smallest state in India, Goa. On our way there we are stopping in Mumbai to visit with some of the people that I met in India the last time that I was here. I am VERY excited to see them! They are great and they offered us to stay the night so we will be in Mumbai for one night on our way down there. Please pray for our safety…we should be fine, especially with the Lord watching over us. We will then fly back and meet up with the rest of the students and stay at a hotel with them I am rather excited to meet all of the students! Our faculty says that the office will transform when all of the other students get here…haha. I like it to ourselves but I would not mind having a few more faces. Its comforting that Molly and I have been able to settle in and learn some Hindi before all of our schooling starts and all.

RELIGION -- So I ALMOST committed a MAJOR sin the other day!...Our hindi class (meaning Molly and I) took a field trip to the Wednesday market (which Rishiji says not even Wal-Mart would be able to compete with this market). As we walked around Harshji (our teacher) and Rishiji (faculty member) told us how to say different things in Hindi and about the market and just typical knowledge. We had stopped and we were translating signs with our notebooks in our hands (totally typical…and don’t worry, NO one was staring…Kidding!). ALL OF A SUDDEN, I felt something biting me in the middle of my back, so I reached back and I could feel through my shirt something hard like a little pebble…Well, OF COURSE, I pinched it to make sure that it if it was a bug then it would not continue to move around in my shirt. I was RATHER convinced that it was just a pebble because it was SO hard. I QUICKLY tell Molly to hold my notebook, and I reach up the back of my shirt and pull out a BUG!!!...as hard as a ROCK! At this point BOTH Rishiji and Harshji are staring at me…and Rishiji (without hestitaion) informs me that I JUST COMMITTED A SIN(cause he thought it was dead)!!! …mind you we were standing outside the white temple…So, he goes on to inform me that if I was IN the temple it would have been a DOUBLE sin! LUCKILY the little thing was actually still alive. GOOD THING, or else I might have killed Rishiji’s second cousin twice removed. I hate to break it to you, but I do NOT hesitate to kill the GIANT black ants that crawl around our room or any other type of bug or spider that we find. I guess I should be more careful next time, and YOU should consider NOT killing the next bug that you find in your house.

On a more serious note, Molly and I were just discussing how crazy it was/is that they abide by such a rule. Rishiji told us that the life of an Indian is very hypocritical. He said it in a way that made it sound as though it was almost inevitable that life here is hypocritical. For example, he told us that he eats meat, but his mom does not know that and when his mom comes to visit he has to clean the kitchen out to make sure there is no evidence of meat-eating. If this is true that he eats meat, then how can he get mad at me for killing a small bug. Whether he is eating cow or a chicken, he has to kill something in order to eat meat and therefore he is doing the same thing that I did when I was killing the bug. I also remember the last time that I was here in India, our driver was Hindu and while we were in a circle praying (I’ll admit, my eyes were open) a tarantula was walking within our circle. Since he had no idea what we were saying in English, he had his eyes open and he saw the huge spider also, and walked over and stepped on it. I am not sure how the whole Hindu thing works, but I am pretty sure that if I cant kill a bug, then our driver was not allowed to kill the tarantula and Rishiji is not allowed to kill an animal to eat. This concept is something that I guess I will have to figure out while I am here, but it seems as though the younger generation is ignoring the strict rules of Hinduism, which then goes completely against their religion. Sooner or later they are not going to be able to justify their beliefs because they will be breaking all the rules.

*****CORRECTION…all of you math majors (Mom, Ruth, Megan F.) probably ALREADY realized that I did the math wrong in my post awhile back with the 2 rupee shoe man…2 rupees equals 5 cents, not .8 cents.

I think about you all VERY much. If anyone (RACHEL) knows how I can respond to your comments easily just let me know, otherwise I have NO idea how to do it, but i truly enjoy getting them.

I CANT believe that all of you LOMA people are starting school!!!! HOW EXCITING! I am sad that I am missing all of you guys being together but I am content being here and being pushed out of my comfort zone to something new and different. But PLEASE attend PANCAKE BINGO for me!!!!...theres NO reason why you shouldn’t! TELL me about how it is and all the changes, I would love to hear from you! J

PICTURES!!!

Here are a few pictures, but i will put MORE up in the near future!











One of the MANY forts the surrounds the hills of Jaipur! We have yet to go to that fort, but when we do, we will ride an Elephant to it.













HANG OUT day! Shefail, Molly, Agana, and me.


















Shefali and I in front of the white temple. (two minutes walk from our house)














Here is a picture of one of the MANY monsoons that we have experienced in the last few weeks, but supposedly monsoon season is done, so no more rain.

YES, you can mail me stuff through snail mail to(for those of you that had asked me about it), but i will only be at this address until mid October.

B39 Devi Path
Near Soni Hopital
Kanota Bagh Jaipur 302004
India

The zip code is questionable so you might want to look it up.
SOrry it took me so long to tell you the address.

TWO holidays in ONE weekend.

Let’s just say that weekends here are A LOT more interesting than my normal weekday/school day.

First HOLIDAY…Friday was India’s Independence Day, so we had NO school and that was about the only benefit of the whole holiday. I don’t know if “younger families” do more, but there were no fireworks, supposedly there was a parade, but we were told not to go near big crowds or crowded shopping areas…sooooo we just went to the grocery store and then cyber café (we are regulars there). Compared to the US’s celebration, India did nothing from what we experienced. The only difference in normal day life was that the poor people on the street were selling flags and some people had put them in their cars and then the servants and our mom watched a Bollywood film. We opted out of the film, because it was in Hindi and luckily we did opt out of it, because the film was WAY looooooooooong!...for those of you that know me, I PROBABLY would have fallen asleep. Long movie, mid day, and IN HINDI…definitely an equation for me to fall asleep!

SECOND holiday…Rakhi holiday…it has a longer name but I have NO idea how to spell it. So this holiday is ALL about tradition between a sister and her brother. First, the sister feeds the brother sweets and salty snacks or lunch in some cases. Then the sister puts tikah on his forehead which is red stuff and rice…this act is to say best wishes in life, may you be victorious and then ties a bracelet around the brothers wrist to say that I love you, and the brother gives the sister money. WELL…we don’t have a brother in our family, BUT we do have the servant’s son. SOOO, we told our mom that we wanted to give him a bracelet and she LOVED the idea. She bought some bracelets for like 5 cents each. On the holiday, we went to our dad’s mom’s brother’s house (basically his uncles house but they NEVER call it that) for lunch. It was pretty darn good. We had these puffy tortilla like things and then green chilies and this BEANY dish…SOOO beany…it was made with LENTILS AND CHIK PEAS AND GARBANZO BEANS….BEANS BEANS BEANS….and theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnn I ate it!!!!...I know crazy…and they gave me TWO servings!!!...and I finished them both…it actually tasted good, but the texture was not the best but I just covered it up…(for those of you who don’t know…I HATE beans…of ALL types, except edamame)and they gave us a salty snack and Khier (a sweet dish). After lunch we went home to our house and Reka (the servant) came and grabbed my wrist…SOO excited and pulled me into their SMALL little home. This was an eye-opening experience by itself. Their home for four was a small outside and then a room that was seriously 3 feet by 5 feet. I had NO idea this whole time that they were living in such a small space right next to us. Quite humbling. Then we completed the tradition and Rahul gave us a delicious sweet instead of money, which was GREAT!!! His BEAMING face just pulled on my little heart strings and I could not stop smiling. Afterwards I invited them into our room to play cards with us and I introduced them to the game of BLINK (for those of you that played it at my house this past summer Chelsea, Peter,). It was a lot of fun. Going into their house and putting the bracelet on Rahul has been the BEST experience for me thus far.

On Sunday Molly and I ventured to this mall that we had heard SO much about. We took a bike rickshaw which was the WRONG idea!!!...we should have taken an auto. Besides the fact that the rickshaw driver SAID that he knew where he was going, he really DID NOT! (he knew the general direction.)…so we biked around WAY more than we should have and it seemed like he was struggling and THEN once he found out where we were supposed to go he had to bike up a bridge!!!....I wanted to get out of the bike and walk up the hill so he did not have to bike us there. He was NOT sweaty when we got in the bike and by the time we got there he was DRIPPING sweat and his shirt was DRENCHED. Oops. Don’t worry we gave him a little extra tip. Molly and I then walked around the mall, ate lunch for two dollars each (a FULL meal) and then went to McDonalds for a soft serve cone that was only 30 cents ( and OOO so good!) While we walked around the mall we found a store called “the one dollar store” which did NOT make sense because they don’t have dollars…AND it was basically that EVERYTHING was 99 rupees which is MORE than 2 dollars. It was actually VERY American there was Kraft Mac n’ cheese and chewy granola bars and Campbell’s soup…so one day that store might be invaded when I am sick of Indian food. While we were in there one of the store employees came up and started making us smell EVERY SINGLE body was scent!!!...he would open it up, squeeze some out and then put it up to my nose. EVERY SINGLE SCENT…no joke. The problem was that all I could smell was cigarette smoke on his hands…so NONE of the scents smelled good. On the way home, we decided to take an auto rickshaw and we made it home safely and quickly!...another successful weekend. God is good.

Typical weekday in my shoes…

6:30-8:00am – I wake up any time between these hours and I will do a Bible study, journal, read a book…

8:00-9:00 – Shower (without a shower head) and get ready time!...Showers here take me WAY longer than at home (kind of disappointing).

9:00-9:30 – Go into the house and have breakfast…maybe read the newspaper if there happens to be one in English on the table

9:30-9:40 – Take meds (without fail) and brush teeth.

9:40-9:50 – Walk to school and NOT get hit by a car but get honked at by EVERYONE. If it is raining then try and avoid ALL the puddles which is basically impossible.

9:50-10:00 – Set-up our computers so that they are ready during our breaks.

10:00am-1:30pm – HINDI CLASS!!!...(if it is raining them most likely class will not start until at least ten minutes after 10) This is the time to fill our brains with words without vowels and script that looks like art. We usually get 2-3 breaks that total 30 minutes all together, and Raguji brings us the MOST delicious tea at 11:00 sharp.

1:30-3:00 – Try to eat lunch…haha. Ok, it’s not that bad, but we just eat lunch and lounge around the office and use the computers and walk back home.

3:00-5:00 – Free time, we usually rest or walk to the market if it is cool by this time. We don’t know what to do here because all the kids are still in school, so we can’t play with them.

5:00-6:00 – TEA TIME!!!...this time is NEVER skipped at our house or our mom would be SOO sad if we did not come to tea. While we have tea we usually watch the Olympics together, but I don’t think that our mom really cares about them, but if our dad is there then he watches them with us and comments on EVERYTHING. It’s great. I like it.

6:00-8:00 – Sometimes we stay in the house and watch more Olympics, but sometimes we have homework that we have to do or we type out blog entries (as I am doing now) or emails in our room, so that we can send them when we get to school the next day.

8:00-9:00 – Go back into the house for dinner while our mom and the servant’s children glue their eyes to the TV to watch two soap operas. I thought soap operas in the US were ridiculous (sorry to those who watch them), but the ones here in India are TRULY dramatic. Now, if I could only understand what is happening, it would be great.

9:00-10:30 – Head back to our room and to write and read and get ready for bed, so that we get 8 hours of sleep!!!

Hopefully I will get some pictures up soon...it just takes forever to load them and i don't usually have enough time.

Molly and I BASICALLY own this town now!...WHAT NOW KIRSHNA??!

So our program really wanted to take us to the main temple of their god krishna, therefore we went to go see it on Saturday with Rekaji (our homestay coordinator) and Cathy (a women from the US that has done a lot of work here in the US). It was quite the experience and I am sure that there is more to come because they are crazy about all their gods here and there are temples EVERYWHERE!!...and they look like anything from a shack to a HUGE WHITE building. As we entered the temple we of course had to take our shoes off…the majority of the women had their heads covered (we did not) and everyone was crowded up against the fence that was in front of the god. We went at a specific time to see the “unveiling” of the god, which happens 7 times a day, and it provides an opportunity to see krishna and for krishna to see you. I was thinking of Christianity in comparison to this and it made me realize how amazingly great it is that we have 24/7 access to God Almighty and that we do not have to travel to a temple and complete rituals in order to see our God. So when we walked in there was LOUD Hindu music being played (some specific song) and then gongs were continually hit for the 15 minutes of the revealing of the god. There are two curtains and so they SLOWLY open each and the audience gets REALLY excited and everyone pushes you towards the god and you are up against the body in front of you and in back of you. They start chanting and when the priest puts the torch thing towards the audience then everyone lifts their hands up into the air and swoop the presence of krishna on them. After we stood there for like 8 minutes (TOO long in my opinion) and I had a headache from the continuous gongs we walked around the god and left. Let me just say that it was quite the experience.

From there Molly and I took a rickshaw by ourselves to go to lunch…we wanted to go out to lunch so that we did not have to have yellow vegetables and chapatti again. We found the restaurant easily… the food was exceptional. I was able to get my FAVORITE dish (paneer butter masala) and cheese nan with a sprite. We also walked around this part of the city to try and find a DHL place that we had read about in one of our guide books…SUPRISINGLY we were able to find it AND an ATM that actually works with our cards. Then we headed back to our home in which we had to describe to the rickshaw driver where to go and he went the wrong way at first but I was able to correct him…so we ACTUALLY made it home. Overall our Saturday was a success!! Hence why I say that we now own this city!

On Sunday Molly and I visited another temple that is like a 3 minute walk from our house with our maid’s daughter Shefali. It is huge and white!!...so it is commonly known as the white temple. This experience was a little less intense as the last one. The building itself was VERY impressive, A LOT more impressive then the other one that we visited. We did the same thing as last time…walked to the idol and walked around it and then left. The other visit took about 20 minutes this one was only like 5 minutes. Before we went into the temple we had to take our shoes off (like we had done the previous time)..BUT this time when we went back to get our shoes they asked us for 2 rupees!!...and we brought NO money...NONE!...not even an American penny…so we were stuck...we could not just grab our shoes and run because there were guards EVERYWHERE and its pretty easy to spot two white girls in a crowd here. Then a kind man who barely spoke English (I guess he could tell by our facial expression that we did not have money) kindly paid for us!!...he was our SHOE HERO!( just so you know 2 rupees is .8 of a penny…so a penny would have been convenient!)

Later in the day, Shefali brought her friend over, Agana, to do Henna on our hands. It was very fun. All four of us hung out for a few hours and played cards and took pictures and laughed. They know a decent amount of English so we can talk to them. I LOVED hanging out with them and I hope that it made them feel more comfortable with us. O MAN…funny story!...We had told Shefali that we wanted her to teach us how to dance, so she started talking about dancing and her and Agana showed us one of their dances and then asked Molly and I to show us one of OUR dances? THERE IS NOT A SINGLE DANCE THAT COULD MATCH THEIR DANCE!...Molly and I sat there trying to figure out what dance we could possibly do…ANY IDEAS? Yeah well we busted out the good ol’ electric slide!...haha. It was boring and they were not nearly as impressed as we were with their dance…but WHY should they be? HAHA.

For dinner on Sunday we went to some religious dinner with our parents. I guess there was tons of food but I did not see it and we were told that there was going to be tons of people but there were probably like 40. Basically I had the wrong idea in my mind when I thought of this dinner…but it was good food. They said that it was traditional Rajasthan food, so that was the first time that we had experienced that type of food…AND we ate exactly what the Indians were eating. They did NOT make any special type that was less spicy for the AMERICANS. I liked that.

Sunday night I slept the WHOLE night without waking up!!! (that’s a first!) With all that said, I am adjusting and learning. I will be Indian in no time! (minus the hindu).

love you guys!