Up North...

Ok so I dont have much time to write because I'm at an internet cafe adn my friends are leaving soon and this keyboard stinks so I'm just going to highlight somethings. First off, I'm going to be back in the U.S. in 10 days!! Whoa! I dont think I'm ready for that....I'm ready to see all of your lovely faces but not ready for everything else.
I'm in Darjeeling now-googleearth it-its awesome! ...and really cold actually...I may have to invest in a sweatervest :) Tomorrow we are going to go to Tiger Hills and we might see Mt.Everest if it's clear out-how crazy!?! Then on the 19th we shall go to Varanasi then Agra then Delhi before coming back to M-lore before the U.S.A.
Kolkata was awesome-an eye-oping experience for sure.
ok sooo now they are leaving so now I am too....

My Friday

Well I wasnt planning on blogging so quickly after just blogging but I feel like a lot happened today.
I started my day off by going to Vishwas and celebrating Felseys birthday with watermelon and a spicy treat with chutney on the side. This chutney had coconut, chili pepper and some other stuff too :) Then I was able to talk to one of the older men there who spoke really good English. He has 2 sons, one in Australia and one in Kuwait. So then I was sitting there in my pajama pants (which I recently found out that the pants that I wear every week to field placement are basically sweat pants or PJs. Thanks guys for telling me. hahaha ohh India) when Olinda, the director, asked me what I was doing. Well, I had been sitting on the couch talking and twidling my thumbs for a while and she had been watching me so I was a little confused at the situation. So I just mumbled something incoherent. This is when she invited me to a Hindu wedding...in 5 minutes. Hahaha so of course I went :)
At 12:30 we left for this Hindu wedding which was supposed to start at 12:20, so naturally we left at 12:30. IST time. Indian Standard Time also equals Indian Stretchable Time. We arrived and the bride actually came right up to us. I found out later this was interesting because Hindus usually just sit on the stage and don't interact with the guests right away. This bride was from a tribe but had become educated and was getting married. It was an arranged marriage. She is doing really well for herself and has gone through a lot of schooling. Her tribe used to be in the jungle a while ago but now they are integrating more with others and that's how she was educated. So then the actual ceremony was sometime in the past 5 days, it was apparently a 5 or so day celebration. So we got there and went up to the stage and sprinkled rice on each of their heads and then shook their hands to give them our congrats. Then of course, we got our picture taken with the bride and groom on stage. Sadly I did not get this picture but they had a professional photographer taking them....so I will forever be in their wedding album...in my PJS. the white girl who came to their wedding. :) But then we ate delicious food and left. We ended up only being there for maybe 50 minutes or so but it was really neat seeing all the colorful and sooo beautiful sarees.
Then I went back to Vishwas and I got to watch a guy climb a few coconut trees. The house across the street was having some of the coconuts taken down because they fall onto the house and cause a ruckus of sorts. I'm actually not entirely sure that is what was going on but that's my hypotesis. I tried asking some people and no answers were given. The people saw me creeping on them and offered me some mango though. sweeet!
After that fun thing I went home, tried to pack, failed, then returned to Vishwas for dinner. Annie and I went over and we ate with Olinda, Jacinta, Selina and this guy who is a law student in Mangalore. It was a nice little dinner with yet again, delicious food! yum! We had chicken with something curd-like on top, this rice dish with cashews and rasins in it, a curry made of dates and onions nad rasins and other stuff and we had homemade wine. Everyone makes their wine here.
Now its night time and I only have tomorrow until 7ish at night left here in this house...and guess who still has a loooot of packing to do? Hmmmm. Well, I shall sleep now and pack tomorrow. Then Bangalore here we cooooooooooooooome!

Recently in Mangalore....

Guess what happened today?!?! IT RAINED!!! It was the first time since I've gotten here and it was awesome!! There had been dark clouds for most of the day off and on and then we started hearing thunder around 6 pm....we checked outside and realized it was just the motorcycle shop next door. Bummer. Then about a half an hour later Mary, one of my roommates screams 'RAIN' at the top of her lungs and we all bolt outside and just soaked up the rain. It only lasted a few minutes but it was cooler rain than I expected.
I got back from Goa 2? days ago and it was fabulous :) Goa. A beautiful, very toursity part of India. It's kinda tourist season for the Indians right now and so there were plenty of them there. We were expecting to see a lot of white tourists there but alas, since it isn't really holiday time for the Americans/Europeans/Australians right now, we saw a few hippies but mostly just Indians. Saturday evening we all went to Easter Vigil mass at this outdoor church. It was huge and there were so many people there. It was a catholic service and it started at 11 pm. It was longer than I thought it would be...they let out around 2:30 am...but it was cool being there at night. The sky is always beautiful here so I loved that. They had a choir too and they used a keyboard to accompany us all. Haha it was great. Easter day we spent at the beach which was like out of a commercial. Ridiculous. However, since it was a BCA excursion, BCA pays (well they pay what we have already paid them) for everything except for any souveniors we want. So we decided to live it up. We all felt so pampered. We had food on the beach-with the sand under our feet-and I just got to sit there and read while soaking in the rays. Crazzzzy awesome! Ok so then Monday we went to 2 NGOS. One was called SCAN which stands for 'Stop Child Abuse Now'. They seem to be very proactive and are trying to bring a lot of awareness to Goa. They help adolescents mostly-some that are juvenile deliquents and some that are being abused. Then we went to an NGO that helps women who are being trafficked or were trafficked. They help get them out of the vicious cycle and back on their feet. They have a rehab center for them where they work and do laundry for big corporations. They looked like they were both doing a lot of good work. We ended the trip shopping for hippie clothes :) Hahahaha I plan on coming back dressed like hippie to the max! haha ohh yeah!
I finished my exams today too. We had one yesterday and 2 today....each 3 hours long...uggh. But they are done so I'm happy! Tomorrow I go to Vishwas all day and I think they're having a tea party for us. Then Saturday I go there in the morning and then at 7:45pm we all board the train for Bangalore for our last excursion. It's going to be crazy there, like always. We are visiting Mysore for a day, visiting a few NGOs one day and shopping another day. Then I embark on the trip up north until the end of April...I can't believe it's April already! So then I come back for one full day and then I'm leavin' on a jet plane :)

Valadictory...

Okey dokey so tomorrow I leave for Goa and classes are officially over. I have finals when I get back from the beach which shall prove interesting seeing as studying on the beach is one of the last things I like to do while attempting to tan and swim but we'll see.
The Valadictory was 2 days ago on Tuesday afternoon. We had classes in the morning and then I went over to Andreas house with Annie, Alison and Andrea to get dressed up. I had bought my saree last week and gave it to the tailor and then picked it up Monday night...hoping it would fit me. Thankfully it did :) It's a dark greenish color-with a hint of blue in it-and a brown/maroon blouse. I like it a whooooole lot...although I still don't know the correct way to wear it so who knows if I'll be able to wear it at home. I did take a few pics at this photo shop place because I was feeling cool so I decided why not-I'll get a few professional pics. haha So we'll see if any of those pics turn out or not.
The Valadictory was a really fun program. The underclassmen were in charge. They performed a few dances, songs and games for all of us. We were also served some snacks and ice cream during the performance which I've found is a pretty Indian thing to do. It was delicious :) Then we took a bunch of pictures which I need to get from my roommates. They wanted ones of all the BSW students all together and so they had people standing on sketchy chairs and desks hahaha thankfully, no one fell down.
I've been trying to get everything together and situated but it's harder than I thought it would be. I need to write field reports, study for classes, pack my bags, and get all the loose ends tied up together in a beautiful bow.
Love you!

Past few days...

A busy past few days is what I have had. Now I will write :)
A few nights ago Andreas mom (Andrea is a third year BSW at Roshni) came over to our house and made cocomut chutney, sambar and neer dosa with us so we could attempt to write down a recipe of what she was doing. The food she made was delicious and I've decided I love making neer dosa...we'll see how well we can make it by ourselves when we get back to the states. Neer dosa is bascially rice and water blended together and grilled up. It tastes good with the coconut chutney and sambar and peanut butter excellently enough. Yes :)
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday I had field placement at Vishwas Trust and there were some interesting moments for sure. Thursday afternoon I ate pani-puri and masala-puri at a roadside stand. Now I was slightly scared because we were warned about the roadside places a little bit but we were also warned about buses and the water and I'm still fine I figured I'd go for it. I'll admit, it wasn't one of my better ideas but it tasted good and it's 3-4 days later and I am still fine so it's all good. On Friday we had a send off/farewell gathering with the MSW students in the afternoon and one in the morning with the elderly. It was Anisha and Sister Rosalies last day at field palcement and in the afternoon they recognized Annie and I for coming too. Annie (my direct roommate) has been coming with me the past few Saturdays and has/will come the following Fridays as well. Her placement was at a school but the school has exams now she needed somewhere to go. Anyways, they put a garland of jasmine around us as a token of thanks and gave us a nice card too. It was really sweet.
The Jeppu meeting was next on the agenda for Friday. It is about a 5 minute walk from Vishwas although walking the speed of most Indians it takes about 10 minutes to get there. There were 6 elderly women there. Some MSW students sang a song of prayer to start the meeting off. Then they talked about adjustment...in Kannada. And then came the fun part! I was in charge of the activity and I couldnt think of what to do with a few elderly women...then I got it....thumb wars! Hahaha it was fabulous. I taught them all how to do thumb wrestle and they loved it. Who woulda thought I'd teach thumb wrestling in India to a some elderly women? Hahaha and then what we did next was crazy too! They wanted Annie and I to sing an American song or do an American dance. We tried to tell them we are from different places and don't really have dances or songs that we all know or are traditional but they wouldn't buy it. So guess what we sang? Oh, you know, Summertime by New Kids on the Block. Hahahahaha!!! Yeah, we had written down the lyrics in anticipation of having to sing something at the farewell thing with just the MSWs...and we didn't think we would actually have to sing something. So yeah, we sang a hip hop song about girls in short shirts on the beach thinking about her summer boyfriend. Ohh India.
Friday night we went out for the first time to an actual Indian club. It's called Pegasus and one of the guys at school is friends with the owner. 4 of us went with 2 guys from Roshni. They were so cute because they were being so protective of us and kept telling us to be cautious and asking us if we were comfortable. We were. No Indian men tried to 'make to move' and so it was fine and dandy. We got to dance a little bit which we havent been able to do since we got here so it made us all happy.
Saturday after field placement we went to the beach with Andrea, Tony, Dennis and Sonia (all students at Roshni) and attempted to fly a kite. They had made it earlier that day but then it had to travel on 2 buses and a ferry to the beach and soooo it didn't quite fly. We got it up a few feet and then it would come down.

Very Random Update :)

So it's been awhile since I've blogged and so I am going to write one now :)
I have been in Mangalore since January 1st and it is already March 24th...talk about time flying by...time grew wings bigger than a jet plane and it soaring around like it owns the place. Haha but that's besides the point. Anyways, let's see what I've done since my last post about the crazy Kola festival...
Today I got a lot of errands done such as going to one of the many many shoes tailors and getting my green suitcase fixed and 3 shoes. I bought shoes in Kerala and one shoe fits and the other is too big and it slips off every time I try to wear it so I don't know what he is going to do but I find out tonight. I got one pair of shoes stiched an extra time so they don't break and my suitcase I have a feeling is going to end up looking pretty rough and gangster. It broke in the middle-during the plane ride over here-and so when I arrived and collected it, it had been saran wrapped like crazy and I didn't know if I was going to be able to fix it. Luckily, there is someone here who specializes in whatever you want done so I'm hoping he puts on a new zipper or something. We shall see.
Then I went to the tailor to get my sleeper sack made (a bed sheet folded in half with 2 sides sewn so I can sleep in it during the many up coming train rides I will have), well it took a long time to try and describe that to them but I find out tomorrow if I have a sleeper sack or not.
Lastly, I went to the beauty parlour because I decided that I needed a haircut. I haven't had one since late August and I know the weather wasn't being kind to my hair so I went for it. I told them I wanted it cut and once they understood I didn't mean colored, they asked if I wanted a 'U shape'. I don't know what they meant by that so I went for straight. They said ok. So that was all fine and dandy and then they asked how I wanted the front-I went for it and said layers. Then I was asked to remove my specks. Now, luckily, I am a pretty laid-back girl who doesn't really care that much about my hair because removing my specks which makes me bascially blind and letting 2 Indian women cut my hair when they only speak broken English is kind of nerve-wracking. I said layers and she said something back that was kind of English and then nodded and so I guessed she knew what I was talking about. In the end, it was a fine haircut. It was nothing too special but it got the split-ends out of the way and now I can contiune growing it out for locks of love so I can chop it all off at the end of this year or early next year.
A few days ago I bought a saree :) We have our validictory on Wednesday I believe and all the girls wear sarees and so hopefully the tailor will be done by then. It's a darker teal color with a maroon border. I'm so excited to wear it! I just hope I am able to learn how to put it on so I can show all of you when I return.
I finally caved and got my legs waxed as well. I hadn't shaved since I left 30. Dec and I went for it on St. Patty's Day hahaha-that's a PR (personal record) for sure :) The beauty parlours have all sorts of stuff for cheap and so I am experiencing a lot of first there like a manicure and pedicure-although they didn't do as well on the actual paint part of it-the pre-paint stuff felt good. And I got my legs waxed for the first time, my eyebrows plucked with a string and a facial. hahahaha it's riduclous.
My 2 roommates and I, are almost done booking everything we need for up north-like trains, planes and hotels. It's going to be an adventure for sure because we got hotels but who knows if they are going to be what they say they are. We have only stayed in 1 hotel in India thus far and that was the first couple days in Mangalore when we didn't have our house yet and BCA was paying for it. All of our excursions so far we have stayed in homestays so who knows what the India standard is for a cheaper hotel hahahaha I bet really good :)
I only have a few more days of classes and then I am all done with those. I have Thursday and then a few days next week. Then we leave for an excursion to Goa where we will spend Easter. Then we return and have to take our 3 finals as well as pack up our stuff and get everything ready to go because we leave for Bangalore, our last excursion, and then 3 of us aren't coming back until the end of April! We figured it would make the most sense to go directly from B-lore to Calcutta and start our travels north. I have a feeling April is going to be crazy and zip past me.
I hope all is going well with each one of you. I think you should send me some updates so I know what's going on in your lives since you don't all have blogs. Love you!

The craziness of Mangalore: Kola Festival

Here he is biting off the head while it's alive and chowing down :)

Here he is dancing before he had his lunch...

Yesterday I experienced something that I will probably never see again and it is one of those things that I am ok never seeing again. It was sooo gruesome. My Sunday morning started at Dharma Jyothi, an NGO that helps empower women through self-help groups and helps educate them with vocational skills and they help people sponsor children and watch some of them, it was Women's Day and so we went to support them. We started by watching a street play that some students from Roshni were putting on about people with disabilities and helping them out. The whole thing was in Kannada but the crowd was enjoying and learning from it so it was fun to watch. Then we sat in a tent and listened to various women speak, about what I don't know because none of it was in English, but it felt good to be there anyway and support their cause. They enjoyed having us there even if we were only there for a few hours. Then we left to see a Hindu festival...we were not fully aware of what we were getting ourselves into at this point...
We arrive at a temple that is right on the highway and they sit us up front. This festival had been going on since sometime yesterday but at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday it was nearing an end and many people were there. A man was dancing around wearing a banana or coconut leaf skirt over loose pants, no shirt, had his face painted and was waving around fire burning sticks. He was said to be possessed by the spirit of one pariticular god that is special to Mangalore and only some Hindus in Mangalore. So he danced around for a while-I think he had been dancing for a long time before we got there but after maybe an hour of watching him he ran onto the highway. The highway was already blocked off for the festival so no worries there. So ran out and the crowd made a circle around him and passed him a live chicken. [If you have a weak stomach-stop reading now-you'd probably be able to handle it but I could be wrong] Then he proceeded to rip off the feathers and the head and then drink the blood of he chicken! I think he ate some of the chicken as well as drinking the blood. Then he tossed it to the ground and they passed him another one which he did the same thing to...and then another...and another...until he had about 5-6 chickens. He then ripped the chickens open and ate the livers and other assorted parts of this chicken that was alive a few minutes ago. My one friend Emily was sitting in the front row while the rest of us were on chairs behind and she said she saw him rip off the feathers of one chicken and drink some blood from the body and then when he tossed it back down she could see the heart still beating because the feathers were off of its chest and so she had a full view. The guy standing next to me explained that it is hereditary for who gets possessed and does certain festivals. This man has another job but he has to do these festivals because his dad did it and it was passed to him. He has been doing it since he was 14. He also gets fed this barley-esque type food, tender coconut juice and liquor. He can eat as many chickens as he wants until he is satisfied. Once he is satisfied the highway that the temple is next to will not have as many accidents. I think there might be another reason for the festival but I am not sure as the highwasy being safer was the only answer I got. It was a crazy sight to see for sure!
Yesterday was out-of-control and today class seemed a little dull in comparision to watching someone eat a live chicken. I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies today. I gave up packaged cookies for lent and so I havent had any cookies in a long time because I hadn't gottan around to cooking any in a while. So I threw some common cookie ingredients into a bowl and mixed them together and threw them on the frying pan...only one house I've been in so far has had an oven...and started making some delicious cookies. After one batch I decided I needed something more. I chopped up a green chili pepper and put half of it in-half a pepper/8 cookies about. I was slightly scared to try them but I did and they were amazing!! I never ever saw that one coming but they were so good and now I want to go home and make them for everybody! Yum :)

Auflauf, Holi & More :)

So it's Friday afternoon and I'm eating an odd mixture of foods because the grocery store wasn't open today. I wanted to reheat noodles and then chop up these veg nuggets I'd bought earlier but my plan didn't quite work. Our electricity went out while the noodles were in the microwave and so I had to put them in with the nuggets that I was deep frying because here that is the most common way to eat food that was frozen I guess. Those were the only instructions it gave me anyways. So now I am eating weird corn-cheese nuggets with very oily noodles. Yum :)
Anyways, yesterday we finally went back to the Village. That's a restaurant we went to in the beginning with Robert, our director, and we said we wanted to come back at some point for the auflauf and so, we did. It's interesting to look back when we first went and how different this trip was. First off, getting there we took autorickshaws that we had to bargin prices for with the drivers so we wouldn't get ripped off. Unlike when we went with Robert and he had a taxi drive us there and bring us back and BCA payed for it. So we got there and 2 different groups of people we knew saw us there! It was so fun because now we are living here and have friends here who we can see when we go places. We decided to go for continental food since we figured we can get Indian food every night/lunch if we want but since we aren't planning on coming back to the Village, we'll get some other stuff. We mangaged to get the greenest food on the menu. The auflauf. Oy vey. Annie and I were the only ones who had had auflauf before and so we were excited about trying the Indian version of it. No. It was nothing-and I mean nothing-like any auflauf I've ever had! Hahaha we ordered spinach auflauf and we got the soupy mixture of spinach, cheese and brocoli. No noodles or any form of carbs at all. It was good but it was not auflauf-and it was very green! Then my roommates saw 'sizzlin' brownie' on the desert menu and they knew I wouldn't be able to resist it. So we got it and it was literally sizzlin'! They brought out this brownie which was probably not homemade-it tasted like one from a package-but then they had a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top and then he poured chocolate syrup all over it while it was on a hot plate type thing and it sizzled and tasted soooo good :)
Wednesday night we celebrated Holi with some friends on the beach. Holi was on Sunday and Monday. It's a Hindu festival but everyone can celebrate it. The story behind I think is that basically a dad thought everyone should worship him, his son would only worship one of the Hindu gods though. So the dad tried to kill his son and finally he had his daughter take his son into a fire to burn to death. The daughter turned to ashes and the son did not. So now Holi is celebrating the son surviving the fire by throwing colors on each other. The colors represent the ashes but people jsut buy colored powder and throw it on eachother and it's so much fun! It's celebrated much more in north India but friends celebrate with each other in the south some. Some of the MSW students we've become friends with had exams Monday-Wednesday so we had to wait until Wednesday night to do it. They took us to the beach and it was dark by the time we started soo we couldn't see all the color until we got home. It was pretty fabulous-a holiday I want to celebrate in the States :)
Today at field placement I played a little bit of caroms and then I was able to talk to one of the older men there. He looks like the older and slightly Indian version of Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies. That was exciting because I never know which of the elderly that come on Friday mornings for yoga, caroms and the small activity for about an hour and half speak English. I also met one older woman who shares my birthday! Although she is leaving for a holy land tour on the 26th of April. I'd say that is a pretty sweet birthday idea. I'm working on what I am going to be doing on my 21st right now. It shall be goooood :) Then after the elderly left I left with some MSW students for home visits. We ended up just touring side roads of Mangalore. Part of the time we did walk with one of the elderly men who regularly comes to Vishwas to play caroms in the morning and that was fun. One of the girls was telling me about her love life too :) Always game for that. She is a Muslim and so besides not being able to wear a bindi (the dot that some people wear on their forehead between their eyes) she can not date/marry anyone that is not Muslim. All the religions stick to their own religion. I guess it is the same in the States as well but I feel like it is a lot less common for there to be fights between familes if their kids marry and they are of different religions. This girl likes a Hindu but she can't do anything about it. It's a secret from her family. She said if they found out that they did anything more than 'normal' talking then her dad and/or brothers would chop off her head. That caught me off guard. It sounds like a movie but it's her real life. She said he likes her more than she like him and he is more willing to keep the relationship going but she doesn't really want it to. It's a whole different dating game over here...
I think that sums up everything thus far. I got my first facial ever at this sketchy looking place right across the street. The room itself was good but the building was not so much. I figured I could check out the room before going in and not base it off of the building,. Now across the street in a building more worn down, scrappy-looking and just not the kind of place you'd want to go in general-is the gynecologist. I can't imagine. Makes me thankful for some of the buildings at home much more!

7th Grade 'Stache

So somehow it is already March 1st. How that happened I don't know! I just talked to my 2 new sisters for the first time on skype and it's official: they are sooo incredibly cute and sooo full of energy. There is no stopping them :)
So on Saturday we (3 of my roommates and I) decided to test out this handicraft fair I had heard about from a girl at my field placement. I was thinking it was going to be some vendors with some homemade things...I don't know why I thought that. Ha! It was a crazy-ridiculous fair type thing! We went on a Saturday night and it was insane! This fair is open all February which is part of the reason that I didn't expect such a big crowd. So we arrived and there were sooo many vendors with info-merical type things. Also clothing and shoes and whatnot. So we went past the things just gazing in amazement at all the things when we arrived at the snack fair food items. Guess what we found?! 'American Sweet Corn' :) So of course we got some. It was so funny, they were selling popcorn, cotton candy, peppers and American sweet corn. They sold corn in a cup and then put all their spices on it...because Indians wouldn't be able to eat just sweet corn with salt and butter on it. Then we saw the rides. We decided that we would try the Ferris Wheel and then go back and buy stuff from the vendors. So we walk up to the ride and the wired walkway thing-up the steps and such-is crickety and shaky and super sketchy. We were feeling pretty good about the ride at this point... haha and so we hop on, 2 and 2 and start going. It felt kinda weird-just a wee tab bit scary but nothing really and we thought it was ok. Although when we looked down at the motor we could watch the sparks flying and the old motor running...a comforting image for sure. Then all of a sudden the ride speeds up a lot. and I'm talking a lot. And it was freaky-I was scared for my life. Who would have though that when I was in India one of the first times I've been scared for my life would be on a ferris wheel?! Hahaha I actually cried and screamed during part of it!
So yesterday I went and got my eyebrows done for the first time ever. That was a fun experience. I also found out they do chocolate facials at that same beauty parlour-whose pumped!?!!! I don't know when I am going but I definitely will at some point : ) Also on Sunday I went to another race. Hahahaha we found out about it on Saturday and ran it on Sunday. It was a 7Km and they were very excited to have internationals run the race. Alison, Annie & I ran it. It was Annie's first race : ) We got there at 6am and signed up and the race went off at 6:30 sharp. They didn't time us but they had people marking off the bib numbers as we passed so that you couldn't skip part of the course-it was straight out and then we turned around and ran back. So the course wasn't too good but everything else was good. The race was free which was amazing. Then afterward we all got a wonderful Indian breakfast then they had a ceremony. The top 10 got awards and so Alison & I ended up getting awards. I placed 9th and she got 10th. It was really neat because the 8 girls ahead of me all looked to be teenagers and so that was exciting to see younger girls running a race and running a good time which means they probably have been running regularly :) Exciting news for Mangalore.
Today...I've taken a few days to type this blog...I went to class and it turned out being really good. Our first class was canceled because the prof never showed up-for the 2nd day in a row-but then we had 2 classes for community development and organization. We finally got a new professor for that class-our old prof left right before midterms for a new job somewhere else-but this prof seems like she is going to be really good. We discussed social, economic, religious and other problems in communities.
And the title of my post-7th grade 'stache is because that is what we all feel like we are getting here. Hahaha the girls here-from America in my program-love to talk about how boys especially in 7th grade love growing facial hair-esp mustaches-and here we feel like we have sweat mustaches alllll the time-quite attractive indeed :) Just a beautiful part of having hot hot hot weather with high high high humidity. But I'm not trying to complain about the heat since at home its really cold and very snowy. We both are living in extremes right now :) Loooove it and loooove you all.

Wyand Excursion Trip...

Okey dokey, so because of a lack of electricity more than likely, no internet for the past 2ish weeks and an excursion on Wayanand this past weekend plus a few days, I have not written in quite some time…so we’ll see what I can remember…
Wayanand. This place was awesome! We left Karnataka on Saturday afternoon and took the train to Kerala. On the first day we did tourist sight-seeing things. We went to a place called ‘Soochipara Waterfalls’ and it was so beautiful. We had to hike a little ways to get there and we couldn’t swim in the water because we are girls and it wouldn’t be appropriate but either way, the place was really neat. We also saw a dam and were able to take some dam pictures : ) Lastly we went to Ekkhal? Caves. We were walking/running up it (depending on who you were) when I heard a noise and I looked over and saw a bunch of monkeys swinging on the trees. It was totally normal for all the Indians there. I think that monkeys in Wayanand are like squirrels or maybe white-tailed deer in PA because after that we saw them quite a few times. We also stopped a few times to check out some trees with various fruits or other things on them. Mr. John, the man whose homestay we stayed at and led us around all weekend, loved showing us different plants. We looked at rubber plants and saw how they were milked. I mean I guess since I can’t milk cows at home….well I haven’t actually done that in quite a few years, but you know….here I can get my fix by milking rubber trees : ) Feels like home! Haha We also stopped at a bamboo factory and saw many finished bamboo products and a loooot of bamboo trunks waiting to be made. I was able to get a bamboo mask to go along with my mask from Haiti which I’m quite excited about. And Mr. John also decided to stop on the side of the road at some random man’s house to look at the pepper he was drying in his front yard. The man led us to his backyard and showed us some of his other trees like banana and coconut and then opened a coconut for us to eat and drink the juice from and we had a huge grapefruit type thing from his backyard-and it was totally cool and normal for us to be doing that. We didn’t know him, were eating random fruits from his yard and taking pictures and then we left and went on our way. Whatever.
Day 2 in Wayanand we went to an NGO first that works with tribal communities. The one sister then took us to one tribe and we sat and talked with them for a little bit and then we went to 4 other communities in a different area. The people there take care of the forest/jungle they live in. They don’t leave the tribe very often but they go to the market sometimes if they can’t grow what they need or don’t have enough for everyone and some students go to school. Elephants, peacocks, deer, wild pigs and the occasional big cat are normal creatures for the tribal people to see wandering through around their houses or in the areas that they go to get their food. They marry within their tribe unless it’s a love marriage and they marry someone who then enters into the tribe like one lady we met. It was a really neat experience. We also got to see a guy climb a coconut tree and that was awesome! He just scampered up in his loongie (piece of cloth tied like a skirt) and started cutting the fruit down. Then he’d move the tree and get it to sway and jump to another tree. He had some crazy back muscles and abs going on because of all that climbing and so all of us girls are thinking we need to find us some coconut-climbing Indian boys : ) hahahah oy vey.
Day 3 we visited a tribal school, the beach, did some shopping and tried some new things. The tribal school was a good experience and parts of it reminded me of home again. The school was started because the tribal kids were not going to school much anymore because of various reasons. The teachers and students would treat them differently because they were from a tribe, they had a different mother tongue because every tribe has their own unique language and the students didn’t enjoy it. They were never explicitly told to sit in the back but it was an underlying rule in the classrooms basically that the kids from tribes had to sit in the back and be segregated and everyone was going to treat them differently. So one man got to know some tribes and decided to start his own school for them. They learn how to play instruments, make handicrafts, work together and do things with agriculture. The students are now the teachers. The older ones go to get their Masters some other places and then come back and teach everyone what they learned. I think they only do a few hours of what we would call classroom education where they are sitting and listening to a teacher and discussing things but then the rest of the time they are planting/harvesting/weeding/dancing/playing & singing music/making crafts/relaxing. Education is pushed a lot in the U.S. and so part of me is concerned that they aren’t getting too much knowledge on mathamatics or science or language comprehension but on the other hand, now instead of not really ever going to school and learning, they are consistently going to this tribal school. So at least now they are learning something and getting some sort of education. Who knows if they’ll ever need math or science if they only live in their tribal area then maybe all they need to know and more they can learn at this school. I don’t know. I think it would be a really interesting place to come back to for a few months or more and just learn from them. Later that night when we were on our way to the train station to head home we stopped on the side of the road and got to taste some sugar cane juice. Yum! It’s just sugar cane pressed so the juice comes out and then at this particular stop, they added a bit of lime/lemon-if you ever get the chance to try it-do it! We also stopped at a little lake/aquarium on the way. It was the sketchiest aquarium I’ve ever seen by far! There were a few cement basins holding a lot of fish and then a few tanks with a few random fish in them. They also had a statue that we all thought was a mermaid but it was god and they had a statue of an eel we think except for it was very rusty and the top half was cut off with the wires popping out of the top of it. Hahahaha luckily we only had to pay 2 Ruppees to see it. I also was able to buy some homemade chocolate there which was the best chocolate I’ve had since I’ve been here-it’s what I’ve been waiting for this whole time!
So now I’m back in Mangalore and we still don’t have internet. This guy has come to our house at least 3 times already this week and he still can’t fix it so who knows and he is very very unreliable because he was supposed to come two more times and he never showed even though we talked to him on the phone a few times and each time he said he was coming. So I’m sitting at an internet café now and I thought I should update this thing.
Lastly, this week since we got back from our excursion has been interesting. Wednesday was the grand finale for Vishwas Trust festival month. They had all their competitions like caroms, storytelling, singing and drawing and so Wednesday they handed out the awards and there was some entertainment. …guess who participated in the entertainment? I was part of a group dance that us students did. There were 7 girls and one guy at the end and we all did the first and the last stanza together and then one girl danced by herself in the middle of the song. The video is slightly choppy for some reason but you can get the gist of it…hahahaha oh my gosh it’s ridiculous but it was a lot of fun. (I'm going to try and post it once we have internet at home b/c in this cafe its taking for-ev-er!)

p.s. I just found out-I placed third for women in the half and Alison placed third for women in the 10K :) A nice surprise

p.p.s. NEW SISTERS ARE COMING TO AMERICA SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!

Ohh Pondy

Let's talk crazy 3 day weekend. So we just got back from Pondicherry/Auroville 2 nights ago and it was intense. I was the one in charge of planning everything and so now I'm glad it is over and it went pretty well...although my inbox isn't full of the taxi and race registration guy's emails anymore since I kept asking more questions.
So the weekend started at 6:15 when we left our flat on Saturday morning. The night before I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep because I figured I could sleep on the train. I had forgotten that it usually takes me about 2 days to have that sleep catch up with me and so the 20 hour train ride seemed longer that it should of had to. It was neat looking at all of the scenery though and it was good bonding time :)I went with the 4 other girls in my program. We arrived in Villupuram at about 3 a.m. where our taxi man met us. He drove us to Auroville about an hour away and then drove us around looking for the race for about another hour. There was some miscommunication there. I don't know where he thought we wanted to go-we never did figure that out-but finally he asked somewhere where to go and luckily he asked when we were next to him-he didnt get out of the car-because then we could correct his question. We reached the race at 4:45 so we got to see the start of the marathon.
Then an hour later-at 6 am-my race started. It was weird in the beginning trying to find my pace since I'd never run more than 10 miles and that might have been once this past cross season maybe and I hadn't run more than 6 or 7 miles in the past 1.5 months...that one time on the track. hahaha soo yeah, I was well prepared. It was a really awesome race though! There was maybe 300 runners total there-marathon, half, 10K, 5K and 2K included. It wasn't a very spectator-friendly course but it was nicer that way I think. I ran through forests and got to see a large chunk of Auroville and since I ran the half I got to see just as much as the full marathoners and more than the other races because the full just ran the half course twice. I ended up running a 1:56 which I don't know what kind of min/miles that is but I think for not training much, sleeping 6.5 hours the two previous nights, eating only peanut butter sandwiches and being on a train the whole previous day-it was a splendid race :) Hahahaha oy vey. An experience for sure
After that we went to the beach for a little bit, did some shopping and ate some delicious sour dough bread with fresh cheese. Auroville is full of hippies-seriously-it was most I've ever seen in one place-and so of course they had organic places and hippie-style clothes. It was great. Then we hopped back on the train at midnight and got back to Manglore around 10:30-11 p.m. A weekend well spent :)
This week internals, or midterms, started and they are different than expected. Also the Olympics are going on now but no one talks about it...then I remembered they don't really have winter here and therefore the winter olympics lose their spark I guess. India has 3 representatives but they still show it on T.V. sooo when we do have electricity, I can watch it! Hope the snow is still cold and good for everyone! Love you much

Before this weekend...

Okey doeky so much has happened here in the beautiful land of India...well at least some stuff has happened and so I felt like writing about it. So today there was a bus strike, well about half the buses partook and it was mainly in the morning. I don't really know what it was supposed to symbolize but it did mean I had to take an autorickshaw a few places. Also today, and they may be connected I'm not really sure, a group of Hindus started talking about Valentines Day and their plans:
It was written on the 11th of Feb 2010.
"COIMBATORE /BHOPAL - Ahead of the Valentine’s Day, activists of a radical group gathered here to chart out their protest against the celebrations of romance by the courting friends and couples.

Under the banner of Hindu Makkal Katchi (Forum of Hindu Children) they gave a fillip to their crusade by having their heads tonsured amidst raising of slogans and burning of Valentine Day greeting cards.

They condemned the fancy among the youngsters to celebrate Valentine’s Day by declaring they would hound the lovebirds and similar courting couples and discourage them from aping the West.

Speaking to the media, Arjun Sampath, convener of the forum mentioned that their volunteers would ensure that the couples found dating or romancing and celebrating the V-Day are detained and their parents or elders are summoned to counsel their wards.

“Since all these fads are against Indian culture, we will see to it that no courting couples or lovers make a mockery of our native ethos and celebrate the Valentine’s Day. We will not hesitate to ascertain their whereabouts and summon their parents for a proper treatment of such lovebirds,” Sampath added.

Meanwhile, activists of Sanskriti Bacahao Manch (Save Our Culture) another forum in Bhopal worshipped sticks with which they are planning to beat up thecouples, if they are found courting.

“The youth should banish the western culture from our country on this Valentine’s Day. They can choose some other day from the whole year to express their love, but not Valentine’s Day. Despite our efforts, if the youth does not listen, then we have performed this ritual of worshipping the sticks and gathered our whole group,” noted Chandrashekhar Tiwari of Sanskriti Bacahao Manch. (ANI)" -http://breakingnews.gaeatimes.com/2010/02/11/radicals-protest-against-valentines-day-revelry-across-india-9710/.
Crazzzzzy! We won't be in Mangalore for Valentines Day which is probably good since I don't know if I would want to go out much-especially with any guys. I will be attempting to run a long run while wooing the men I pass along the way and find myself an Indian Valentine :) Wish me luck!

past few days...

It's Monday afternoon and classes are done for the day. This past weekend I had field placement on both Friday and Saturday. Friday I got to go to 2 home visits with some of the MSW students that go to the agency with me. We needed a signature from the one lady so she can send in her application for the 'old age pension' of 400 Rs/month. The other couple we saw was doing pretty well. The man had just gotten heart surgery but he looked a lot better, I'm not sure how recent the surgery was. We also celebrated one of the ladies birthdays at Vishwas Trust. Merry is in her late eighties. We all sang to her and I learned that they sing Happy Birthday in English which surprised me but they sing 3 verses. The first is like ours but then they continue on with a verse repeating something like 'may God bless you' and the last verse repeats something about having many more birthdays. Then everyone went up to her and wished her a happy birthday and then a few of the elderly people sang a song to her. The celebration was finished off with a little bread refreshment and coffee. Yoga preceded the celebration and I took part in it for the first time on Friday. It was nice to do something with them which doesn't require language and I can just do it along side them.
Saturday was the start of their Festival Month. I still have to figure out exactly what Festival Month is but I think it's just for the elderly. They have 5 competitions throughout February and then maybe a finale at the end? Saturday was singing. I got to listen to about 10-12 elderly people sing songs in whatever language they wanted. It was all acapella and very cool to listen to. Some songs were more upbeat than others and a few used papers to look at the words but they all sang lovely songs even if I couldn't understand any of them. There were 3 judges and after all the contestants went they tallied up the scores. There were about 20-25 elderly people there plus the judges and a few MSW students as well. It took place in a school classroom. They have been advertising these competitions through home visits and I think the newspapers as well. While the scores were being tallied one of the MSW students led them in 2 songs. I was taking pictures for them since I was the only one who had a camera with me and so the song caught me off guard. She started sining 'one two buckle my shoe' in a tune I didnt recognize doing hand motions with the elderly all standing and doing the motions too. Then they sang 'If You're Happy & You Know It, Clap Your Hands'! I was so surprised but I did the hand motions and it was a good time. Who woulda thought I'd be singing those songs in a Kannada-medium school with a bunch of people over the age of 70 in India? No me. :)
Today is the Western Dance competition after school. We were going to try and do a dance for it being Westerners and all but 2 of our girls are at field placement now so we may do it tomorrow. Tomorrow isn't a competition but tomorrow there is no class because it's Student's Day. I'm not really sure what that means because last week was Institution Day and they had a day off of school but Indians love their holidays and I'm not complaining. Friday is a holiday as well although I'm not sure for what, I just know my agency is closed on Friday and so hopefully we'll find something fun to do. Yesterday evening we went to another beach and waded in the water. It's so funny because a lot of people swim but many guys swim in no shirt and their jeans or the girls will swim in their kultas (long-ish type shirts) and long pants. Then to go home we took the bus for the third time that day and it's so interesting riding the bus here. I'm not ready to ride it alone but with Indian friends who know where to get on and where to get off and how much to pay, it's fun :) It can get very crowded and so if you are claustrophobic-warning: dont ride on a bus in India during the busy hours. Also I hear some of the trains can get really crowded and the cars can too because sometimes they like to squeeze as many people as possible into the cars.
In my Weaker Sections class today we discussed some legislation that deals with women and their rights and that was interesting. They have the 'Special Marriage Act' ('54) which states that the minimum age for girls to marry is 18 and for boys it's 21. The difference in ages our lecturers said is because girls mature so much faster than boys and you would know that if you just looked at the boys around. hahahaha There is also a 'Dowery Prohibition Act' ('61) which is exactly what it says it is but it was interesting to hear that the act came in the 60s but you still hear of doweries being given 50 years later. Then to finish off my 9:45 class early in the morning the teacher brought up the 'Medical Termination of Pregnancy' ('71) which states that abortion is illegal. They believe that every kid has the right to live and if the mom can't care for it they should put it up for adoption or the gov't will care for it. She said abortions still happen all the time but technically it is illegal. A debate almost started but she said maybe next time we'll have a debate which I think would be very very interesting to hear since it's illegal here and its a huge controversy in the States. An interesting class to say the least.

Excurision #1: Cannanore & Cochin

I made it back safe and sound from my first excursion to the state of Kerala. We went to Cannanore and Cochin. Shanthi’s family lives in Cannanore and so we stayed with them for 2 days and then in a home stay in Cochin for the next 2 days. We fit a lot in and it was a lot of fun.
Our trip started late Friday night as we left Mangalore Train Station to head to Cannonore. We were in the 3-tier sleeper cars and it was different that what I was expecting. The last time I rode a train it was when Thomas the Tank Engine was at Strasburg and I was taking pictures of thousands of little kids and their parents and grandparents. Oy vey. Before that I don’t know when I was on a train. Either way, the train was interesting. We arrived around midnight or one o’clock early Saturday morning and then we woke up around 6 a.m. the next morning to start sight-seeing! We needed to get up because we were trying to see a celebration at this one Temple. When we arrived we had missed the grand celebration but we did get to see 3 of the gods. There are professional people who come and dress up as various gods and then dance around a fire and then you can give an offering to them and they will mark your forehead with a coloring and give you a blessing. It was cool and very different to see how a another culture and religion do their own rituals. For the rest of our time in Cannanore we saw 2 more temples, went on a boat ride and saw martial arts. The one temple we got to see elephants dressed up with people playing instruments and everyone walking around the temple praying to their gods. The other one we dipped our feet in the river that was outside the temple because it was seen as more holy since it was directly outside of the temple. The martial arts thing was really neat too because it was just 15-20 kids from between 5 and 25? and they performed various fighting methods. They fought with daggers, swords, sticks and just their hands. It was really intense. I’ve never been to a martial arts thing in the U.S. but now I kinda want to because this was so cool.
Anyways, we went to Cochin for the last 2 days of our excursion. We went to an old synagogue which was in a touristy part of town and a church where Vasco de Gama used to be buried. That seemed a little weird to me that the church was so famous even though he was only buried there for one year and now he resides in Portugal but it was a big tourist place. We took another boat ride and it was funny at times because we got close to a lot of boats with fishermen and some other guys on the edge of the water and they’d all look up surprised to see a bunch of young white girls looking at them. Hahahaha I’m pretty sure they are used to seeing either Indian people or elderly white people on tour boats-not white students. Many waved and looked very happy, we made a lot of friends. I did a little shopping and had to barter but it was hard because I had to barter things from $6 to $3 because $6 was really ripping me off even though some of the stuff was handmade in Cochin or atleast stuff that you’d pay good money for if you bought it in the States. Oh my. We also got full body massages which was definitely a cultural experience as well as a relaxing one. We ended our stay in Cochin by going to the movies. The popcorn was 10 Rs/- for 1 small bag! That is less than 10 cents!! So we went and watched ‘Body Guard’ see link for trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m5kApwr59k
It was ridiculous. They had random musical selections and it had romance but it was very violent in some parts and there were no subtitles. It was in Malayalam-Kerala’s main language. I followed most of it and it was definitely an experience that was fun to watch. Also the movie was 3 hours long-after 1.5 hrs they had a small intermission programmed into the movie. So they get 3 hrs worth of film for a couple of bucks where we pay $8-12 for an hr and a half and the same price for popcorn. Where is the logic in that?! Oh well.
So I just read an article that has nothing to do with my trip in India but I read it on Trevor’s status and I enjoyed reading it.
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/somali-pirates-say-theyll-play-robin-hood-in-haiti/19340183
It is about how Somali pirates are saying they plan on giving money they have stolen-at least some of it-to help the people of Haiti : ) How cool is that?!
That is all for now. I hope you are having wonderful snow days, I know my family had a 2 hour delay, I did not. Tomorrow my roommate said it is supposed to by 90 degrees with 75% humidity-and this is a good month-April and March are gonna be the hot ones! Ohhhh boy!
Love to you all from here in Mangalore, Bissy

Observations and Field Placement

Homemade Kite Flying Fun (above) with Viswas Trust (below)

Carambole Game playing...(below)

Today is Friday and I am back from my field placement and getting ready for the journey to Kerala. I went to Viswas Trust and started my morning playing ‘Carooms’ with some of the staff and elderly men. Then I got to do a few home visits with one of the MSW girls. She took me to one man’s house who is doing well. He and his wife do not have any children and live in a little one floor apartment type house. It was small but you could tell what they had, they cherished, and their picture frames of their families were prized. They fed me fresh bananas, fresh juice and star fruit dipped in salt. At the next house I was fed fresh mango juice. No matter how poor they were, they still offered juice and usually some sort of food and they basically forced you eat it. The home visits were very good. It was all in Kannada but the girl translated some of it for me. The one lady, the 2nd lady we visited, had lost her daughter in 2000 to bone cancer and then her husband died in 2002 because he couldn’t handle his daughter’s death. So now she lives with her 2 sons who are both mentally disabled. They are both in their thirties and she looks after both of them. Then the last house we went to, the man was blind. He has been blind for ten years because he ate too much sugar and became diabetic and then became blind because of it. He seemed to be doing pretty good besides not being able to see. He said he does yoga for an hour each morning to start the day.
Observations…so a few things I’ve noticed is that no one really seems to chew gum here. There is a decent amount of trash on the ground among other things but no gum. It’s different than at home where there is not much trash but a solid amount of gum on the streets of the cities. Also, I have yet to see any change on the ground. In America I often see change on the street, generally pennies but also nickels, dimes and the occasional quarter. Here in Mangalore, there is no money on the streets. If someone were to accidently drop something and not notice it then it would be picked up immediately. If you dropped a 1 Rupee or even a paise, which is part of a Rupee, you would pick it up. Indians also hate giving you change. They always seem to use change but they hate giving it. I don’t know how many times I have been given a piece of chocolate instead of a 1 or 2 Rupee piece or how many times the price has been dropped by 1 or 2 Rupees if it’s at the market so they don’t have to give change. Just funny because in America they exact change always seems to be given. Here I get some change and a chocolate bar…although I’m not complaining, it works for me : )
Happy Early Birthday Beka!!! And I’m off to Kerala tonight.

Wednesday Fun Day Run Day : )

Hello friends,
I write to you on this fine Wednesday evening. I actually went to class today, it felt weird since I haven’t been since last Thursday. With Fridays and Saturdays at field placement and then Monday we had off because some student got high ranks and then Tuesday was Republic Day.
Republic Day was my first official holiday in India, although it was less exciting than I expected. I woke up and went to my field placement at Vishwas Trust where they were doing the flag hoisting. There was about 15 of us there, a few elderly and a lot of youth who worked there or had come with friends. We stood in a circle around the flag. Someone sang a prayer in one of the many Indian languages and then it was time to let the flag fly high. Someone had come over earlier that morning to put the flag up and wrap flower petals in it. This way, when they tug on the flag rope, the flag opens up out of the wad it was in and orange flower petals fall out. Everyone salutes the flag. Then they gave a few messages about Republic Day although most of it was in Kannada it was nice. You could tell by the way they were talking and gesturing that they loved India all the way through. It was cool to see and hear. Then they asked me if I wanted to say anything about America and it’s Independence Day or India and Republic Day….I choose not to. After that they closed with another prayer and then had little refreshments. People were mingling and eating but all in Kannada since most of the elderly speak kannada and not very much English but then they asked me to play that board game again. I am not very good but it was fun to play because it was me and three elderly men. They talked in Kannada for most of the time but occasionally they’d try and give me advice on where to flick the pieces or whatever. The one man was funny because once he found I was from America he said his ABCs and he started spounting phrases they teach you in school “WhatisyourfathersnameWhatisyourmothersnameWhatisyourname”? All in quick succession like that to. After that I relaxed for most of the day. I did go to the market though and the fellows outside of it tried to sell me chicken again. You can see all the chickens sitting out there in those cages just waiting to be dinner…or lunch or breakfast or snack, since Indians seem to eat a lot of the same foods for all meals-spicy stuff.
Oh yeah, on Sunday something a little unusual happened as well. A group of Hindu fanatics, mostly youth I believe, had a rally. They had a big parade down a lot of the streets. I sat on our terrace for a few minutes with Emily and Alison and we watched them ride past. They had orange flags all over the place and the day before they had put orange flag streamers up and had a loudspeaker in a rickshaw driving around shouting things in Kannada. Annie nad I found out it about it at church that morning luckily from the guy who had picked us up for church. He told us to stay in our house that afternoon because these youth were all riled up and didn’t like Christians, Muslims or basically anyone but Hindus. I am still trying to figure out information on this group and their exact beliefs. From what some people were saying it sounded like they were racists but with religions, but I’m not totally sure. For pictures and a little information, you can check out this website: http://www.mangaloremithr.com/news/story.aspx?News-ID=7121&Cat=Regional-News&Loc=Mangalore&Title=Hindu%20Yuva%20Samavesha%20pulls%20in%20massive%20crowds
Another interesting thing with this group pertains to Valentine’s Day in India. It has only been a controversial topic for the past few years but it is a hot topic for some conservative Hindus. For one, Valentine’s Day encourages public displays of affection (PDA) and hand-holding whereas traditional Hinduism is against PDA. Here is part of an article I found on another part of it:
“In 2004, militant Hindu nationalists threatened to beat the faces and shave the heads of those who participated in Valentine's Day customs. "We will not allow westernization of Indian culture as St. Valentine was a Christian and celebrating Valentine's Day would be a violation of Indian culture," said Ved Prakash Sachchan, of the militant Hindu organization Bajrang Dal, in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, a leader of the radical Hindu group Shiv Sena has condemned the holiday as "nothing but a Western onslaught on India's culture to attract youth for commercial purposes." Members of the group have stolen Valentine's Day greeting cards from a store and ceremonially burned them”.
And this, it’s from Wikipedia but I read the same thing a few other places. They will make them go to the Temple right away and get married. It’s slightly different than how I think of Valentines Day…“Those who violate this are dealt with harshly by baton-holding brigands of Shiv Sena who lurk in public places especially parks, chasing young people holding hands and others suspected to be lovers. In many parts of south India couples who are found in parks and other public places are immediately forced to marry on the spot by the Shiv Sena and other similar activists”
And today I went to the track again and ran the most laps consecutively that I've ever run on the track. 28 laps...lucky number. There is a possibility of running a race in India sometime in February and so this is motivating me and 2 of my roommates to train. I don't want to talk about the race until I've run it because I don't want to get my hopes up-too many things can go wrong here. I am in charge of getting all the details figured out (i.e. train ride, taxi ride, race registration ect.) and then my roommates said they'd run it with me if I figured it all out. So that is my mission right now. Imma try real hard :)
Tomorrow is traditional day at college and so all the girls will wear sarees, I'm not sure about the guys. I don't know if I will be wearing one or not-depends on if a girl can find one for me and it fits. It should be neat to see all the girls dressed up though!
Love you all!!!
Mmmk, that’s it. Happy Thursday! : )

so much has happened...

Okey dokey, well I feel like so much has happened lately! Yesterday was my first day at field placement. I have decided to go to a Senior Citizen Recreation Center on my Fridays and Saturdays. We had gone to a lot of various placement options but many didn’t really interest me too much or if they did, they didn’t look like they had that much that I’d be able to do for 2 days every week. So I went with Joselyn on Thursday to visit and there are a few MSW students training there on Thursdays, Fridays, & Saturdays. So I thought that they’d have enough work or things to do and it would be interesting. So Friday morning I showed up at 10:00 ready to go. It’s nice because it’s just about a 15 minute walk away so I never have to pay for transportation and I get a nice walk in too. At 10:15 on M, W & F, a yoga instructor comes in and they have yoga for 30 min. I watched this week but next week I’m joining in : ) Then I watched them play this board game, cademon?? You have 4 players and you sit around a square piece of plywood. In each coroner there is a small hole cut out. There are 9 white checker looking pieces and 9 black ones. There is one red one and a larger, thinner white one. Painted on the board, there is a circle in the middle and then 1 row along each side. You use the white thin piece to flick other pieces into the holes. White pieces are 5, black are 10 and the red one is 25 pts if you call a piece and it goes in after the red one. It’s actually a fun game, but I need a lot more practice before I’m any good. So then the elderly people all left and all the people who work there had a meeting. Half was in English but they switched back to Kannada a lot so I didn’t catch everything. They were getting things ready for the Republic Day celebration on Tuesday. Lunch came next and then I went on a walk with a sister that works at the place with me. She took me to one of the older ladies house who comes to the rec center. Indians feel that they must give you something if you go to their house and more times than not it’s food. So she gave us fresh mango juice-mmmmm! I was told that she is trying to get a pension from the gov’t right now. Once you are over 60 I think you can apply for a pension. This pension will give her 400 Rs/month. That’s not very much at all. That’s about $10 depending on the exchange rate, roughly. She has been trying to get it for years now but she can’t. One of the reasons is that if you have a son you must get the son to write a letter saying why he won’t/can’t support his mother. And if she has more than one son, all sons must write a letter. Her son lives in a city somewhere farther away and doesn’t have the money to support her and his family but I don’t know the rest of the story. It’s crazy though hearing all that stuff about the pension. If you have a daughter, it doesn’t matter, but if you have a son, it gets much more complicated since the son or sons, are supposed to support their older parents. Then I got to visit 2 schools to deliver letters inviting them for some competition thing where the children bring their grandparents to school I think and they have competitions? I didn’t really follow but the competitions are at the end of February so I’ll find out then.
Next thing on the agenda was visiting a home for the Destitutes and Orphans. It is run by sisters and they have a little over 400 people living in their facilities. They help a wide range of people. The people apply to get in and/or they are brought in by someone else like the police, a preacher or a teacher. They have children from 6-14 and then many mentally and physically disabled people of all ages and many elderly people who are sick. Everyone lives there and is fed 3 meals a day plus 2 tea/coffee breaks, has a bed to sleep on and gets the care they need as best as the sisters can give it. I don’t want you to think that this is all India is. In fact, please don’t think that about anything I have written as I have only seen Mangalore and everywhere is so different. This place was a real eye-opener for me. I saw elderly who were confined to their beds because of one thing or another. I saw a man who was a paraplegic and just laid in bed basically waiting for food to fed to him, his body to be washed and the next day to come. That was heart breaking to see. The room had 3 beds, one window and a few dressers. That’s it. Then the sister led us past a man feeding another man. Now the man doing the feeding was paralyzed from the waist down but he figured that since was at the place he would help another man out. The man being fed was 22 years old. He is only a little bit older than me but he looked like a weak, fragile boy who was about 5 years old. He is so small and delicate and it was soooo hard to see. The sister told us he is deaf, blind, mute and can’t taste anything either. Thankfully the man is helping him out and the sisters took him in. Many of these people would not survive out on the streets. We then went to see another wing and we saw many people with exceptionalities. It was soo sad to hear the sister talk about some of these people’s stories because most of them were rejected by their families. Sometimes they had very minor, in comparision to some, disorders or mental problems and yet their families didn’t want to help them anymore and so now this is their home. The children are brought in by police if they are street kids and sometimes their families bring them in. Some are orphans because they lost both parents, some lost only one parent but the one parent can’t afford them and some have both parents who they might see on holidays only but they can’t take care of them and give them all they need to survive. They go to school on the grounds and then at 14, about 7th grade, they go to another school where the same branch of sisters teach. I think I am going to be doing some field work here on Mondays after my one class ends at 11. I don’t know what I will do but it will be interesting and quite the experience I have a feeling. I just left the place in such shock. It filled me with conflicting emotions and it was tough to see and think about.
Thankfully though, I had some wonderful news shortly after that when I got home. I log on to check my email and what do I see?! I HAVE 2 NEW SISTERS!!! They are from Ethiopia and are sisters…and now are my sisters : ) We have been waiting for this for so long and now it’s official! It was the best news ever!!!
It’s Saturday afternoon and I just got back from field placement again. I didn’t do much today though. I played that board game for about 2 hours and then I went home. There is a bus strike today and so we couldn’t go anywhere so we just stayed in and played with one older man who had come to the center. For yoga, about 10 elderly people show up and then they do home visits to other ones who can’t make it to the center. We were supposed to go to a hospice to visit today and get more exposure but because of the bus strike, I sit here at home blogging to you all.
Next weekend we are going on our first excursion to Kerala. Shanthi’s family is from there and so we will be staying with them. We are taking a train on Friday and then we’ll be there until Monday when we take a train back to Mangalore. I will only miss one class on Monday so that’s good. Classes are going pretty good. I have 2 papers due on Thursday. That was slightly frustrating because she had told us they were due last Thursday and so we did them-2 papers each 3 pages and were ready to turn them in when she told us in class that she wanted to talk to us afterwards. So we meet her and she shows us an example of what she wants us to write. Hahaha so we need to have a table of contents, a title page, a bibliography page and we have to break up the paper into sections. So atleast we can use most of the information we had but still. Oh well.
I am still on my quest to find the best chocolate here. I found a pack with 9 cookies in it for 5 Rs. And I found these cookies called Hide-n-Seek, and they are chocolate chip and they have chocolate chip with mint. They are my favorite right now with the other ones as the best bang for my rupee : ) Alrighty, I love and miss you all! Send me updates of your lives!!

p.s. sorry this was so long!!

Wednesday

Okey dokey. It’s Wednesday and I feel like blogging. Today has been an exciting day. It started at 6:20 when I woke up with 2 of my flatmates, Annie and Alison, and we decided to head to this stadium we’d heard about. We took an autorickshaw to Mangala Stadium and it was soooooo awesome. There were so many people walking around the track and a few running and people doing stairs and situps all around this track. It’s 400 meters around which I was thankful for since running miles on a 200 meter track can get old so much faster. We started to run and Alison and I were together for a few meters and then she wanted to go her own pace and she had her ipod so I moved forward. I ended up falling right behind this guy who reminded me of Coachy a little bit. I paced off of him for a mile and then moved alongside him and we stayed that way for 4.5 miles. He told me about 2 miles in that he had already done 28 laps but he had more to go and so I decided to just finish with him. I was so happy that he was there because it was the perfect pace for coming to running and it felt so good. I know it’s only been 2 weeks since I’ve run, minus the 1500 last Saturday, but the run this morning gave me a much greater appreciation for the sport. It felt so good to be out there again moving my legs and getting into the swing of things. It was early so it wasn’t really hot until the last mile or so. I know I need to drink more water and liquids to stay hydrated. I hope that I can make it to the track w/ my roomies a few times/week and this trend gets started. Because mmmmm hmmm, it felt good : )
After running, I came back and got to skype with Candace which was very fun as well! Then after class in the morning and lunch we had a guest speaker discuss Disaster Management. It was very interesting. He talked about what the students could do when they became a social worker when a disaster strikes and how people can prepare. I don’t know if at Juniata Disaster Management is part of any of the social work classes but I think it should be. Next I went to another field placement exposure. I may end up going here. It was a place for senior citizens to go in the day time for recreation and such. Monday, Wednesday and Friday is yoga in the morning for 45 min or so. Also they have some sport which they are practicing for and then the place also does home visits and medical care. I’m not sure what I’d be doing there exactly but I may end up going there. Lastly, I went back to college and watched a game of ‘cub-aaad-ee?’, give or take. It's: Khabadi. But it kinda looks like wrestling played on a volleyball court type thing in sand and there are 2 teams. Each team has 6 people. The one guy from a team is sent over to the other side and they have a certain amount of time before they have to go back to their side. In that little time they try and touch the other team with their feet or hands and the team tries to tackle them without letting the person touch the line in between their 2 sides. If you didn’t understand any of that, it’s totally understandable because that is just the part I could pick up from watching the guys at school play for an hour and a half, there are any more rules I couldn’t follow as well. Either way, it's pretty fun to watch, just add music. They are so quick on their feet and it's like dancing and they get so pumped. Then again, maybe that's just the boys at school. who knows anymore?
Yesterday I got a sweet Henna tattoo on my arm. The girls at school like to do it and so they drew sweet ones on all the Americans. Not all Indians get Henna on them and some only get it right before they are married so their husband can find it. It’s ‘hidden’, although I feel like if they are covered up with their dress over much of their body, having a hidden Henna tat wouldn’t be too hard. Speaking of tattoos, no mom, I am not getting one, but I totally could if I wanted one! Hahaha They are so much cheaper here. It’s kinda ridiculous how cheap they are, like 500 rupees, depending on the conversion rate, about 12 dollars. Ha!
Classes have been going pretty well. They are definitely different than Juniata, that’s for sure. My one class discusses Indian social problems and so far we are talked about beggars and prostitutes and it’s interesting to hear the way they are teaching it. I’m glad we have to take this class (it’s the one class that BCA makes everyone take) because I would never get such an inside look at JC. We talked about how if prostitution became legal then it would become better because they could be in charge, not a pimp, have their own hours, say no if they wanted, have labor laws apply and solicit in their own place. I never thought about it like that and I don’t really know where I stand on the issue but it gets you thinking. We read 5-6 articles from various newspapers on the 2 sides of prostitution and all of them agreed that child prostitution was horrible but they were split on adults.
I hope you all are having a wonderful week. Keep smiling, running, laughing and eating chocolate :) Love to you all!

mary made another video...

mary made another video of our pictures and some videos from the 2nd-ish week up to today :)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/video/video.php?v=429202980351

Auflauf in India?!

I have been in India for 2 full weeks now and it's finally beginning to sink that I'll be here for a little while. Robert left us today to head to New Delhi and then back to the States. We are officially on our own now. I have about 3 months left which seems short since that means I've been here for 2 weeks already but long in the same sort of sense.
Two of my flatmates got sick this morning and we think it's from drinking the ice in our drinks last night. They are doing much better it seems than they were this morning. So two down-three more to go. Oy vey. Before the girls got sick, we did have a good dinner at a place called 'The Village' and I think if it were in America, many girls would get proposed to there. It's outside with the breeze flowing in, it has a nice fountain, palm trees overhead and it's classy enough. But the best part was the menu. Annie (my roommate, she lived in Germany for a year) was looking at the menu when she screamed 'Shut Up!'. We all glanced over quickly. "They have mmdmdfmsdm" I couldnt hear her or understand her because she was so excited. "They have auflauf"!! At this point we were both in shock and smiling nad laughing and sooo excited. I had never seen it on a menu before and was no expecting to see it there at all but it made my day. It made me think of the farm and Omi & Opa and eating a delicious, non-spicy meal :) Needless to say, we didn't order it because we didnt think it would go well with the dosa bread, rice, spicy chicken and whatever spicy fish sauce we were ordering but Annie and I have full intentions on going back there.
Before the food last evening we went to a cultural event where we got to see a few dances and hear songs that are from the Mangalore history. It was very interesting and fun to see. Tomorrow the 5 of us girls and 2 students from Roshni are heading to a few communities so that we can write a paper on the NGOs and how they are imapacting the lives there. I think that is for my Weaker Sections Class.
Recently we also went to a hospital where they have all sorts of centers and a huge chapel and a rehab center as well. We got a tour of the rehab center and it was really neat. They had all sorts of people working in there but they were making little toys and designing bags and cloths that people buy to hang on their walls. Those people put so much effort into their work. I could totally see them sending their stuff to 10,000 villages and in fact Alison asked if they sold their stuff overseas and they said they were trying or at least looking into it so maybe they will.
We got to see the solar eclipse today! Did any of you? Many people here it seems are very superstituous about it and some schools didn't have school because they didn't want their children to go outside at all today. Shanthi nad Joselyn told us that they let their kids stay inside and watch a lot of TV today because they didn't want them outside.
Well, tomorrow is the NGO visit and then Sunday is church. I think we are going to one right next door with Ajith, Robert's nephew, and hopefully it won't be 3 hours long like last week. I think I have another interesting week next week as we are on our own, in India nad taking classes and I suppose, possibly starting field placement :) So much to do. I hope you all continue to live up the cold and ice for me, a break from the heat would be nice every once in a while but I usually can get that from a nice chocolate ice cream slab so no worries.

City of Mangalore :)

So I’m in the city of Mangalore. Wow. I have officially signed up for all 3 of my classes nad I am taking: Indian Social Problems, Community Organization & Dev. and Weaker Sections of Indian Society. I’ve been to a few classes so far and they seem really interesting. In my weaker section class we are learning about the Indian Constitution which I never thought would interest me but we are talking about certain articles which pertain to social work such as one which says that untouchabiltiy is prohibited and one that says that child labour in hazardous places is not allowed for children under the age of 14 nad bonded labour is not allowed. Their semester started Decemeber first and so we have some catching up to do in all of our classes however Robert and Joselyn, the 2 main guys in charge of us, say that their semesters start out much slower since Christmas falls near the end of it. Somehow that is supposed to make sense. I don’t really understand because if I’d missed 2-3 weeks at the beginning of the semester and then 2 more weeks in January, I’d be a mess and it’d take me forever to catch up. These guys claim that we’re gonna be just fine. I’m taking their word on it. I know I have a presentation and paper to write for my Weaker Sections class and a paper for my Community class but other than that I think we mainly just have to catch up on lecture notes. That is what I plan on doing next. My field placement is still not finalized but I think I will be working at a school for at least part of my 15 hours/week but I’m not sure about the other half yet.
I am adjusting to everything fairly well thus far I think and I’m glad that by next week we should have some sort of schedule going. The food is not getting less spicy but my tongue is either losing taste buds, using ones that have not been used except to find out that I couldn’t handle spicy stuff before or both. Somehow though, the food is getting better and my mouth is getting more used to it all. Also living in a city is easier. The noise was never a problem because I can sleep through a lot. My housemates all talk about the yapping dogs in the night but I have yet to hear them. Also horns beep here more than any other place I’ve been too-all day and night long. It makes a nice melody. We are becoming regulars at a little shop across the street from us where we often go for tea, the Clay Oven, a nice restaurant near our house and Grace’s Ice Cream Shop, right near the school. We’ve decided we want to become regulars at a few places so that they can help us out if we ever need it and because it’s nice to have a place where they know you and whatnot. The shop across the street is funny though because it’s called a Juice nad Ice Cream parlour and so silly us ,went to get ice cream there the other night and they said they only have meals and tea. What?! Hahaha yeah, we asked a few times and we have yet to figure out if they actually have ice cream and just couldn’t understand us or if they really don’t have ice cream.
The city is smaller and so it’s easier for me to get around but it’s still a city and I’m still a country girl. Guys and girls as well, stare at us a lot because we are the only white people around here-I think I’ve seen maybe 10 other white people in this city besides us, in the last 10 days. Also the other part we’re getting used to is our electricity and water in our flat. They both go off alllllll the time at our house. Seriously, all the time. But I always feel very spoiled when I think about how inconvenient it is because there are a lot of people without it at all or who don’t have air conditioning at all. It puts things into perspective.
Anyways, tomorrow we have 1-2 classes and we are visiting one more school that I may go to for field placement and then I think we may also go to a nearby stadium by bus (first experience on a crazy Indian bus) and check out the track. Then Thursday is a holiday so no classes! We are going to the movies in the morning I think and then some cultural event at night that we are supposed to attend. Friday and Saturday might be field placement depending on whether or not I have finalized it yet. We’ll see. I hope you all are having beautiful snow-filled days….one of those sounds really good right now…today I had 2 chocolate milkshakes to help get cold….hahaha and maybe to get my chocolate and calcium fix :) Love you all!

Youtube pictures...

Ok, so the one girl in our group, Mary, decided to make a video of our first week. She tried to get the music working but couldn't so listen to your own. I'd suggest some slumdog millionarie songs to go with the India themed pictures but there ya have it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um-6s_tvXSg

Sports Day & Church

Okey dokey, so it’s a Sunday afternoon in January and I’m sweating. Who woulda thought? If someone had told me a few years ago that when I studied abroad it would be in India I probably would have laughed. Germany-probably. Russia-maybe. India-well I never even considered it until the end of my search. Although somehow I am sitting here in our common room near the Kannkanardy Junction in Mangalore India writing to you all. This trip I imagine will be filled with ups and downs and turns that I never saw coming. It’s such an interesting place and most of the time I love it but it still comes with the good, the bad and the ugly.
Saturday was a good day! Every year the school holds a sports day. Something I never thought I’d be so excited to hear. They had track events and more. I was thrilled! It was slightly and by slightly, I meanly largely different, than any track day I’ve ever participated in but it was so much fun. The day started out with the students splitting into their 6 respective teams. They were divided by whether they were a 1st, 2nd or 3rd year and then each year was split into 2 groups: BA and BSW. They marched around the 200 meter track each team with a solid color flag all following one leader with the school flag. There was a small school band playing as well on the bleacher-type things to keep them going. They got in front of all the professors, the few students who didn’t participate and us, the Americans who didn’t partake in the march. So they lined up and sang their school song nad raised their flag and introduced their guest of honor, a previous professor of the school. Then they had a torch. Yes, a torch. 5 students ran it around the track and then planted it next to the track. It was great. Next they let a dove free to start the whole day off. Sadly, there were a lot of hawks flying around and right after they let the poor dove go, a hawk started chasing it and I’m pretty sure the bird only got about 5 min of flight until it was breakfast. So the games began then…
They had done all the throwing the day before and I think the jumps as well since I didn’t see any of that going on. They had the 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500 meter runs as well as tug-of-war, skipping 100, walk 600?, 2 relays and a lemon walk. Alison, a fellow BCA girl was a sprinter in HS although she runs longer distance now but she ran the 100 meter sprint and got 3rd place. I should have run the 800 since the winning time for girls was a 3:38 but I was never really into fast races and it was at the beginning of the day and I didn’t realize they didn’t train and that I was probably more in shape than the majority of the girls there. The one race was the skipping 100 and they skipped rope while running for 100 meters as the one race. It was fabulous to watch-also another fun one to try out but we couldn’t figure out what they meant but skipping race or whatever they were calling it so we just watched. The teachers did a lemon race which is like our egg race but they use lemons here. They walk about 25-50 meters with a spoon in their mouth and a lemon on the spoon. All the students loved that. The 1500 was the last race before tug-of-war. They ran the girls and guys together, there were 9 girls and maybe 15 guys. It went off around 11:30 and it felt like a hot end-of-the-track-season meet. The sun was shining and it was plenty warm out with the humidity high. They are not into running consistent paces I soon realized after the whistle went off. It started out soooo slowly I was not prepared. So I ran up with the guys and trailed off the lead guy. The first 2 laps were very slow-slower than my 10K pace I think. Then he slowly picked it up and then with about 3 laps left we were going much faster. The last lap he took off and so I did too because another guy was coming up fast behind me. I ended up getting either 2nd or 3rd overall, first for the girls. It was so great because even though I know none of the them really ever train and whatnot, it was my first time ever getting first so that was exciting  Next was tug-of-war and Indians are some of the most intense tug-of-war-ers I’ve ever witnessed. It was freaking awesome! I took part in 2 of the 3 rounds and the third years ended up getting 2nd place I think for it. It was a lot of fun and Alison and I are going to try and go back to run on the track before classes if we are allowed. It was on the police grounds kinda far away so we’ll see but hopefully.
This morning I got up earlyish and went to church with Annie and Alison. Annie had gone last week with Robert and so she had met the Pastors daughter nad so she met us halfway there and showed us the way. Church started at 8:45 and went until 11:45! I was not expecting that at all. Although strangely, it didn’t feel that long at all which I’m very thankful for. The service was mostly in Kannada, the main language of the city, although there was some English in it too. The pastor had a translator for the sermon which was slightly less than 30 min I’d say and I’m glad that was translated because it was pretty good. It was a penecostal church and I’ve never been to a Pennecostal service in the US but from what I’ve heard they are loud and sing a lot in the US and they do the same here. Praise the Lord and Alleluia are the same in both languages and so that I could always understand. The songs were awesome nad if I end up going to that church more than I want to ask for the songs. They sang some in Kannada, one in Hindi and a few in English. It was really awesome because they sang ‘Here I am to Worship’ and it felt so cool to know the song from back home. Also today they had a mega offering because the church was built 2 years ago and so they are still in debt and today was big day to give apparently. The pastors son was playing keyboard and another boy was playing guitar and it was cool to listen to all the voices and them playing. Another interesting thing was that they all take their shoes off before entering (they actually do this in many places) and the guys and girls sit on opposite sides of the church.
So that has been my past few days. I should be starting classes sometime this week although Thursday is some holiday so no class then and field placement will start either this week or early next week I’m thinkin. I hope you all are sledding lots and getting your skating in for me since there is no way that I am going to be doing that. I wish you all a wonderful Sunday.