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.

First week already?!

I am alive and safe…and some of you may be surprised but I’m also very full-not starving  I have been in India for 6ish days and it feels like a very long time and yet also a very short time. It hasn’t really hit me yet that I’m studying abroad here since we have only been to one class and that was just to sit in. We have been on exposure visits for our field placements but I don’t know if I’m going to choose any of the ones we’ve been to yet. Everything is slowed down over here. I’m thankful that I am an easy going person or else I may have burst by now. So let me see what I’ve been up to…
The trip started off with loooong plane rides. It was good bonding time with the other BCA girls (Alison, Annie, Emily & Mary) and Robert (our BCA director). We all hit it off right away which I was very happy about. 2010 came when we were flying over the ocean and the whole plane cheered a little bit but nothing too exciting. I feel like ever since we got off the plane in Mangalore everything is filled with color and contrast-I love it so far!
We went to a zoo type place on Sunday and we saw a lot of interesting animals as well as riding an Indian elephant!! Who’da thought that within the first week in India I’d be on an elephant?! All 5 of us girls hopped on the same one and a little boy led us around. Guess how much it cost? Ohh about 50 cents/person. And we could videotape and take pictures the whole time for free and no forms of liability were signed….welcome to India. We also went to a Hindu Temple and St.Alyousius (spelling may be wrong) and got tours at both of those places. The Hindu Temple was very elaborate and neat to look at all of the statues of gods they had everywhere. St.Alyosius is a Catholic school and church-the ceiling was painted with very elaborate murals of the stories of Jesus.
We went to school and got a full tour and met with the principal who is very nice. The school is so quaint and full of trees and such but very different than a college in the States. Compare Juniata to Roshni and you’ll find many differences. For instance, we are trying to pick our 2 elective classes and so Joselyn, the head director type guy for us, told us to look at the time table and look at when our classes would start and try to find when we could do our field placement. They have the ENTIRE schools class schedule on one paper. For college. Now I know it’s much more specialized and it works for them but it’s different. Also Indians run on IST-that’s Indian Standard Time-or as they joke-Indian Stretchable Time. They don’t worry about time except for classes and appointments.
Food. I hit a PR (personal record) for eating spicy food consecutively. Friday morning we ate at our hotel (where we stayed for 4 days until our flat was ready) and ate spicy food for breakfast. So 3 meals on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday-I had spicy food at each meal!!!! Whoaaaa! Be impressed! The girls learned fast that my tolerance was not as high as theirs but I still try everything and eat a lot. At every meal we have either bread or rice-the bread is all very tasty-I’m trying to figure out what the different names mean though. And then we have what they call gravy. Everything else basically is gravy. It’s a meat or veg dish in a sauce. Overall it’s all very good-just spicy 
Running….yeah. About that. So far I have not been able to run because we have been busy every day getting adjusted and we don’t know where/we\hen we can run. BUT Saturday is sports day and I am signed up for the 1500 as that is the longest distance they have…it may be really ugly. Also the fitness type lady is going to hopefully find us and talk to us on Saturday and Alison and I can find out where we can run and when! Alison was a sprinter in HS but now she runs distance. We were boty very excited when we found out that we both really really wanted/needed to run while here.
I feel like I have done so much and we have so much that we are going to do while here. So far I really like everything a lot. The autorickshaws are so fun to ride in , the chocolate is tasty and the people are kind. WE just moved into our house yesterday and we are trying to figure out the internet but I think we will soon and then I can update more regularly. Although not having any cell phone or internet connection for a week was kinda nice. We got our cell phones about 3 days ago and opened bank accounts but we don’t have ATM cards or SIM cards yet….oh India…so we can’t use them just yet but contact with the world is coming. Right now I’m at the school computer lab…signing off. Love you all!