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!