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!!