jumbled

I am a basket case. Just thought I'd put that right out there in the wiiiiide open. Sometimes I am bright and bursting and happy about everything. I laugh out loud at anything (like today on the bus I watched a man outside trying to be sooo cool bouncing around this tennis ball in front of his friends and on one particularly epic bounce he slipped on some rocks and face planted on the ground like a starfish HAHAHAHAHA watching him trying to play it off was the best part)and feel so fully at home and alive in my body. It is equally as likely, though, to find me on my bed/the floor/anywhere I happen to be when it strikes me laying out like a beached whale feeling like the WORST shit possible and fantasizing about sleeping through the next two weeks and waking up just in time to catch a plane the hell out of here. I think it is because I am now only partially here. The departure date is coming so soon and I've been having to deal with class registration, finding a job, finding a home, et cetera and to do so have really had to put myself in a "home" state of mind. I've been allowing myself to fall into long daydreams of crunchy redorange leaves and rain and imagining all the wonderful people I love that I will see when I come home. I'm wondering when I will shave my head, and thinking about new years celebrations and already mentally decorating my new room like little India. I love thinking about home in one way, because it is comfortable and safe and easy to understand. On the other hand though, it makes me saaaad sad sad. It makes me feel like nothing here is right, and I start ticking off in my mind all the things I HATE about India (men staring at you constantly, stifling heat, ALWAYS feeling sick because of this damn parasite or whatever it is thats got me feeling like crap.) Next thing I know I'm Negative Nancy sitting on my bed and cursing the world.
I feel much better when I'm distracted, and have actually been having wonderful days once I drag my sorry ass out of the hostel. I'm still taking lessons with Kripa in the morning and gahhhhh they are only getting harder but I love the challenge. In the afternoon for a short time I watch classes at the school, but now I also spend an hour teaching ballet. They have roped me into teaching ballet to a group of 20 fifteen year olds (13 girls and 7 boys) and expect me to teach the kids "all that there is to know about ballet" AND create/teach a 3-5 minute dance for them to perform within 5 days. HA. Right away I said nooooo way but they badgered the hell out of me and basically forced me to do it and I've actually been having a WONDERFUL time. I of course gave up instantly on perfection, on teaching them more than like 8 moves, and on having a piece any longer than 1 or 2 minutes and that has made my life much easier. The kids are actually REALLY into it and I have especially loved teaching the boys as they don't know that there is a stigma about boys dancing ballet and they are twiddling along across the floor on their toes just as earnestly as any of the girls. In fact my best student is a very serious very gangly young man! I have also loved being able to say to these girls what I want to say to EVERY woman which is DON'T be ashamed of your body stand up tall and proud, chin up, smile, don't apologize for ANYTHING you are doing. Day 1 was full of shyness and giggling and eyes trained only on the floor and already the giggling (save today when one boy was jumping and his pants fell off HAHA) has given way to concentration and just going for it and trying. And I'm not trying to sound like some hero teacher, it is all the kids! I really got a wonderful wonderful group. Riding on Kripa's scooter and then even the painfully long bus ride home I am on cloud 9, my legs soooo tired and my mind jumping between the choreography I am learning and the little dance I am making up for the kids. Aiieee it's dinner time...I guess this post didn't really have a point but I think that pretty accurately reflects my mental state. Big big love to everyone.

the lovely boys (minus one)
chins UP! (i hope i corrected that girls arm position immediately after this photo was taken)

beautiful beautiful Kripa

exasperated

I wanted to share this because it blew my mind...Some things here I have resigned to not understanding and not even trying but this really pushed my buttons BAD. Through my dance project I've become close with this dancer named Chandana who has been roped into scootering me to hell and back to get costume pieces, see shows, etc. etc. She is SO sweet and it has been great to have someone MY AGE with my same interests who I feel completely comfortable with...I've understood a lot more about Indian culture through her probably than all my two months of classroom lessons combined. Anyway Chandana has been dancing with Kripa for 14 years and is now teaching dance at the school alongside K. She just had her first public solo performance which is a HUGE deal here, a 3 hour affair where all these respected artists of the community come to watch and appreciate/evaluate your skill at dancing and expression. I got to watch some of Chandana's tape and it was BEAUTIFUL. Basically dance is this girl's life. Because of her "ripe" age, though, her parents have decided it is time for her to get married. She has been arranged in a match with an older man who lives outside of Mysore, and their wedding date is set for February 4th. That part I can handle--most of the married people you meet here were arranged marriages and not "love matches" and they all swear up and down by how much better it is. Honestly I am almost convinced...Because the marriage wasn't for love, it is based instead on just working together to make life work and often love grows from working together that way. The matches are based on a number of things including astrological compatibility, caste (eek), education, religion, economic standing, and the compatibility of the two families (this part is extremely important since most often the bride will have to live not just with the groom but with his entire family.)
What DOES kill me is not only will Chandana have to leave Mysore and live in some strange new place, SHE WILL NO LONGER BE ALLOWED TO DANCE. Apparently men forbid their wives to dance because “after marriage a woman should be for her husband’s eyes only,” and the prospect of her doing anything in front of a crowd—and god forbid DANCING, is totally unacceptable. There is this stigma attached to dancing from way back, a lingering idea that somehow if one is a dancer it means she is also a prostitute. This couldn't be farther from the truth, especially in Bharatanatyam which is based in ritual and tradition and there are extensive pains taken to AVOID any movements that are in any way sexual! The hips NEVER move and just the other day Kripa was showing me a new step and warned me against doing it with too much gusto because if you do it makes your chest shimmy the tiniest bit. The girls clip, pin, and tie the hell out of their costumes to make sure that no movement they do could possibly expose cleavage or belly.
Kripa had to turn down a number of marriage proposals to doctors and engineers and other esteemed men because if she married them she wouldn’t be allowed to dance. LUCKILY for her, her family was willing to look for someone else (her marriage was also arranged) and ultimately found her a man who works for the postal service and fully supports what she does (I love him.) Chandana’s parents are not so flexible. So she is dancing with the weight of the world on her shoulders, knowing that in less than three months she will have to leave EVERYTHING she knows—her family, her friends, Kripa, and her passion for dance and settle with just being a wife. She tries to act optimistic but I have seen her eyes fill up with tears numerous times when her marriage is brought up and once she told me she goes home and cries about it daily. In a last ditch effort, Kripa is arranging a January performance and forcing her fiancé and his family to attend. She said that that maybe if they see what Bharatanatyam really is they would be willing to allow her to continue. Chandana isn’t getting her hopes up. Sometimes I hateeee the worrrldddddd.

Anyway I know this post is long but I just need to add a little story of my own while i'm on the subject of hating the world. Today a friend and I decided to take a walk around the lake nearby...its a short walk but beautiful you're just suddenly in full nature with all these egret-y birds flying around and blooming bushes full of flowers spilling over onto the little dirt path. Long story short we ended up getting followed by this CREEP who eventually whipped his penis out of his pants at us and we had no idea what to do...just standing there in the semi wilderness like ten feet away from this guy with everything hanging out trying sooo hard not to look and also figure out how the hell to get away because no one could see us and he was blocking our only escape. After I yelled something about waiting for this fucking asshole to leave he went away but not without stopping every ten feet to look back at us and touch the crotch in his pants. When we got out to the street he looked to be going the opposite way and then when he saw where we were going started following us and I thanked God that we had somewhere else to go than home--we walked to town and lost him there but UGHHHHHHH it got me SO riled up if he had gotten any closer I think I would seriously have kicked him in the balls and or punched his face as hard as I possibly could. I just HATE the male female dynamic here, men are SO sure that you won't do anything and walk around with this swagger of complete power and control expecting you to defer to them and not do anything even if they are wagging their penis in your face! And most often, women don't!! The culture doesn't support them to fight back and in our case it would have just made the situation worse to approach him it seemed the best thing to just try and quietly get away. This girl and I-both rugby players-were about twice his size and could clearly have beaten him within an inch of his life but it didn't matter. He was a man we were women, and that was all he saw and all that mattered. I HATE that. I'll just say that this experience didn't do anything to help/assuage my tendency toward isolationist feminism haHA. I could go on but at this point this entry is a short novel. Love to everyone.

dancin queen

so I haven't been in the mood to write up lately but after a night spent cold sweating/almost passing out/half sleeping on the bathroom floor and a day laying in bed feeling like the bottom of a shoe and choking down rehydration salts (if you've never had to drink them may you never have to...the LASTTTT thing you want while feeling sick to your stomach) I figured being bedridden anyway I have no excuse avoid it any longer. What is new? MY PROJECT! Some of you may know that by the end of my month long trip all I wanted to do was hide away in the ashram for the rest of eternity chanting and meditating and eating watery rice and peas. I was this close to calling Dr. Rao and asking to let me change my project and do just that, and was also considering staying on past my departure date so I could be around when Ammachi actually came. I'm so glad I didn't! I'm sure it would have been great in its own way but I couldn't be happier with my dance project. The teacher, Kripa, turned out to actually be REALLLLLY into it and the instant I got back had all these plans and schedules and things which was GREAT because when I originally told her I wanted to like stalk her life for a month she seemed umm...less than eager about the whole idea (I believe "so what do you think I'm supposed to do with you for an entire month" was one of her straight faced queries.) My days Monday through Friday look something like this:
9:30 catch the city bus in front of the big tree by the bank that apparently everyone and their mother knows is a bus stand but had me quite confused for a few days
11:00 FINALLY arrive at Kripa's after changing buses in the middle of town, having twelve hernias that I'm going the wrong way or gonna miss my stop, and getting stared at by Indians of all shapes and sizes for pretty much the entire ride.
11:00-12:30 Get PRIVATE LESSONS with Kripa in the dance studio in her house (called the rhythm cottage--I love that) where she spends some of the time teaching me new moves for a dance, lots of the time making me just run through the basic steps til my legs are shaking and I'm dripping sweat, and a good amount of time letting me sit down and talking about all manner of things in the universe, sometimes dance sometimes not. I am so grateful to have this time--Kripa is EXTREMELY respected in the community (her dance students bow down and touch her feet at the end of each class!!!) and having one on one time with her for 7 and a half hours a week is pretty much unheard of/amazing.
12:30-1:00 One of Kripa's longest running students (18 yrs!) who now has a masters in dance and runs her own studio comes to practice, and I think this is the most valuable part of my day. I get to run through some of the steps with her (!!!!!) and I spend a lot of time watching the way she stylizes each move and moves her head and stuff and try to copy. After a while I sit down and she practices for a show she has coming up. I am inspired and blown away every time and wish I could learn the dances she's doing!
1:00 Kripa's jolly husband Vijay makes us all lunch (SO GOOD) and usually puts on ABBA blasting so loud the windows shake. I think he is trying to impress me so I try and respectfully nod along while surreptitiously holding one of my ears to my shoulder to drown out the noise.
1:30 Kripa makes me go take a nap in the dance studio on a bamboo mat, during which time I usually busy myself swatting mosquitos and trying to remember the new moves from that day which most often I've completely forgotten.
2:00-4:30 Ride with Kripa on the back of her scooter to the school where she works and observe two hour-long dance classes for the kids. She usually makes me get up and take class with the second group who I think are 7 or 8 yrs old and they straight kick my ass at dancing. DEFINITELY makes me swallow my pride, but it is great practice.
4:30 this part hasn't been figured out yet quite--I spent a few days riding back with Kripa on her scooter and then taking the bus but at that hour it is so crowded that you can barely breathe and getting off feels like coming through the birth canal it is stuffed so tight with people. Tried taking a school "bus" (actually a weird old jaloppy van) with some kids and a mentally disabled lady but after getting soooo nauseous in the back he dropped me off only half way anyway and I ended up walking/catching the bus after all. Someone said there are arrangements being made so I can have a legit school bus ride back to my area so that will be nice! 3 hours of Indian bus is about 2 and a half hours more than I can handle.
OK my stomach is starting to act up again so I'm off to go lay down and stare at the ceiling for another long while. hooray. Love to everyone!

I wish there was a more expressive word for love

So I did it! And I think I can definitely say it was the experience of a lifetime….both in the way of peak experiences where my heart was so full I had to hold my hand on my chest to make sure it didn’t explode out, and in the way of unbelievable challenges that pushed me to the absolute limit of my tolerance. I kept remembering how lucky I was to be doing what I was doing, and when I touched (hugged) the Taj Mahal for the first time, sat next to a goat on the ghats in Varanasi watching the sky darken over the Ganges, and chanted evening bhajans in the temple where ammachi gives darshan listening to the rain pound down outside I shed tears of joy that I was alive and witnessing life this way. My thought process was often something like “Kendra, wait a minute--you are ON THE GANGES RIGHT NOW. That river, RIGHT THERE is the fucking Ganges. !!!!!!!!! (commence crying)” I was so glad I made the decision to travel alone. When I needed company there were always people to meet and talk to and explore with, but I also loved venturing out by myself and experiencing things without any input or judgment or pull from anyone else. Things look different when you are seeing them through your eyes alone! I found that people also are more inclined to want to help you if you are a tiny girl traveling alone, and I had a number of people sort of take me under their wing even in little ways along the way. In Delhi an airport worker saw that I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open but didn’t want to leave my stuff unattended and showed me to the recliner seats and promised to check up on me until I woke up so none of my stuff would be taken, in Varanasi a young Indian woman I rode with in a rickshaw gave me her number and said to call her if I was ever afraid or in a bad situation and she’d figure out a way to help, in Kerala me and everything I owned were soaked through to the bone and as I sat at a boat station crying (long story) a man quietly moved to stand in front of me with his umbrella open and while everyone else stood at the other side of the station where it was dry he let the rain beat at his legs and blocked all of it from blowing in on me. Little things, but it really meant a lot to feel like I had support. I think the main thing I learned was, and I know this sounds cliché and stupid but I really feel like I am capable of doing anything. One time that stands out for me was wandering the streets of Alleppey alone at night completely lost and soaked looking for an apparently non-existant destination muttering out loud to myself that this was by far THE WORST day of my life and feeling like there was NOTHING I could do wanting to just sit under a tree and give up on everything. After being told the wrong directions and getting myself more lost twice and yelling at the bus people over the phone even though they didn’t speak any English (it was therapeutic) and breaking down and asking just about everyone I could find for help I DID make it, and when I stepped into that damn restaurant/bus stop I felt a HUGE surge of pride and decided that if I could find a bus stop that didn’t exist in a monsoon in the dark in India by myself I could damn well figure out a way to tackle most things. I also realized through meeting all these people who were doing extended travel (one couple was doing the entire world in four years!) that travel is really what I NEED to be doing and it isn’t that hard to just make it happen if you are willing to work along the way and can be flexible. I always say that my life goal is to have children and I still feel that way, but I think now that it is going to have to wait a long while while I see the world. Destinations I can’t wait for: Brazil (spending some time in the Amazon), South Africa, Bali, Nepal, Cuba ahhhhh just writing about it makes my heart jump into my throat. Once when I was having a spontaneous solo dance party in my room in Varanasi that song by Cat Stevens came on shuffle that says "there's so much left to know and I'm on the road to find out" and I realized yeesssssss that is my motto for life.

I scribbled this out on the back of an e-ticket on one of my many endless travel endeavours:
trains - 5
buses - 5
planes - 3
groped - 5
times i had the chance to elbow the living daylights out of the guy - 3
overwhelmed/end of my rope cries in public - 4
scenes created over someone attempting to rip me off - innumberable
sick - 2
cameras bought - 2
cameras ruined - 3
plans changed - half
places stayed where I paid less than $3/night - 6
amount of people surprised I was from the US solely because I'm not morbidly obese- 2
times listened to "I am woman hear me roar" - over 10
times my heart exploded our of my chest with joy - innumberable

yesss

exhauuusteeeeeed but alive, back in Mysore. I'll post tomorrow or whenever I find I can make complete coherent sentences again. Love to errbody

If I see one more hippie with a flute tied to their pants, a flowing Indian scarf wrapped around their dreads, or a vacant "blissed out" smile wandering around I'm going to EXPLODE. The time has clearly come, my friends, to leave Mcleod Ganj. Don't get me wrong it has been wonderful, but if I wanted to spend all my time surrounded by hippies with acquired Indian accents I would never have left Arcata. I have decided to go to Amritsar tomorrow which is the home to the Golden Temple, the "mecca" of the Sikhs. I've met lots of people who went there and loved it, plus the lodging AND food are free so no matter what it can't be that bad! It'll also save me from spending any more time in Delhi where I had originally planned to spend a night or two but now just the mention of it makes me want to bathe in purell, curl into a ball and die. ANYWAY, my trek! The trek was quite an experience. I'm not even sure what to write about it! I think when I decided to go "trekking in the Himalaya" I was so distracted by the utter romance of it that I didn't really think about the fact that trekking=hiking up mountains ALL DAY LONG. I felt pretty slick for the first few minutes, striding away from the trekking place with a sleeping bag tied on my backpack and energy bar in hand, congratulating myself on being so fit and adventurous. Let's just say that about 35 minutes in (right after we stopped going downhill) I had a rude awakening as I lay sprawled out on a rock BATHED in sweat under the beating sun trying to decide if anyone would miss me if I just stayed there and left my body to the elements. Yes, I am not exactly the trekking type. That being said, it was GREAT to push myself past my limits and every time we reached the top of a hill or a section I felt SO proud of myself and so grateful to be alive!! We saw the most wonderful things---the light of the sun setting on the mountains, a mama goat with a baby that had just been born hours before (some of the umbilical cord was still attached!), tiny villages that seemed like they were straight out of National Geographic, et cetera. I took my first shower in 8 days in a mountain stream with the clearest most beautiful water I have ever seen, and had an almost romance with a beautiful shepard man (!!). By night three I was feeling pretty slick again and we were staying in this Durga temple in the middle of the forest with absolutely NO ONE around except the two guys who kept the temple clean and a few stray dogs. I thought I would seize the opportunity to be an inspirational mountain woman and sleep under the stars, since there was no light around I knew they would be breathtaking. I threw out my paper thin pad and hopped in the sleeping bag, ready to be amazed. Weeellll, apparently secluded mountain temples are fucking FREEZING. Within minutes I had only one eye sticking out of the mummy bag and was trying to still see the stars without letting any air in (impossible)...DETERMINED I went down to my room and put on all the clothes I had (3 pairs of pants, a t shirt, a fleece sweatshirt, an ENORMOUS borrowed wool sweater, a borrowed wool coat, wool gloves, wool socks, a scarf and a wool hat) and went back up to try again. I was so fat I could barely fit in the sleeping bag, but at least I wasn't shaking...for long. I started to feel a cool breeze on my leg and reached down to find that the zipper had exploded! my whole legs were out in the air. And as I tried to roll the bag under my legs the top zipper exploded too because I was wayyyy too big and I just laid there in a heap trying to convince myself that at some point this would be funny but was just sooo bitter and too angry to even see the stars at this point. I had to give in and trudge down to our "cozy" little room downstairs which was actually just a concrete jail cell-esque thing with no beds and all sorts of charcoal graffiti on the wall but once I was in there it was a whole lot warmer and I was able to shed enough clothes to fit in the sleeping bag and slept like a baby. Overall I am SOOOO glad I decided to go and although I pretty much feel like a fossil right now because I'm so sore my muscles have crystalized, I can't wait to trek again! I can't believe I spend so much time indoors in my normal life...trekking made me remember how heartstoppingly wonderful nature is and now all I want to do is frolic around in streams and sleep under the stars (in warm places ONLY.) Sooo I'm off to begin this last leg of my solo adventure (only 8 days left!) and I can't wait to see how it goes. Love to you all!!!

clean

quick quick: FRESH AIR IS SUCH A BLESSING!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I got off the bus (after 11 hrs train and 4 1/2 bus behind a puking guy) I had to cry with joy at breathing in real fresh air...I think even if I had gotten off a bus into Los Angeles I would have cried because the air quality in Delhi/Agra were so unbelievably horrible...But getting off into the pristine chilly STAGGERINGLY beautiful himalaya filled me with so much joy I just needed to shed a few tears. It is so different here....The town is very small and is all built into the mountainside so everywhere you look you can see trees for days and the huge snowy peaks of the himalayas and BLUE SKY...the actual place is mostly full of shops and then the Dalai Lama's house/temple....everywhere you look there are monks and grungy tanned travelers and barely ANY hassling at all...such a change. Today I woke up early and decided to wander and it was SO amazing to be able to wander through something other than pee filled alleyways and dirty shop infested streets...I could walk through trees and rocks and scrub!!! What a joy!! I actually ended up at a waterfall with this crazy view of a valley and found a dog friend who walked all the way up with me so even when I accidentally ended up at a drug den I felt totally safe. Anyway I just wanted to say that I am going to start a trek TOMORROW!! Ack!!! It's me and an older lady who I haven't met yet from Alaska, and we will be trekking for four days/three nights and staying in small villages along the way. I'm kind of nervous--it is FREEZING here at night but they said I could use all their gear so I will probably be a Tibetan snowwoman with ten enormous coats and woven pants and mittens and stuff. I would say I'd post pictures of it--but my camera broke!!!! What a terrible place not to have a camera! I bought this ooooold school point and shoot and I'm hoping the pictures from that will actually work. OK time to go pack, Love to everyone!!

get me out of delhi

hellooooo from a smoky closet like thing in delhi, blechhh. I am here for eight hours between trains and had this huge ordeal finding a place to put my bags...I got loud at QUITE A FEW people along the way who tried to take me down back alleys to their "very nice, AC, AC" hotel and after running away about 8 times ended up at the shithole of the century where I had to scream at the people to even give me a bathroom. GUH. At least its only $4/night. BUT, everything else has been GREAT!!! I cartwheeled around in front of the Taj Mahal this morning (SO BEAUTIFUL), meditated with some monks in under the Bodhi tree a couple days ago (my new favorite place on earth), and got called hot by a hijra (man/woman) on the train the other day after giving him/her some almonds. I spent the last four nights travelling around with Aaron (the BFG guy) which was great....it makes a WORLD of difference to have a man around and it is also nice to have company on lonnnng drawn out train rides. We met a German couple on the night train to Agra and spent the the last couple of days with them which was also really fun. Aaron and I both got sick at different times, blech....apparently there was some scheme a few years ago in Agra where restaurants would poison their food and then when people got sick they'd refer them to quack doctors who would charge them insane amounts of money for "treatments" and then all share in the profits...so sketchy!! I don't think that's still happening though as I got sick in Varanasi and he ate some very shifty chicken in Agra that I think was the culprit. You really have to be on your guard here though! I have LOVED seeing these big crazy cities (minus Delhi) but I am MORE than ready to be in the mountain air in Mcleod Ganj. Apparently the Dalai Llama is in Dharamsala right now so maybe I'll be able to hear a talk or something! Yee!!! Love love love to you all (My heart is bursting with it!)

overjoyed

HELLOOOOOOO friends!!!!! Just wanted to do a VERY quick update (everything on this computer is in chinese and it seems like it may crash any second) to say i made it, and I LOVE IT....I am SO happy travelling alone and have had almost no problems yet...I keep having these wonderful coincidences, like for instance I accidentally somehow got bumped up to first class (!!!!!!!! IT WAS AMAZING) on my flight to varanasi and met this wonderful girl from china who happened to have a car and a guide in vara. and took me to my hotel for FREE (the ride would have been almost 1000 rupees--20 bucks!!) and then I got to go around with her and her guide for a couple days and see everything free (her work was paying for the guide!) and get acquainted with the city. I also met this 6'3" gentle giant type from the Bay Area who I've been going around with and feel MUCH safer with out at night, and we decided to go to Bodhgaya (where the Buddha got enlightened) and Agra (Taj!) together so that should be fun. Saw the burning ghats (i wish EVERYONE could see these at some point in their lives!) and dogs /bodies/trash galore floating down the Ganges and put my feet in there (!!) and constantly have to leap over/dive around enormous piles of shit and trash and flowers and offerings and every other thing you can imagine under the sun. I am just so so so so happy and if you have EVER wanted to come to Varanasi DO ITTTT this is the wildest placeI have ever seen. Love to you all!

hummingbird

So I know I said I'd do an entry with some of the things that really stood out to me over this past 2 months of classes, and I'm sure if I could think straight it would be a wonderful entry, but really my mind is already one thousand nine hundred and nineteen kilometers North floating down the Ganges, navigating train stations at dawn, and climbing the Himalaya. Having this condensed semester of classes has been amazing, but 5 hrs of class a day plus field trips on the weekends for eight weeks gets rough no matter how interesting the subject matter is. My notes for class this past week look like some cross between the chore list of an obsessive compulsive ("FIND purell, call airlines to confirm ALL flights, listen to more Peruvian music when I get home...") , an abstract art installation, and the journal of an over excited 22 year old having cliched but oh-so-inspired realizations about life and living ("I will not sit down, close my eyes, and renounce life to attain enlightenment. I will dance to it, love to it, laugh to it, sometimes travel backwards but always with both eyes wide open."). Oh and uhh a few lecture notes in there too...somewhere.

Right, to the point of this post. North India is known for a lot of things, but respect toward women/safety of solo travelers is not really one of them. So I want to put up my itinerary on here, and then make a promise to do a quick update at LEAST once per week to let everyone know I'm still truckin. It might sound dumb but otherwise no one would know if I went missing or something like that until 3 and a half weeks from now, and this seems like a good way to have a lot of people accounting for me. I also got a cell phone, so if you get a call at some ungodly hour from a weird number, please pick up! My phone number is 919591139725.
My rough itinerary looks like this:

Oct 15th train Mysore to Banglore
Oct 16 Fly to Varanasi (via Delhi)
Oct 16-22 Varanasi (eee!!!)
Leave Varanasi Oct 22 at night, take night train to delhi.
Oct 23 & 24th Delhi
Oct 24th night train to Pathankot, bus Oct 25th to Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj
Oct 26-Nov. 1st Mcleod Ganj
Leave Nov. 1st on bus and then night train to Delhi
Nov 2-3 Delhi
Nov 3 fly Delhi to Kochi, taxi to Amritapuri in Kerala
Nov 3-7 Amritapuri (Ammachi's ashram)
Nov 7 taxi to bus station in Kochi, overnight bus to Mysore arrive Nov 8th.

I have a HUGE smile on my face as I'm typing this and my heart is seriously pumping a mile a minute. I am going to see people being burned, and dead bodies floating down the ganges, and people completing spiritual pilgrimages they have been waiting their whole lives to make, and Tibetans living in exile, and caves and ashrams tucked in the Himalaya, and boats floating lazily down the backwaters of Kerala, and the place where Ammachi was born, and...whatever there is in Delhi!!!!! WITH MY OWN EYES, STARTING TOMORROW!!!!!!!! I am so blessed.

Love to you all and please picture me returning from this month safe, happy, and whole.

yogic cleansing: not for the weak.

Haven't been updating recently because the tool is really coming down to the grindstone (is that a saying?) as we have LESS than two weeks left in our semester and that means that the 3000- 5000 word papers they assigned us in each class at the beginning of the trip that I was conveniently pretending didn't exist/hoping that at some point they would say they were just kidding about are now due allllll too soon. I have been spending my days puttering around the internet trying to find sources (the library here kind of stinks, but dr. rao assured us that wikipedia is a "very good source" so i dont think they're too worried on the absolute undisputed validity front) on dalit (untouchable) women and the goddess Durga and eeking out as many words as I possibly can from my poor shrivelling brain. Therefore there isn't much to report on the activity front, save my small bouts of insanity and majorly upped consumption of peanut butter as a comfort food. Oh! We did visit a yoga ashram which was pretty great---and by great I mean kind of grotesquely enthralling in the way that thriller/horror movies are great or touching something that you know will give you an electric shock just for the thrill of it is great.

In an effort to give us some idea of yogic life and practice, they decided to educate us on the ways that one can cleanse their body beyond just taking a bath or eating good foods. SERIOUS cleansing. After a short talk this little twiggy yogi in a white sweat suit hopped up to the front of the room and I was kind of expecting him to jump around or do some kind of twizzling pretzel poses that speed up your digestion and cleanse your colon or something. But ohhhhh no. No no no. He started with the neti pot, which for those of you who don't know (I didn't) means you pour water in one of your nostrils and then all the bogeys and creepers living up in your nose come out with all the water through your other nostril. Kind of weird, but also pretty cool. I was diggin it. Then he whipped out a string, and shoved it up his nostril til it came out his throat, and started flossing in between with this big smile on his face. At this point I was getting a little uneasy about yogic cleansing, but I thought this might be as bad as it got. He threw off his shirt next, showing us all these wild contortions of the stomach including one where he puffed out only the middle of his stomach in a line and then made it twirl around.....I know that makes no sense but seeing it made NO sense either! I tried afterward and could get nowhere near it--I mostly just puffed my stomach in and out and then farted a bunch HA. Anwyay so after the contortions he sat down on the ground and proceeded to (not exaggerating) swallow THIRTY FEET of white fabric (it took almost 5 minutes becuase he would have to gobble down only so much at a time and then wait--a lot of it is mental becuase you have to control your gag reflex and if you panic anywhere in there you are screwwwwwwwed) and once he had swallowed it all he pulled it back out!!!! Gah!!!! At this point I had only one eye open and was 3/4 hiding behind another girl's head because I was getting rather queasy and had already decided decisively that yogic cleansing is NOT for me. For the last hurrah, he drank water through his nose (I don't even know), shoved a tube down his throat, and then squeezed his stomach and all the water he just drank came pouring right back out of the tube. Man oh man. The rest of the day was actually really nice...we got to do a small movement class, go on a guided meditation, pet some loving baby cows, and listen to fantastical speeches on the origin and meaning of life by this WONDERFUL yogi named Narayana Swamiji who looked like a mix between Snoop Dogg, Eric (of Eric and Kris), and God.

Hooray it's time for lunch...I will update again soon I want to do an entry where I share some of the things that we have learned in class that have really moved me. There are SO many things and I either cry or get close to tears in class on the regular!

Wish me luck on my papers, and hope everyone is happy and healthy.

northern karnataka tour

Sooo we made it back! Two twelve hour train rides, tooooo many multiple hour death defying bus rides, many a sweaty "walk" (although perhaps "drag", "trudge", or "cry" might be more accurate), some serious bushwacking and a WONDERFUL, wonderful trip. I have no idea where my brain was when they were prepping us for this thing, but not knowing what on earth was going on made each day a gift and an adventure. We got to take a sunrise hike to some 500,000 year old cave paintings, swim in a sacred pool in the middle of a temple, haggle with strikingly clad gypsys (who by the way, if you ever find yourself haggling with a gypsy the immediate tactic is to take two zeros off the first price they quote you and then go from there), ahhhh just so many crazy wonderful things I would never have seen myself doing. Since the director of the program Dr. Rao was once the head of the Archaeological Society of India (!!) we got unlimited access to all of these ancient temples and buildings and stuff which was so amazing. And by unlimited access, I mean they would like have a bunch of eager guides waiting for us and open up places that were supposed to be closed to the public and serve us coffee and cookies every second becuase they wanted to be on Rao's good side! That part I did NOT mind....the only downside was that since he was so into it he wanted us to see eeeeeveryyyyyyyyy possible thing made of stone in the entire region which got kind of out of hand. By the end the tour guide would be pointing to some breathtaking 13 foot high 1500 year old sculpture of a dancing Siva or something and our group would be racing the other way toward the far more intriguing plot of shade we saw near the entrance of the temple. Overall though, so cool. I definitely got into thinking I was the relic hunter of the century and even tried pushing on walls in hopes that they might shift and reveal a hidden inscription or city of gold or something (yes, national treasure was on at one of the hotels). I'm not sure how to sum up the whole thing so here are a few excerpts from my journal:


"and the kicker--A SACRED POOL. Is there anything that could be better?!? A natural spring enclosed in stone, THOUSANDS of years old full of laughing old ladies in sarees holding hands and dunking, young guys swimming racing eachother, little half naked kids running around and shrieking with the thrill of being wet--I'm making it sound like utopia because that's because it WAS"

"Theeeen we went to some crazy temple place that was just kind of overwhelming because it was a million degrees and like, every one of the best temples you've ever seen in one place to the point that you don't really care about anything anymore. Plus I didn't want to wear shoes and was trying to act cool like I wasn't hot but my feet literally felt like they were in hot lava and I thought I was going to throw up and die."

"We sat up atop the cave on rocks and I felt the most content I have yet. Breeze, silence, peace, staggering view..."

"I was getting ready to sit down and write this great positive India entry and then the power went out, I spit toothpaste all over the floor, and Elli tried to pull open the curtains and the whole rod flew off and gave her a black eye!! What a perfect fucking example of India...I love it here."

"dripping sweat forging our way around holding hands and screaming. I lead the way into a dark cave, suddenly an animal (OR DEAD GHOST) moved and full on chaos ensued"

"I am fully here and content and grounded and alive. Went to Aihole this morning, which was kind of a bust except for the fact that we were in a place that could potentially be pronounced A-Hole..."

"So happy. HAPPY! I am happy :)"

"AMAZING"

"I am blessed"

"Yeeeessssssssss"

and then an assortment of doodles of smily faces and spirals and hearts.

I think this trip was great for me. I was able to practice patience when it felt like it was too hot or too long of a day or too anything and I wanted to snap, I got to practice being assertive haggling at markets (turns out I am great at it!!! people were asking me to come haggle for them cuz I drove such a hard deal!), and practice JOY and AWE on the largest of scales.

Less than three weeks til our independent travel! I CAN'T WAIT. I am doing it all alone (1 month!) and can't wait to just stand on my own two feet and figure things out for myself.

Hope everyone is doing well! Update me! Oh and getting pictures on this thing is a crazy hassle so for pictures check out my album from the tour on fb--apparently you can see 'em even if you don't have an account click hurrr http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029750&id=30901124&l=6772c6fc60

Just wanted to let everyone know I am on a tour of our state and it is GREAAAAAATTTTT, many many many stories. But I'm going to save an update til I am not on paid internet on this creaky old computer...We'll be back in a few days. Love to you all!

lots to say

firstly business: I realized I had blocked comments (I have no idea how) but my roommate helped me get them un-blocked so now even if you don't have an account you can comment (hint hint hint.)

secondly: I think I officially LIVE here now-and yes it has taken me a month-but I recognize the little bald guy who dutifully huffs and puffs up the hill every day at 7am exactly for exercise, Radhu (aka Bob) our seemingly nice but then randomly vicious dog no longer barks/croons soulfully/lunges when I go by, and most importantly I got a club member card to our local store, "more" today! I think the workers at the store were equally as excited as I was, and by the time I got to filling out the application 3 cashiers, the cleaner and the security guard were gathered around and throwing in their two cents about how I should fill in each section. I was unsure of the point of some of the questions, such as how many rupees I earn per year, how many children of each gender I had, and "which of the following do you have in your house: AC, car, TV, refrigerator," but I got it done. I was also very interested to see that under occupation, the choices were (in this order): housewife, student, self employed, or other. Because of course men DON'T SHOP. pfft.

third: I have FINALLY decided what I am going to do for my independent project! The program is set up so we do an entire semester of school in the first two months, followed by a month of free travel and then the final month is an internship, research project, or special project of our choice. Basically we can do ANYTHING which is both amazing and extreeeemely stressful to choose what will be the most enriching and what will make me most happy. Buuuut I decided I'm going to go with the TOTALLY UNEXPECTED and COMPLETELY SURPRISING theme of: dance! I want to act as both a student and an intern to a dance teacher, meaning I would get personal lessons that would lead to a solo performance at the end of the month (eeeee!!!!) but also shadow the teacher as she teaches classes and does her own performances. I would love to get the opportunity to teach a class or two to kids of modern/creative movement because girls body's are so restricted here it would be fun to let them be silly and free and maybe learn a little dance they could perform :) I would also like to volunteer to do a workshop or two at the destitute women's center teaching simple self defense if they would allow that...I think they might be scandalized at first by the idea but I think it could be SO GOOD for them to have.

What is the destitute women's center, you ask? GAHHHHH. We visited this place on Saturday and I was so blown away I felt like crying and screaming and hugging every single one of these women all at the same time. The center is called Shakti Dhama and it works as a temporary residence for women who for various reasons are no longer safe/welcome in their own homes. It is free for them, and they work in a kitchen garden and make little gifts for the center to sell in return for housing. Some of the trades they learn (sewing, etc.) can be used for them to make money out in the world once they get out. They also get counseling, thankfully, because these women have been through some intense stuff. One of the women spoke to us about how she had been kidnapped from her home and kept in a room in Bangalore for FOUR MONTHS, all the while being tortured (and I'm sure sexually abused) by her captor. Another woman stood up with her baby slung over her shoulder and told us her husband had thrown her and her child into a river to die and the only way she survived was holding on to a root until she was able to get out. A third woman stood up and said nothing at all, becuase she was so traumatized she had lost her ability to speak. I am still haunted by her eyes, which perpetually looked like she was crying but without tears. The most frightening part of all of this is that the ultimate goal of the rehabilitation in most cases is to get the women REUNITED with their husbands. I know, it makes no sense. But in Indian culture it is worse to be an unmarried woman (especially with the added shame of whatever she has been through) than it is to be married to a terrible man. I think this might be because the expectation of marriage here is totally different---marriages are like economic unions between families they are not idealized unions of lovers like they are in the us. I personally wish I could encourage these women to give the husbands a piece of their mind (publicly if possible), kick them in the balls and then start new lives as entrepeneurs, but that is just completely culturally impossible. But can you see why it could be really good for them to know self defense? Especially in the case of the young woman who was stolen from her home--if she knew how to give a good palm heel strike she may have had the possibility of getting away from that creep.

Lastly, in conjunction with my blog title, a group of us got asked to be in a commercial this weekend!! Buuuuuut we turned it down. Kingfisher beer promoters at the club said we could get free beer if we'd just agree to drink it on camera...Ummm no thanks. It was definitely legit but I kind of imagined my on screen moment to be flying by in a dance number hopping around and pelvic thrusting, not chugging nasty beer for some dumb commercial, just becuase I have white skin. So alas, no bollywood for me. YET.

Hope everyone is healthy and happy!

नमस्ते

belly laughs and liver plants

My intention for this entry was to go non-silly, and I sat around for a while thinking of what on earth I could report, and when I kept coming up blank I realized that I have really been laughing here....A LOT. I laughed as my butt flew 6 inches off the chair every time our "safari" (read: miserably rainy hour long deer watching excursion) bus hit a bump, was in muffled hysterics as a 90 year old talked to us very seriously about the "not so pretty venus williams", laughed (albeit ironically) as I trudged for the millionth time to the bathroom, and have been chuckling along pretty much daily since. Obviously there are negative aspects---it hurts to see the desperation of beggars or the animals so bony they look like they only have a week or so to live, and confronting those things has been hard. But while there is an acute awareness of hardship, inequality, etc. there is also a general feeling in the Indian culture of silliness, fun, and raucous enjoyment of even the smallest joke (ex. when at a dinner party one of our group remarked that if he ate any more they'd have to roll him out of here and this woman was in hysterics for SO long, clapping and smiling, before eagerly trying to offer him more butterscotch.)

A few non-silly things:

The organic farm! This place absolutely blew my mind. When picturing an organic farm one thinks maybe of any stretch of farmland, perhaps on a smaller scale and (in my mind) growing a "hippie-er" set of plants. What we arrived at was seriously a forest...No rows of plants no tilled up soil no areas set apart by species...this farmer takes the absolute purest approach to "organic" and "natural", which is barely farming at all. Nature knows how to thrive, if you just let it. There are plants that make perfect mulch when their leaves fall, plants that make nutritious meals for the snails ambling along, plants that will make a clean killing of snails in the case of over-population, plants to sell in the marketplace, plants that cure H1N1 (!), I mean I could go on. And this man, walking barefoot among his magnificent garden, knew the benefits of every single one. I got quite the fill of plant tastings while following him, including one that is supposed to refresh the liver, another that makes it so you can't taste sugar for the next hour after you eat it (it worked!!!! they gave me sugar after and it just felt like sand in my mouth...so weird.), and he tried to make us eat another one and then laughed for quite a while when we went to sniff it and it smelled like poo ("Yes! this is Poop plant! AHAHAH!")

We also visited the tribal school and hospital, which was really interesting. Most of the "tribals" are forest people, meaning that live in the forest and get all of their sustenance from the plants. Unfortunately the forestlands are quickly diminishing and in many places tribals are being forced out in the name of development. The Vivekanada institute built facilities for them in order for them to be able to become more viable in a changing world, giving them access to healthcare and education which were things completely alien to their culture prior. The people who had been working on the project since the start said it took YEARS for the tribals to attend the school, and that just getting kids to sit inside of a building was an enormous ordeal (they would just leap out the window and run back into the forest.) Now they have a system where the first few years of schooling are spent playing/learning outside, and then when they are ready students move into buildings (but they still are WIDE open, with huge windows and access to the outdoors at any point.) Both tribal and "mainstream" knowledge are taught. It definitely sounds sad--like the "taming" of a group of people, but the alternatives are worse. I of course, was beside myself with how cute the kids were and could barely focus on what was going on.

tribal school:

one of the tribals...like the guy at the organic farm he knew a purpose for EVERY plant...if I remember correctly this one was for easing the pain of childbirth (hence the facial expression HA)
this was at the organic farm....did I mention i'm living in paradise?

in paradise, scouting wild tigers.

I'm not sure how else to start this other than: AHHHHHHH WE WERE STALKED BY A WILD TIGER IT WAS SO SCARY AND THE BEST THING OF MY LIFE AHHH AHH AHHHH IT WAS GROWLING IN THE BUSHES AT US FROM 15 METERS AWAY!!!!! No, but really. We were on a nature walk and were stopped and frantically gestured to silence as this deep ruuummmbblllleeee permeated the forest not once, but two times, warning us that we were on it's territory! Scary stuff. And this is AFTER being about two feet away from one of the 4 top deadly snakes of India standing with its hood/you're-definitely-gonna-die-when-you-see-this thing out as it was released (from a pillowcase, with his BARE HANDS) by the steve erwin of India, Raj Kumar. Yes, unbeknownst to me a "nice fieldtrip to the national park" means a lot more here in India than it does back in the states.

Life otherwise has been comparably low key, but I'm learning a lot and having such a good time. The one maaaajoooorr setback so far has been my stomach, which has made me into the "poooor baby" of the group as I am ALWAYS sick and racing to the bathroom/eating only plain rice and feeling really bad for myself. I bit the bullet and took the killer antibiotic Cipro yesterday, so we'll see how things work out.

This weekend we climbed Chamundi Hill, which is a pilgrimage site with 1100 steps up a big hill leading to a temple for Chamundeshwari, who I'm pretty sure is an incarnation of Kali/Durga. It was amazing! The steps look like something out of a fairytale--they are winding and made of stone, surrounded on either side by this lushhhh rainforest-ey brush and dotted all the way up with little temples and small piles of flowers or other offerings where people have stopped to pray. This of course is a little less inspirational when you are huffing away dripping sweat and thinking your calves are going to give out as any second as I was when I was going up, but I was able to appreciate it some nonetheless. I tried to think of things I wanted to let go of, repeating them again and again and sweating them out--releasing them and leaving them on the steps. When I got higher I started thinking of what I wanted to bring in, and I just kept thinking love, love, love. For myself, for this crazy experience, for everything!
At the top we decided to go into the temple, just seal the deal on the whole Chamundi journey. Waiting in the line was interesting, I was by this group of old worn women in their best saris who first made an attempt to talk to me ("Hindi? Hindu?" "what? wait, what? oh, no i'm not a Hindu." "Ahh... Hindu?") before falling into a silence in which they stared blankly at me for maybe 5 awkward minutes at a distance of about 6 inches from my face. I actually kind of liked it, as it gave me permission to stare back and imagine what these beautiful weathered faces and deep set eyes had seen. I also experienced my first sexism, where this guy was letting all the men pass (including men from our group) and then when it came to me he stepped right in front of me, without even a second glance my way. It was WEIRD, having to just accept the fact that he probably viewed me as a second class citizen. And at a goddess temple! Bah!

Hope everyone is doing well, especially those of you who just started school Monday! Ahh!! I'm not gonna post pictures this time becuase I spent seriously ALL day loading them up onto facebook, which would only load 5 at a time at a rate of about 1hr/5 pictures. So go check them out!

ನಮಸ್ತೆ

seven days in india

It has taken me forever to get on the Indian clock--I was waking up at 5 ready to go, dying at like 11 am, lying awake for hours at night, etc etc--but I think I have FINALLY done it. This was evidenced by the fact that at 540am wakeup for yoga I looked like this:

and spent the morning walk to class muttering to myself and seeing if it was possible to walk with one eye open and the other one resting. That seems just about right for my normal pre-sunrise self.

Classes have started, and GAH. The Indian style of teaching seems to be straight teacher to student lecture for the whole class period (and then probably ~20 minutes more, or maybe 30 if the end of class was supposed to be lunchtime), with very little interaction/discussion. From classes as well as some of the events we've attended I'm finding that the general Indian attention span seems to be muuuuuchhh longer than my own. Luckily the subject matter is really interesting (ex. tomorrow in health and environment the lecture is entitled "snakes in eco-system - an interactive session") and I think I'll be learning a lot. Did you know Delhi has legalized gay marriage?!?! COME ON, CALIFORNIA.

I've been having a little bit of trouble in my Sanskrit class...we have to open the session singing an ancient Sanskrit chant to Ganesha where we follow the teacher in call and response...the problem is that some of the words are 40+ letters long and two of the four students are admittedly tone deaf, so the woman will sing something like "Nitantakantadantakantimantakantakatmajam" (yes, that is one word) in this beautiful tune and our response is this wildly horrible (but very loud and hearty) jumble of every possible flat/sharp note sounding something like "chipoonatankalankasooooooootaramajammmmmm" and I have been breaking into hysterical, uncontrollable laugher. Like, it's RUDE. But I CAN'T control it!!!!! And we will be opening the class with this thing every time!!! So yes, until I can get myself under control sanskrit is a little troublesome (but otherwise SO FUN)

Our days have been packed from 6am to sometimes 10pm, so there is too much to share all that has been going on. I will just say that I am continually inspired, challenged, overwhelmed, and overall sooo soo glad that I made the decision to come here.

Here are a few pictures, and I'd love to get an email/update from anyone who reads this--how is life?!

ನಮಸ್ತೆ

ಗೆತ್ತಿಂಗ್ ಸೇತ್ತ್ಲೆದ್

I am still somewhat traumatized all of those electric shocks I got while blogging last time (read: i was too scared to even approach the computer and finally turned it on using a long stick, flinching like crazy), so this may be short. These past couple of days have been PACKED, both literally and figuratively. My stomach is packed so full of rice/sauce/"veg cutlet"/unidentifiable but soooo yummy things that I look about 4 months pregnant and often have to roll into a little moaning ball popping rolaids like crazy waiting out my stomach adjusting to the newness the food. Our days have been busybusybusy. We got an introduction to the school yesterday, and I didn't realize what an amazing school/organization we will be a part of! It is called the Vivekananda Institute of Leadership Studies and it runs a masters program for Indian people who are interested in starting NGOs and helping out poor/underrepresented communities. I think a lot of the people actually come from these communities, so instead of a peacecorps like "you go here and do this even though we have no idea what these people actually want and you will probably be pointless" deal, these people REALLY know what is needed, how to relate, and exactly how it can be done. I deeply respect them all!!
We met our teachers (all Indian people, which I love. The white guy teacher who is staying with us isn't teaching except for a few lectures) who all seem amazing, they are SO smart and friendly and really interested in talking about what WE can do in the world and how things relate to the now instead of just talking vague theories or untouchable facts. My final schedule is going to include Yoga (which is at 6am...we'll see how long I last), Indian Culture & Civilization, Gender in India (also called Indian Women: Tradition and Change...I nearly cried when the lady gave the intro to the class I was so excited and moved), Bharatanatyam dance, and then Health & Environment which I think I'll be auditing because it is taught by a woman doctor and male organic farmer and teaches about ayurvedic healing and stuff and just sounds super interesting. I'll also be taking cooking a few days a week so I can cook for you all and no longer have to be the awkward one bringing chips /safeway cookies to potlucks. AAHHHH the adapter thing just blinked a bunch so last thing: I got chased by a wild cow!!!!!! Of course there are cows everywhere, and I thought they were just over people but GAH this cow was like burping and waving its head around in the middle of the street for a long time and next thing I knew it was careening down the dirt hill at us full speed bleating like crazy and I panicked so much I nearly climbed a pole before frantically sprinting across the street just before it would have barreled us down flat!!!! Needless to say, the Indian people were QUITE amused. OK, more some other time, hopefully with pictures. ನಮಸ್ತೆ

arrival

I am stunned by India. I feel like I have been told a million times what it's like...warned about emaciated beggars pleading through car windows and cows plodding across thoroughfares and air that smells like shitsandalwoodsweatexhaust, beautiful temples stuffed in between cell phone shops and monsoon rains so thick you can barely see...I've been told all this but somehow it didn't prepare me for the fact that it's ACTUALLY TRUE! I have been stumped about what I can write in here because it has occurred to me that there is just absolutely no way to describe it.

Just imagine being in a carweaving at full speed through traffic made up of every kind of vehicle you have ever seen in your life (from honda civics to ancient wooden carts to huge herds of goats), honking so often you are beginning to wonder if the driver has a tic and searching for the wildfire burning down the street only to realize (frightfully) that all that smoke is just exhaust. Add to that people dressed in every technicolor of the rainbow passing by outside and a general fear for your and everyone's life who is within 10 feet of your car, and that can give some ghost of an idea.

Luckily, the town I am in (Mysore) is MUCH more low key than Bangalore (although all of that above explanation still apply), and the place we are staying is amazingly clean, totally comfortable, and pretty much exceeded my expectations about a thousand fold. EVERY room has its own flush toilet, a tall smiling cook named Manu makes every meal for us on plates the size of my torso (I AM OBSESSED WITH THE FOOD), and we have running water, beds, fans, etc etc. I must say I experienced some (ahem) "Delhi belly" on my first night here and am still a little unsure about what is going on in my stomach but I'm not too worried about it. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I accidentally drank tap water on my first day---the ONE extreme traveler taboo that I was SURE I wouldn't break, but our white teacher guy here said the water was purified and I stupidly believed him. Needless to say, well...no negativity. But he could have just said "I don't know" instead of sounding so damn confident.

OK I just got about seven electric shocks trying to plug in my camera and am now paranoid to be anywhere near the computer so I'll leave a couple of pictures here (If I can figure out how) and then run as far away from the computer as possible.

looking for salwar kameez (this is about 1/1000th of the mess we made)
the street we live on