Playing Catch UP :)

6.29.08
Sorry guys, its been a while since I last wrote but its been a VERY busy week. It’s been a little over two weeks since I’ve been there and it’s weird to say that I can’t remember anything different for some reason. I feel like I adjusted really well here and it was fairly easy, aside from the fact that the mosquitos love me and I have a feeling their taking more blood from me then most others because my bites are HUGE. I’m told it’s because I have sweeter blood J hehe… but I’ll stop there on that fact. Anyhow it’s been fun and interesting so far. We went back to Thrissur this week and we took the train, even though EVERYONE told us it would not be running because there was a flood. We’ve discovered that we should always check our selves rather than listening to others sometimes. The train takes half the time as the bus and it’s less bumpy and costs half as much, so well I think it’s all in all the BEST option. Anyhow we had an interesting train ride considering Miss Shachi the comedian is always with me. She always makes all of my trips interesting, everywhere I go. There were of course a bunch of men on the train and they wanted us to go to the very end of the door opening for some odd reason as we were approaching the stop , which we refused to do because well.. I’m just a scary cat. J Anyhow they were laughing at us and then started talking in Malayalam and of course shachi told them we understood Malayalam (which is such a lie) and next thing you know it the whole train is talking about us hahah… it was quite entertaining.. u just really had to be there.
Anyhow I guess I haven’t said much about my wonderful roommates. Here’s a little snip it of them all:
Shachi: Well we’re partners in crime (she’s the one I’m doing the project with) and she always seems to make every trip sooo very interesting.
In the next room there are three girls:
Erika- She sings all the time and we know she’s in a wonderful mood if she’s singing. J She always seems to put a smile on everyone’s face J
Sara- Shes the all around traveler. If we don’t have the right medicine to cure our cold, chances are she probably does or knows what to take. I think she can be the doctor of the house J
Jessica- She’s down for anything. If we want to dance she’ll jump right in with us.
The last room:
Ingrid: Takes the coolest pictures. She has a collection of wall art pictures (mostly just wall graffiti), and a picture of everything we eat.. it looks so cool when you look at it all together. It is actually really random because we happen to know a mutual friend at her law school. What a small world!...
Katlyn: She’s has so many interesting perspectives on life and religion. Shes a practicing Buddhist and I love hearing about her journey to find herself and the right fit for her when it came to religion. I’ve never really questioned it too much but it definitely gets you thinking about your beliefs.
There’s also two other guys that are with us that are staying in the hostel:
Andy: He’s working with Shachi and myself and we have a ball when we’re all on the bus and train together. The conductor on the bus always for some reason assumes he’s paying for shachi and I and charges him for 3 tickets J. Andy’s infamous lines are “ok ok” and “carry on”… it’s what people in Malu land keep saying when we talk to them.. even when they have no idea what exactly we’re saying… My malu friends.. I WILL be keeping an eye out for whether you do this to me now J
7.1.08
I wanted to date some of these entries because I had to play a bit of catch up. Today we went on a 3 hour bus ride in the monsoon… it was nuts! We asked around and showed everyone our paper that had where we were going in English AND Malayalam and still all they did was say ok ok and got us on the bus… low and behold we ended up talking to someone on the bus and he told us we were going the wrong way… and surprisingly that’s actually the first time in all of our bus trips where we’ve been lost J. I have to say for not knowing the language and everyone not understanding our language we’ve done pretty well for ourselves. It’s a huge relief when it’s time to go home and we wait for the bus with the man chanting “aluva aluva aluva aluva” it’s almost soothing to the ears to say the least. Anyhow it’s been a trip of its own and I was just at home today talking to my friend Erika and we were discussing things about how we’re so appreciative of what we have back in the U.S. after having lived here for so many weeks… we are by no means roughing it but I’ve definitely learned to appreciate things a lot more.
Aside from all the regular stories of fun we’ve spent a great deal of times talking about so many different things. From how important it is to us that our “significant others” embrace our cultures to being confused about religion and how really convinced some of us are about what we believe in. All in all everyone comes from such a different background and worldly view that I now see life in such a different light. Noooo I’m not “changing” people I just feel like I’m growing a lot from this experience no matter how sick I get. Each of the girls and the guys have a different perspective on different subjects.
We’ve talked about Kerala of course. I’m not sure if anyone else has been to Gujarat, Mumbai and Kerala but I see such a drastic difference in the people. It seems the people in Kerala are much more conservative than the other states which is proved to be very different from all my experiences in the other areas. From my project on the encouraging entrepreneurship in women it seems that many of the women in the below poverty line families are homemakers… or even in general. There are so many successful and smart people and they are VERY kind. I do hate the fact that they stare at us so much but I guess you’ll get that almost everywhere you go in India… I seriously think it’s a huge issue amongst us Indians… so if you’re reading this and have that issue… STOP STARING hehehe it’s not nice! Heheh… jk… anyhow on a more serious note it’s been a heck of a trip. This Friday we’re going to celebrate fourth of July and since we were told that we (the girls) are not allowed to go to the bar, we’re bringing the bar to us. Our liaison at the school told us it’s not a place for women and told us to have the ‘boys’ buy beer and wine and drink at the bar.. so that shall be our fourth of July party. Wine, Beer, and mosquito coils (to keep the mosquitos awayJ). Well I guess that is all for now. I shall write soon. Sorry about all the typos… My writing time is when the lights go out every night for a half hour and that’s if I remembered to charge my computer or if I’m not watching a movie with the girls.. right now its arrested development every night J