USA

So we are back in the USA and have been for about a month now. We are now living in Olathe with the parents until our house is available in Lawrence. It is being rented right now. We are planning on moving back into it July 1st. I am now looking for a job.... anyone know of one? I have never really looked for a job before. I mean since I was 15 I always taught and performed violin for my job. I never really have done or needed to do anything else. So now I feel like a fish out of water looking for work that is not in my "field of expertise". Hopefully I will find something though to bring in some money and give me a new experience while we are waiting for Kevin to finish his thesis. Who knows how long that will take! Just kidding sweetie...sort of.
So life is still not "settled" but it is good.
Being back from India was strange at first. The things I noticed most were the wide open, EMPTY, countryside. Meaning that there weren't people everywhere. Also how clean and sparkly everything seemed for the first week or so.
I thought I would want to eat a bunch of stuff that wasn't available in India that I was craving from the USA, but really when I got back, I didn't have much of an appetite for a while. I guess we had to adjust our bodies to the American food just like we had to adjust our bodies to the Indian food when we first got there.
Actually, last night Kevin and I went out to Indian Palace for dinner with a friend. There were some things I liked better about the Indian food here and some things I didn't like as much as in India. It was a lot less salty, but not cooked quite the same, it wasn't as... crispy, I guess is the best way to describe it. Oh, and it sure cost a lot more here!
Well, we shall see what becomes of this blog now that I may have more to do with myself. Or if anyone even cares to read it!

Two days left....

So today is Thursday which means that we only have two days left in Kanpur. Then we will be going up to Delhi Saturday to attend church this weekend, then off to Amritsar on Monday. We get back from Amritsar Wednesday and then hang out in Delhi until our flight leaves Friday night.

I have to admit that this week has been going by very slowly. Not that that is bad... I think that it is because it is a major change, so we are anticipating it more. Also, Kevin is finally really busy so I spend more time alone. It is....I don't know what it is but we are leaving in two days and Kevin was finally given work to do last week. Now his prof. is shocked that we are leaving so soon. I don't get it. So Kevin has been working day and night trying to get as much done as he can and writing up reports for the students that will be taking over the project once he leaves. He also has to close the bank account and tie up all the loose ends here. I would do it to help him out but everything is in his name. Oh well, at least he'll have some work to show for all our time out here.

So I went today to pick up my Salwar Kameez. Sheba went with me to the tailors to make sure he made it the way I wanted. She also made sure he said it would be done by Thursday (today). When we left she told me that I should stop by every day to ask how it is coming. I was asked her why (cause it is HOT and I honestly don't want to go out there every day to check on him), and she said, "well, if you want it done by Thursday you need to keep reminding him."
I think it is so strange that he would say it will be done on Thursday but actually not really mean it. I stopped by the next day and looked in, but got busy on Wed. So when I went to get it today, of course it wasn't ready. The guy seemed upset that I actually expected it to be done. I said "but it is Thursday. You said Thursday." He would just frown and look at me like I was the crazy one. I told a fib and said that I was leaving Friday. I felt bad saying that, but I have had some experience now and I know that if I don't push him, he won't have it done. He asked if I could get it on Friday and I said, "maybe, if it is in the morning." He frowned and said that he would have it for me by 8 pm tonight. I agreed. But as I walked away, I was worried that he was going to do a shoddy job of it because he will be in a hurry and isn't happy that I actually expected him to have it done the day he said he would. Maybe I worry too much though, it will be fine.

The thing is that that experience is strange and a bit shocking for me, but it seems to be the norm here. I guess if that is just the way that things are done, then people are used to it and so they keep doing it. He was probably shocked at my confusion that it wasn't done on time.

I guess this hits me more than other people because it is one of my pet peeves when people just tell you what they think you want to hear and don't mean it. That has always bothered me. Here I just have to deal with it a lot more often. And for a profession to do that is nearly unheard of! Or was for me. I soon won't have as many of those encounters though, I look forward to that.

Tomorrow I get to see if we really can fit all of our stuff into our luggage! I am starting to doubt that it will all fit. I have packed up most of it, but it is the odds and ends and little things that we need to use every day that don't have a place yet. Wish me luck!

Well, I am off to teach! Only two more violin lessons left. I have been sure stacking on the new things for Stephen but he soaks it all up. I pointed out yesterday that I was giving him a lot of new stuff, and if it was confusing or too much for him to just tell me. He responded that he wants to learn as much as he can before I go. I loved hearing that. I am sad to leave him, he is a great student, hard working and a real love and thirst for it. sigh.....

Wonderfulness!

Hello! Today I write to you from a luxurious AIR CONDITIONED room!!! Yay! We finally got put into an air conditioned room at the hostel. Well, I say finally but really we only asked about it a few days ago. We kept thinking that we could stand the heat, but after our 4th night of no sleep I told Kevin that we had to do something about it. He is more able to sleep in the heat, but it is a restless sleep. If I slept at all, it was for about a half hour at a time. Even thinking about it makes my head hurt.

So last night was our first night in the new room and it was so so nice. I still had a little trouble sleeping, but it was not because it was too hot at least! I think I will do just fine here. I also will be able to move around during the day and be more productive cause I won't be "melting". I am sure that our old room was around 95 degrees at night. CRAZY. It really made me feel for all the people here who live without electricity or air conditioning year round. I couldn't do it.

In just a few minutes I am going to meet Sheba at the tailors here on campus. We went shopping in the market Saturday and I bought a fabric set for a salwar kameez. I had originally decided not to buy one since we are leaving in 2 weeks, but she really wanted to take me and I really did want one. I promised myself I would wear it when we host some parties or something. Especially our "show off India" party that we will have in Kansas when we get back. So I bought a whole suit with embroidery stitching for 700 rupees, about 14 dollars. Then you take it to a tailor and they measure you and have it ready for you in about 3 days! She is meeting me there this morning so she can tell the tailor The style that I want. I am excited about it. I really wish that I had done it sooner though!

Shopping with Sheba was fun, and I liked the experience of going to the market. I am glad that I got that experience in before we left.

After shopping with Sheba on Saturday, we met up with Kevin and Sundar and the rest of the family, Sam, Stephen, and Srishti at a nice restaurant that evening. We ordered so many good dishes that I had never tried, none of them spicy though. Kevin ate some but got dizzy and felt weird and couldn't eat anymore. The spell passed in about 30 minutes but he was disappointed that he didn't get to eat more of the good food. I don't know what is going on with him, he has been having these weird dizzy spells every once in a while for the past month or so. But every time they are a little different and it is usually when he eats after not eating for a long time. I really hope that it is nothing serious. We are pretty sure it has to do with how his neck and back are out of whack and he really needs a chiropractor. We are praying that he will not get worse while we are here and can get "fixed" as soon as we get back. So strange.

So for me, all except Kevins weird spell, Saturday was a really fun and different day.

We just got back from our trip to Bodh Gaya which was really cool. Perhaps one of our favorite trips. Our train ride home was...interesting. I will tell you all more about it later.

We did get some sad news, well it depends on how you look at it. Jorn and Lise are leaving early. They are now leaving this Friday!! They originally were going to leave on the 13th of May. So we are a bit sad because we won't be able to hang out with them anymore, or make dinners. But we are happy that they get to leave early because Lise hasn't been feeling well here (none of us have!) and they are going to Germany where their daughter is and she just had a baby so they get to spend time with their new grand daughter.

So we all went to dinner at the Campus Restaurant tonight and had a good time. I have a cold, I think, so I was really careful to not pass my germs around. I didn't touch any communal stuff at the table and didn't allow myself to sneeze or anything. I don't want to get them sick, but I also wanted to go to our last few get-togethers. It has been so nice to have them around. I hope that we do see each other again.

Tomorrow I will go over there and do my last batch of laundry and we will all have grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch together. Sigh.....

But it really is coming to an end and I feel guilty that I am not sad about it. I mean I am supposed to have rediscovered myself or something here...or at least have found something here that I will miss incredibly (besides the Mango Ice cream bars). But I don't really feel that way. I am ready to come home and get on with life. I am sure that in a few weeks I will realize what I miss here in India but for right now it is hard to think that way. I think it might have something to do with the whole reason we came out here and how that isn't working out. Kinda puts a damper on things.

Kevin finally had a meeting with his professor and got some assignments to do on the project. So he has been actually doing some work this week. I just hope that he can get enough done in the short amount of time left that he won't have to retake the "independent study" class. Keep your fingers crossed!
Bodh Gaya was nice, it was more relaxing than some of the other touristy places that we have gone. It is where Buddha reached his enlightenment. There are a bunch of different Asian temples there from places like Japan, China, Thailand, Tibet and even more! It was cool to see them all and to learn more about the religion. It was more peaceful there, not as many vendors chasing you and yelling and trying to get you to buy their stuff. We only had one slight run-in the whole trip!

We got to see the tree that Buddha reached enlightenment under, it is a banyan tree, very big! Actually it is not the actual tree he sat under, but is a descendant from the original tree. They also built a temple right next to it and has a whole complex surrounding it with interesting things.

Buddha spent 7 weeks in 7 different places in the complex and would sit for one week at a time and meditate, I guess. What is interesting is that they tell us what he did and stuff, and I am thinking, "ok, this guy was a great guy, and had some good ideas...etc." but then they would
throw in strange things like "He sat here on the first week and stared at the tree and never blinked or closed his eyes", also, "here is where he walked on the 3rd week (I think) and lotus blossoms sprang up under each footstep" and each footstep marker
is about 4 feet apart. Then they show us his "footprints" and they are carved into a stone and are huge! Like 2 and 1/2 feet long. I wonder if they just depict deities as larger than humans to show reverence or something. We also saw some different depictions of him. One was a skeletal figure. We asked about that and were told that it was when he sat in meditation for 6 months without moving. So yea, I guess that not eating for 6 months might make you pretty skinny. I wonder how the different forms of Buddha came from. Like the one that we are most familiar with is the fat Buddha. We never saw a fat Buddha in Bodh Gaya.

They also had some really good food. Some of the best Thai food we have ever had! We ordered a lot of food our first time at that restaurant and didn't realize that an order of spring rolls meant two huge burrito sized rolls! So we had way too much food. But Bodh Gaya is one of those places where you really can take your uneaten food and give it to someone on the street. There were a lot of beggars there. So we always took our leftovers and gave them to the beggars. We felt kind of weird doing it, but they were so grateful and blessed us and stuff. We were actually worried a bit about if they were vegetarians, but figured if they didn't want it, they didn't have to eat it. It is better than wasting it. I am not sure how I felt about all that, I felt strange giving my left overs to someone to eat, like I should buy them their own food or something. It sure was different.



Kevin started a great trend. If a begging child came up to us, they always would signal that they were hungry. So he would look around and find the closest food stand (they always had little carts on the street that sold fresh squeezed juice or watermelon or grilled corn on the cob). Then he would ask the child if they wanted some corn or watermelon or juice and buy them some. It was a good idea but one time the kid told everyone that Kevin was doing that and we came out of a temple and had about 20 beggars following us around. It is hard, cause you can't feed everyone. One thing here that isn't so good is the tobacco chew that they sell EVERYWHERE in India and sadly everyone seems to be hooked. We can't hire a driver or rickshaw without them spitting tobacco juice out the door or over the side of the bike on our trip. We saw some little kids as young as 7 years old with gross rotting "tobacco teeth"! That is one reason Kevin started buying them food instead of giving them money. Also because of the beggar "pimps" which is a sad thing. That is where an adult has a group of beggar kids and they take a cut of whatever the kids bring back at the end of the day. Can you believe that?!! So if we buy them food, they get all of it! Some things here are really disturbing.

Anyway I will try to make a quick synopsis of the trip.
So Ben came with us. Remember the Smiths from Noida (Delhi)? the Mission Pres. family? Their oldest son is Ben and he wanted to see Bodh Gaya so we invited him to come along with us. So he came by train on Thursday and got here that afternoon. We had planned to see some sights in Kanpur with him but they were all closed in the middle of the day. Most temples close from 12 to 2 or 4. So we just ate some lunch at Mcdonalds and hung out on campus until our train left at 2 am Fri. morning. The train ride was pretty uneventful, we tried to sleep. Ben was in the next berth over from us so we didn't really see him. We thought it wasn't a big deal since it was a night train. But when we arrived in Gaya around 10 am that morning, he realized his cell phone was gone. He thinks that it might have fallen out of his shoe where he put it while he slept, and got lost on the floor of the train, but I personally think it was stolen cause when he tried calling it his call was rejected, which means that a person pushed a button to end the call. He was cool about it though and didn't dwell on the disappointment too much.


Then we took a rickshaw to Bodh Gaya, which is about 7 miles away from Gaya. We arrived at our hotel and it wasn't quite what we expected. They gave us two rooms and one had ants all over the bed. We told them we didn't want the room with the ants. They said okay then gave that room to Ben! They had wiped all the ants off of the bed when they showed him his room, but they were back within a half hour of course. Also neither of our air conditioners worked. We met another traveler in the hall there and she said that they tried to give her the ant room the day before. We complained to them about the air conditioners and the guy said "give me half an hour and we will move you!!" So we went outside to check things out. We found a big hotel that had much nicer and roomier rooms with nice air conditioners for a few bucks more a night while we were out and decided to move there. The old hotel didn't really care. The new hotel was called the Mahayana. It was really really big but really empty. I am not sure why, maybe just because it is not tourist season right now, too hot! The only downer with that hotel was that they were doing some sort of plumbing work and started at 7:30 am with the banging on the tile floors with a sledge hammer! I guess though that they wanted to get the work done before it got too hot. We were so tired the first night that we slept through it and just dreamt about it, but the second morning we were woken up and couldn't go back to sleep. Oh and the beds were like cement! We should be used to that by now though.....

So Friday we walked around and saw the main temple complex, called the Mahabodhi Temple Complex, with the Bhodi tree (enlightenment tree). We also saw one of the Chinese temples and one of the Monasteries that they have there. I think it was the Namgyal Monastery because it had these huge prayer wheels there. Really cool and different. We went to lunch at the Thai restaurant and it was very delicious, and later had dinner at the Om restaurant where all the tourists hang out. Bodh Gaya is one of those places where people travel and just hang out for a week or two. I am not sure what they do but it is relaxing I guess. That night we played cards in Kevin and my room. We made up a game we called "Tikhey" which means "ok" in Hindi. It is a silly game and we were pretty slap happy when we made it up, but it is the essence of India!


Saturday we didn't get going until around noon. We saw a few more temples that were close and went to lunch at Fujia Green restaurant. It was good but took forever! And the power went out and it was really really hot. The power goes out all the time in India, but in Bodh Gaya it goes out at least a few times a day, a lot more often. That is just how it is.







These were the famous prayer rolls that Bodh Gaya is known for. They are in the Namgyal Monastery.


Then we hired a car to take us up to the mountain (can't remember the name of it) where there is a cave that Buddha spent time in to take shelter from the rain. We drive through a little village where they have mud huts ( I wish we had taken pictures of them) and up to the foothills of a mountain. A local kid saw us heading that way and ran and jumped over a huge ditch and ran up the mountain and made it to the parking lot area (about half way up) right when we did with our car! We took his picture because we were pretty
Impressed.


We had to hike a little ways up the mountain on switchbacks and at one area there were a ton of monkeys that had gathered around. Our driver told us that is where people feed them so they expect it and right about then we saw two vendors running down the path towards us with packages of crackers. (One had on a yellow shirt the other had on a blue shirt, this is important for the rest of the story). So Kevin bought a pack of crackers for 20 Rupees and gave it to the few kids that had gathered around us to feed the monkeys. It kind of scared me how aggressive the monkeys were and some of them were pretty big too! I just stood and watched as all the monkeys surrounded us. Kevin was taking pictures. Then we went up to the cave and had a look around. It was pretty cool just being at a mountain. On our way back there were the two salesmen and their two little shops. They really wanted us to buy some Buddhist flags but Kevin and I weren't interested. Ben wanted some though, so he bought some from the Yellow shirted guy while the Blue shirted guy went on and on about how poor he was (with a huge wad of money in his shirt pocket) When I pointed out his wad of money he just sort of giggled and sheepishly smiled but stopped saying how poor he was. I mean he probably was poor compared to us but by India standards was doing pretty well. So I had looked at the pictures Kevin had taken of the monkeys when we were up at the cave and he hadn't gotten one of me surrounded by the monkeys so I wanted to get a picture of that. So when we got to that spot, the blue guy was still following us and so I said "Biscuits?" to him and he took off to grab us some biscuits from his shop, but the yellow guy saw him and so he also came running back with biscuits. I told the guy sorry but I felt I should buy the biscuits from the blue guy since he is who I asked for them. 20 rupees. So I grabbed some crackers out of the pack and gave the rest to the children to keep or feed to the monkeys an Kevin was supposed to take pictures of it all. The
yellow guy got so so annoying! He wouldn't let me enjoy myself at all. He was right there next to me begging me to buy his crackers and would not stop no matter how many times I said NO or if I ignored him. Finally I said "look! I want to enjoy the monkeys so leave me alone!" He still wouldn't. I got the camera from Kevin and started taking pictures of the monkeys and the yellow guy started trying to hand me the crackers. I kept saying no but not looking at him. Then he balanced a package on my arm while I was taking pictures and it started to fall. Rather than letting it fall onto the ground and get all smashed up, I grabbed it and tried to give it back to him but he wouldn't take it. So I set it down and within 2 seconds a monkey came and grabbed the whole package and was off with it! He said that I owed him for it. I just said that I didn't and he followed us the whole way back to our car. I started to joke with him about how nice he was that he would give a whole package of crackers to the monkeys. He would smile and say "no, no, no". Keep in mind that all this was in broken English. I don't think he knew much English so he didn't really understand us well but he definitely knew the word "NO". So we went to get to the car and then he got aggressive. He started getting really mad that I was refusing to pay him, he started demanding 30 rupees! That made no sense, the package was originally 20 rupees, and I didn't buy them!! Finally Kevin had had it and started yelling back at the guy. That just made him more mad. Kevin was saying to him that he was a thief, and the guy would just shake his head and try to block the door to the car. Kevin finally said "bad Karma!" to the guy and he kind of stopped for a second, but then apparently decided that he didn't care. We all got into the car but then our driver wouldn't leave. The guy was standing in front of the car and still wanted 30 rupees. I am not sure why the driver didn't just leave, maybe because he drove here often and didn't want to make enemies with the guy or maybe they were friends. I think he was a bit confused as to why we wouldn't pay 30 rupees, it is not that much money. But by then it was the principle of the thing. We didn't want to reward the yellow guy for being deceitful and trying to trick us, and then raising the price! Then he would think that that always works and he would just keep doing it. The driver didn't know the word "principle" though. He kept looking at the yellow guy and looking back at me with a look like "just pay him, come on!" But Kevin had all the money and I also didn't want to reward the man for being that way. I said to the driver "So the guy puts bisuits on me and then I have to pay him for it?!" along with signals. The driver smiled and seemed to understand what I said and gave me a look like he agreed, but still wouldn't drive away. So finally I said to Kevin that we should just give the yellow guy 10 rupees and go. He would probably still be making a profit. But the guy wouldn't take it! So Kevin said in Hindi "10 or Zero! your choice!" The guy finally took it and tried to intimidate us with an angry look, but I stared right back at him, just as angry and disappointed. Oh well, he probably will do it again. That is the stuff that makes me so sad here. I know that they probably don't get a lot of customers out there, but I finally had to tell myself that it isn't up to me to take care of everyone in India. I had to tell myself that or I would go crazy here with all the people who could use some help, it is never ending. I don't blame them for targeting us, we usually do have more to give. The cost of living here is so much lower that tourists usually overestimate costs so they get a lot more money from them. But when you have been here for a while and are afraid to go anywhere because you know you will get bombarded, you start to feel a bit defensive. And you all know me, I feel guilty that I can't help everyone that comes up to me and it was really bringing me down. So I had to decide what I stated earlier, I'll do what I can and try to be deciphering, but I can't help everyone here.


Then we went to see the big Buddha statue. It was built by Japanese Buddhists and took 4 years. It really is big! Then we saw the Japanese temple and one that I can't pronounce. Then it was late and things were closing. We went to the Thai restaurant again for dinner. Seriously good food!

Sunday we went and saw the big Buddha again for better pictures and also the Mahabodhi Temple. Then we saw the Thai Temple too. It was really bling bling!!

We ate at Om restaurant again and I bought a couple things to take home to people and for souvenirs. Caught a rickshaw back to Gaya to catch our train. We got to the station around 12:30 and our train didn't leave until almost 2 pm. So we sat outside for a while in the shade and after a few minutes there was a big crowd of staring people around us. We joked with each other about how if they are that impressed with us just standing there and looking tired, imagine how impressed they would be if we really put on a show and sang or danced! We took some pictures of the crowd just because after a while it was awkward for us. Oh well, we look different to people here.

We were on the waiting list for the train which meant that we had paid for our ticket but didn't actually have a seat. They usually put a list of passengers on the outside of the train car so you can check your status and find your seat if you were on the waiting list. Sometimes they don't have a list on the train though. So we always have just gotten on and then when the ticket guy comes along he tells us where our seats are. Well, this time there was no list so we just got on the train and found an empty berth. It was a nice train, very clean and roomy. So at the first stop, about 20 minutes into the ride, the ticket guy came around. He was upset with us because we got on the train and our tickets were no longer valid. I guess that if you are on the waiting list and don't get a seat assignment then your ticket is void and you aren't supposed to get onto the train. But there was no list so we didn't know that and we had never not gotten a seat. So he told us that our payment had been refunded back into our accounts and that we couldn't stay in that car. So we asked what it would be to move to a 3 tier car. He did some adding up and said 922 rupees each plus 500 rupees. What? Our original ticket was only 900 rupees and we were downgrading! He said that we had to pay for the new ticket and pay a fee for being on the train without a ticket. So then I asked what the 500 rupees was for and he hesitated then said "that is for us." What? "what does that mean?" I asked him ( I already knew that it was a fake fee that he was just going to pocket). He just kept saying "it is for us." So then Kevin kind of smiled and said "oh, a processing fee?" The ticket guy latched onto that one and said "yes, processing fee." We all couldn't help it and just started laughing. The ticket guy couldn't help but grin a little cause he knew that we knew he was feeding us a bunch of bull, but also that we could do nothing about it.
Well, we didn't have that much cash on us (1500 rupees each) so we asked how much it would be in sleeper class. (the basic). He said 400 rupees for the ticket plus a 200 rupee "processing fee" So that is what we had to do. He took us back to the sleeper class car and made some people move off of a bench and wrote us a ticket for those seats and we payed him. There are supposed to be 9 people to a berth 3 on one side, 3 on the other and 3 on the other side of the isle. By the end of our train ride there were 19 people squeezed into our berth! More would just come and sit down or climb up on top. We didn't feel like making a fuss and saying, "um, excuse me, this is our bench." And by the last leg we really didn't even care. The ticket taker came around again and made all the extra people pay 100 rupees each which he just pocketed. He didn't write them out any tickets. Funny that we had to pay for our ticket AND pay 200 rupees when they only had to pay 100 rupees. Whatever. It was an interesting experience for us. We met some interesting people and learned some more about the culture and how the locals felt about it. We spoke to a Sikh guy in our berth and he told us about the corruption in India and said "watch, none of us have train tickets and the ticket guy will come around and we will all just bribe him with the standard 100 rupees and he will let us stay". And that is exactly what happened. He also told us about his religion and asked us questions too. He wanted to know if Kevin and I had a love marriage. Then he asked us why so many Americans get divorced. He seemed very confused about divorce. It made no sense to him. Kevin tried to explain that sadly many people in America don't take the marriage vows seriously anymore and seem to think it is okay to just get a divorce if things get hard or if they are wanting a change. Very few people are willing to work on their marriage anymore. It made me realize how corrupt America is getting too! But in a different way than India. Our society accepts a different kind of corruption and is trying to incorporate it into our laws. India just has corruption and it is kind of accepted because that is the way it is, it seems like too much work to change it, and probably would take a lot of work with so many people to get to change. America frowns on the people who have certain ideals and morals and tries to make them look like the bad guys for being "judgmental" and "discriminatory". Sigh.... Well, we know that no country is really perfect right now. Don't worry, I am still very patriotic and glad to be an American!

So we got back to Kanpur around 11 pm and then Ben still had to catch his train back to Delhi, but he returned there without any problems.

It was a good trip. We also accidentally bought a sari for 1,000 rupees that started at 5,000 rupees. It is kind of a funny story, but I am tired so I will save it for later.

It is getting to the point that I am thinking about what we are going to do once we return to Kansas. Kevin is behind on his school work so we are not sure when he is going to finish up his thesis now. I don't think it will be too much longer than we had originally anticipated. We planned on moving at the end of August because he was supposed to start his job the first week of September. Now I think we might be in Kansas about another month. So we will move at the end of September. I am not looking forward to Kevin being as busy as I know he will be once we get back, but hopefully I will be busy too!
I wonder if it will be difficult for me to get back into "busy" mode. I mean I have been NOT busy for nearly 4 months now. Though I don't particularly like being bored and having not much to do, I think it may be quite the adjustment to go back to being busy. I think that it won't be so sudden though. I mean I have to find a job and we have to figure out where we are going to live etc.
I am looking forward to it all though. It will be nice to get back into my comfort zone again. Well, I am actually comfortable here now (except that it is so hot, but it will be that hot in Las Vegas anyway!). I know my way around and how to get the things that we need. I get to cook with Lise a few times a week, and I have my violin student too. We also have made friends here and are used to the way it is. Our room is "our room". In fact, it is getting pretty hot and the last few nights I haven't slept quite as well because of the heat. We have the fan on and use no sheets or blankets on us, but it is still a bit too hot. We have been told that we should ask for a air conditioned room for the remainder of our stay but I am a bit reluctant for two reasons. One is that we have accumulated so much stuff and it is in piles and in the closet and drawers etc. all throughout the room. Second, this room feels like home now. I mean, if it gets unbearable I guess we will see if we can move but for now it is still okay. Kevin never seems to be too hot! He loves it! I kind of wish he could feel the heat a bit the way I do so he would have more sympathy for me...sniff sniff.
We had dinner at Jorn and Lise's again last night and played 10,000. That is a dice game that is really fun. But when we got home I looked at the clock and saw that it was midnight! I felt so bad for staying that late! I don't wear a watch and they don't have a clock in their kitchen or living room so I don't realize what time it is. I am so embarrassed that I am going to have Kevin keep track next time on his watch and tell me when it is around 10 pm so that we can make to leave. I feel so bad for keeping them up all night! I think that I have a lot more energy at night here because that is when it finally starts to cool off, sometime around 8 pm and then I have a second wind and can stay up really late. But they aren't quite as young as we are and I need to remember that. Oh well, hopefully they forgive us!
Kevin ordered a bunch of stuff from the LDS distribution center. He got some especially for youth packets and books of Mormon in Tamil and English, also some pictures of Christ and copies of "The Proclamation to the Family". Oh yea, and he also got a DVD of "Finding Faith In Christ". He is going to give the DVD and the pictures to the fellowship. I am not sure what he is doing with the rest of the stuff, I think he has specific people in mind for the Books of Mormon. He is so much more thoughtful and brave than I am when it comes to that kind of stuff. I sure can learn from him!
Well, that is all for now, I am going to go lay under the fan until Kevin comes home.

Hindustani Classical Music Performance

I heard about this artist in residence at IIT who was a classical Indian singer. She gave a series of performances but I only found out about her when she had one performance left. I wanted to go and find out more about Indian classical music. So I went to her last performance. I stayed for about 1 hr and 15 minutes, then I had to leave. I know I hear some westerners say they don't understand Western classical music and they often say that it sounds all the same. Of course I completely disagree with that and it makes me so sad to even hear it! I don't understand how people can't see the exquisite beauty and numerous differences. I know that I have been trained my whole life to appreciate Classical music and to hear and know the intricacies of it. So it is hard for me to admit that the Indian Classical music, at this perfromance at least, sounded all the same to me. I am sure that someone who is familiar with it could tell the subtle differences throughout, but I could not,well, besides it getting faster at the end. It is interesting and intruiging to me though because I have heard that this type of music is just passed down by ear and not written down. So I have to think that it has had changes over the many years. And I also wonder how it got started, it is so different! Here is a sample of what it was like - imagine this for over an hour. This was the big climax so it was a little more interesting, but the previous hour was similar, just a bit slower. It was so loud and the b-flat drone never stopped the entire time, so after 1 hr and 15 minutes... I was done. Something interesting was how the Indians play the violin (see video). I'm going to practice this technique and give a presentation (Kevin will sing..hehe)

Cultural program.

So last night two guys from Kevins engineering department stopped by and asked if I would be willing to play for an EE event. I said "sure" and was glad, because then I would really have something to be practicing for. Then I asked them when it was. They said "oh, tomorrow night." So, I guess I won't be practicing much for it! So I chose some of my old back-up pieces, you know stuff I just always know. Tchaikovsky's Canzonetta and then Orange Blossom Special. Hey, they said it was a Cultural program. It was actually for the recognition awards ceremony for the graduating Elecrical Engineers.
Then they stopped by again today to make sure that I was still going to play for them, (didn't I say I was??) and then they asked me if Kevin would play the drums too. I was a bit shocked by that and said "well, I don't know, you would have to ask him, it is kind of short notice and he hasn't really played for a long time. " But they wouldn't take no for and answer. So I told them I would call him and see. He was surprised but thought, "what the heck?!" That is what I love about him.
They originally told us it was at 6 pm, but then today when I asked what time I should come, they said 5:30 is when it started. Again, just one of those things you get used to around here. Things don't stay the same, they always change around depending on who you talk to,or when you talk to them.
So Kevin and I showed up and the hall was so stuffy we were feeling faint. I was a little worried that I would pass out at first, but then I guess I got used to it. They wanted me to start the show. That made me a bit nervous because I don't really know the protocol around here. Do I bow, or walk off, or what ? Actually, at all of the programs or lectures we have attended here people talk and walk around and answer their cell phones etc. during the program. So, I didn't really expect much attention. Here, people seemed to actually pay attention! Maybe just because I was first and they hadn't gotten bored yet. Anyway, I just did what I was used to, I waited for a bit at the end, then bowed, then walked off. Kevin was up next. He did really well! I loved seeing him up there -pretty hot if you ask me! He just improved with this guitarist and the guitarist kinda just kept playing the same lick over and over, so Kevin was switching up his drums a lot to add some interest. He was awesome. You would have thought that they had rehearsed, but no. I kinda wish I could do that. I asked Kevin afterward if we can go and practice improvising sometime so I can get comfortable with it and have some fun. Oh, Jorn and Lise came to watch us too, they are so sweet!
I have been working with my student, Steven, on getting a hymn ready for Easter. He is going to perform for the first time on Easter Sunday. He is playing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today". He has only been playing for 6 weeks and he is sounding really good. I mean, we started lessons 6 weeks ago and he is going to play that hymn well 6 weeks later! I am really proud of him.
We had been planning this for over a month and all I had ever heard was that Steven was going to play. But today after our lesson, Stevens mom,Sheba, told me 2 other hymns that she wanted me to play for Easter also. Normally this would be no big deal, but they were hymns that I had never heard of and she had no sheet music for them either. She told me that she will have Steven find them on Youtube for me and then I can listen to them and learn them. That is doable, but quite a bit more work. It is so funny to me that they waited until just a few days before to tell me they wanted me to do that. I could have listened to it and even written it out and known the music by heart by now if they had asked me even a week ago. Oh well, I am realizing that that is just how things are here. It will be fine, I just think it is funny.

Kevin's confusing conversation

Hi everyone, it's Kevin here writing on Amy's blog. So, I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker the other day that reminded me of why it is so difficult to communicate with the people here. I have been trying to figure out if there is a "language barrier" of some sort because most conversations are very similar to the one I am about to share and they cause me to be very confused when talking with Indians. We have the same foundation of English and even though they speak more British English, I don't believe this is the barrier since I have no problem communicating with a British professor that is here. So, maybe it's a cultural barrier and I say things and understand things from a different perspective? After pondering this hypothesis, I realized that most of the conversations I have with other Indians are not really related to cultural differences (at least that I can tell), so I've ruled out that as well. I still remain very confused as to what is the root cause of this communication barrier because it happens so often that often times I find it discouraging to even try to start a conversation with other people because it will end with me being more confused than when I started. So...here's how the conversation went (I'll post other conversations of this sort as they occur):

Background: It was about 8pm and my co-worker was leaving to eat dinner (Indians eat pretty late here), so I decided I would leave as well to eat dinner.
Indian: "well, I'm leaving to eat dinner."
Kevin: "Oh, ok. That sounds like a good idea, I think I'll go too."
Indian: "So, you haven't had your dinner yet? (because they know that I usually eat earlier around 7pm)
Kevin: "No, I haven't eaten yet."
Indian: "So, then what do you bring in that plastic container?" (because I have started to bring a small tupperware container to work that holds 2-3 sandwiches)
Kevin: "That was my lunch."
Indian: "What do you eat for lunch?"
Kevin: "I bring sandwiches."
Indian: "Really! You buy them on campus?"
Kevin: "No, I make them in our room."
Indian: "What? How do you make the bread?"
Kevin: "I don't make the bread, we buy the bread."
Indian: "Where do you buy the stuff to make the bread?"
Kevin: "No,no. We buy the bread, and the stuff to put on the bread at the central shopping area (on campus)"
Indian: "So you have plain sandwich?"
Kevin: "No, it's a peanut-butter and honey sandwich."
Indian: "So, then how do you make the bread?"
Kevin: "No, we BUY the bread and the peanut-butter and the honey and MAKE the sandwiches in our room."
Indian: "You don't have an oven in room? How do you make the bread?"
Kevin: "No, we don't MAKE the bread. We BUY the bread in a loaf at the store and make the SANDWICHES in our room."
Indian: "So, it's a plain sandwich?"
Kevin: "Sure, it's a plain sandwich." (said with exasperation because I was exhausted with the whole conversation)

So, I have recited this conversation over and over again to myself and to Amy and we still have no idea what he was talking about. We even went out on a limb and thought he was being sarcastic or just pulling my leg, but that is WAAAY out on a limb because we have never met an Indian that understands or can pull-off sarcasm or joking around like that. We both think he was seriously asking me something about my sandwiches (but we're not sure what?)
Does anyone know what a "plain sandwich" is?

Yesterday I spent the whole day with Lise. I had 3 loads of laundry to do and she is letting me use her washer. It is so nice of her! I really feel for the men and ladies here that do laundry for their job! My back and wrists really hurt after all the bending over and wringing clothes out. Also it aggravates my eczema, and then it is inflamed for two days afterwards. But if I didn't do it at least every other day, it would just pile up! So I am very grateful that Lise lets me do it there. It is also nice to have someone to talk to during the day. She shows me pictures of her kids and grandkids and her and Jorns house. It is fun to spend time with her. She often makes lunch for us too. I sure miss having a kitchen!
Kevin and I have a list of foods that we are going to devour as soon as we get back to the USA! We also are planning a welcome home BBQ and inviting our friends from Kansas, and having a night where we go to the buffet at the casinos! I would really love a salad bar!

Today around noon the cleaning people came. It is usually the older, sweet guy that comes later in the day and he has a new guy helping him. So I had them come in to clean. The new guy was cracking me up, and I was doing the same for him. He saw Kevins Hindi dictionaries and asked if I was learning Hindi (I think, it was mostly gestures). I said no, I only knew a few words. But he kept trying to talk to me even though he only knew like 4 English words, and I know even fewer Hindi words. So most of it was guessing. At one point he was asking, I think, if I knew some of the letters in the Hindi alphabet. I told him I knew some, but it was really hard because so many sound the same to me. (That is why I quit Hindi class, they had Tha, Ta, and Taa or whatever, that is the English spelling by the way, but they all sound the same to me, and even when our teacher took a few of us aside to try to help us, he couldn't explain the differences, or give us English words that had those sounds as examples. Plus, I was trying to learn Spanish at the same time, too confusing!) Anyway, when I said "Tha, ta, and taa" to the cleaning guy, he started laughing so hard that he crouched down on the floor and started banging his head on the desk! He was funny. Then he started teaching me the words for mom, dad, brother and sister. Then he tried to teach me the Hindi word for movie, I think. I couldn't understand it, so I just said "bollywood!" He again started lauhing so hard he fell on the floor! The older guy was just chuckling the whole time. When they left, I said thank you in Hindi "Daniovad". The younger guy started laughing again as they walked out. It was a good time.
Lise and Jorn went with some other friends up to Amritzar this weekend. Lise lent us her bicycle so Kevin and I can go on a ride together out to the place where Jorn takes all his amazing pictures. I hope we see some of the animals and birds out there when we go. That would be cool. We can get some awesome pictures of our own!
I will try to get the Khajuraho pics up soon!
Thats all.

Hello,
We just got back from our short trip to Khajuraho. It is an interesting place. The architecture of the temples is so cool, and the carvings are so intricate. It all looks so cool. However, they are known for their, shall I say, "erotic depictions". Really, I think that the temples themselves are awesome, I am very surprised actually that
the Indians play up the erotic part so much. I guess they do it for the tourists, but personally, I felt a bit violated by the things some of the vendors were showing me and saying to me. But I am a stuffy American, maybe they have more success with tourists from other areas.

We hired a driver and drove there, since there is no train and we were not going to go on a bus again! Not after our bumpy ride from Bikaner to Delhi. I don't think I have mentioned that here yet. I will have to fill you all in later, it was quite the experience...

Anyway, we were told that the drive would take about 5 hours. It took over 7 and it was such a horrible road! It was also further than we thought that it was, so when we thought we were almost there and saw a sign that it was another 120 km, we were bummed.
Our hotel was good though, our rooms were right off the garden restaurant. Our tv was messed up (so was jorns and lise's) oh, by the way, I learned how their names were spelled. Our beds were pretty hard, or firm you could say. But that is to be expected.

We had a pretty nice time getting to know jorn and Lise better. It was fun and pretty nice. There was also an "authentic" Italian restaurant right across the street from our hotel. It was really good. I was so glad because Kevin got his appetite back and finished his meal and half of mine nearly every time we ate there! We ate there 3 times in our 2 days that we were there! They had real mozzarella cheese, and even had gorgonzola my favorite! Gee, it was good.

These temples had really high domes with carvings all the way up. Some were even like temples within temples, with the carvings on the inner temple as well as the outer temples. I wonder how they were built whenever I see structures like that. The domes were so high, but inside, the ceilings weren't. I guess that they were just hollow, or they would be too heavy. Also the insides had these multi dimensional ceiling sections that were also really intricately carved. I thought it looked like a puzzle box or something.

They aren't sure why these temples were different. There were originally 84 temples or something like that, there. But now only 25 remain. Mostly Hindu temples but there were also some Jain temples. But both had the same architecture, though the Jain temples didn't have the Kama Sutra carvings. Personally, I think that they were built by some Hindu fundamentalists or something, an off shoot of Hinduism, and worshiped only particular gods, the ones that were more "erotic" in nature. Of course I probably am wrong, they were just so different and interesting, almost confusing. Maybe the workers who built the temples were just tired of getting underpaid and decided to make some interesting carvings in protest, or as a joke. Our Lonely Planet book also stated some interesting ideas as to why these temples were the way they were. The most prominent one being that they were a sort of manual for the Brahman boys, who went to all boy schools and they didn't teach verbally about the birds and bees there. Whatever.

The only sour spot in the trip was when we decided to go see Raneh falls. It is about 18 km outside of Khujaraho. We drove out there and our driver pulled over where the booth was to pay, though the actual falls were another 2 kms. Kevin got out and Jorn started to open his door, which was on the street side... He got it open just a few inches when we all heard this horrible sound. Two guys on a motorcycle had been speeding past the car and hit the door when Jorn opened it. They must have been going fast and were super close to the car! I mean, Jorn opened the door just a few inches and they hit it!! They crashed, but were okay, just one had a scrape on his knee.

Our driver got out and spoke to the guys and we thought everything was worked out. Well, we knew we were not in the USA anymore when we decided that we weren't going to go to the falls after all, because it cost more than we wanted to pay and Jorn and Lise were a bit shaken up by the accident. The car door was bent a bit too, it didn't swing shut anymore, though it would shut if you pushed it. So we pulled forward through the gate to turn around and the next thing you know a whole group of guys closed the gate and wouldn't let us through! Then, when our driver protested, they all started yelling and getting really animated! I don't know what they were saying, but we knew that they wouldn't let us go until we probably paid them. Our driver was very calm and handled it well. He went back out and talked to the guy who was driving the motorcycle and it looked like it would all be okay. Our driver got into the car and looked upset, he said they wanted Rs 3,000! Kevin was vexed , he knew that it wasn't our fault. So he asked if the police were coming. Our driver said they were on their way. So Kevin responded, "then we will just wait for them." But then we all saw the look on our drivers face and knew that having the police come wasn't going to help our situation at all, just make it worse. We were four white "rich" tourists. The more people involved, the more money they are going to want. So Lise said they would just pay. Our driver said "only give Rs 2,000", and they took it. We were glad to get out of there, though Kevin and I were both pretty dissapointed that we didn't get to see the falls, but oh well. Stuff happens sometimes. (we found out later that our driver had already talked those guys down from Rs 5,000!)

The drive back didn't take as long, our driver took a different route, but the road was pretty bad and full of trucks. So many were broken down on the road, broken axles and stuff!! That is how bad the roads were!

We were exhausted when we got home yesterday, I am not sure why, I guess sitting in a bouncy car for 6 hours kinda wears you out. But we still had a nice little church meeting in our room.

I am always a bit surprised when we go on a little sight seeing trip and I am so happy to see our little Visitors Hostel when we get back. I guess it really is home for now.

It is getting really hot here and my jeans I brought are just too heavy to be comfortable in. The only other bottoms I brought were my capris. So I bought a nice cotton wrap around skirt to wear. I wore it for the first time today and though it comes down to mid calf, I felt.........
...uncomfortable I guess. I have only seen girls show their legs above their ankles here about 4 times. I felt like I was wearing a bikini or something. I know I was silly, and it was probably in my head that everyone was looking at me. I think that my need to stay cool will override that worry though!

So, I know that I didn't finish telling about the exciting points of our longer trip. But I am going to skip to near the end now and tell about the "luxury private bus" that we took from Bikaner to Delhi.
There is no train to Delhi from Bikaner and we had originally planned to take a night train back down to Jaipur and then take another train up to Delhi (an extra 400kms or so!). But then the guys at our hotel in Bikaner told us that we should take this "private" bus. It was faster and really nice. It was a sleeper bus so we could just "sleep on our way there if we got a bunk". They even got us the tickets. So we get on the bus around 9 pm on Friday night. It was like a regular tour bus with a few exceptions. There were bunks up top with curtains to make them more private, and NO bathroom on board. I guess that I was pretty naive in thinking that an overnight bus that was driving on an 11 hour trip would have a bathroom.
So of course I had to go to the bathroom about an hour and a half into the ride. We both were really tired too, so we just went up into our bunk and laid down (after I thoroughly wiped it down with wet wipes). The bus kept stopping and picking up more people as we went along. I figured that it just had a few places that it stopped to pick up its ticketed passengers and once we left town we would just go straight to Delhi. So we kept stopping and picking up more and more people all along the way until the bus was completely full and people were sitting and standing in the isles on their sacks of clothes and grain! I think they would just pick up anyone who was willing to pay something for a ride. I don't know if it was the road or the bus but it was the bumpiest ride I had ever been on! There was no way we could actually sleep, and I was completely miserable with my full bladder. So when I had held my bladder for around two hours more, I HAD to go! So Kevin and I climbed and squished our way through all the passengers at the next stop and Kevin asked if there was a bathroom to a bunch of guys sitting outside the bus. They all looked at me and then started laughing and said "no!" "no bathroom, go around corner, that is bathroom!" I decided that I could hold it. There were too many people there for me to go squat somewhere!
It was sad, because we were in the desert and kept passing long stretches of empty desert where I wouldn't have minded relieving my bladder, but the bus didn't ever stop there, only in the towns full of people and buildings. Oh, and no matter how late at night it was, there were always a bunch of people in the streets doing stuff! I don't know when these people sleep!
Finally, I really couldn't hold it anymore, every bump was torture and there was a bump about every second! (not exaggerating). So at the next stop, Kevin and I got out. Right there next to the bus was an empty spot between buildings. All the men were using it as the bathroom, so I went through it and around the back of a building where no one was, and made Kevin keep watch and finally went. WHAT A RELIEF!!
Kevin did manage to sleep for about 20 minutes on the bus that night, but had bruises on his feet from them banging together! Crazy! So it was also really cold because our window wouldn't stay closed, it kept opening more and more as the bus bumped along and we couldn't get it to latch. So when the bus stopped around 6 am, we decided to get out and get our jackets from out luggage which was stowed under the bus. We waited until some of the people started getting off so we could get down from our bunk, and went outside. We found our bag and I pulled our jackets out, and put the bags back in and the guy helping us looked at me and said, "no, take bag, last stop." Kevin said, "what? is this Delhi?" "yes Delhi." The guy said. We were two hours early, and it was still dark. You don't know how unusual it is for transportation to be early here, or at least to us. Our friends the Smiths weren't going to pick us up until 8 am. So we sat at a bus stand and waited.
So, an interesting experience, but not one we will repeat.

Well, thats all for now. I hope that these stories aren't sounding too negative. You should know that I am laughing as I write most of them, though some are frustrating. It's all good.

Today is different!

Hey all,

So today was a bit different from most other days. Yesterday a guy knocked on my door and asked if I was free the next day (today) from 3 to 5 pm. He wanted to know if Kevin and I would be extras in a movie. The film is about the ground breaking of IIT Kanpur campus. It is for their 50th anniversary. So Kevin and I got to go along with Yorn (Leese didn't want to go) and a French teacher here, Clementine, to go pose as Americans in the film.

It was interesting and a nice change. They used this crane, I am not sure of the correct name of it, to lift the camera man. He sat on the chair and was lifted as they put weights onto the opposite side. Kevin took pictures, I will post them as soon as I can. We just had to look interested in the dedicatory prayer that an Indian priest was giving. They gave us chips and bottled water and juice and had us sit in the shade between takes. It was just off campus, so they had a car pick us up and drop us off too, we felt special. It was kinda cool.

Our internet is fixed too. They came today and were working on it for over an hour. I am still not sure what was wrong. They just said it was a serious problem and could we just change rooms? I said that we would if we had to, but would prefer not to. I mean, we have a ton of stuff we have accumulated in the last two months and I have put up clothes lines and stuffed all the crevices leading to outside to try to keep the mosquitoes out. Plus we have extra mattresses and blankets arranged on our bed in an attempt to make it a bit soft.

They said, okay, we will just run the cable from the next room. That meant that they took a super long cable and plugged one end into the computer, ran it out through the window and along the back porch, around the dividing wall and into the window of the next room over. So funny, but hey, at least we have internet now!

I am excited to go to Khujaraho tomorrow. We still haven't heard about our hotel yet though. I am sure we can find a place to stay though.

I will tell you living here even for such a short time has really made me realize some things. Like how thankful I am for toilet paper and public toilets, but also that sometimes it is nice not to be so government regulated. We can see and experience things here that would never be "allowed" in the USA. When you know there won't be guardrails and 10 huge warning signs that there is a drop off ahead, then you are a bit more careful, and you are just fine. And you get to enjoy the scenery without a big sign or fence to obstruct it. I was just thinking about that today.

March 25^th 2009

Today is the third day that our internet doesn’t work in our room. I asked them to come take a look at it today and they said they would come right away. An hour later they still hadn’t shown up. Then I got a call from the front desk asking me if anyone had come yet. I told them “no”. Still no one came today and seeing that it is 10 pm. I am guessing that they won’t come today. Oh well, I guess that that is just like most other things here….. I will have to ask them a few more times before anyone will actually come.

Today might just be the most boring day of my life. I tried to do some things, I taught my one violin student this morning. I cleaned our room, I went to lunch with Kevin, I read, I played about 50 games of Spider Solitaire. I am just extra bored today, I don’t know why. Today isn’t much different from other days, besides that I am more tired today. I am probably getting sick again, that wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

I also went out and used the computer in the lobby to try to check my email and say Hi to Cassie and mom Player, because it was their birthdays this week, but there was a man waiting to use the computer and he seemed a bit impatient with me. I thought it was best if I kept it short. So I am writing this on Microsoft Word and will copy it onto the blog once our internet is working again, that may be a while.

When our hot water heater broke (each room has its own 5 gallon water heater), it took over 2 weeks for them to come and fix it. They came and looked at it a few times, but didn’t do anything. I guess because the light would turn on, so they thought it was working even though we told them it wasn’t. But it did get fixed eventually.

Eventually…… that it the word I need to remember here. Things usually do get done, eventually.

We are planning a small trip this weekend to Khajuraho. It is a town that is about 250 km south of Kanpur. It is full of temples with intricate carvings. Many of the carvings are “erotic in nature”. It is a small town and it sounds nice. We are waiting for our reservation inquiry to be returned from the hotel that we want to stay in, hopefully we will get it tomorrow. We are going with our friends we met here, Yorn and Leese. They are a couple from Canada. Yorn is here teaching Civil engineering this semester . They are a lot of fun and interesting people. I am excited for our trip with them. It is good to have some friends here that we can discuss our experiences with. Because we have all had similar experiences we can talk about them openly with each other. That is nice. I like to tell you all about them too, but it is nice to have a two way conversation sometimes, and it helps me remember things better.

Jorn also is a pretty good photographer. He showed Kevin and me some pictures that he took right here on campus that are amazing! He has a really nice camera, so when you zoom in they are even more amazing! Most of them are of the birds here on campus. He said that he would give us some of them, I will try to post them. He took most of them on a remote edge of campus where the Ganges has a canal that runs off of it. There are no buildings there, just fields, and apparently a lot of cool birds and deer.

Did I mention the mosquitoes? I HATE them! They are everywhere, swarms of them. The worst is when I hang the laundry out to dry and go out the next day to gather it. There are tonz of them on the dark clothes. You can’t see them at first and then you disturb the clothes line and they all start swarming. The first time kind of freaked me out, it was unexpected. At least now I know. I don’t know why they only gather on the dark clothes though.

Tonight there are a bunch of them in the room. I have killed about 15. I still don’t know how they get in here! I stuffed plastic bags in every crevice I could find the second week that we were here. Somehow they still make it in. It is like they wait by the door and every time we open it, they all rush in.

It was really funny because the other day Kevin asked his mentor/professor here why they didn’t have screens on the windows and doors here with all the bugs and mosquitoes. His professor said “well…….” and just got this look on his face like a light bulb just went off. Like that thought had never crossed his mind. Wow! What a good idea! Screens! Or something. He didn’t finish his sentence, just left it at “well….” .

So it was my birthday a week ago. The big 31. To me that is big. I am officially in my 30’s. Now I must admit that I missed having my close friends and family around me on that day. Actually it didn’t hit me until the day after my birthday. Our dear friends, (I don’t remember their last name so I just call them the “Sundars” because that is the dads name.) threw me a little surprise party! I went that afternoon to give the son, Stephan, his daily violin lesson at 4 pm and they were all hiding in the kitchen, along with Kevin. They had gotten me a cute little chocolate cake and made lunch. The cake was real! I mean it tasted like cake! It was delicious and moist and even had a layer of mousse. That was what I really thought I would miss this year for my birthday. Sheba ordered it special from a bakery. It was really sweet and quite a nice surprise.

I told Kevin I just wanted to watch a movie on the computer and have Dominos deliver a pizza for dinner. We had ordered from Dominos before, but for some reason this time it was very difficult. I won’t give a play by play but basically, it took over 3 hours, 4 phone calls, 3 people, and a lot of frustration to get our order. We were sure that they had forgotten us (for the second time that night) when our doorbell buzzed at 11:20 pm. We had started all this business just before 8 pm. Of course they got our order wrong and it ended up costing almost twice as much as they had originally told us. It was useless to try to argue the price with them though, we knew that so we didn’t even try. Our pizza crust was filled with a (delicious?) mayonnaise like filling too. We didn’t know what it was, well what it was supposed to be, we knew what it was….GROSS! So we just ate the toppings off the top. Actually we had ourselves a good laugh about it, though Kevin did apologize a few times that night. What did he have to be sorry for? He tried to please me and was very persistent about getting that pizza! What more could he do?

Last night as we were leaving to go to meet with Yorn and Leese the “bug truck” passed right in front of us as we went to cross the street. This truck sprays heafty clouds of bug spray into the air. It shoots out the back and clouds up the whole street. I was scared of it. I think that it might kill people if they breathe it in in the concentrated form like that. Even hours after one has passed the air is barely breathable (to me). Sometimes Kevin will come home and his clothes will reek of the stuff. I think they spray it more often in the academic area. We held our breath and ran through as fast and far as we could before we drew our breath in. Leese told us that when she was exposed to it, she broke out in hives! I hope we don’t develop some weird disease…..

Things sure are different here! It keeps you on your toes that’s for sure!