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!