=)

I'm gonna miss these girls!!!

The weather here is starting to cool off a bit. At night when I wake up to an itchy mosquito bite I'm actually happy to get under a sheet now, which is a nice change from the choice between more bites and a suffocating sheet. This cooling off (although I still hesitate in using the word cool) has made my days much less sweaty and thus much more pleasant. Cooler weather also means it's ok to turn on the oven so, I'm in the midst of baking the last of the first batch of chocolate chip cookies that my host sisters have ever made; it's been a completely delightful (and tasty!) task. I taught a few of my friends how to make cookies here (because I consider it tragic that they've never tasted cookie dough), and it was really quite funny. I was buying some ingredients with a pair of friends and one of them looks at me and says, "Do we need an...oven?" And I'm like, "yeah..." Her: "Like a microwave oven?" Me: "no...like a real one..." So we solved the problem by just eating dough.


Yesterday I visited an NGO called Can Kids...Kids Can that works with kids who are dealing with cancer to see if I can start volunteering there. I was glad that they said they could still use me despite my much less than fluent Hindi. I'm disappointed with myself and IES that I'm just now starting to volunteer because I thought this all would get set up a lot sooner. Of course though, I should have learned by now that here you have to do things yourself if you want them done and you have to network, so I heard of Can Kids through I think a chain of 3 people.
Aside from the general practice of "knowing someone" that does or knows someone that does whatever you need, I've started to assimilate my ways to Indian ways. From the first day I had a class at 8:40 am on north campus (a good 1 1/2 hours away) and was getting into a cycle rickshaw on the last link of my journey to class at 8:40 freaking out about being late to class til about last week I was still stuck in my American "need to be punctual" mindset. This mindset is completely useless here as every time I've rushed to "be on time" or "not quite so late" and been anxious about it, I've always arrived and had to wait even longer. This week I successfully said I was 20 minutes away when I really meant 35 and said I'm at homing walking out the door when I meant I'm almost to my house and still need to change and come. I also made my first roti (flat round bread we eat at most meals with some kind of vegetable), however square it was. To top my India initiation I stepped in poop for the first time, which was a long time coming (there are lots of poop piles on the roads here). I lasted about 2 1/2 months and it was only dog poop, so life is good.
Yesterday we visited Rashtrapati Bhavan, which is the India's President's house. It was built by the British back in the days when they planned to reign over India for the rest of time. It's a very grand building with huge banquet halls, dance halls, beautiful official conference rooms, and, to top it all off, a stunning Mughal garden out back. Despite the grandeur and Britishness of the structure, the structure of the tours there is very Indian and informal nowadays. We had a tour guide, but in a group of 10, it would have been quite easy for any 1 to sneak off and explore any room, restricted or not, in the place. I even got to play a few notes on the piano at the President's house, haha. The garden has all kinds of roses and a grid of fountains and visible canals with clear blue water. It was so refreshing, makes me glad the British built it before they finally left India alone.
Tomorrow we're leaving for a week in the south Indian state of Kerala, which I've heard only good things about, so I'm really excited for a week of relaxation and beauty on the coast and in the backwaters.