I just went out and bought my internet stick yesterday so today is the first day I can truly write something. The journey was safe, I traveled most of it with another girl in my program. We met this nice missionary couple for the Baptist church during our stint in Dubai, they were headed to the same place as us. They gave us some contact information for people they knew here who would love to talk to us.
We arrived in our airport at 8 in the morning to see our Professor and Indian garu waiting to greet us. They brought us these flower garlands made of what I can only imagine are chrysanthemums. Those garlands are much heavier than they look! The whole thing is about three and a half feet long.
We had lunch the first day Telugu style: sitting on the floor and using our hands to eat off banana leaves. The food is AMAZING. Our cook, Durga, is a master chef and she can make anything. THe first day we had variations on potatoes and rice and then we had these fried dough balls that we paired with coconut chutney. There was another vegetable side of something Krishnayya said was Nightshade but not the kind you are thinking of, and it closely resembled okra. After lunch we tried something that Dr. Nuckolls likes: kili. This is a sort of after meal treat that is wrapped in beetleleaves with beetle nuts (or something like that) in the middle. The best way to describe it is that it is an awful lot like how I would imagine drinking perfume would be. The taste resembles how perfume smells. Yet, if you chew it slowly it isn't half bad.
That first night Durga bought some strands of jasmine buds and we all put some in our hair. That is a thing to do at night and it smells delicious. When I was done with mine I hung it up in the bathroom and now I get a soft, sweet waft of jasmine scented air every once in a while.
Every morning at five I'm woken up by the people in the Krishna temple about 50 yards from my house. Each day at 5am, 12pm, and 6pm they bang bots and pans and symbols while singing. I know in the morning they do it to wake Krishna up, but after that I am not sure. I was curious about it so I went over to the temple with another girl. We got there just as the chanting was over, so we talked to people and waited for the resident monk to give us a blessing. It is tradition that whenever you go into a temple, regardless of whether that is your religion or not, you receive a blessing. First you drink some of the jasmine water that he puts into your hands, then you make a motion of dumping it from the top of your head by the forehead down to the back of your head, then he places a metal bowl/cone thing on your head and blesses you. However, this monk was having none of that on that night. He blessed about half the people then retreated to his alcove to get some reading done. Oh well.
Sunday we went to church via auto (auto-rickshaw but auto for short), and that was pretty fun. Church is small here, but I enjoy it. They teach everything in both English and Telugu because people here speak both. The meeting area itself is at the back of a grungy looking building that looks like something from the bad side of DC, but it is all safe.
Yesterday we went shopping for salwar kameez and leggings. I'll put up pictures next time of the ones that I bought. I bought three for about $6 each. I need to go out and pick up a sari or two next time we go out. We also went to pick up the internet sticks yesterday...that was an ordeal. I brought my laptop to make sure that it worked before we left the store because the girl before me hadn't done that and it had taken her 4 days to get it to work. It took us at least an hour and a half to get it to work. These guys had no idea what to do with a laptop other than turning it on or off. That is a trend here, people do things that they don't know how to do just to get the money and credit for knowing how to do them. But it is fine because it works now!
It rained quite a bit yesterday and my friend and I were out in it for a while. We walked to a yoga class where no one showed up because of the rain (typical) and then we walked back. We were soaked, but both rejoiced in being in the rain in India (two of our favorite things). She made the observation that there is a certain kind of girl who goes to India. There are the people who go to Europe on study abroads who are great people and really love that experience and then there are the people who think, "Yeah, let's go to India!" We go here and are expected to be independent as opposed to traveling in a group to sites. I wouldn't change it for the world! I'll attach some pictures of what my balcony looks like in the rain. Hopefully next time I can show you pictures of my living conditions. TTFN!
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