passion and moderation

hey everyone,

it has been about a week since I have posted on my blog but a LOT has happened. it's weird how it feels like I have been here for awhile. its probably because I have been really busy doing a lot of new things and also adjusting to the lifestyle here. Today I am just realizing that I am going to be in India for a long time. I've got three months to go, and right now, it feels a bit more daunting than exciting. It might be because I haven't really done anything today/haven't left my house, so we'll see how I feel when I'm busier.

Alright, let's take it back about a week. Just after my last post, I met my homestay family, which is AWESOME!! I live with a really modern Jain family in a sweet po-mo looking house not too far from school but kind of far from everyone else. They built this house in the last few years, and designed it to be both efficient and as environmentally friendly as possible by using local materials and catching as much natural light as possible to cut down on energy costs. In my opinion, they are a model for sustainable living. My host parents are both graphic designers and run a small company out of their home. They design for NGOs and make really cool notebooks. When taking on projects/clients, they are always aware of the social implications of their designs. For example, they refused to take work for large multinationals like Coca-Cola, as they believe it to be socially irresponsible. They gave me one of these noteboooks as a welcome gift by the way, which hopefully you will all get to see when I come home. They are also both working on PhDs. My host father is working on a Phd about graphic design and social change, which my host mother is working on one which studies the effects of yoga and meditation practices on the behavior of school children, focusing on non-violent and tolerant behaviors. I am incredibly impressed by their intellectual drive, intellegience, and social consciousness. They are also a model for me in this sense. They're piety/faith is also very interesting to me. They are both fairly devout followers of Jainism, which I am learning a lot about. Later this month or early next month, my host mother is visiting the head guru of Jainism, and I am going to try my best to go with her. Because of their religion, they are vegetarian, and do not eat eggs or drink alcohol. I have not eaten meat since I have been here, but the food they make for me is SO GOOD that I don't even miss it. I'm trying to understand/internalize the flavors, spices, and textures they use, but it is still all so foreign to me that I cannot really understand what I am eating. I hope this will change over time. They're very kind, chill (esp. for families here), and make me feel at home. I'm happy here, and they being as hospitable/nice makes it easier for me to be away from my own family.

Alright, so that's the sitch with my fam, but lets move to some other stuff. We started our Hindi classes a few days ago and no jokes, it is NOT easy. So far, it isn't really hard, but they move fast. I find that I really need to review the concepts after I learn them, b/c otherwise I really don't internalize them. Pronunciation is also weird. THREE DIFFERENT WAYS TO SAY "T"???? It's crazytown. The first time I was actually able to read the script, however, was awesome, and now everywhere I go I try really hard to read signs and all that. Whenever I'm with my friend Sam, who already knows basic Hindi, I ask her whether I am reading it correctly, and I'm doing surprisingly ok at it. Otherwise, our culture and development lectures have not been stellar. We have focused mostly on culture so far, which we have interesting reading for, but it just so happens that our reading does not connect to our lectures. Hopefully this will change with the development component of our course?

Another academic component of this is field study seminar. For our first exercise, we went to a Basti (slum) in Jaipur and assessed development needs there. We first made our own observations (better sanitation for food and water, garbage collection, safer electricity, etc.) and then talked to the slum dwellers about what they thought they needed. As it turns out, what they were most concerned with was being evicted from their land by the government, which intends to widen roads around the slum and so will basically squeeze them out. There is apparently no plan for relocation or compensation, which is both disheartening and reminiscent of my time in Palestine. Corruption is corruption is corruption I guess. Also: insane poverty. I bet that isn't a surprise, but walking through it was certainly shocking. One feels powerless to change their situation, but at the same time, oddly jaded because of the poverty that you see everywhere. It's sort of sad on both fronts.

Forward to this weekend. A number of ppl from our group went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, but a bunch of us stayed back to explore the city/chill. I think it was a really good decision. While I am a bit bored today, I also have a surprising amount of work, and at the same time, I had a great day yesterday. A bunch of us explored the old city. We live in the new city, so we hadn't seen much of the other side, and it was nice to see its various temples and historic landmarks. We had lunch at a great veg. restaurant (Raita, what what), and then did some shopping at the bazaar we found ourselves in. I bought a sweet pair of traditional shoes, which are not so comfortable right now but will be soon (I hope?), and exercised some master bargaining skills. After this, I went to Sam's house and met her family of professional sitar players, and then went with them to a sitar concert. SO COOL. slow music, but really cool at times. We then ended up at this food festival right next to the concert hall, where we witness an almost all male hotel management student dance party. We got some food, met some indians (one of whom invited us to his sister's wedding), and then piled into a rickshaw and went home. Riding in the rickshaw, I realized that my life was pretty cool. Becca and Sam slept over, and were here until late afternoon, and we did some studying. I'm getting excited to hear about Agra tomorrow, and also for our first yoga class/my first time doing yoga ever.

So that's my life right now. Congrats for making it through this really long post. I miss you and want to hear from you. Keep in touch; I want to know all the gossip from home!!

Love,

Mimi