I am the English-speaking slave of a 5-year-old.

This weekend, I went with my host family to Phaltan (like Fulton with an Indian accent). My Ahi's mother and father in law live there, and they own a small farm outside of town. This was the last weekend of Gonpati, though the festival continues until Wednesday or so. Because Phaltan is a much smaller town (a measly 50,000 residents as of 2000), there is quite a sense of importance surrounding the Gonpati festival and rituals. Every home participates in a competition over the size and quality of their shrines to Ganesh. Outside on the front porch they all draw intricate pictures with different colors of sand. And the most interesting thing? They all dress up and visit each other's shrines on Friday night.

Imagine you have a friend. You don't know her very well, but she seems nice. After you've known her about a week, she insists that you visit her grandparents with her, in a town about 60 miles (but 3 hours) away. Once you arrive she proceeds to speak to her relatives in a foreign tongue you can't understand, and doesn't ever really explain anything that happens. But on Friday night she helps you into her clothes (which don't really fit you and certainly aren't your style) so that you can go and visit all of her grandparent's friends.

Once you go into their friends' houses, all the strangers stare at you, while you stare at a giant shrine in the middle of the living room. The shrine usually features a big statue of an elephant wearing a turban, flanked by two female statues about 2 feet high wearing saris, around 20-30 different types of homemade Indian sweets, shiny tinsel all over the walls, and a variety of blinking Christmas lights. Sometimes there are stuffed Valentine's Day bears or statues of birds, sometimes there are American things like action figures of random movie characters. When you walk in, everyone speaks again in this strange tongue and you smile and nod, and sometimes in English they ask you what you've come to India to study. You sheepishly answer: Indian culture. They smile and nod and ask what your parents do, how much money they make, what college you attend, how you're liking India, etc., etc., etc. Then, smiling, they touch between your brows with red and yellow dust, and hand you a leaf, a nut, and some white powder. You stand up to leave and fold all of the treats into the leaf, then put it in a bag (rather like a bag of Halloween candy--the white powder is actually a mix of coconut, sugar, and cashews). I think this process is something like going to a neighborhood to see all their Christmas lights--only you go inside and the strangers give you candy and ask you questions about your parents.

The ritual itself is strange, too. Sometimes you do the ritual three or four times a day. It involves everyone standing around the statue of the elephant wearing a turban, where everyone sings and claps in unison. The song changes pace and tune three times and there are a few 360-degree turns you're never quite expecting. Then everyone's given flowers or food or rupees to give to the elephant at the right moment, and burning incense is passed around. You wave your hands over the incense then through your hair... you hand the flowers to the elephant and greet him with your palms together in Namaste.

I'm kind of starting to love Hinduism.

This weekend wasn't all about Gonpati, though that seemed to be the main excuse for coming to Phaltan. For me, it was a weekend of both my highest and my lowest points in India thus far. My highest point went something like this:

While we were out visiting various Ganesh shrines all over town, we were interrupted in one house by my Ahi's father-in-law, who beckoned us back to the house in a hurry. I, of course, was given no explanation, but when we entered, I saw the cause of his laughter and his urgency: there were about 30 boys, between the ages of 3 and 16, seated in their living room (the only furnature, I might add, was a single couch and six red plastic chairs. The rest were on the floor). When I entered, they all turned to me and stared. Instantly, I blushed deeply, all the way to the roots of my hair. I participated in the Gonpati ceremony (the singing-and-turning-in-circles one), and then sat down. Instantly, about twelve of the boys were seated around me, asking me questions in Marathi. Realizing I understood very little, one of the older boys translated a bit. They were asking the same probing questions their parents did, but with more emphasis on what I can say in Marathi and when my birthday is. They made me laugh a lot, and suddenly it seemed there was no language barrier at all, even though I could only understand one of them. They laughed at my terrible accent and the things that I can say--what time is it? I want some water. Truly!?! May I go to the movies? Turn right here. These boys absolutely brightened up my day.

I learned later that the boy who translated goes to the college where my Ahi's mother-in-law works as a Marathi professor and lives upstairs. He also does some charity work as a leader of a boy's group called the R.S.S., where all these boys meet and play games, sing songs, and do yoga together. They came every evening to talk to me and stare at me, and I left Phaltan feeling wonderfully attached to them.

My lowest point went something like this:

I was sitting on my bed, alone, reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book was comforting, mostly because it was in English. I felt incredibly lonely, for my first time in India. I missed my parents, my brother, and my friends terribly. I missed adult conversation in English. I missed understanding everyone around me and being understood by everyone too. Here in this strange world, none of the adults were interested in speaking English to me unless they were addressing me directly. They were too absorbed in family time to notice that I was lonely. Instead, the only person who spoke to me often in English was my 5-year-old host sister, Srushti. You can imagine all the stimulating conversations we had. We played Slap Jack and Go Fish about a million times and she forced me to play with her and I realized... I am the English-speaking slave of a 5-year-old.

Another strange, though I suppose not entirely bad moment, was shopping. I bought my first punjabe, from a botique in Phaltan (much pricier than I was hoping to spend). I tried on about 50 ready-made punjabes in about a million colors, almost none of which I liked. The salesgirl forced me into one she insisted was "very fashionable" in India right now, but just looking at it I could imagine the wrinkled noses of my mother and grandmother, had they been in the dressing room with me. Almost all that I tried on I could hear my mom saying, "We can do better," or my Mimi saying, "Oh, Megan! That's just horrid!" I bought only one: a rather expensive beaded peace that fit me like a glove. It's blue and gold and yes, I'll put up a picture soon. It's really not for everyday wear, but the whole thing only came to $28.... though seeing a price tag that says 1,400, no matter what currency, is a little bit perturbing.

The other interesting experience was the bus ride, which was exactly like you just imagined it: a red, rickety old Indian bus, crammed full of Indians with even a few on top, travelling over dirt roads. It was an experience, I'll tell you that much. I somehow managed to sleep through most of the crowded ride, though I laughed at the image in my head of my dad and brother, both over 6 feet tall, riding in this bus: at 5'6'' my knees were already pressing up against the seat in front of me. I felt lonely, then, too... crowded on a bus, surrounded by strangers who wouldn't understand me if I spoke, sure that I was the only one feeling like my personal space was being invaded.

Now I'm "home" again, back in Pune and ready for some adult conversation in English. I'm lucky that my friend Sydney who lives around the corner came over tonight or I might have lost my mind with missing home and being understood. I think I've found what I was looking for when I came to India... this is certainly going to be a challege.

Gonpati continues, Megan is still not Indian.

So I've been writing down lists in my moleskine recently about things I need to blog about/weird things about India/reasons why I'm still not Indian (but am seeing the light). I'll move through what I've thought of so far, and hopefully have some things in the future.

1. I think I've figured out why India is such a strange country to foreigners, especially in the west.
I haven't been to the rest of Asia, so for those of you who have visited China or Japan, you'll have to tell me if this is true for you as well. But what I think is vaguely unsettling about India to a lot of visitors is that it is oddly, oddly similar to some things in West, but so radically different in some ways. It's strange, it's almost like a not-quite-real immitation of an American or European city. There are too many trees and too much trash, the buildings aren't quite high enough and the sidewalks are in disrepair. The traffic is heavy but filled with motorbikes and rickshaws, the storefronts are open but there are too many colors, too much shiny tinsel, too many fake flowers in electric colors. It creates an effect that is purely Indian--but once in a while I will get glimpses of home that remind me of how loud traffic used to sound, before I spent two weeks in this city where people honk instead of use turn signals...

2. S.T.D. - Sexually Transmitted Disease? Nope. A phone booth for calling internationally.

3. Please and Thank You - Though I can't speak for all Indian dialects, one of our first Marathi lessons was that in Marathi, there is no word for please or thank you. They use the English words, in a heavy Indian accent of course. This is probably the hardest part of my homestay. Sucheta warned us that using please and thank you too often in our homestay would come across as stiff and formal. Just try to go a single day without saying either of these phrases in the United States and you'll come across as rude and cold. Strange, strange cultural difference. I don't know how to act when my Ahi (mother) brings me something at the table or helps me with my homework. I don't know how to ask for something to be passed across the table without interjecting a "please."
More interesting Marathi facts: we learned today that in Marathi, there is no verb, "to have," or "to own," or "to possess." Instead, you say that something is near you or with you. The effect is interesting and I plan to consider the effects of this simple linguistic difference. Linguists often study cultural differences like this, and there are often a lot of very interesting studies done on cultures that, for example, have no past tense. These two features of Marathi are already making for an interesting experience. Add the "head bobble" to that, and learning to "speak" like an Indian is difficult just in English.

4. The beds, insofar as I have tested, are hard as ROCKS. The first few nights I hardly slept at all, and now I am finally adjusting. I don't think I'll ever get used to the pillows though, which feel like I'm sleeping on books. Apparently there is a Bed, Bath, and Beyond in Pune somewhere, and sometime soon I plan on fully succumbing to this one American luxury. It's just uncomfortable to sleep and I wake up with aches in my neck and shoulders.

5. TV is about 10x as interesting as American TV. The shows are incredibly cheesy and dramatic, and since I can't understand a single word, highly enjoyable. I guess at what they're talking or arguing about. The best is the soap operas on in the evenings that everyone's Ahis watch. They feature sinister looking men with moustaches and pretty, distressed women. Last night we watched the Indian version of American Idol. To be honest, I have absolutely NO conception of what's good Indian singing versus what's bad Indian singing, so I was happy that my Ahi laughed at the bad ones that featured sad or comical music at people's apparently poor attempts to sing. They honestly sounded almost identical to me, except for one guy who was clearly just yelling. I fully intend on watching this show again, even though I have no interest in American Idol in the US.

6. Squat toilets/commodes. Probably the biggest and strangest difference to the United States, there are squat toilets everywhere! When I first saw one, I didn't understand it at all, but now that I've seen more (and practiced), they make much more sense. I can't shake the feeling of peeing in the woods every time I use it though, and it just reminds me of how unlike India is from camping. Oh, well. At least they have that in common. Most Indians seem to call western toilets "commodes," which may or may not be the funniest phrase of all time. Oh, and if you're ever in India, don't forget to toss the toilet paper instead of putting it in the toilet... it clogs the toilet because nobody uses it here! Instead there are things a bit like bidets in Europe or simply faucets with little plastic cups you fill with water. If this is getting to graphic for you, I apologize... but I'm actually enjoying the transitition to not using toilet paper. One less way I'm generating needless waste, right?

7. Trash. There is one trash can in my entire flat, and it is the size most American households reserve for the bathroom. I have no idea how this continues to work for an entire family for more than a day, but it does. The Indian people are incredibly resourceful and waste very little in their own households. We turn off electrical outlets when something isn't plugged in because needless electricity is generated to power the outlet for no reason. No toilet paper, etc. etc. I'm generating enough waste by myself that I feel embarassed to throw it away in the house; I've been hoarding it in an empty ziploc bag in my room so I can throw it out somewhere outside the house. But then there are piles and piles of trash on the streets and in the slums, hundreds of thousands of water bottles in the oceans.... I'm considering changing my Independent Study Project to something about the people's attitudes about trash and waste. I don't see how they can waste so little and yet still litter and ignore dirty streets in the public sphere. This is something to explore further.

Just to finish up, as a side note, I was going to take Sociology while I was here, but I've been talked into the Environmental Science course! The teacher seems engaging and interesting and it has a TON of field trips!! I'm really excited to travel around Maharasthra to see a variety of wildlife refuges and different environmental aspects.

Also of note, I've decided on my travel plans for my fall break. My friends Nate, Sydney, Logan and I are going to Kerala's backwaters, a national park where we can ride elephants, the very southernmost tip of India (where the beaches from three different seas meet with different colors of sand), Madurai where there are some amazing Hindu temples, Bangalore and Mysore. Wikipedia it! There are some cool places. I'm glad to be going South for the break and then in December, we head North to the more famous destinations like Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, etc.

All my love!

Homestay & Gonpati

Namaskar!

The three days have been absolutely overwhelming (in a good way)! On Friday, we visited Sihagad (or something) fort, about 30 km from Pune. It was probably THE most beautiful place I've ever been, and Anju, one of the women who works for ACM and knows basically everything, told us that there are other forts and such even more beautiful. The 'fort' was miles and miles of stone ruins, built in the 14th century high in the mountains above Pune and eventually conquored by the Mughals. I was going to do a blog post featuring pictures from this trip, but the internet takes forever to upload pictures on blogspot, so instead those are the pictures I just loaded on facebook. Be sure to check them out!

Yesterday, I met and moved in with my host family! I was very shy at first, not knowing what to say, but after only a few hours I started feeling more at home. My Ahi (mother)'s name is Meghana, which is pretty much exactly what every Indian kid calls me here. They say they don't understand my name, so they say it just like hers. She has two daughters, Mahika who is 8 and Shrushti who is 5. Her husband is away in Saudi Arabia, so for now it is just the three of them, and now me. They have a wonderful flat about 20 mins by rickshaw from ACM.

At first, I was very overwhelmed. The girls know English but were shy with me yesterday, so they spoke only Marathi to their mother, who translated to me in English. She is such a nice lady and wonderfully accomodating. She knows I'm interested in food, so she tells me all sorts of things about what she's cooking and what the ingredients are in everything. My sisters quickly warmed to me when they realized I was willing to play tag and give them piggy-back rides. I ran around with them and their friends for more than an hour yesterday afternoon, and the effect with the heat was incredibly tiring. Soon though, Mahika, Shrushti and I were fast friends and now all they want to do is play Go Fish and Uno with me, or translate cartoons. Yesterday Mahika and I watched Tom and Jerry on Cartoon Network for more than an hour, and it was nice to watch something we both understood for a change! The girls like to watch a lot of Nickelodeon, which istead of showing Nick shows from home, seems to show imported Japanese TV shows for kids. TV is incredibly interesting, you can switch from one language to another since there are so many dialects here. English is an audio output option, but it just seems to make them speak Marathi.

I think that living here will help me learn Marathi very quickly. I think my accent on what little I know is already getting better, since the girls giggle at my feeble attempts to pronounce things like them. They also speak rapid Marathi with their mother, and I think I will have to learn quickly so I can actually participate in the family dialogue.

Today was the start of Gonpati, a Hindu holiday. Ganesh is the Hindu god that removes obstacles, and he is the patron saint of both students and Pune (you have probably seen a picture of him--he has the head of an elephant and rides on a rat). Gonpati is another name for him, and the name of the festival held in his honor. Hindus from all over India come to Maharasthra to enjoy Gonpati, because it is celebrated most heavily here. It is a 10-day festival where all the streets are decorated and special foods are eaten. Boys and men play huuge drums in the streets and people parade and move through the streets with camels and Ganesh idols. Apparently the party this year is seriously tuned down because of swine flu, which is a shame because the festival decorations are very beautiful.

For lunch, we visited my ahi's ahi and baba, so Mahika and Shrushti's grandparents. They were wonderfully accomidating and welcomed me into their home like one of their own children. They cooked for me and taught me how to eat everything, including one of the favorite foods that Hindus eat only during Gonpati. It is apprently Ganesh's favorite food. There is a dough made out of rice I believe, and it is folded up into a rounded dumpling shape and holds coconut and sugar inside. Ahi and Adji (grandmother) encourage me to try absolutely everything, giving me tastes of spices and sugars in the kitchen. I am absolutley a five-year-old again, and have the eating skills of one. Learning to eat properly with one's hands is proving difficult, so I have to be taught, not unlike Shrusti. The girls give me a taste of every cookie and sweet. It is wonderful to have Indians teaching me these things, and not minding that I'm making a fool of myself. They teach me the Marathi and English names for everything they cook, and make sure I like and enjoy everything.

I need to go now, I don't want to use Ahi's internet for too long, but I will be working on finding a cyber cafe somewhere near my new home so that I can plug in my laptop and upload more pictures as I take them.

The monsoon deserves its own blog post.

Every day, in the time before dinner, the hotel burns a kind of fragrant incense. Somewhere between smoky and bitter, though not unpleasant, the smell permeates the whole building and comes in plumes up the stairs and out the front door all at once. I found out the smoke kills mosquitoes and have started to welcome the unfamiliar, heady scent. Today the effect is heavy as monsoon clouds descend upon the city and the light begins to fade. The humidity in the air hangs expectant of the rain to come—the past two days have ended in downpours like I’ve never even imagined.

The rain begins slowly but quickly builds to a sheet of falling drops. It crashes down with a force I never knew rain could build and in such quick succession you’re unprepared to suddenly be caught outside. The rain is warm at first, a caress on your skin like silk. It falls straight down in sheets so thick you can’t see across the street. Soon the streets are full of rushing water, creating canals with currents strong enough to encourage motorcyclists towards the sidewalk to avoid being swept away. Soon the balconies and sidewalks are slick with water, soon water is sliding off of every roof and soon you are soaked to the bone. The flashes of lightening and crash of thunder, so bright and loud they could wake you out of the deepest sleep begin. The lightning flashes three, four, five times in a row bringing the streets to full daylight in an instant. Then it is gone and replaced by a clap of thunder that could make you jump out of your skin. Last night it happened between about 2 and 4 am, and Allison (sleeping next to me this week in the hotel) saw me sit straight up in bed and within seconds joined me, both of us just stared in wonder at the falling rain, wondering how in the world the sky could hold so much water.

The rain clears out the air, if only for a little while. If it rains late in the evening or overnight, you wake up the next day and there are waves of mud like sand that's been washed by waves on the beach all over the streets. The cobblestone sidewalk, already an adventure interrupted by huge tree roots and areas where it simply disappears, becomes treacherous. The stones are slick with rainwater, hours after it's rained. Any sun at all and the water begins to evaporate, leaving a hazy fog in all the streets, lingering in the branches of the trees. I can't imagine a more complete humidity, instantly making your body sheen over in sweat. Even when the heat isn't bad, it's impossible to escape. I'm adjusting to it, but it's interesting--especially coming from Colorado, aka the land with zero humidity. Rickshaws are a relief from walking to the ACM office from the hotel, the only breeze in this country seems to originate from racing along the streets in one.

I have to go now, but I wanted to thank you all for reading and also let you know that my massage was fantastic (and I fully intend to get another one in the very near future).

Namaskaar! (Hello!)

It is very hard to believe I have only been here for a few days!

I feel like I'm starting to adjust to life here very quickly, but I think the westernized hotel is a very easy way to help me to adjust. The group is also bonding really quickly, so I feel like I know the personalities of my other ACM-ers fairly well. The group is very congenial, and we like to go out together. Though I am loving getting to know everyone, I am anxious to move in with my home stay family this Saturday because I know that it will be nice to spend more time with Indians and exploring places on my own (this is mostly why I haven't posted any pictures yet--I haven't had time to go out and take pictures on my own and I don't want to carry it everywhere with me yet).

The past few days have been a long and tiring blur, though I know that here I will constantly be running from place to place in hopes of keeping up with all the things I want to do! I hope that in the next week I will experiment on a bike (though the traffic is a little unnerving). There are dozens of heavy old cruiser bikes in oily gray you can buy here for about $20, or rent for 20 rupees/a day, which is only about $.50 a day. This is only one example of the way prices seem so skewed from normal. Later today, I am getting a 50 minute full body massage for 250Rs, or $5. What?! It is funny that many things seem to be "expensive," even though when you think about translating the prices they are almost nothing at all. The only truly expensive things are cell phones and American products (we saw a Nike store up the road). Ben bought a Snapple at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day, what seems to be the Starbucks of India) that cost 120 Rs, more than 5 times the cost of some of the meals you can get on the street, or about $2.40. [As a reference, $1 = approx. 50 Rs, though of course it's changing every day].

Yesterday we started classes. All the staff here in India seems incredibly knowledgeable about all facets of things we might be interested in. We began with a lecture on the colonial influence in India, and I was surprised to find that the book I've been reading recently (Life, Inc.) is actually very informative on this topic. This was followed by a chaha (chaha is Marathi for Hindi chai, or essentially tea. Here is is served seeped very strong with lots of steamed milk and sugar, between 3 and 5 times a day for about 15 Rs in the hotel or 2-5 Rs on the street) break. Then we had Marathi class. Sucheta is the teacher for Marathi, and the language is incredibly fascinating and I love her class! She is a fantastic language teacher with lots of experience teaching Marathi to American ACM students. We are learning useful phrases and verbs and the script slowly, which is very interesting. Sometime soon I hope to post a more linguistic blog entry about my Marathi studies so far, but I think for now I will just start incorporating some Marathi phrases into my posts.

The afternoons have been full of shopping, or what are essentially outings to practice crossing the street. This is a bit like Europe on steroids, and there isn't such thing as "pedestrian right of way" I've enjoyed so much at CC. You have to sort of run/jog across the street in gaps between bicycles, motorcycles, vespas, cars, busses, and rickshaws all going at different speeds and swerving around one another (oh, and on the left of course). I'm sure I will be deathly afraid of traffic for weeks after getting back to the United States, where here I'm sure I will be honked at and run into if not paying attention.

Shopping is interesting, because we are quite aware that people are trying to rip us off and get us to pay more. I'm interested to start learning Marathi and prices a little better from living with my family so I can get things for the "actual" price. I know it seems stingy, but I'm going to be here for another 18 weeks or so and want to save my money as much as possible. I'm saving off on most of my shopping for later, though I'm already excited to start buying textiles and clothing here (particularly scarves, which are absolutely beautiful).

I have to go, because like I mentioned I am about to get a massage from a massage student coming very soon. I will write more on specific topics soon, and hopefully in the next week or so get a chance to post a few pictures of my life here in Pune. I also bought a cell phone yesterday and will be getting it activated tomorrow, so I will send my number to many of you in the near future so we can potentially talk on the phone (for 6 Rs/minute) sometime soon. Love to you all!!

Indian plane food? Not so delicious.

Because I'm not really sure how to start this blog entry, I guess I'll just say that to begin with, I'm safe, happy, and loving India thus far. Now, I'll back track, and tell you about the 20+ hour journey it took to get me all the way here....

We left my house around 8:45 am on Friday morning. This was probably a little early in retrospect, but anxiety forced us out the door and down to Grandma's a little early. My brother was working that day, so he and I said our goodbyes in the kitchen after the obligatory family photos before my departure. We picked up my grandmother, then made a pit stop at the jewelry store where my ring was getting repaired. They didn't open until 10 and we were there around 9:45, so we just sat around and talked about how the employees didn't seem to care that we were clearly in a rush.

When we arrived at DIA, we obviously expected to say goodbye before security, but a thoughtful Continental employee let my family come out to the gate with me. We bantered a bit with the security guys and ate a very American lunch at Panda Express. After exchanging a few dollars for Rupees (about $7 worth, or 250 rps) and giving 50 of the Gandhi-adorned notes, we finally made our way to the gate. A short while and a few thousand pictures more and I was saying goodbye to my parents at the gate.

The flight to Newark was very uneventful. I took a dramamine and slept for about an hour, and made friends with the New Hampshire teenager and 20-something Manhattanite I was sitting next to. Once we were in Newark, I found a pay phone to call my parents, since my beloved (but tragically, American) Blackberry is still sitting on my bedside table back in Evergreen. I had to pay an entire dollar for a three minute conversation, which seemed more than ridiculous--not to mention obsolete, I actually got a few stares from New Yorkers trying to figure out why a girl, clearly in her 20s, was using a pay phone. Then it was time to find my gate, and typically, it was on the opposite side of the concourse (even though I flew into gate C113 and departed from C98).

The flight attendants were checking passports and visas when I got to my gate, so I joined the throng of passengers. Soon, I was joined by Liz, another girl on my program who was taking the same flight. We verified our passports and travel documents with the crew and then found somewhere to sit. A few minutes later, Nate, another ACM-er, joined the party and we all chatted while we waited for first class to board. I quickly found my seat, an aisle in an exit row and right behind the bathrooms midway through the plane, and settled in. I popped two more dramamine before stowing my backpack above me, and before I knew it, we were off. Because it was trans-Atlantic, and I may have the worst luck on flights ever, I was seated next to the obligatory crying baby on the plane. It was hard to be irritated though, his parents were young and looked as though they would be soon introducing him to family in India and were very apologetic for his crying.

Thanks to dramamine and a lack of lights, I got a nice 8 or so hours of sleep on the flight. The total time on the plane was about 14 hours, so I watched a few movies on the private touch-screen viewers they had for every seat. The rest of the time was spent draining the energy on my now-dead iPod and solidifying my sleep patterns with American time zones. As a side note... Indian plane food? Not so delicious.

The flight ended surprisingly quickly, and with breakfast, despite the fact that we arrived around 8:30pm Mumbai time. Liz, Nate and I found one another relatively quickly and made our way to customs. We were greeted, immediately off the plane, by uniformed Indians carrying machine guns and wearing surgical masks. That's right--H1N1, swine flu, has hit India. There have only been a few cases so far, but most of the locals are taking extreme measures to prohibit the spread of the flu as much as possible. Obviously, in a country like India, the masses of poor in slums are easy targets for large numbers of infected individuals in only a few weeks. All of the customs agents were also wearing masks, and we were forced to fill out forms assessing our H1N1 risk along with regular customs forms. Many Indians debarking from the plane were also wearing masks and protecting younger children.

Besides the surprising factor of the surgical masks, customs was very easygoing. We were ushered through fairly quickly and found the process surprisingly easy. The hardest part was finding our bags in a throng of people from our flight crowded around the carousel. And then...

Welcome to Mumbai. The last hour or so of easygoing airport officials did not prepare me for the sensory overload that is outside the Mumbai airport. The first thing that hits you is the heat, the humidity. It was instantly overwhelming and you could feel it on your skin long before making your way outside. Sometime during your first breath of 'fresh' Mumbai air, the volume hits you. Hundreds of Indians are crowded around gates keeping them from overcrowding the door leading outside. Many of them are waiting for family members or waving to friends arriving from some flight. Most of them are working for hotels or touring companies, holding signs with Western names on them that they would shake excitedly if I looked at them. Nowhere could Liz, Nate and I find a sign denoting that ACM students should follow them, we stood around looking sufficiently lost.

A friendly Indian airport worker was quick to our rescue, as he pointed out another student looking for our same group. Allison had been traveling for two weeks prior to the program's start by herself, and was meeting us at the airport. Once we were all together in a group, we decided to simply stand still and let the directors find us instead. Soon, Gene, Sucheta, and Aaron (the other CC-ite I had never met) were wandering towards us, and suitable introductions were then made. Soon we were following the rapidly disappearing backs of Indians from our hotel in Mumbai towards the van taking us to check in. The drive was incredibly stressful, that's all I can really say about it. There seem to be no rules, other than that you should generally drive on the left side of the road and usually stop at red lights. Honking seems to be the way of directing traffic around here, a way of signifying to cars and motorcycles that you are about to pass them on the right in the same lane they're currently driving in. Turns are tight and maps are nearly unreadable, but the drivers seem cool and collected and more than prepared to drive in what I can only see as utter chaos.

The next few hours were mostly uneventful. I got to hang out with the other kids in the program, which was a welcome rest from the long, solitary silence of the flight. Soon, Ben and Garrett joined us from their flights that got in around 11pm, and then eventually we were joined by Sydney and Logan, who both got in around 1am. Soon enough we had the whole group together in one room and were making introductions. Of course, to our American brains (except for Allison, who's accustomed to the time zone already) the middle of the night seemed like the middle of the day, so 3am after a shower turned out to be an acceptable bedtime. I only slept for about 3 hours, using this morning as time to catch up on a little reading and enjoy some Indian TV (which is an amazing mix of Hindi and English).

This morning, we were treated to Indian breakfast at the hotel, which was an interesting experience. A little later, we were repacked and jumping into a bus for the 3 hour trip to Pune. The ride was a good experience, and overwhelming in a lot of ways. It was a chance for more bonding with the rest of the group, as well as observation of the outer limits of Mumbai and the countryside on the way to Pune. I was surprised and amazed at the miles and miles of slums that lined the expressways, so obviously wracked with terrible poverty. These lean-tos quickly gave way to miles and miles of the most beautiful forest I've ever seen. We are, quite literally, in the middle of the jungle here.

Now that we're checked into our hotel in Pune, we have regular internet and comfortable beds. I have to go now to a meeting with the doctor about staying safe and healthy in this H1N1 scare, as well as digestive and traveling health in general. I hope to hear from you all soon, and happy travels to those of you who haven't left yet.

Down to the wire

It is officially less than a week until I leave for Pune.

I don't really know quite how to feel at this point. Amazingly, this trip is not quite real yet... I think it probably won't be until I'm actually getting on the plane!

I'm in the beginning vestiges of packing. The first step is laundry, of which there is a lot to do. I've been sort of gathering a lot of my stuff I don't need on a daily basis off to one side of my room. I think I'm going to officially start packing this coming Tuesday. Tomorrow is my going-away party, hosted by my parents, and then I'm helping out with my dad's business on Monday. That and I'm mostly afraid that if I start packing too early, I'll finish too early, and then have nothing to do from Wednesday until Friday. Which, when I type it out, doesn't seem like much time at all, but know from experience that two days when you're completely overwhelmed with nerves is really not the most fun thing to do. I'll be much happier if I actually have something to do (and packing, and then re-packing to double check everything) will keep my head somewhat occupied.

I can't believe it's almost time for me to leave! Here I am, making plans and last goodbyes to people I won't see for months. It's funny to think that in any other era I would be, for the most part, completely cut off from all the friends and family I'm leaving here in the U.S. But thankfully, the interwebs provides quite an easy way to talk to everyone.

I guess I'm off to go hang around the house for a while. Lunch with a friend this afternoon!