Week One continued again

FRIDAY

    In India there is a large Hindu Festival called Pongal. Friday begins the festival with a bonfire called Bhogi. The festival is to celebrate a plentiful harvest. So lots of food and drink! We had our own little Pongal festival. Our house was decked out! Karuna, one of our translators drew decorative mugu outside our house and put garlands of flowers everywhere and sugar cane. WOW! It was beautiful! We all dressed up in colorful sarees and had a grand ole time. The local t.v. station even came and filmed us for the morning news! It was a little bit crazy.

        

One of our neighbor's woke us at 5am in the morning with their chanting and bonfire raucous! It was good though because we joined in and it was super fun! Another one of our neighbor’s had us over as well and gave us gifts (fruits and beans). They live between India and Texas, so it was very easy to converse with them. They are a sweet older couple whose granddaughter lives with them and is completing her master’s degree (she’s 22 years old! – amazing)!

The whole night was a lot of fun and by the end of it I was so tired!

Saturday

            On Saturday the festities for Pongal continued with the festival of Sankranti. That morning the musicians from Simhatchilum Temple came and performed for us at the Krishna Temple which is right next to our houses. I really enjoyed it, of course, because I’m totally into that type of world music style and genre. Other’s in our group weren’t as excited, but oh well! The played for about an hour and then abruptly stopped, packed up their things and left. It was all quite sudden and confusing, but we thanked them all outside of the temple and they were gracious.

             After the musicians our “warden” from the US consulate came to pay us a visit. He actually was a student during the Wisconsin Program! Same program and mentor (Chuckolls) just a different university. His name is Peter and he’s hilarious, especially in his reactions to Dr. Nuckolls comments (I hope one day Chuckolls and I will be that tight). Peter is a really good resource for daily conduct, hot spots to go hang out at (like the discothèques and Rushikonda beach), OH! and if the US ever needs to evacuate Americans he’s in charge of getting us the heck outta here! HAHA! Like that would ever happen!

            After Peter’s visit Sam, Amy, Amber, and I went to the Vizag Zoo! It was fun, but my camera was dead so I don’t have any pictures. It made me really sad for the animals though. I’m not trying to advocate animal rights activism or anything, but I was really depressed by the living conditions of the animals. I don’t think I get that way in the United States when I go to zoos. It’s probably because of the animal rights activists in the US that make it that way; maybe they’ve had a good impact after all J

            Saturday evening we were invited to Dr. Malyanavasani’s house for dinner. She is our Telugu teacher and does an amazing job of it (Our other teacher Siva Prasad is uh… let's just say he is so hard to understand and leave it at that). She and her husband treated us to a tasty meal with soda pop, sweets, and these sour little apple things which were amazing! She sang us songs and then had me sing a song as well. She agreed to give me lessons in the Indian/ Eastern vocal tradition. I’m stoaked!

Sunday

            Sunday was another wonderful meeting. I really do enjoy the branch and everyone’s smiling faces. They are so kind and welcoming. On Sunday nights the program pays for us to eat out so that our cooks have the night off of cooking. We are given money and we choose where we want to go and we usually choose People’s Kitchen. I have a new addiction to their coconut rice and mushroom masala! The food is so good and so cheap that it feels like highway robbery! We always give a HUGE tip!

Monday

            On Monday night we were invited to have dinner at our tailor’s house. Understanding a lot of things now that I didn’t understand then, it was a bad idea. I thought she was really kind and not very imposing, just interested in the white people. We had a nice dinner at her home and after dinner is when it started getting weird. She starting passing around a sheet of paper asking for everyone’s names, signatures, and contact info. I feel SO stupid because at the time it seemed like nothing, but once she started asking about passports and getting to America it all felt wrong. We got back home and told Krishnayya Garu and he was furious. She had EXTREMELY over charged us for saree blouses and she was told in the previous program that she should not come around the students again. All in all a crazy experience that taught me a lesson about my information needing to be kept secret and not all people being able to be trusted. It was a hard way to learn it.           

Other than all of my India adventures there's definitely everything that's going on back in the States. I recently started getting voice files from my best friend on his mission. I don't know if it's an appropriate usage of the word, but I'm getting so trunky listening to them! I miss him so much that it kills me and knowing that he gets home 2 weeks before me just makes me even more anxious! I also I'm missing my incredible roommates back in Provo and my amazing family everywhere in the US. I really get stagnated by those days and it's really frustrating and halting to my research. I'm trying to keep a positive outlook. I'm in India and I should be super excited about it, but sometimes all I want to do is go home to be with all those people that I love. So if you're one of those people I miss (if you're reading this you probably are): I love you and I miss you so much!!

With love from India.
Jaci