Madness, Fun, and 1000s of Pictures...
Our teams of students from America have come and gone, and it still all feels like a blur. How has the past month flown by so fast?!??! It seems like 2006 just began and now it's half way over, as is my time here in India. Insanity...
Both of our teams were absolutely FABULOUS and SO much fun--so unique and energetic, and definitely a true blessing to have around. They ran hard, meeting students, drinking coffee, trying all sorts of new food, exploring the city, and just having a good time. Some highlights from these 2 incredible groups:
-watching their reactions to all that is India (bollywood movies, animals everywhere, riding camels and elephants, holding hands with friends of the same gender, rickshaws, poverty, insane traffic, religious saturation of life here, student culture, etc)
-playing in the park with hundreds of curious people
-not having to hold their hands every step of the way, but seeing them jump in and run with everything we gave them
-celebrating my 26th birthday (am I really that old already?!?! yikes!)
-singing, laughing, and just hanging out with college students
-getting sarees made!!!
-planning parties for the students they met and having a blast, esp. playing games and doing skits
-their energy, excitement, and passion
-touring temples and mosques and learning more about Indian culture and religion
-visiting local campuses and seeing what life is like for students here
-shopping and learning to bargain, and watching them pay WAY too much for stuff :)
-training them to share their stories with people they met and seeing them have a blast doing it
-hanging out with students for hours on end, just getting to know them and having fun
-eating out more times and places than I care to count...
-traveling by train back from a meeting in Solapur (nearby city)
-1000s of pictures (literally, i have over 5 gigs of pics from the past month!)
-seeing them tough out even some of the roughest situations (flooding, monsoons, nasty squatty potties, sickness, changed plans, you name it!)
It's been a great couple of weeks, and I'm excited about what the next month has in store as well--tomorrow my friend Jill arrives from Louisiana! This is exciting because she's the first person from my "old life" that I've seen in over 10 months--insane! We'll hang out here for a while, then travel to Delhi and Varanasi (she was there in summer 2004). Then she heads back to America and I head to Thailand for meetings. Then on to Vietnam with some friends for vacation, and back to Delhi to meet up with Tep, who's coming in from Spain to visit!!! It's going to be a wild couple of weeks, but I'm excited. Until my next update, peace out :)
[I can't get pictures to work here, so go to my xanga to check out the pics that belong with this post: www.xanga.com/darkness2light ]