Saturday May 21st

The internet is really slow here, for some reason I thought the computers would be better. But I don't even have a place to plug in my memory card and upload pics, or use wifi. Hopefully it won't be too anti-climatic when I finally do upload some. The group is all going to dump our pictures in one place on photobucket or flickr, which is good because the girls here have some really nice cameras.

So now that I'm finally online I will just type out a long email about what has been going on so far.

Last week we landed in New Dehli; we basically lost two days because of the flight and time change. It's 10.5 hours later here, so right now it's 1:45pm and your time it is 2:15am. Kind of weird. But I adjusted really quickly because I took melatonin and went to bed super early, I'm talking 5:30 pm for 3 nights in a row. But I also woke up at 5am everyday so it wasn't like I missed anything.

In New Delhi the first full day we looked around and shopped a little. I haven't bought much; stuff is really cheap here but I'm stingy. New Delhi is pretty much exactly like you would picture it- incredibly busy, the traffic is unbelievable and there are no rules. It was a huge culture shock. Within one block there will be a 5 star hotel packed with BMW's and Audis and then some homeless beggars and then someone peeing on the wall. It was really surreal. You'd enjoy the shopping, Josh, it's all about bargaining. They are so good at the sales pitch here, you'd have a great time. The food is great, we split great meals in a restaurant for $2 to $5 each.

The second day was an 8 hour drive to Agra, which is south of New Delhi. That's where the Taj Mahal is. My classmates were saying their drivers were silent the whole way and didn't speak much English, but we lucked out, my roommate is great at getting people to talk and our driver was hilarious. After about 5 hours he pulled over in front of this decrepit but authentic looking Taj Mahal and said "we're here!" and we started to get out, wholly disappointed. He finally fessed up. After that he started talking about all sorts of things about India, like how the different religions interact and what he eats at home, that kind of thing. His English wasn't perfect at all, but that kind of made it better. :-) Anyway, so we drove 8 hours. Not once in that whole time was there nothing along the side of the road- you know how you drive anywhere in the US for 8 hours and there will be long boring stretches? Yeah that doesn't happen here. I took lots of pictures, but it's just basically people, shops, farmers, horses, buffalo, sunflowers, factories, half-finished abandoned construction projects, cloth huts, cow patty huts (they use cow patties to start fires), all within a city block, constantly. I never stopped watching and eventually it started to feel kind of normal for me.

Don't misunderstand, though- like I mentioned about the traffic having no rules, that's not really true. There's no observable road rage here, people drive 2 inches apart from each other, drive 55 through narrow roads in densely populated areas, but there's a system of communication that is well-understood. They don't care if you pass them or cut them off, etc. It's like a well-executed dance. There are accidents, of course, but it's more because of how many people and cars there are than because of carelessness or anything.

Anyway, so we finally get up to the Taj Mahal and, yeah it's beautiful. :-) It was also 109 degrees. I think I enjoyed the Red Fort more, which is across the river from the Taj Mahal, and that's where the Emperor who built the Taj Mahal lived. I don't know if you know this, but the Taj Mahal was built to honor his favorite wife and mother of his 14 children. He was so grieved when she died, he asked what he could do to remember her, and she said never marry another, pay equal attention to all 14 of our children, and build something that will show the world that our love is unmatched. SWOON. But the Red Fort was kind of more exciting for me.

Anyway the next day was the big drive up to Dharmasala. Same driver, same roommate, same banter. Good times. But more importantly as we moved further north, it became cooler and started to look more like Minnesota. Now we are in the Himalayas and it is just incredible here. Seriously, I am not homesick at all because it looks like Minnesota but on top of a mountain, same flowers, same evergreens, with the addition of beautiful ficus trees and these huge trees with vibrant purple and pink flowers. You know how much I love flowering trees! SPRINGTIME. I miss you and the kids beyond measure, but when I look around it's like you guys are supposed to be here with me, all I have to do is go to our house down the block and you will be there.

So we got here on Wednesday night. Thursday we didn't do much, it was kind of a bonus day because we had to change our flight from the 16th to the 15th. So there was nothing really planned. Friday morning we did yoga at 7am to 9am with this Buddhist monk. Then we went to the Dalai Lama's home base, his monastery and walked around. Went on this sort of holy walk through the woods where they put different icons and things up. I don't know all the terms otherwise I would describe it better. Lots of prayer flags and prayer wheels, that was the most impressive part. Then at night they had a buffet dinner and some Tibetan dancing and a sitar player in our honor. Yeah, it wasn't as exciting as it sounds (ha), but hey it was an experience.

Now it's Saturday. Today was my favorite day so far. We went up the mountain about 500 feet and visited the Tibetan Children's Village. The organization serves about 16,000 children aged 3 to 23 (not in just one location, various locations around the area) and they're working on setting up a college to help preserve Tibetan culture and the language, since many of the children go off to Indian colleges and lose fluency.

My instructor warned us that after we saw the village we would be inspired to want to do something to help them because they have so little yet were so happy and healthy, untraumatized by their losses (leaving their parents, trekking through the mountains, etc), but I had a different perspective. The director of the school was explaining how the kids are really happy, they don't think about what they've lost. They don't sit there crying all day for their parents at all. And when we were walking around, I was just thinking to myself, wow, if this kind of school was set up in the U.S. parents would pay through the nose to send their kids there. They teach ethical behavior and compassion, they teach in two languages, there was this little barely-5 year old girl who guided me around by the hand and she sat down on one of those magnetic drawing boards and wrote out the numbers 1-35 perfectly so clearly they are bright (the 6 year olds were also reading to us from what looked like grade 2 texts) and clearly they are doing a good job teaching the kids. They work with plants in the home and out in the gardens, they have a humongous courtyard for cricket and soccer. Buddha is everywhere. We watched some 5th graders debate Buddhist-style - hard to explain- it was a chant and response thing (and it was spontaneous, we just walked past them in one of the open air classrooms). They teach independent living skills in the home, washing their own clothes and making their own beds from the time they show up. Kind of awesome. Ok, so their toys are kind of run down. Big deal when you're surrounded by so much beauty.

Today we are free, tomorrow we are doing some kind of yoga thing with a Tibetan monk again. Monday we finally start classes, so I will have more to say then. I think the funniest thing here is that a lot of people stop and take our pics -we are a huge group of US women, but I'm not sure what the fascination is, especially in Dharmasala because this is a really international area. I assume the people who are asking are also tourists from around India. I also have to mention that the people here have been awesome about working with the interpreters, really laid back and respectful about it. People in the U.S. have a much harder time adjusting to the unexpected.