I'm going to take a moment to slack off and write a blog entry.  Homework, schmomework!  Pfft, I didn't come to India for that crap! 


This weekend we went to a lovely little place called Coorg.  In a country that's never heard of smooth paving, interstates, or going three feet without hitting a giant speed bump, it's about a 6-7 hour car ride from Bangalore.  I've certainly had longer car rides, and with much worse company, but rarely have I traveled so far for long so incredibly uncomfortably.  I'm not kidding about those speed bumps, and people with long legs beware: do not ride in vans in India.  Unless you like cramped knees, in which case, go nuts!

Coorg was worth the hassle, though.  The general consensus was that it was the best place we'd seen so far, and it was (at least for me)!  For one thing, it actually felt like a vacation.  Technically I'm here to study, and blah, blah, blah.  But I really came here to have an adventure and (hopefully) some fun.  Coorg was both of those things.

We stayed at a resort where we were housed in cute little cottages and tidy hotel-style rooms.  I was strongly reminded of Gatlinburg, actually.  The plaster decor was kitschy and fun, and we had a little dance performance before our dinner--so relaxing!  The air was actually quiet and refreshing, too.  Not a honk of a rickshaw horn or a whiff of that delightful feces/burning-trash aroma you find in the city.

 

Before dinner Jacob John, who is the USAC director and one of the silliest, most fun people I've ever met, arranged for us to have a jack fruit picking competition.

He also looks very fetching in a skirt, apparently.

The game went like this: we split up into two teams, the team leader for each team cut the jack fruit into halves, then quarters, etc., until it was small enough for us (the rest of the team) to pick out the bright yellow fruit.  My team dominated!  Woo!  And our prize was to taste the fruit of our labor, pun very much intended.

If you don't know what jack fruit is, it's those two big, green, kidney/lung/testicle shaped things.

Prior to this game I had no idea what the heck a jack fruit was, although apparently about 25 tons of it are consumed annually in America.  It's much more delicious than it looks from the outside.  They're very sweet, and have a taste that I can only compare to banana Starbursts.

Gory aftermath.

After the jack fruit shenanigans, the dinner, and the dance performance were over, a large group of us went on stage with some of the vacationing families and danced with the performers.  It was really goofy and fun.  Someone got a video of us doing this, which I'll share on Facebook someday. 

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Today was a lot busier.  Our first order of business was to go to an elephant reserve to (finally) ride an elephant--or so we thought.  Alas, it was raining, and our hopes were dashed!  Rain + elephant footing on muddy terrain = no fourth Punic war.  Oh well!  We still had fun feeding them and fawning over how cute they were.

When we disembarked from the boat that carried us to the elephanty side of the river, we ran immediately to the bathing elephant, who promptly proceeded to spray us all with water from his trunk.  I found this adorable, but also annoying, because the kurta I was wearing was poorly dyed.  I turned teal for a little while. 

After our fun, if slightly disappointing, trip to the elephant camp, we stopped for lunch and did a little exploring.  The place we stopped had a pleasant nature walk (this is where I found 28rabbit, Dad) where we could climb tree houses and feed some very pretty deer.

Look how pretty I am!

Several Snickers- and Toblerone-flavored milkshakes later, we drove to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  This was stunning!  I was taken aback by the unexpected size and beauty of the temple when we first caught sight of it from the entrance.  Both the interior and exterior were covered in ornate gold and brightly painted depictions of Gods and buddhas.

All in all it was a great weekend, and I will be riding elephants one of these days...Maybe Tuesday?  I don't know.  All I do know is that I'm going to sleep now, because it has been an exhausting few days.

-Liz

Sorry everybody--I know this blog has been poorly maintained.  I'll try to make my posts a little less sporadic from now on. 

The last three days have been spent taking trips here and there, but today was the most fun by far.  We went to a little village an hour or so outside of Bangalore.  The air was exhaust-fume free, the people were pleasant, the food was good, and we got to have play time with the local school children!  Yeah, making messes with crayons and paint!  My favorite interaction with kids: half and hour of doodling with neon-colored crayons and then running away before any actual responsibility gets involved.  I'm sure they're teachers were just thrilled.

Kids are such adorable little monsters! :)

The night before the trip we (my fellow USAC students and I) went out and bought some toys and goodies for the kids.  I bought a big stack of notebooks and some crayons, and I'm really glad I did!  Kids are the same everywhere.  I was quickly surrounded by little artists who grabbed my arms to get my attention every time they drew something new.  I got some amazing drawings! 

Look out!  It's the elusive Four-legged-chicken-baby-demon!

There was one little boy who went to town drawing me pictures.  It was so awesome! 

I made him write his name on this one.  I still don't know what it is, but it looks pretty.

There was a little girl who didn't actually want to draw--oh no--she was having more fun being the crayon police.  All she wanted to do in this world was organize the crayons in order, put them back in their little box, and make sure that people asked her permission before selecting their next color. 

No Dad, we did not sit around making pamphlets or smoke pot.

This was all part of the group called CSA (Center for Social Action), which tries to bring a better standard of living to poorer areas in India, like the villages and slums.  They educate people, help them find ways to make money, attempt to eliminate things like child marriage, and generally empower them to help themselves.  We got to talk to some of the women in the village who were part of a self-help group.  The group serves to give the women more power and respect in the male-dominated society they live in.  It was inspiring to hear them talk about the many ways that their lives and attitudes have changed for the better since they started this program.

Three generations of empowered women.

We were only there for a few hours, which was the perfect amount of time to suit everyone's temperaments, so everyone had a good time.

We wound up the days by going out for coffee and Italian food at Pascucci's and eventually splitting off into smaller groups.  Some would go home, while others would find themselves sitting around a small computer screen watching the live action version of The Jungle Book--which is a delightful movie--with a small but fabulous, funny, and intelligent group of people.

 That's all for now, but I'll post something about my trip to Mysore soon.

Love your faces
-Liz

The first three days have been crazy!

I've got a lot of catching-up to do...

Flying over France!  Magnifique!

So after a good 20-24 hours of flying--it took 5 different planes to get here--I was exhausted and my brain was feeling more than a little addled.  I got in at 3:00am.  Getting into the country wasn't so bad.  Everyone spoke English, more or less, and my bags made it through the whole checking process intact.  The only real problem was that I had absolutely no way to contact anyone.  My phone, despite having been told that it would work once I got there, was completely useless.  And of course I couldn't access WiFi anywhere, because why would it be easy?  That's not fun!   After assessing that situation and taking out some money I decided that I would just go ahead and take a taxi to the University.  I knew what road it was on and what it was called, so I figured, what the Hell?  No point in waiting around, I might as well jump in head-first.

I went to the counter with all the taxi stands and asked around about getting a cab to Christ University.  Before I could get there, though, one of them saw where I was headed and told me to come with him.  He was very polite and soft-spoken, he showed me his business card and offered to carry my bags as he took me to the cab where the driver was waiting.  They drove me out a little bit, asked me where I was going, and showed me a little chart with fares for the different parts of town.  We figured out which one I needed and they wrote me out a receipt--so far so good.  It was at this point they asked me to pay them, and when I said that I didn't have enough money on hand they said it was fine, they'd take me to an ATM.  In my mind this meant that we'd find one when we got to my destination or we'd go back to the airport.  No.  They took me to a desolate, dark, dirty, side-alley hole in the wall ATM, the likes of which can only be seen in Doom.  As I watched a dead cat drawing flies in a corner I began thinking, oh shit, oh shit, I'm going to die or get robbed and ditched. 

I didn't take any pictures because I was a little too busy being overwhelmed, but this should give you an idea of what I'm talking about...

...except it wasn't that clean or well lit.

Or maybe like this...

When I got back in the cab I told them I wanted to go back to the airport.  I politely made up an excuse and offered to pay them for their trouble, but they insisted that it was all official and that they would take me to my destination safely.  Finally the driver told me that, as long as I could pay, we could use an ATM near the campus.  Relieved, I agreed and we started driving again.  In retrospect, I probably seemed pretty stupid, but between being fresh-off the 20 hour plane ride, a single white female, traveling alone, it being pitch black outside, not knowing where I was going or anything about where I was, and seeing my life flashing before my eyes in the ATM from Hell, I was a little on edge. 

At this point I started to pay more attention to my surroundings.  India is awesome--not like 'dude that's rad!' awesome, I mean awesome like a million hot dogs.  Everything is ten times bigger, more crowded, more pungent (or fragrant).  One minute you're smelling the foul odor of the piles of garbage littering the streets, the next you're overloaded by the scent of flowers and fruit.   I can't talk about it without sounding cheesy, but it was exhilarating; this is what traveling is all about! 

After getting lost for a while we finally got to the college at around 6:00am.  The campus was totally deserted.  Fortunately the sun had come up by that time, so I was feeling a little less nervous, but there were almost no people around.  So I wandered around for about an hour trying to find someone who spoke English and could tell me what time the college would open.  I finally found an old woman who told me that it opened at 9:00am, but people would be there around 8-8:30 who could help me.  I washed my hair in a bathroom and waited.  Eventually everything got sorted--I figured out where to go and found my fellow USAC peeps who were smarter than me and jumped on the group transport. 

That's all I can share right now.  I have to get up extra early tomorrow for a tour of Bangalore!  I'm sorry that this is taking so long to update, but from dawn 'til dusk we're out doing this and that and the internet connection has been horrible.  I've only been able to get on for a little bit at a time.  I'll try to get some more stuff cranked out tomorrow.  So far this only covers a small portion of the first day and I've been here for four days already.  Today (June 1st) was just a bunch of sitting around while I waited for my residency permit to go through, so nothing exciting there.

Love you nerds!

-Liz