I just returned this morning from a week in Nagpur where most of the other exchange students on the South Tour were from. We arrived the 23rd and spent that day and the next learning a practicing dances for their district conference. Because we only had 2 days to learn, the students from my district only did one dance. It was a Bengali traditional folk dance. Christmas eve we went to a Christmas party at a country club as the guests of one of the student's parents. From there we attended a midnight mass at a nearby church which was a really special and emotional thing for a lot of people. That night, we slept at the house of their counselor and stayed up late discussing our various Christmas traditions. This may have been my favorite part of the night because for me that's what a big part of being an exchange student is about, sharing cultures. On Christmas day, after a quick change we met once again to go to the conference an hour outside of the city. On the bus ride over we exchanged secret santa gifts that we had drawn at the end out the tour. All the gifts were placed under a little "christmas tree" potted plant that we brought on the bus. Some people also brought small things for the whole group like sweets, CDs of photos from the tour, or, I brought a collection of silly bands...
The rest of the day was spent hanging out and preparing for that night's performance. Some of the dances that the other students did were amazing. The exchange student show is an annual favorite at the function I guess and it's often said that the foreigners know the dances better than some Indians.
Below is a link to one of 3 newspaper articles about us and out practices. There were also 2 news television broadcasts.
http://www.ehitavada.com/site.home/paper_type/13/date/2010-12-25/page_no/8
The 26th, we also returned to the conference. The rest of our time was spent just hanging out. I had a great trip and everything but it was also nice to return home today to my family and everything.
In some ways Christmas wasn't as hard, missing home-wise, but in other ways it was harder. I didn't expect to have any kind of christmas and as long as I didn't think about home and our traditions, which I didn't really, it was fine. However, when several of your close friends are missing home, it's easy to follow suit and think about what you're missing. But when I stopped to reflect on the fun I was having, the people I was with, were I was, and everything it all amounted to much more positive feelings than I could have possibly had negative. I hope that made sense.
I still promise for South Tour pictures but it's time for me to go to bed,
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