Last Weekend's Wedding

     Last weekend I drove with my dad and another doctor from the city about 6 and a half hours to a wedding in Guna. 

     We left around 11:30 on Saturday just as the hottest part of the day was starting which meant that sitting in the back where very little of the air conditioning every made it was little hard at times. I slept for most of the ride. Around 2 or 3 we stopped of lunch at one of the roadside "motels" that can be found scattered along almost every major road that goes through rural India. These stops originated in Punjab as a place for truck drivers to stop, rest, and eat in the heat of the day before continuing when it cooled down. There are woven rope beds for the drivers to sleep on and most of the stops still serve predominately Punjabi food. We had brought our own lunch from home and ordered hot daal and cold sodas as well. 

     When we arrived at our destination we went in and made the proper greetings and paid the proper respects to our hosts, which included sitting down for a cup of chai of course. We then had a few hours to rest and get ready for the wedding reception which we arrived at around 8. I had my own room in our hotel which was amazing because I haven't had my own room in what feels like a really, really long time. 

     We were only at this wedding for the reception but unlike when we go to wedding receptions in Indore, we didn't just come for dinner and leave. This time we arrived before the bride and groom and I stayed all the way to the ceremony at 3 in the morning. 

     The moment we had arrived at the reception area a man came up to me and asked if I was Kelsey. When I said yes he asked if I wanted to see Pragya- Pragya Dave who was my class teacher at Progressive. It turns out that he's her husband who is a very nice guy, it was fun to see him dance with Mrs. Dave. With my dad's permission he lead me up to the rooms where the wedding party was getting ready. Mrs. Dave was helping put the finishing touches on the bride's mother's outfit. It was really surprising and great for both of us. She was my favorite teacher at school and is very, very cool. I spent the rest of the evening with Mrs. Dave and her niece (on her husband's side). Mrs. Dave was sort of in charge of a lot of the bride's affair since she was the bride's "cousin-sister," the closest thing she had to a sister. While we were waiting for the bride to arrive at the reception we chatted and I was introduced to all of the bride's friends. Niki, the bride, had a close group of friends when she was in engineering school in Indore. The group consisted of about 10 engineers, only two others were girls, who had all since moved to different parts of the country. This was the first time in a while that they's all had a chance to get back together and you could tell that they were having a lot of fun, plus Niki is the first in their group to get married. I also learned that Mrs. Dave had resigned from school and now plans on being her husband's assistant. Mr. Dave is an astrologer which is a much bigger profession in India than it is in America. Astrology is very important to how you live your life.

    The bride arrived to the reception under a canopy held up by her close friends and family. While waiting for the groom's party to arrive on horse back there was a lot of dancing and joking around with the bride. Mrs. Dave had once told me that she loved to dance and I could tell. She also made me dance with her and the bride's friends. It was a lot of fun. Even if I hadn't danced I couldn't help but have fun watching everyone else dance because they clearly were having a great time. 

The bride with her father and uncle under the canopy that she arrived to the reception under. Her mother is behind her father holding the canopy up. 

My class teacher from Progressive, Mrs. Pragya Dave,  dancing with the bride's friends waiting for the the groom's party to arrive.

     When the groom's party arrived instead of stopping dancing they just included the groom's mother in their circle. Pretty soon the entryway was blocked with people dancing from both sides. After a while is calmed down enough to allow the groom to actually enter. There were traditional welcomes for him and his family. During this point we went to sit down in front of the stage because all of our feet were beginning to ache. On the stage where the bride and groom would sit in a little bit there was a group of little kids playing. It reminded me of almost every wedding like function I've ever attended. The kids all seems to get along without really knowing each other and loud, potentially dangerous games usually insure. In this case, there were several times that I thought that the large light set on precarious poles were going to come tumbling down. Of course as the evening progressed the games ended in tears. One of the boys was Mrs. Dave's son, he's 7 and acted exactly like you'd expect and overly tired, energetic 7 year-old boy to act like.
     Some of the elders started to get impatient because the wedding couple took a very long time getting to the stage because the kept stopping to dance with their friends. Before I go one I should stop and say that this was a love marriage in comparison to the arranged one I saw earlier. The bride is from Indore  (so most of the her side was also from Indore) and works with the groom. He proposed to her and her way of saying yes was to tell him to propose to her father. Luckily they are of the same caste so everything worked out well.

The wedding party making their way to the stage.

    When the party finally reached the stage the bride's friends wouldn't let them sit down on the couch so they had to remain standing. When the time came for them to place flower garlands around each other's neck the groom's friends picked him up and put him on their shoulders forcing the bride's side to do the same so that they could be at the same height. It was all very entertaining to watch especially when the groom was dropped right as the bride was about to place his garland around his neck. She was carefully put down to finish the exchange.

The bride and groom trying to exchange flower garlands on their friend's shoulders.

     After going on stage to give our congratulations and pose for a picture we went to eat. As I was eating my dad came over and told me not to waste my time eating real food when there was such and amazing spread of sweets. I don't really like Indian sweets. However, when I cam back from getting more food dad had brought me a plate full of one of each sweet to try. So I did. Some were very good while others I could barely swallow. It was however, a very filling dinner. By the time was had all finished dinner, dessert, after dessert ice cream and were sipping on soda the wedding party still hadn't eaten. The bride, groom, friends, and coworkers were all still on stage posing for pictures with each other. We sat around chatting with various people waiting for the main party to eat. Once they had finished we all went up to the rooms in the hotel that had been set aside for changing and preparations so that the people who needed to could change out of the obscenely heavy clothing into something more comfortable for the ceremony.
     I got to help the bride change out of her lehenga into a simpler sari. The wedding lehenga was extremely heavy and big and the bride was a very petit girl. I don't know how she managed to wear it for so long, not to mention all the jewelry she had on. At one point she turned to me and joked about Indian weddings saying that didn't is seem silly that one girl needed 5 others to help her undress. Despite the relatively quick change, considering the amount of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and hair that needed to be dealt with, many relatives started to get impatient. The bride's father, uncle, brothers, and friends frequently knocked on the door asking what was taking so long and harassing the bride and her "attendants" in a good natured way. Finally, around 3 in the morning the ceremony started. Many of the relatives had fallen asleep in one of the other rooms at this point. Some were woken up, others were left in peace.
     As per tradition, the brides brothers were allowed to try to steal the groom's shoes during the ceremony and hide them until he paid them off afterwards. Everyone removes their shoes before sitting down on the mattresses around the canopy. Traditionally, only the bride's brothers can do this in this case her close guy friends were considered brothers as well. Unfortunately for them the groom's family didn't make is easy. At one point, the boys sent Mrs. Dave's son to try to steal them. He got the wrong shoes...

The wedding ceremony (unfortunately the wedding photographer had a really bright light on his camera). I was sitting behind the bride with Mrs. Dave who sat directly behind her to assist if needed.

Mrs. Dave and her husband gave me a ride back to the hotel after because my dad had left earlier to go to bed. It was early morning by the time I got to bed and I had to get up at 6:30 to drive home the next day. Luckily I had a long drive to catch up on sleep on the way home.

Good Friday

     All the schools had holidays today. I didn't realize that today was Good Friday or that Sunday is Easter until halfway through today when I made the connection. It's seems funny that in a city and country of so few Christians there should be a school holiday for something like Good Friday. Here, any religious holiday warrants a break from school whereas in America there is such separation of church and state that no school holidays are supposed to be based around religious ones.
    Even though there was no school today my school friends had an extra class at the junior school right by my house. I went over there right at the end to say hi to some people I hadn't seen since school ended. We chatted for a little bit until they all got picked up. Some of my friends are heading over to the USA on the 30th for two weeks with a group from the school. They'll be in Texas and Florida. We talked about their trip America for a little bit. I'm curious to hear what they think of it and will have to meet with them when they get home to see.
     Other than that I don't have much to write about. I'll away for the whole weekend at the wedding with my host dad. We leave tomorrow (Saturday) morning and we'll get back either Sunday night or Monday morning. 

Potential Mehendi Classes and Wedding Plans

     This morning I met with Hannah, Reba and a friend of Reba's at the friends house. Reba's friend is also a Rotarian and was once the owner or the first beauty salon in Indore. Now she has a room off of the side of her house where she cuts hair as more of a hobby than anything. Uma, the friend of Reba's had arranged for us to meet with a girl who can teach us mehendi, the art of applying henna paste. We had a short lesson today and are going to work out later timings once the session of cooking classes ends. Mehendi is a lot harder than it looks. We were just drawing on paper and even then it was difficult to make the designs and shapes look like the teacher's. After class we spent some time chatting before walking back to Hannah's house to eat lunch and the walk over to cooking class. Today we learned different kinds of dals (also spelled daal). After class we went back to Hannah's and spent the afternoon fooling around.
     This weekend I might be attending a wedding with my host father outside of the city. My mom couldn't get leave from her job and my sister has exams starting tomorrow. The family who's getting married is very close to mine so at least one member of ours needs to attend but to be polite my mom wants to send at least half of the family which would be my dad and I. 

     I'm running out of ideas of things to write about now that I'm done posting on the tour and I have a basic day to day routine that doesn't change much. Today, for example all I did was stay at home with my family since it's a Sunday. I did some small things that I've been meaning to get done but for most of the day ti was too hot in the house to do much. It was a lazy day for all of us because of the heat there was a lot of napping and lying around going on. I did start a new book called "The Twentieth Wife" by Indu Sundaresan which Amanda recommended to me. It's about the Mogul Empire and focuses on Emperor Akbar and his oldest son Salim (later Emperor Jahangir), the third and forth emperors of the Mogul Empire. Half of the book also focuses on Mehrunnisa, the daughter of a member of Akbar's court who is also a Persian refugee and her relationship with the court and Prince Salim.
     I feel like I haven't been reading as much this year as I usually do but when I think about it I spent a lot of time in the school library during my free times reading when I didn't have studying to do during study halls. At school most of the books I read were re-reads but some of the books I've read for the first time are:
-Pride and Prejudice (I liked it better than I thought I was going to)
- Great Gatsby
- My Sister's Keeper (I've been meaning to read it for a long time)
-Raising My Voice  by Malalai Joya (She was the most outspoken member of the Afghan parliament until she was forced to leave, she's run a school for girls under the Taliban. Her book isn't really about her life and achievements as it is about exposing what western countries esp. America have done to Afghanistan and its people.)
-The Kept Woman and Other Short Stories by Kamala Das
- Room by Emma Donoghue (I was up past 3 am the other night finishing this one. I highly recommend checking it out.)
-The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (and the two other books in the trilogy)
-I even read the Eragon series at school as well as Inkheats
-The Picture of Dorian Gray
-The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
And many others that were repeats during school... like all the Harry Potters, The Thief Lord, Song of the Dolphins, Twelfth Night, all of the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.

If you have any ideas for blog topics or questions about India, my life here, my exchange, ect. write a comment or send me and email.

Some people (Mom) have told me I don't put enough pictures of me on the blog so here are a series of pictures of me (a totally random selection) in absolutely no order what so ever that other people have taken. I wanted to title this blog post "Kelsey in India" but these pictures are of me in India with a group of other foreigners, in mostly tourist destinations thus, it's not really me in India in the way that I am most of the time. If I had them I would have pictures of me in cooking class, at the gurdwara, at home eating dinner or watching TV with my family, in my room with my sister, at the mall with friends, or in an auto rickshaw going somewhere.

Day 1 of the tour in Jaipur in front of our bus, this was our first set of group pictures.

In front of Amber Fort in Jaipur ( I'm pretty sure)

Kelsey and Nisha. There are many, many pictures in which at least one of us is making a face. A large percentage of my pictures are not normal, happy, smiling pictures.

Olivia's birthday dinner in Calcutta.

At the winter recreational base in Manali.

Long hours on the bus and early mornings and late nights meant that we had to be good at sleeping on buses (not an easy thing to do). People had to get comfortable however possible (notice the foot by Amanda's head)

Waiting for the bus in Jaipur Jordan took my camera and took really bad pictures of people this is us laughing at them.

Not my favorite picture of me. Nisha and I waiting outside of the Golden Temple.

"The Indore Kids"

I was the first one to climb on boulders up in the mountains near Gangtok when we were by the China border.

The group by the lake by the China border.

Wasting time in Agra Fort just before the monkey's attacked....

The group in Agra Fort.

A Holy Day

     Today marks the beginning of the solar new year. It's a very important day for Sikhism just as the past week has been important for Hinduism. Today also is the anniversary of my host father's mom's death.
     The whole family got up this morning and went to the gurdwara. We spent all morning there along with extended family. After we'd been there a little my cousin Jahanvi and I spent a little time walking around and talking until her mom told us to go sit inside if we weren't doing anything. My family's gurdwara is in a residential area near to our house. The temple is across from a park and then a few houses down is the langar house where food is prepared and served for free to all people everyone, regardless of caste, race, religion etc. site on the floor in rows however, only members of the Sikh community are supposed to be allowed to eat off of clean plates. The food is cooked on the idea of seva, selfless service. All Sikhs are supposed to preform some form of seva, preferably to help the religion. Cooking and serving food is one form of seva, another is Chaur. The Sikh holy book is treated as a guru because it has the writings of both Sikh gurus and holy texts form other religions inside. Chaur sahib is an implement made of yak hair mounted on a metal or wooden handle that is used to cool and keep flies off of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (the holy book.) Sometimes there are certain appointed people who preform this seva. In the gurdwara we went to it was voluntary. Because my all of my host dad's local family members were in attendance they all took turns preforming the service. My host mom had me do it as well at one point during the service. You stand behind the Sri Guru Granth Sahib and wave the Chaur Sahib over it. The book is set on a platform in with a canopy over it and an offering area in front of it where people can leave money, flowers, and prasad (food of the gods). The book is taken care of, clothed in new coverings when not in use, and fanned each day.
     This was the first time that I had attended a full sermon at the gurdwara. It started around 10:30, about an hour and a half after we'd been there. The sermons are given through chanting from the book or singing. During the service people continued entering. When you enter you go to the platform where the book is held and bow to it touching your head to to the floor, offer money, and may take a round behind the platform to where there are other holy items. When inside the gurdwara premises you must always keep your head covered. Once you have paid respects to the book everyone sits on the floor, men on one side and women on the other, for the sermon. My cousin Prenisha, who's in 6th grade, sang a song with her mom as back up.
    After the sermon, at around 11:30, almost everyone went to the langar house where a meal was being served. I helped my mom serve for a little bit along with some host aunts, cousins, and my sister. After we'd all eaten and been served to in turn we headed home.
     I had just enough time to go home and grabbed my bag for cooking class before I had to head out the door again. On my way to the main road where I catch on auto rickshaw I ran into a school friend of mine who I hadn't seen since school ended outside of the junior school. I didn't have time to chat but we exchanged numbers and she told me that they have extra accounts classes at the junior school sometimes and that next time they did she'd call me so I could come over after.
     Today during cooking class we learned rice dishes such a biryani and some basic rices too. Yesterday we learned "continental" dishes which are considered to be western. We did baked vegetables, stuffed tomatos, and potato pie. They were all something you could find in the US but with definite Indian touches.

Sikhism's Official Website

Chaur Sahib

These pictures are not ones I took but ones I got off the internet. Sometimes I don't feel right bringing a camera to holy places and taking pictures.

The main gurdwara in Indore (not the one my family attends)

The Guru Granth Sahib.

One of the main Sikh symbols (it can be found on their flag)

The Guru Granth Sahib with its coverings.

Cooking and Feeding

     Yesterday I had my first Indian cooking class as part of a two week session. The class is taught in Hindi and there are about six girls in it, most of whom are going to get married within the next year or so or just got married. It's held in the side room of an aunty's apartment where she has a counter, shelves, and fridge set up. It's much like a cooking show with her behind the counter and us sitting in chair in front taking notes and asking questions. I wish I could find a class where each person actually get to make the dish on their own as practice but apparently that kind of cooking class can't be found here. It's sort of like the school teaching style, the teacher stands in front and the students sit and take notes as quickly as they can. This class was a lot more relaxed than the school atmosphere, people made jokes, chatted, and answered their phones during it. Luckily, my Hindi is good enough that I can understand most of the instructions though there are two girls who speak English well and answer questions is I have them. There are some ingredients that were not in my vocabulary yet and certain measurements too. There are also some ingredients that I'm going to have a hard time finding at home like mango powder, chat masala, garam masala, mawa, gram flour, etc. Yesterday's focus was Palak or spinach. We made Palak Paneer, Palak Kofta, Reshmi Palak, and Maharani (Queen's) Palak, all very very tasty.
    
     Today there was no class because it's the final day of the nine night festival, Navratri. There are multiple Navratris in the calendar year and mark the religious New Year. During this festival my host mother and aunt fasted, eating only certain, special foods. This morning my mom cooked large amount of rice, chickpeas, poori, and halwa. All the young girls no matter, social status, from the area came to our house to eat. During these days the girls seen as having gods within. We washed their feet and said "Jai Mata Di," a salute to gods, placed tilaks (the red or orange marks put on foreheads with powder), tied holy string around their wrists and said a prayer. Then we served them all as they sat in the floor or couches. After the meal each kid received 10 rupees and a small gift. In total there were about 24 children who came this morning. The poorer children, took their leftovers home to eat later or give to their parents. It was clear to see the difference between the classes of children, the ones who left a lot of food on their plates were obviously the ones who get three or more large meals a day. After they had left we ate and served family members and friends who came. A very similar thing happened downstairs at my aunt and uncle's yesterday morning. Apparently a few years back there were many, many more young girls in the area but now they're all getting older so there are less and less children to feed. I spent the rest of the day hanging out with my cousin downstairs.

Desert Pictures

These are a few of the pictures taken by other people when we were in the Thar desert just outside of Jaisalmer. 

Photo Credit: RK (the tour guide)

Jumping pictures are our specialty. We took them everywhere we could find a good place to do it. Almost all the jumping pictures are on Hannah's camera. (Photo Credit: RK)

Me on my camel. (Photo Credit: RK)

The Group. Photo Credit: RK

The Group in front of "R.Y.E." (Rotary Youth Exchange) written in the sand. Unfortunately RK's shadow is in the picture too. (From Left to Right: Sam, Nisha, Jordan, Me, Amanda, Serenity, Anais, Hannah, Nikolas, Chris, Brii, Franzi)

Another Jumping Picture. Notice the crutches, Franzi spent almost all of the tour hobbling around on crutches. She went everywhere we did no matter if we were on sand or going up hundreds of stairs and refused help most of the time. A group of the Nagpur studenst were in an auto rickshaw on their way to one of the World Cup Cricket matches in their city when it was hit by another car. They all got hurt but she got the worst of it because she was sitting on someone's lap instead of a seat.

Photo Credit: Nisha Khan

North Tour Part Twelve; The Last Post

     Our final stop was Hawra, the city adjacent to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). From Gangtok we drove back down to the same train station we'd arrived at and headed for Hawra overnight. In Hawra we spent the day sight seeing and exploring the main shopping road. At night we went out to celebrate Olivia's 17th birthday which was the next day. We sang for her and gave her a cake at midnight. The next day was sweltering hot and we were supposed to drive hours to visit temple. Instead, we visited only one temple and the Mother Theresa House. Mother Theresa's house was very simple and plain. We visited her tomb and an exhibition on her life. It was truly inspiring to see what one woman had done with her life and at her tomb to see all the people who love her and had left prayers and notes. The top of her tomb was decorated with paper cranes and messages of prayers for Japan. 

     We went out to dinner to celebrate our last night together then spent along time in the hotel until 3 in the morning when we had to go to the train station (at least 8 hours later than scheduled). 

Sam on the train.

These pictures are to give a better idea of what the trains look like. There's an aisle with two bunks on one side (where Sam's sitting) and on the other side of the aisle there's a compartment with six beds (three on each side). The bottom bunk is a seat during the day. The middle bunk folds down to make a back for the seat and at night is held up by chains that loop up on the top bunk during the day.

Olivia on her birthday in the hotel lobby.

North Tour Part Eleven; Gangtok (continued)

     After the Holi celebration we had free time for the rest of the day. A group of us went back to the market in the evening for dinner and found a real Mexican restaurant (well, more like American-Mexican food) that also had wifi. After dinner we walked around for a little bit and happened on a large group of people at the far end of the market holding a candlelit prayer session for Japan which we joined. 

     The next day drove for hours way up into the mountains to the northern most point allowed of foreigners. We were 50 kilometers from the Chinese border and passed several military settlements and stations along the narrow, winding road. There is a lake and little cafe that marked the limit to where foreigners could venture. We walked around on a path by the lake and climbed on boulders that had probably been left by glaciers or rock slides. We took a lot of group photos which are all on someone else's camera. By the way, I plan on getting the majority of the pictures that were taken on the tour and putting them on my laptop and when I do I'll put some favorites here. 

If I were to make a single, one hundred percent factual statement about Amanda it would be that she's an animal lover (except spiders and bugs but i don't think those count as animals).

We crossed a bridged that had prayer wheels on either side. Prayer wheels are a Buddhist concept, they are hollow cylinders with mantras or prayer on the outside and often on paper on the inside. When a prayer wheel is spun in a clockwise direction the prayers on it are released into the universe and the spinner's sins are lessened. This is looking back on the road we came up and one of the military stations.

Franzi (Germany)

Me and Amanda.

Looking towards the lake, and China. Prayer flags (not pictured) are pieces of cloth, either in white or in the five sacred colors of Buddhism, with mantras written on them that are hung outside. Whenever the wind blows a prayer flag, like a prayer wheel, is releases the mantras and good energies into the universe. 

Weather

For those interested, this is the current weather forecast for my city: Weather for Indore, Madhya Pradesh

91°F | °C Thu Fri Sat Sun Current: Partly Cloudy Wind: SE at 16 mph Humidity: 24% 97°F | 68°F 97°F | 70°F 99°F | 70°F 100°F | 72°F

North Tour Part Ten; Derjeeling and Gangtok (Holi)

     From Bodhgaya we took a long, hot, bumpy car ride to the train station in Patna where we boarded a train for New Jalpaigudi, it was about a 12 hour train ride, luckily we were in the air conditioned class this time. Upon arriving, we immediately got into jeeps and drove more that six hours up into the mountains to the city of Darjeeling. Our first stop in Darjeeling was the Himalayan Institute which included an mountaineering museum, with one floor dedicated to Mt. Everest, and a zoo of local species.  From there we proceeded to our hotel in the city. 

     We had plenty of time to explore and shop for Darjeeling's famous tea before dinner. Just as we were leaving our rooms, a few of us were invited up into the home of the owners. The woman whose family owned the hotel happened to be passing as Hannah, Franzi, Amanda, and I were leaving our rooms and invited us up. The family is Tibetan refugees. She showed us their ornate and beautiful prayer room that you could tell had been constructed and decorate with great love and care. In the entire house for the extended family two floors at the top of the hotel and everything, every inch was beautiful. As we sat eating Tibetan cookies, she told us her family's story. Her family left Tibet with a group of 30 people and arrived in India with only 13. After they had lived elsewhere for a while and earned some money, they moved to Darjeeling and bought the property on a loan. The hotel started with six rooms and only two staff, with the family working from 4 in the morning until as late as 2 in the morning doing most of the work. They now have 5 floors of rooms, a library and siting area, restaurant, gift shop, and 23 working staff. The hotel is highly recommended for its service and food by the Lonely Planet guide book of India. They are also the only family to have paid off both the loan and interest on time. Because of this they were invited to tea with the president of the bank. Plus her husband is a Rotarian. Throughout the whole visit we were all totally in awe, it's an inspiring story and makes you realize not only what hard work can bring but also how hard some people have to work in order to earn things. The amazing thing too was that she wasn't bragging or even proud. In fact we had to continue to ask questions in order to get the whole story and many times she was reluctant to compliment herself and her family. However, we were reminded more than once that it all came from hard work and told that the Tibetan Buddhist people are very hard workers. We also discussed why so many countries around the world support and sympathize with Tibet.

     The next morning, we got up painfully early to see the sunrise over Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. Unfortunately, it was an extremely foggy morning so all we got was the view of clouds surrounding us and free chai. One the way back to the hotel, we stopped at several Buddhist temples and a few cloudy view points. After breakfast we proceeded to pack up the cars and head on another six hour journey to Gangtok.

     Gangtok is in the state of Sikkim. Because Sikkim is on the Chinese border we, as foreigners, needed special permission to enter. As soon as we crossed the border we had to stop to register and get our passports stamped before we could proceed to Gangtok. The first day we were in Gangtok was the Hindu festival of Holi, the festival of colors. We all put on white clothes and clothes we didn't care about, oiled our face and hair to avoid long-lasting stains, braided our hair, and headed out armed with colored power. Holi is a festival I personally think that we should celebrate in the states. Everyone who's playing goes out with powder and water and rubs and throws the powder at other people. A greeting on Holi consists of saying "Happy Holi" while rubbing powder on the other persons face. When we were in the Gangtok market the little kids were very excited to get the chance to play with willing foreigners. As a group, we were sure to give other foreigners we met and especially warm wishing. We met another group of high school aged students from Tennessee. We were each given a bag of powder at the beginning of the morning but very quickly people found that they needed to buy more. The celebrations were winding down by midday when we went back to the hotel and very, very, VERY carefully changed and bathed. The problem with Holi powder is that is stains skin, clothes, anything made of fabric, etc so we had to try really hard not to get it on the hotel's towels or sheets. At one point when I was showering, I looked in the mirror and my face looked like I was a member of the Blue Man Group, the soap had spread the coloring around on my face and the blue was strongest color. It took me five face washes to be presentably clean. I used exfoliating scrub three times and another face wash twice. By the time I was done my face felt raw and my eyebrows and hairline were colorful. I also looked like I had a black left eye. In some places the color was visibly in my pores. I good amount of make-up covered most of the coloring, enough so that I felt like I could go out to look for a wireless cafe with some friends.

Franzi from Germany (she couldn't really see but she wanted to leave the glasses colored for pictures)

Sitting in front of the hotel to take pictures.

Olivia's form Michigan but her family has moved to Switzerland while she's been in India.

Sam form Virginia.

Jordan (Oregon) and Hannah (Germany).

Amanda (Washington)

The whole group. From left to right: Chris Yoder, Nikolas, Anais, Serenity, Olivia, Sam, Me, Nisha, Brii, Jordan, Hannah, Amanda, Franzi.

Me... I kept the shirt and plan on bringing it home as a souvenir.

Anais.