Dancing Fever!

I love dancing! We’re out until after 11 every night and it’s going to keep getting later every night as the festival progresses. All the late nights make for some difficult school mornings but it’s totally worth it! Tonight will be the fourth night of Diwali. 

Each night, we’ve dressed up and saris or lehenga, lots of jewelry, and do our hair. I wear borrowed clothes from my host family. Unfortunately, I have to wear the same top every night because it’s the only one of theirs that fits my chest. Indian women, in general tend to be smaller busted.

A little after 8:30, the ceremony opens with chanting, singing and prayers in front of the idol and shrine set up on a little stage. The actual praying starts hours before the dancing, we can hear it amplified on speakers from our house. 
To open the ceremony, everyone takes turns doing pooja which is taking this plate of candles, incense, and other things and moving it in a circle in front of the idol (I feel like I’m not explaining it well, it’s difficult without the correct terms). Then, after announcements we dance. 
People of all ages come to watch and participate. 

Each night we do several of the choreographed dances. There is also best dancer of the night and best dresser contests. Last night, I won the best dancer award. I think, mostly because I’m a foreigner and they are really excited to have someone who wants to learn the traditional dances from them, and they were just being nice. Some little kids also do pop dances as solos or in pairs that they have put together themselves. They’re pretty good and really fun to watch. 

Saturday was my friend’s birthday. She’s one of the best dancers in the group and is also has assisted in teaching and putting together all the dances we do. She was really dressed up and preformed an incredible solo dance. Some of the older women waved money over her head as a blessing. One of them was this one really old woman who comes to every practice and night, she’s really sweet. She danced a little with the birthday girl. On birthdays, it’s customary to shake hands with the person whose birthday it is rather than give them a hug or something (I’ve noticed that hugging is not as common as at home.) Shaking hand is very common, usually as a congratulations. 

My favorite part of the night always comes at the very end when we have open garba and everyone dances in smaller groups and comes up with steps as they go. My friends help me follow their moves. It’s difficult because I’ve never even really seen some of these dances while these girls have grown up watching and dancing them. It's still a lot of fun, even though we're all very tired by the end of the night, the energy is very high. Last night, some of the boys (mostly middle school aged) decided to copy the girls moves, during open garba (it was very entertaining.) 
This festival has been beneficial in so many ways for me. Not only have a learned some traditional dances, but it's all been in Hindi which was helped my language comprehension a lot (many of the women don't speak much English either), I have gotten to know the women and other girls in the neighborhood and made some friends. Plus, it's lots of fun and I always sleep well at night!

      Anyone who even slightly enjoys dancing would love this festival, I wish it lasted longer than just nine days!

HAPPY NAVARATRI!

Today (Friday) is the first day of Navaratri, which means "nine day festival" which is exactly what it is. During the next nine days we will go to the dance area set up in the middle of the colony dressed up in traditional clothing and dance at 8 o’clock until sometime around 11. Tonight, all the dancers are wearing red sarees. I have a borrowed one from my host family. My host mother helped me put it on. There is lots of wrapping and folding and pinning involved. I’m also wearing some very nice looking faux jewels and red and gold bangles. 

Hopefully I’ll be able to do all the dances but on Wednesday, during basketball, I twisted my ankle really badly. I have weak ankles so it’s not that big of a deal for me but everyone else was really worried. My mom made me stay home from school yesterday because she didn’t want me hobbling around the school. That also means, of course that I had to miss dance practice yesterday and the day before. I also couldn’t go to a friend’s birthday party on Wednesday. 

Back to Diwali... during the festival the house is also cleaned and decorative oil lamps are put out to lead Rama home. I don’t know every detail of the traditions and I think many of them are no longer followed in today’s modern society. But I have noticed that, as according to tradition, firecrackers are a very important and popular part of the festival. At some point, it is traditional for brothers to go visit their sisters and follow some kind of ceremony there. I have heard that giving out sweets are is also very popular. I read too that Diwali is often that start of a new financial year for businesses. My last host mother told me that the time to go shopping is always during festivals because that’s when people have their sales. 

I will try to take many pictures tonight and in the following days.

My host sister, Shruti, and I ready for dancing! 

Posing to show off our saris. The color theme was red.

Movies Create Stereotypes

Just had my first day back at school after a four day weekend...
The four day weekend was unexpected but a nice surprise. Schools and other public places all over the state were closed on Thursday because of a decision the court was making. It was a precautionary measure in order to keep peace between religions. Nothing happened at all but people were mostly out of the streets by 2 and it was an unusually quiet night. There's been a dispute of a place where a mosque is built. It is also the supposed birth place of a Hindu god. Thousands of years ago there was a Hindu temple there at one point it was replaced with a mosque by Muslim invaders. For an extremely long time, the Islamic population had been worshiping there. Hindu's have been demanding that they be able to put a temple there now as it's maybe the birth place of a god and they were there first. The court decided on Thursday who the land belonged to and who could worship there. The decision was supposed to be made a week previously but the decision was postponed to this past week. Saturday was also the holiday celebrating Gandhi so there was no school then.
I've been reading the international page in the paper everyday to see what is said about the US and other countries. Almost articles directly about the US are from the Washington Post. There was one the other day though from Islamabad reporting on American interaction there. It's also interesting to see what is reported on, which of the Washington Post's articles are used. I have a feeling that they use any international article they can that involves India. Right now though, the news is mostly filled up with the Commonwealth Games which are taking place here. It's a really big deal and most of every section of the paper has something about them.
Saturday night my host father took my host mother and I to the movies. We saw Anjaana Anjaani which was about a man and a woman living in New York City during the stock market crash. The movie starts with them meeting as they both attempt to commit suicide (the man had worked for an insurance agency). The rest of their movie is their adventures together. They also travel to San Francisco and Las Vegas. Though the duo is Indian and the movie has in Hindi it was easy to tell where the Indian idea of Americans come from (the other day when show my friend, Hannah, and I a VERY small and backless top that's meant to be worm over another shirt my host mom said, "But in America they were stuff like this without anything under it all the time" I laughed and explained that, no we don't actually dress like that her response was that everyone thinks that's the way Americans dress though). From the red necks to the club goers the movie had many extreme stereo types of America. According to the movie, we wear skimpy clothes, party a lot, have very little family values, and can be very crude. Very much like the Hollywood depiction of Americans actually. It was cool to watch the movie and say "I've been there!" when looking at the Golden Gate and all the buildings in Vegas. It was a very fun movie but I don't think my host father was too impresses. My host sister liked it though.
On the way home my host father said, "That's not what the US is like at all is it?" and we had discussion about the Indian perceptions on America but the truths in the movie as well. For example, it's not that we don't have family values it's just that we express them in a different way than the people here. For example, when we get married or leave home for school and work we don't stay as close to home as possible.
It was really interesting to see the Indian version of NYC though.

Dancing

Today is the fourth day that Shruti (my host sister), Lata (my host mom), and I will go to dance practice in in the center of the colony we live in. The dace is a Garba dance for women that we are going to dance for an up coming festival. We dance in a circle, the steps remind me of western folk dance. Each step is punctuated with clapping sticks together. We learned the step initially using our hands and but after the first practice, we each have two sticks that are about a foot long and can easily be held in our hands. I'm very excited for when we actually preform the dance because I get to wear a traditional Indian costume!
I want to film one of the practices, or better, the actual dance.

The lighting was really hard for my camera to deal with so I only got a few pictures actually worth keeping and even most of those were not very good.
This dance is one only for the teenage girls as the steps involve more jumping and bending than the older women are capable of. 

This dance is done with "diya" (I can spell it in Hindi but not English) which are small clay oil candles that are lit during Diwali. We do not actually do the dance with lit ones although it would be very cool the oil and flames could spill too easily. The teenagers and girls are in the middle. 

I've had school for the past two days, but very little classes because lots of people are still doing follow up things for the exams. Yesterday, I had only one class all day and that was first thing in the morning. Today was a little better, I had a good bit of free time though.
The Indian school system is very intense! Yesterday, the other kids in my class got back their English Literature exams yesterday and the highest grade was and 80, which is really good! The exams was a collection of questions from throughout the semester that the students had all already been given the answers to. The exam was to answer the given questions word for word as they had been answered before. They also had to write an essay that the English teacher had previously dictated to the class, again word for word. It's not really my kind of leaning system. No one here dictates to learning styles. There is no learning how to learn things, just lots of memorization. It's very much a different kind of learning system!

Bhopal

I spent the last week in the capital city of M.P., Bhopal.

I wish I could have stayed there for the rest of the year! It seemed much nicer than Indore. The city felt cleaner, and had more greenery, there was less chaos. Overall, Bhopal was a beautiful city. 

All six of the exchange students were hosted my Amanda's host parents. Amanda's family is Sikh, there were two kids, a boy of 11(Karan) and a girl of 7 (Jeannie). The parent Johnny and Minnie were really cool, especially Minnie who Amanda considers like an older sister. 

The three girls shared Amanda's room and the boys got to stay in a guest house. 

We did so much in a week that I can't keep the days straight!

The bus ride from Indore to Bhopal takes a little less than three hours, just enough time to sleep well, if you're not looking at the scenery. 

We went to the movies, out to dinner with the family, and just with the exchange students. We went to two Rotary meetings that revolved around food of course. One of the Rotary clubs also took us out to lunch one day. Another invited to visit a local school. At the school we attended an assembly that was unlike any I've ever seen, the students did exercises, stood at attention, and at ease, saluted, sang the national anthem all on the command of an 11th grader with a microphone. Then they sat and selected students read the news, poems, and sang songs. Then, for our benefit, there was a dance and we got up on stage and asked questions. After a breakfast put on by the school, we went with 4 of the 11th graders to some of the local sites. We started with an ancient temple that was constructed in one night. Next we walked to a Jain temple, and from there we went to ancient caves where people had done cave drawings. We also white people for the first time! There was a group of Russian tourists at the place where we stopped for lunch. 

Bhopal is known as the city of lakes, there are two big lakes in the city. One evening we went on a boat ride to an island for the sunset. It was really beautiful.

During the week we also visited the zoo, and history of man in Indore museum/ park, and an other historical museum. 

We stayed up late talking a lot and joking around. I like all of the exchange students but it was really nice to have another American girl around. The three Americans have what you could call an American sense of humor, and we get some of the same inside jokes. 

We also did a lot of shopping. Friday, there was supposed to be a curfew because of a court decision that was supposed to be made that was predicted to cause turmoil. The court's only decision though was to post pone the decision for seven more years. It was nice though, because we had planned on spending the morning shopping but instead we got to spend the whole day! The boys got bored really quickly but I had lots of fun. We went to two of the main markets in Bhopal. We started with Old City Market which is a typical old market with all the vendors and little shops with bargaining and a totally maze of streets. It's a good thing we had Minnie with us to lead the way and fix the prices. We bought fabric from one vendor, leggings from another, shoes, scarves, and jewelry were all from separate shops. We also went to New Market to get the scarves. Our final stop was a boutique to get measured and fit for our Kurtis. They were done by Saturday when we left!
There were some places in Bhopal that reminded me to the Kite Runner because the sky was filled with kite and we passed tons of shops selling them! At one of the Rotary meetings the was a balcony that looked out on an area where there was hundreds of kites we watched as two boys chased one of the fallen kites down.
There was so much that I'm sure in a little bit I'll think of something else to add...
As much as I liked Bhopal I also enjoy being back in Indore in my own family and home.

The pictures below are very much not in order! (sorry)

A statue of Buddha whose face was carved off by invaders.

Part of the old Buddhist monastery (imagine living in one of those tiny, plain rooms!) Next to it is an old man made pond.

A gate way to one of the stupas at the Buddhist temple. 

Sunset on the lake.

The cave where we saw the cave drawings.

Many of the cave drawing looked very similar to the ones you see in the US except the depicted different animals, like this elephant for example.

Sunset on the lake.

The Jain temple.

This temple was built in one night thousands of years ago on the request of a king. We said they had to stop building no matter where they were and the temple has remained that way for centuries.

A white tiger at the zoo.

Amanda looking out the window of a traditional Rajasthani hut.

A typical Rajasthani house.