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