More Pictures...

These are pictures from my previous host family (the Singhi family). I was sorry to have to leave yesterday but they say they would like to have me back when their guests are gone and the girls are finished with exams.

The Singhi house.

The Singhi House (our room was through the door behind the sign on the balcony).

View #1 from the roof terrace.

View #2.

Nimisha on the terrace.

View #3.

View #4 (it was a little rainy)

Rainbows in the clouds.

View #5.

View #6 (see the rainbow...)

Nikita Singhi.

Nikita doing homework.

Aalok and Nimisha Singhi.

The Singhi family, from left: Aalok, Nimisha (in front), Sumita, Daddi-ji (I don't know her real name but "daddi" is your paternal grandmother), Dadda-ji (the same goes for him and "dadda"), Nikita.

The family.

Me and the family (minus Aalok).

I had no school today as it was a Muslim holiday and there is no school tomorrow as it is the start of a Hindu festival that last about 10 days.

Monsoon Season

It's finally starting to feel like monsoon season here. Before, every now and then there was a light rain or maybe a short downpour. Now though, it's been raining for nearly 4 days straight. Not just light sprinkles either. At night especially, there is some serious thunder and lightning sometimes. The road in front of my house is now a lake.  It's knee deep in some places and goes from the house to the end of the road where it meets the main road. In the mornings Sumita has had to drive me around two blocks to the bus stop, instead of my just walking.
There are women who work at our school as messengers between the teachers and between the prinicpal and teachers. They also serve the principal. Yesterday morning they met all the cars with umbrellas and escourted the kids in so they didn't get too wet.
I enjoy the rain. It sort of cools things off and in general, I think the rain is fun. Sometimes Nimisha and I go up and play tag on the roof during a really good downpour. The downside though, is that now, when the rain stops and the sun comes out, the air is very damp and heavy.
The rain also affects the power. For the first few days I was here the power went out a couple times for a few mintues. Yesterday and today, it went out for longer periods of time at school. In the US it's kind of fun when the power goes out but here, the fans don't work and the air gets very stuffy in the classrooms. Yesterday, during daily assembly they used car batteries to power the microphones.
Tuesday, the exchange students got together and watched a movie at Nikolas's house. We watch a VERY popular movie here called The Three Idiots. It was really good and I want to take a copy home.
I also left my host family today as they are having guests arrive tomorrow and the girls are going to give up their room to sleep with the parents.  This would leave me with nowhere to sleep. I was going to move to a new host family right away, but instead I'm spending the weekend at Ritu's (Ritu is the exchange student coordinator). Hannah from Germany is living here right now. Tonight, we all went out to dinner at a very nice restraunt.

Hannah in one of her kurtis (sorry it's sideways) at dinner.

Trying to get a picture of my kurti (I'm not very good at getting pictures of myself). The pictures that I had others take didn't turn out well.

Ritu Grover, (left) the exchange student coordinator, and Reba Majumdar, (right) the exchange student counselor, at dinner.

This is going to be really quick (whatever I can do in 8 minutes) but I wanted to post something since it's been a couple days.
There's really not much to say. Friday, we had to eat only cold foods because it was the day after Krishna's birthday, no one could really explain to me how they were related...
Friday and Saturday were just school...
Saturday night I slept over at Ritu's (the Rotary exchange coordinator) house with Hannah. In the morning the boys came over and we all spent the day at this massive, really nice mall. It was a lot of fun! We went to an all you can eat buffet place where each section was based off of the food in a different part of India, there was a puppet show ans traditional dance performance. I bought my first Indian clothing (a kurti) this one is short, like shirt length.
It was interesting staying at Ritu's because she was 2 servants, both boys who are like 14 and 17 maybe. She also had a driver who takes us around. It's a hard thing to get used to...

Pictures!!!

Today was the birthday of Lord Krishna so we had no school.
It was a very relaxing day at home. Because I didn't do much today and I've been meaning to put these up I added some of the pictures I've taken. If they were associated with an event I'm going to add them to that post.

Out of the car window on the way to a relative's.

A relative.

Out the window at a relative's in old Indore.

Driving to a relative's.

Again, out the car window.

Out the car window.

A relative.

My younger host sister, Nimisha.

Our room.

View from the balcony of our room at night.

Bikes (both motor bikes, and bicycles) are very popular modes of transportation.

A cow wandering into the house....

Sumita, my host mother.

Birthday Party

More school...
But it was my friend Dhriti's birthday today so she got to dress out of uniform and pass out chocolate all day.
I had English, Free period, triple Chem, Bio, Hindi, and then basketball today!
In Chem we had a practical which was really fun, mixing the chemicals and seeing how they react with each other. I like doing that kind of thing, where you have to be very careful in order to get good results and when you do you feel like you accomplished something.
We had a pleasant change change in basketball and a bunch of middle school aged kids were let out of their class so that they could play with us so this time we had a full basketball game instead of the usual two-on-two half-court.
This evening, after I got home at the usual 4:30, I left again at 5 to go to a Dhriti's birthday party. Her mom and brother picked me up as my host parents were both at work...
I didn't have much to party in as I left everything I would have worn at home, it wouldn't have been appropriate anyways (too much shoulder and knee showing...) The party was held in a club in a near-by hotel. There was a DJ and catering and the club was rented out just for us. Most of the girls in my class were there and a few other girls who has been in the class but moved schools. We danced and ate and danced some more. Most of it was very like a party at home. However, when the cake was served, the birthday girl cut the first piece and her brother fed it to her. The second piece has fed to her by her mother and then all of the guests fed her a little piece. The music was also very familiar for the most part, about 75% of the songs were American or techno. When Hindi songs came on though, I was the only one who didn't know all the words. My friends tried to teach me some of the Indian style moves... I think I'm starting to get them...
Some of the girls were REALLY good dancers, but there's always that one girl who can REALLY dance in a group. It was a TON of fun, the party ended at 7 because it would be indecent of the girl were out past 8-8:30...
The other difference was the food, it wasn't Indian food but pizza, pasta with red sauce, chinese noodles, and french fries, plus cake and ice cream. A normal birthday fare except for that all but the latter two dishes were a lot more spicy than you would find at home...
All in all though, it was very similar to a party at home, lots of dancing, picture taking, and gossiping (I think, it was mostly in Hindi...)