The North

I keep meaning to write on my blog but things keep popping up and I don't get around to it.  We leave in three days for the north tour and anticipation is running high for all the exchange students in our districts. I keep thinking of things I have to do and have to bring and then forgetting them only to remember a few hours later or the next day. That's how it always seems to be before a big event or travel.
The group will be smaller this time as there a several students not going for various reasons. The people who are going however, are all people from the previous trip except for one new girl who's staying in Hydrabad. For us in Indore the tour is just one day short of a month because we'll most likely be leaving here on the 27th of February and returning on the 26th of March. The other students will get on a train in Nagpur or when it stops in their respective cities and we'll get on the same train sometime in the night when it passes through a nearby city called Ujjain. We leave the 27th because Ritu is planning on having us spend a day and a night in Ujjain sightseeing and visiting her friends. Speaking of visiting friends, our first stop is in Jaipur where my friend Josephine happens to be living for a few months. Hopefully we'll be able to meet at least for a few hours when I'm there.
The tour agenda is as follows  (I've added a couple of the highlights on some of the days since I can't give the full details):

February 28th- arrive in Jaipur
March 1st- Jaipur
March 2nd- Jaipur and then to Jaisalmer where we will sleep in tents in the desert and ride camals
March 3rd- Jaisalmer
March 4th- Jaisalmer then to depart for Jadhpur at night
March 5th- Jadhpur then depart for Firozpur at night
March 6th- from Firozpur depart for Amritsar and then depart for Dharmsala in the night (Golden Temple)
March 7th- Dharmsala (Home of the Dalai Lama)
March 8th- Dharmsala and then to Manali
March 9th- Manali (maybe skiing!)
March 10th- Manali then head to Rishikash by rout of Shimla
March 11th- Rishikash (River Rafting on the Ganges)
March 12th- from Rishikash to Delhi
March 13th- Delhi
March 14th- from Delhi to Varanasi by rout of Agra (The Taj Mahal)
March 15h- Varanasi (Swimming in the Ganges optional)
March 16th- Varanasi to Bodhgaya (Sunrise boating on the Ganges)
March 17th- Bodhgaya and then to New Jalpaigudi by going through Patna (Bodhgaya is where Buddha was first enlightened)
March 18th- New Jalpaigudi and then to Darjeeling
March 19th- Darjeeling then depart to Gangtok (Watch sunrise over the third highest mountain in the wolrd, Mt. Kanchanjanga)
March 20th- Gangtok (Celebrate the festival of color, Holi!!!!!!)
March 21st- Gangtok
March 22nd- Gangtok then to Hawara stopping in New Jalpaigudi
March 23rd- Hawara
March 24th- Hawara and then departing to Nagpur in the evening
March 25th- Nagpur then depart by bus to Indore
March 26th- Indore

This is a hard trip to pack for because some of the places we're going might be very warm while several will be very very cold. We go between warm desert and semi-tropical temperatures and freezing ice and snow. We're going to spend a lot more time on trains than we did on the last tour. In the south we traveled from place to place by bus just as often as by train but on this tour more of our traveling is going to be by train. Because I got a new camera for my birthday I hope to take lots and lots of pictures. The things we see and do on the tours are once in a lifetime opportunities and I want to remember them as well as possible.
I'm not sure if I'll post another blog or not before I leave in a few days. If I don't I'll write something when I return or maybe I'll get the chance during the tour. I will have more regular access to the internet and emails this tour so if you want to send me something that's fine but I won't be able to respond or update this regularly.

Mom and Hannah's Visit

It was really bad timing for a visit. My sister arrived right as she was coming down with something which meant that her immune system wasn't great which meant that the food here affected her really heavily and quickly. By their second full day here she was feeling pretty bad.
Their third day here Hannah spent the day in bed and mom and I went out shopping for a little bit and stopped over to my house to grab a couple of things and chat with my host mom. All in all it wasn't an ideal visit but I still enjoyed seeing them and that's what matters. Unfortunately, Hannah also gave the illness she brought over to me so I ended up with a fever and stuff. They left early yesterday (Saturday) morning and I went home and spent the whole day sleeping. This was a really bad time for my immune system to fail me. I have yet to be sick in any way here except for a mildly upset stomach, which is really rare. All of a sudden Mom and Hannah show up and I get sick... I had to miss the first day of the District Conference yesterday because I wasn't feeling good. I did go today though and socialized with Rotarians and say some very cool performances by local stage artists.

We leave for the North Tour in a week!!!!!!!

I didn't end up taking as many pictures as I would have liked during their visit especially since I had a new camera to take them with! These are the only two taken on their last day here.

My moms.

17!!!

I forgot to mention earlier but my mom and sister (the real ones) arrived at the Indore airport at 8pm on the 15th and are here until the morning of the 19th when they move on to Nepal for two weeks. Visiting me is more of a stop on the way rather than a destination. They wouldn't becoming here if they weren't going to Nepal and the wouldn't be going to Nepal if I weren't here in India.
Yesterday I turned 17.
I spent the morning with my mom and sister. We went shopping and got them some clothes. I act as a guide and interpreter even when people are speaking English. In the later morning we headed over to Ritu Grover's for a quick visit and coffee and cake. Reba, our counselor joined us there. After being fed too much cake and snacks we went back to the mall for a little bit to to meet my friends Jordan and Nikolas. We had drinks at a cafe and chatted. At 3, upon returning to the hotel, Ritu and Reba had arranged for us to get mehendi (henna) done. The woman came to our room and just set up in there. By the time our mehendi was dry and set we had to get ready for dinner with my family (host). I get very confused because I call both my host parents and my real parents mom and dad. The other exchange students had also been invited which was also confusing because that meant there were two Hannahs (the German one and my sister). We hung out, chatted, ate snacks, and I opened a few presents. Before going to the restaurant I cut the cake. As per tradition they sang to me as I blew out the candle three versus, the traditional "Happy Birthday to you" versus then "Long life to you" and then "Many boyfriends to you". My mom made some comment about the last one. Following the cutting I also had to feed the cake to people starting with my mom, then my host mom, and my sister. Pretty soon I ended having cake smeared on my face instead of begin fed it and I started doing the same. A large cake fight ensued by the end of which I hadn't gotten a chance to eat very much cake as it had all been used for ammunition. I got the worst of it with my sisters, cousins, and friends all ganging up on me to smear and grind it into my face and hair. Consequently, I ended up covered in cake from head to foot. After changing clothes and attempting to wash and brush my hair, I was semi-presentable for my birthday dinner. We went to the restaurant in the hotel mom and Hannah are staying at and ended up being up very late for dinner.
All in all it was a pretty good birthday I even got to talk to my real dad on the phone for a little bit.
This morning we were up semi-early and visited my school in the morning. Mom really wanted to see the school I've been attending. We spoke to my principal and vice principal and I showed them around the school. We saw a few of my teachers and friends in the process and stopped to say hello.
After our visit to school a hotel hired driver took us to a few sights in the older part of Indore. These were all places I'd never been to. I've done no sightseeing in the city so it was all new and really interesting for me too. Unfortunately, by the second sight Hannah was feeling sick so we ended up going back to the hotel early and just resting and spending time there. It's can be really hard on a stomach to adjust to Indian food and environment. Some people have it worse than others. I was lucky in that I've never really been that sick where as some people get it really bad.
Tonight we're supposed to have dinner with my exchange student friends. I wish I could have done more birthday stuff with my Indian friends but it's right in the middle of exams so they can't be out at nights or get distracted from studying...

My siblings and cousins. From Left: Sister Hannah, Me, my host cousin Prenisha, my host sister Ipshita, and host cousin Jahanvi.

Cake.

Waiting for dinner with my host mom.

My sister and I in front my my school.

One More Student's Blog

I know I keep posting links to other students blog but this is probably the last one and is totally my favorite, no offense to the others. I'll post the link on the left with the others but I'll also put at the end of this post. This blog belongs to Chris Yoder of Illinois.

I posted something he wrote earlier about our Christmas experience. His most recent post is about what it's like to be an foreigner on the streets of India. Chris might have it the worst of all the exchange students I know. His city, Nagpur, isn't quite as conservative as Indore but Chris is also extremely tall, blond, and fair skinned which makes him stand out no matter what. I could even blend in to a crowd if I wanted, I could cover my head and hair, and most of my skin and would be able to pass as a fair Indian (there are some people here with a skin tone close to mine). Chris on the other hand towers over the crowd no matter what and covering his head with a scarf isn't really an option for a male.

The stares are something that didn't really bother me much at the beginning of my year. After a while I got pretty good at ignoring them but if not being unaware altogether. After returning from the South Tour though I was much more conscious of the gawking whenever I was out in public. I think that's because on the tour we were all very aware of it since a group of more than 15 foreigners tends to attract attention. Again though, I've gotten more accustomed to people looking at me. I know a lot of the time it's just purely because people are surprised of curious but there are other times that you just have to ignore the stares and walk by without being careful not to make eye contact. Then there are the people who come up to you and ask questions, some of them really dumb such as "are you a foreigner". The answer to that is quite clear as I very obviously and not of Indian descent. My least favorite is when people ask to take my picture of don't ask and try to take it anyways. Some younger people think it's very funny and amusing to dare their friends to come up and talk to us which usually consists of a "hello" then the speaker running away giggling. It's very entertaining to make up information when you get sick of people asking questions. My friend sometimes tells people she's from Prussia, the other day someone told her that they had just come back from a vacation there... I'm not very good at that game whenever someone asks me where I'm from I have a hard time thinking of a place so I usually answer with the truth say "America" or that I live here in Indore. People never believe me when I tell that I'm currently a resident in Indore, I mean how could a white person possible live here??

In a way though, I'm being hypocritical. If I'm ever in the mall or somewhere with friends and we see other foreigners I usually find myself staring. Foreigners have become more popular since I got here, monsoon season is not a very popular tourist season. Winter on the other hand, is when most people come to India do that they can travel in relative comfort. There have been times that I've been with the other exchange students when we argue amongst ourselves about whether we should approach the other foreigners and who should do it. Sometimes they approach us, other times we leave them to their business and assess from afar. So far we've met two other American families living in Indore and tourists from Australia, Germany and France. I'm sure when tourist season ends I won't be seeing fellow foreigners except for exchange students much.


Chris' Blog: http://anindianyear.wordpress.com/

Last Day of Classes

Today was my last day of classes as a student at Progressive Education School. For a really long time I thought that this day couldn't come soon enough but today I realized that I'm going to miss going to school and my friends there. I'm going back on Tuesday to take an exam because I want to. Then hopefully when we return from the North tour I'll find some time to go back and visit. Today was one of the best days of school I had my whole time there which is sad, things always seem better right as your leaving. I learned a lot at Progressive and it's been such a big part of my life since I got here that I can't imagine not going to school there for the rest of my time here.
After school today I went to the house of one of the teachers in my school who also lives in my colony. She teaches kindergarten and we've talked before while waiting for the bus and walk home. Her little 5 year old daughter often is out on their balcony when I walk by and she waves and calls to me asking me questions in Hindi and English, sometimes she asks me to come in. The mother had asked me to come in for tea before but I've always been busy. Both the mother and daughter are very sweet. I got a tour of the downstair from the mother and a tour of the upstair from the daughter. The latter tour involved showing me which room housed which toys and fun things rather than what each room was, I got to meet her pet baby turtles and look at her pink dress and fairy wings. Her bedroom walls are covered in crayon drawings on almost every reachable surface, it was actually kind of cool looking. I was also really surprised at her ability to use the computer, I'm pretty sure that 5 year old knows more than I do. The mother wants to invite me to go out for coffee or something some time which I look forwards to.

I got special permission to bring a camera to school today so I could take pictures for memories and stuff which was a really big treat for all the girls in my class. Below are some of my the pictures we took today. Unfortunately I didn't really end up getting many of the school but a lot more of the people which I guess are more important.

Two Classmates
Left: Aayushi Jain, Right: Mansi Jain (they're not related Jain is a really common last name especially, it seems in my class).  Mansi was my "mentor" when I first arrived at school and the first person I considered a friend in the class. 

Outside during the 15 minute whole school break between 4th and 5th periods. In the monsoon season this acts as a gutter for all the water, the rest of the time it's just a good place to sit and chat during breaks.
From Left: Dhriti, Mansi, Srishti, Aayushi, and Me

Posing next to one of the school's buses.  The average Indorie school bus is yellow with a brown stripe and the school's name on the side.
From Left: Dhriti, Srishti, Mansi, Aayushi, and Me

More poses during break.
From Left: Dhriti, Gulisha, Mansi, Iram, Akanksha, Aayushi, and Me

More poses, this time we're just outside of the stage area where we have morning assembly, performances, and play sports sometimes. There is only a green mesh for roofing so during monsoon season the assemblies were held up in the dining hall. It sort of acts as a much larger "pit" like we have at my school at home.
From Left: Me, Iram, Gulisha, Mansi, Akanksha, Dhriti, Aayushi.

My cousin Preneesha and I both go to Progressive. Her dad is my host dad's younger brother, we've had dinners together and gone to some wedding receptions too.

During a free period (study hall) we got permission to go out and take pictures.
From Left: Me, Iram, Gulisha, Mansi

The Whole Class (minus two)
Front Row From Left: Me, Aayushi, Divya (doesn't like her picture begin taken)
Middle Row From Left: Srishti, Mansi, Gulisha, Akanksha, Iram
Back Row From Left: Nikolas, Dhriti, Yash, Akhil, Kush

Nikolas and I with our class teacher, Mrs. Pragya Dave. The class teachers are homeroom teachers, she also taught us math.

The 11th class room.

Looking down the hall, of which our classroom is at the very end, into the main entry way.

Mrs. Sharma, our Hindi teacher.