ok... INJAH blogging time!

It’s tough to remember everything that we’ve been up to but I will do my best to fill you in. Oh first of all, my location. I’m currently in Mysore (where I’m taking classes) sitting on my morbid yet glamorous bed. Morbid and glamorous based on its hospital like simplicity paired with the elegance of a bug net. I’ve decided these bug nets resemble the canopies of princesses- so I’m basically Cinderella.

I’ll start off with some observations I’ve been running into in this lovely vast country.

The head bobble. Just bounce your head side to side with a blank expression on your face. This translates to, well, nothing to me. It lands somewhere between an OK (I agree) and OK (I’ve noticed that you are communicating with me). It makes for confusing, entertaining and often frustrating results if you are on the receiving end. Which is why I’ve done my best to start dishing it out myself. Why give a straight answer if you can just make someone else decide for you? I like it for bargaining with rickshaw drivers and salespeople, mostly because my words don’t work well so why not try the bobble? I’m no master but I’ll get it down by the end of the trip.

Oh, and you want to know what we don’t do enough of in Canada? Horking! Public displays of loud phlegm projectiles are not gender specific nor frowned upon in India. And if they are, then maybe we just frown harder upon them in Canada. Even professors, everybody loves a good spit. Ok that’s clearly a sweeping statement but that’s how it feels most of the time.

We’ve also discovered that due to our location in a Muslim neighbourhood we have been given the opportunity to eavesdrop on the call to prayer from not only one but two mosques! So earplugs have been a necessity when it comes to trying to sleep in past, I think its 5:45 am, but I could be wrong, maybe its 6am. OH man! Right now it’s like a yelling competition; I’m totally saying that in the most culturally sensitive way possible. Anyway, this is India, noise is a constant.

One comforting thing from home has been pizza. We’ve got dominos and pizza hut here in Mysore though we have some bonus veggie options including pickled baby corn, mint and well, everything else is basically the same. Its nice to have the tastes from home, but man having such inexpensive food is dangerous. We were told it was the bread and rice that would fatten us up but I’m currently struggling to limit myself to one icecream a day. Oh and I’ve discovered that my favourite flavour of cookie is now butter- who needs to add anything else?

So like, where have I been?

Aiight, so after Kochin we headed up by train to Kundapura to a resort called Turtle Bay. This was the first clean and basically abandoned beach I’ve seen here.  Turtle Bay taught me an important lesson that I would once again learn in the Rainforest: India can be cold. Yes, cold. At night I have no idea what the temperatures went down to, but, probably below 5. I know that’s not that cold but it is when you only have a silk liner to keep you warm. So we went to the rainforest by Madicary for 4 or 5 nights. This trip was supposed to take 6 hours, but due to our bus drivers, we made it there in only 13. I have only them to thank. But that brings up bus drivers. You don’t get one, you get two, or three! I have no idea what the third one does but one drives, the other hangs out the door, whistles and argues at other drivers.  Quite the production.

We made it to Mysore about a week ago and are staying at the Organization for the Development of People. So I guess I’m being developed now, and it’s great! Our classes are similar to a high school, so not much free time. I’m taking culture & civilization, women’s studies, science & tech, chemicals in the natural environment and hindi.  Not that they use Hindi here, but it will come in useful in the North.  Ah yes the North. I guess to end this off I should mention that all my fears regarding India being really hot, full of creepy men and spicy food sound like they may be realized once we hit the top half of the country. I’ll deal with that when the time comes but for now I’m quite content here in Mysore.