Random thoughts

In my opinion a person has to be pretty comfortable with themselves to come to India. You are going to get starred at, by everyone, men, women, and children. It works out for me because I like staring at people as well(people watching), and so I just stare right back. Which is probably not the best thing to do, but I don't really care. If they stare at me, I stare at them.

Going to a temple is like going to a rock concert, long lines to get in, really loud, and people are totally stoked to be there. My friend in Jaipur took me to his temple during his day to worship (Hindu's have specfic days that they go to temple and fast for their gods), and it was great to see everyone pushing their way through to pray. I have been to many temples, but this experience was different because it was on a busy day to worship and because it was my friend's temple.

Auto Rickshaw drivers totally pimp out their rickshaw's here, equiped with sound systems, beads in the windows, pictures of a god or two, it is great, I feel like I am in a 70's disco. Women love their jewerly here. I finally put earings back in my ears and I relate much better to the local women now, also they deck out their girls in jewerly as well. You can fine baby girls of maybe one yrs old wearing bangles and necklaces and earings of course.

I introduced a three year old girl on the train to hip hop. Her mom didn't seem too happy but her dad did not seem to mind, and he requested through hand motions to listen to my i-pod as well. In Goa there were about ten cricket games going on along the beach and as we were walking by men would leave their cricket game to ask if we wanted to look in their shop, when I shook my head no, they returned to their game. This would never happen in the U.S.

When locals ask where I am from they always respond by saying that they do not meet many american traverler's. I think I have only met maybe five Americans in five months and I am often tricked because I hear a person speaking English with no accent, and I think, aww they must be American. Wrong, they are Canadian. Kayo hailed a truck once, she thought it was a bus, but it wasn't, and we had to convince the driver that we did not want a ride. Sometime in January I found myself really Vihaan sick (Vihaan is the school I worked at in Jaipur), I was missing the children, and I was missing Ganga and her children (Ganga was the woman who lived and worked at the school that I made friends with soley on non verbal communication). It is amazing how much of a bond you can create wtih someone even if you can't speak the same language. Many people here are poor, really poor, at a level that I think does not exist in the United States. They work hard for hardly nothing, yet I have never seen so many smiles, so much laughter, and so much joking. I am always smiling when I am people watching, because people really seem to enjoy themselves and one another. And when I smile at people they almost always smile back at me.

A few people were concerned when I said that I was coming to India. They thought that I would be surrounded by so much sadness, by so much poverty, and my so much human suffereing, and that I would have a negative experience or that I might come home jaded. Of course there is all that here, there is everywhere in the world, but by no means am I leaving India jaded. Of course there has been the ups and downs, but my time here has been so great and positive. At Vihaan, I was surrounded by amazing people, the children showered me with unconditional love, and the teachers thought of me as a friend. I have seen so much compassion, happiness, and joy from the people here. If anything I am more optimistic and my heart is even more open than before. Might sound cheesy, and cliche and you may want to slap me right now, but it's true.