Well, a few days ago I wrote a whole long entry but the internet bailed out on me and it didn't save. When I wrote it it was raining. It rained for two days. now its a bit cooler. The first day after the rain the smog cleared up a bit which was wonderful, not its just kind of grey and humid. The thing about this place seems to be you're wet no matter what. you're either sweating, or wet from rain. Its just a fact of life. ah well.

Before I get into the current thoughts here are some quick notes on food and clothing;

Food- mostly rice, lentils, fried potato things, vegetables, meat, more potatoes, more rice, more lentils...food is included in my program fee, so we get cooked meals at the guest house. They're OK. After the first day i became a vegetarian and haven't really craved meat since. i think the first day it was bad because it tasted like the streets smelled - not the icky poo or anything, but all the smells of food and pollution all melded together...anyway I don't eat the meat. The lentils are really delicious. Everything has sugar in it, which of course makes it good. The guest house food isn't too spicy because of all the frequent travellers, my favourite is this fried veggie potato onion patty deal...its the best..yummy...and all the varieties of fried breads are delicious as well. The fried street food is starting to look pretty darn good, I'm going to try it one of these days, the fruit looks amazing..but alas...cannot..eat...yummy...fruit...drinks...:(. Everyone drinks chai as well. They boil milk, chai, and sugar and dispense it in little tiny espresso sized cups for 1 rupee. YUMMMMY. Aparently the hot tea is better for hydration than cold drinks...

Clothes - free for all. The men wear funny seventies style tight bell bottomy pants and tight button up or polo shirts. The men here are TINY, and they all wear really tight clothes. Its funny. The younger 'cooler' guys wear weird acid wash jeans with buckles and pockets all over...then they wear shirts that say things like "jeans" and "modern"..hmmm... Women- married woman wear Sarees and unmarried wear the long shirts with pants underneath and a scarf. The deal is cover your upper chest and most of your legs and it doesn't matter what you're wearing as long as you're covered a bit. You can wear sleeveless shirts (not spaghetti straps) as long as you have a scarf. The younger middle class girls wear western clothes - tight jeans and short shirts - on the subway today a girl was wearing an above knee black skirt, nylons, black pumps and white button up shirt - that's rare though. I don't really go places where girls like that would hang out..ritzier nicer places..

So...

Things are finally starting to fall into place. There is actually work for us to do and Kate and I have a nice routine getting to work with the auto-rickshaw and the metro. party rickshaws are hard to come by, as much as I put out the party rickshaw vibes they are always taken...it'll happen again...someday. The girls at work are warming up and talking to them is a lot of fun. Ranjita speaks the most English and is such a sweetheart. She is 22 and has two older sisters who both have kids, and lives with her mom. Her father passed away. She is so funny though, i asked if she was married and all the usual questions they understand and she's all "me, no marriage, never marriage, me no baby. But my sisters babies, they don't call me auntie, they call me mommy. Us small family, but very happy, i have a good life, very happy." It was really great to hear her say that. And today when I was working on the excel spreadsheet she came in and was just watching me. AT first i thought I was getting in trouble for browsinging the net...only for a minute...but really she was just fascinated. She asked me to teach her how to use the computer. So I opened up a word document and she typed her name and I had her write "Ranjita is cool. So is Radha. They are in kolkata" She knew how to spell almost all the words. She had such a smile on her face at the end. i pushed her to write more but by the end she just said "OK, we done now?". She's definitely one of the brightest girls there, she works really hard and seems to practically micro-manage the whole operation. Maybe its just because she speaks English but she definitely is a go-getter.

While work is going well, the city is a bit claustrophobic and you get a bit stir crazy. So, we are taking a mini-vacation and going to Darjeeling this weekend. WE are all sooo excited. it took a few days to figure out where to buy the train tickets but we finally got them and are taking a sleeper train Thursday night. From there you take a jeep up the hill to Darjeeling - hopefully it doesn't rain more because otherwise the roads might be too muddy...we'll see. The volunteers before us went and their pictures are breathtaking. My little camera might not be able to pick up Everest, but we will hike up tiger hill at sunrise and it should be able to capture something.

Plans for after the program are starting to fall into place as well. Daniella, one of the new volunteers and i are flying down to Chennai on Oct. 30th where we will meet her friend from Canada and tool around the South for three weeks. Apparently her friend has been researching where to go, but it should be fine. I'm sure we will see some cool temples, hang out on the beach in Goa, go to the market in Mysore and i definitely want to make it up to the Ellora caves. Then, a friend from college might be able to meet me in Goa (woo beach) and we will go up to Mumbai for the wedding and then up North to Rajastan and the Taj and maybe Dharamsala. All of this is up in the air but that is my ideal. Whatever happens happens and things always seem to work out somehow. Getting the flight down to Chennai was good though, I was having trouble committing to anything, but now it is set. As long as the airline doesn't flake..which might happen...as I was finalizing the purchase of tickets the woman said "oh, and while this ticket is non-refundable, if the flight is cancelled then we can refund your money"...the fact that she said that means it happens enough...statistically and all...it'll be fine...