“Once there was a way to get back homeward…”

God New Zealand is beautiful.  Everywhere you look is an amazing view.  A sunset.  A seascape.  A gorgeous hillside or mountain.  We tried three times to land in Wellington but couldn’t get in because of the fog so on our second night stranded in Aukland, 8 of us decided to go to Zeno’s beach house instead of the airport accomodations.  Zeno has property on the coast with three houses on it and a private beach with caves.  We spent the night, had some awesome thai food and spent the day at the beach.  I got my first New Zealand sunburn.  It sucks that these people hardly pollute and yet they have no ozone.  This place is so decadent.  We are all like kids in a candy store. “a washing machine!  a grocery store! cheese!”  It’s nice to be in a place like this but I do miss India.  I really fell in love with India.  Especially cuz on one of our last nights we went to the anniversary party of the couple we met in Mumbai.  It was the swankiest thing I’ve ever seen.  The owner of the champagne we brought was AT the party.  A monument to the inequalities of wealth in India.  And the worst part about leaving India was leaving Smitu and Saachi, my two professors.  They are the sweetest and most brilliant men ever.  I’ve never had such an awesome relationship with a teacher before.  They took such good care of us and were so willing to make anything we wanted possible.   They also sang and did Kareoke (sp?) at our end-of-India party.  “I wanna hold your hand” in a thick Indian accent.  Glorious.   New Zealand is wild and awesome.  I’m so excited for all the things I’m going to see.  Especially since one of them is Mom!  Plenty more to say but I’m tired and jet lagged.

There was an address change so here is the new one.  Go go go!

IHP c/o Peter Horsely

P.O. Box 41552

Aukland 1030, New Zealand

By the way…time difference is 19 hours.  That is a lot of math to figure out the time at home.  I know you all don’t believe it but I really do learn stuff on this trip.  But who really wants to read about that?  Mon…anywhere you want to stay will be awesome.  Mandalay Bay or the Venetian seem pretty sweet though.  Or maybe somethig crazier like Hard Rock.  I trust your judgment.  I love you all so much!!!!  I’m getting scared that I’m gonna have to come home in May and try and begin to talk about this trip.  Gah.

Huggies,

Nandie Bee

 

So I’m back in Pune again after our week on a farm just outside the city.   We had a sweet bonfire on the last night where we roasted the s’mores that mom sent me the ingredients for!  They were awesome.  Thank you so much mom.  Everybody loved it.  It was fun teaching the Indian students and teachers how to do this.  And no I didn’t hit myself in the face with a marshmallow this time.  We left the farm last Monday.  The group split in two for two different field trips.  My group went to Amba Valley to study biodiversity preservation.  We hiked around in the valley and in a medicinal plant reserve and learned about local watersheds and water conservation.  The best part was playing blob tag with some village kids that lived in the valley.  I can only imagine what it must be like for 13 white kids to show up in your village and start running at you in mass.  SO much fun. We also had a trip to some natural hot springs and had an hour or two to sit and relax and be scalded.  The field trip overall was so awesome but when we were hiking I tripped and smashed my knee on a rock and had a tough time walking from there on.  It actually doesn’t really hurt anymore but it was pretty bad that night.  Only an ugly scrape and a bruise.

4am Friday morning.  The wooshing of water.  The light comes on in my homestay bedroom.  “Go back to sleep its ok! Don’t worry go back to sleep.” My host mom Anupama picks up Ashley’s camera.  Water runs from the case.  “Do you need this?”  Ashley and I rocket out of bed.  My foot comes down onto the floor in an inch and a half of water.  Everything I own is on the floor.  Why would I just go back to sleep?  I instantly invision my airline tickets and passport and traveller’s checks sitting at the bottom of my back pack.  I pick it up and again the water runs.  I pull out the first thing my fingers find.  The first casualty.  Carly’s 6 page long letter detailing every moment of drama that has happened since I left in September, reduced to a black blob, a soggy black blob.  The plane tickets are damp.  All my clothes are soaked.  MYybeautiful silk scarf has run all over my beautiful new skirt.  I pick up one bag after another to survey the damage.  Eventually the shock turns into hilarity.  After my host mom and several other neighbors came and sweeped all the water out with straw brooms, we had a cup of tea and then went to sleep.  She had left the kitchen  sink running all night and the sink was clogged.  5 hours of continous running floods an apartment. 

I survived the Geat Flood of 2006.   Carly!  I’m sorry but I won’t be able to respond to your letter point by point but I should be able to hit the highlights, and boy are there still some things that stand out in my mind!!!  I am really enjoying my homestay in spite of the trouble.  I have two host siblings, age 6 and 9 who are adorable, and the first night I was there we had a bottle of Texas wine!  My host mom is great.  During all the commotion all she had to say was “yes this is quite an adventure!” My spirit for adventure is not at its strongest at 4am but at least things don’t get boring.

My India trip is nearing to an end and I don’t like that.  I had a dream taht I would leave India and when I arrived elsewhere I would long for it and miss it.  I think that dream may come true.  This country is so full of life, so full of plurality that it is almost maddening.  So much more to say.  So little time.  I’m having trouble getting out the India round of postcards so bare with me.  They may have to be mailed from New Zealand!  Sorry! 

Best,

Gersh

Thank you everyone for letters and cards this christmas!!!  When I got back from vacation I got two huge packages and tons of letters dumped in my lap.  I was ecstatic.  I’m living on a farm in Pune right now.  Pune is about 2 hours outside of Mumbai.  We’ve been having a lot of class lately and have three papers due on the same day this week.  Last Thursday (my half birthday!) we had a mock celebration of the Indian festival of Holi.  During Holi you make colors out of vegetables and herbs in liquid and powder form and then everyone has a free for all throwing the colors and drenching each other in them. We did the mock holiday because we are learning about using more natural substitutes to the toxic chemicals that are gaining in popularity. So we made these colors and pretty violently destroyed each others clothes with these staining dyes.  Afterward we all threw each other in to the swimming pool at the far inciting one of the most violent dunk fests I’ve ever partken in.  I can not explain the hilarity of this situation.  I wish I could celebrate the real Holi.

Ok so a little out of order but on our last night in Mumbai we decided to splurge a little bit.  We went to this swanky rooftop bar/lounge and dropped money that would make Mr G very proud.  We spent 200 dollars on this meal and in India that is not easy to do.  Cocktails, wine, brandy, cigars, one of everything on the menu, dessert.  It was exactly like everytime I go out with mom, Mr G and Ken and Vikki!  You guys passed on some really bad habits!!!  The next day Elizabeth and I stumbled on a store carrying American and Brittish comfort foods and TONS of track pants.  We went crazy, fighting off Indian sales employees left and right.  Every Indian department store has a 1 to 9 customer to employee ratio.  Fun but a little crazy.

One of these days I’m actually gonna talk about stuff I’ve learned on this thing.  But not right now.  Ok I’ll update again soon!

Love always,

NB

P.S.  Yesterday I got up the courage to free style in front of the whole class.  Maybe I’ll type the rap up and submit it some time.

My vacation has come nearly to its end sadly.  We are in Mumbai for our last day and we meet with the program again at noon tomorrow.  Gokarna ended up being even more incredible than I expected.  Zeno and I decided to on an adventure to find some beautiful beaches.  We found a cool spot after hiking over some rocks and walking around in this swamp sort of place, but as the sun was setting, I wanted to get back on the last rickshaw but Zeno was not ready for the adventure to end.  So he stayed behind.  He shows up again the next day and told us he got us a shack on the beach to stay in.  So we cleared out of the hotel, skepticism abound, and followed him.  We crossed through some rice paddies, were nearly attacked by a swarm of screaming kids and then climbed up and down a mountain.  As we rounded a bend in the path, we were all the sudden smacked with the most incredible ocean view, the sound of bongos, and a scattered collection of grass shacks.  As we descended, we didn’t see Indians around.  What did we see?  Dred locks, lots of dredlocks.  Zeno had taken us to a hippie commune, appropriately called Paradise Beach.  This place was heaven.  3 little cafes, the most beautiful stretches of beach I’d ever seen, and tons of relatively unfriendly hippies.  Our shack was really cosy.  We stayed there for 2 nights before we were forced to leave drinking lots of banana milkshakes and laying around in hammocks.  Amazing.  We left for Mumbai yesterday morning, discovering that we could take a boat back to Gokarna instead of hiking through those rice paddies.  We got hearded on the wrong bus on our way back and after a lot of shouting and screaming in many different languages we were told how to get back on track.  The bus ride was hell yet again.  We got this party pad in the back of the bus.  5 vertical sections of mat wide enough for at least 3/4 of a person.  16 hours of rolling around like poorly wrapped enchiladas on a greasy plate.  The bus drivers think that as soon as it gets late, people won’t notice when he starts driving like a bat out of hell (yes I know bat out of hell 2 is better than bat out of hell 1 Adam.  or is it the other way around?)  So vacation was excellent.  Met some awesome people.  Took lots of time to relax.  Got a little bit of a tan but as usual nobody sees it but me.  Missing home a good deal.  I will definitely be back to Gokarna.

Namaste,

Andie

I don’t really remember where I last left off, but I am on Vacation right now and it could not be more welcomed. Zeno, Nate, Elizabeth, Andrew and I set off on Dec 30th for Mumbai. We were living in a village in the forests of central India called Menda for a couple days prior to that. The village was very unique in that it has writ of self-rule. It exists and makes decisions for itself entirely seperate from the Indian governemnt. The way the government is set up is really remarkable. So we left Menda and got on a Train from Nagpur to Mumbai. Somehow our reservations got lost so we didnt actually have seats on this 16 hour train ride. We were pretty much stow-aways and had to move every couple hours until someone else came to claim the seat we had stolen. Elizabeth and I were lucky to make friends with these goofy Indian biotech students who let us have one of their beds. The beds are about 2 feet wide. Goes down in history as one of the top 5 worst night sleeps of our lives, but at least we had a place to lay down. In Mumbai we stayed at the YMCA, and somehow ended up having one of the most decadent meals of our lives at the Taj Mahal hotel. Afterward we split up. I went and pretended I could afford the jewelry in the Taj jewelry shop. Eliz went disguised as a guest and layed by the pool. Zeno and the boys retired to the Taj restrooms and dissapeared for a while. It was New Years Eve so we dressed up that night in clothes we purchased that day and went to a crazy retro club called Polly Esters. It was a lot of fun but the men in the club and on the streets were getting a little grabby. New years day, Zeno’s parent’s friends took us on a picnic lunch to watch some flamingos and they had….oh yes… Coronas! With Lime!!! And then we went back to their incredible apartment and had MORE Corona’s and watched Da Ali G Show. Best day of my life. We had an awesome dinner with them and then caught our bus to Gokarna, a small beach town on the coast about 18 hours south of Mumbai in the state of Karnataka. (The bus ride was hell.) We got in earlier today and so far this place is beautiful and the weather is great. We plan to lay around, take it easy and explore the beaches. I’m really glad we went South. OMG I forgot about Christmas!! So were were living on the organic farm and the couple living there let us cook our own christmas and christmas eve dinners. So they drove far and wide to collect the bizarre ingredients we needed. Often things weren’t available and the substitutes we made didn’t always work, but a lot of the food was really excellent. Good break from dahl and naan. We also made Christmas a costume party. I was eggnog and my costume was smashing. Pictures were takin. The grand finale of the christmas show was Mrs. Claus (Bart) giving Santa (Elizabeth) a lap dance before all of our faculty. It was glorious. I’m still in Love with Smitu my professor by the way. More every day. I was a little bit homesick christmas day but it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. I also learned from my antrho professor, Savyasaachi, how to tie a turban so thats pretty much my hair style of choice now cuz it means I have to wash it less. (I’m only sort of kidding). I haven’t gotten packages and mail yet and won’t till after vacation so I will let you guys know when I receive stuff. Vacation has been wild and awesome so far and I am excited for the days to come. We don’t really have a hotel room or travel bookings beyond noon tomorrow so wish us all the best!!! Add the villages of Menda and Dorli to stuff I really have to talk more about in detail when I get home. Thank you all for your comments!! I love the news from home so much. Monica! I need an email from you!! Just cuz we can’t talk everyday by phone I need to hear all the dirt!!! Oh and the photo of you and James is DELICIOUS! Thank you so much!!! More to come! Love from Gokarna! Andie