if you can't make a straight kolam you will never marry an indian.

note to self: do not light fireworks that come in a box with the Hulk printed on the front.

since sunday all i've heard is fireworks going off for diwali (or deepavali/the "festival of lights"). i'm not even exaggerating. the fireworks started sunday night after we stuffed ourselves with pizza at martin's "pimped out" house, woke me up monday morning at 6 A.M., were part of our celebration last night back at the guest house, AND our night watchmen (kalai and nanda) continued to set them off this morning in our yard.

i thought they would have ended last night when we had a close call with those Hulk fireworks. now me.. i am personally afraid to light sparklers. our friend steven from north carolina, however, is a different breed of firework enthusiast. last night he lit up a Hulk firework, whose fuse lit up quicker than everyone expected and threw it a little too late- leaving a small burn on his middle finger and his cheek. oi veigh. steven is perfectly fine- they are very minor burns, but for a second everyone thought they were permanently deaf and that the dining room was exploding...

to further celebrate diwali, i learned the basics of making kolams last night from an older tamil woman. kolams are line drawings painted with rice or granite powder. they are not being taught as much anymore, but you still see many ladies in south india making them outside their front doors. they are supposed to bring prosperity and good luck to a household. some designs are based on astrology- there are designs for each planet- and some are made for certain gods, such as shiva and vishnu. according to our teacher, people used to judge a woman to a certain degree by how well she could make a kolam. thick, messy lines = this woman is not economically thrifty and will spend all your cash. thin/broken lines = hell no. straight/even lines = wife material obviously.
i'm working on my lines, but it's not looking too promising..

in other news- our yoga session today was one of the more interesting ones..
one of our instructors, soma, teaches an incredibly unique style of yoga that combines very fluid motions with stronger, more rigid poses. with that said, today we were introduced to some rather interesting poses. one of them was the lion pose and if i showed anyone at home i'm sure they would nearly die from laughing so hard. you tuck your feet under your bum, plant your hands in front of you (leaning forward slightly), and then cross your eyes and stick out your tongue as far as you can. then you breathe in and let out a strong breath that i guess sounds like a roar of sorts.
it took me about five minutes to stop laughing and actually try the pose. some people just looked at soma in disbelief and then watched as we all made faces that would definitely scare small children and people who watched the exorcist too much away.

gorgeous, no?

not going to lie- i eventually tried it. maybe one day i'll be able to do it with a straight face and feel the strength in my lungs that it is supposed to provide?

we're on indian time now. the tea should come in.. about two hours.

as we sped along the streets of pondicherry and explained to a disgruntled receptionist how to spell my dad's first name, i reminded my stomach full of butterflies that what was happening is inevitable for westerners in india.

at some point all westerners visiting india have to go to the hospital. it's like initiation into the chaos that is india and it's sanitation issues.

for the past week i've been dealing with styes on both my eyelids. it started out last week when i woke up and it felt like i had been punched in my right eye. i figured it was a bug bite or something and would clear up after a few days of putting hot rags on it. well.. that didn't work. thursday i woke up and both my eyes were swollen and burning. i tried warm cloths, boric acid solutions, and keeping my eyes as clean as possible, but they just got worse and by sunday morning i was in a taxi on my way to a siddha medicine specialist in pondicherry. dr. l gave me ervatamia floral eye drops, sandhanathi compound oil, and aloe gel medicated in sukmara extract capsules. i took them all sunday, but by nighttime i was in tears and calling my dad to hear a familiar, comforting voice. today i went to the hospital (basically like going to the doctor here) and saw an optometrist, who prescribed some antibiotics and was really reassuring.

hopefully this will all clear up within the week, but right now i have like three styes on my eyelids and they SUCK. i've never gotten them before, but dr. l told me it's fairly common for people coming from temperate climates to get them for the first time in places with more tropical weather. i wanted to give the herbal medicine a try and dr. l was REALLY knowledgeable and helpful, but i needed someone to guarantee some pain relief... oh well, enough about all that.

so, i just got back from chidambaram, which is along the eastern coast of india and south of auroville. we stayed there one night, but the town left quite an impression on everyone. let's just say people saw a topless woman in what appeared to be the beginning of a hindu, sacrificial ceremony at the temple and someone got a firecracker thrown near them amidst a wedding precession through the streets downtown.. chidambaram was hoppin'.

before that we visited trichy, thanjavur, swammimalai, and kumbakonan. my favorite place was probably trichy because of the temples we visited there- the rock fort temple and the sri rangam temple. the rock fort temple is breath-takingly beautiful. i first spotted it as we drove into the city in our huge van that screams "TOURISTS!!!!". out of the mess of smog and uproar, my eyes landed on a huge rock formation spiraling out of the edge of the city. it towered over the brightly painted buildings and announced itself with impressive, shining temple adornments. when someone said, "oh! that's where we are visiting later on..." i almost could not contain my excitement.

the picture above is of the rock fort temple. the photo fails to fully capture the fantastic city view you get from atop the rock and the hauntingly ancient, romantic feeling it gives the city, but it does give you an idea of what it's like to see it off in the distance for the first time.. you cannot help but climb the thousands of stairs to the top in a trance, as you pass my monkeys and elderly priests in skirts, ash smeared on their wrinkly foreheads and fall silent at the sight of the city below when you reach the room at the rock's apex. there below you the beauty of india stretches out before your feet. i saw patches of lush greenery spotted with cows on the fringes of town and dirty, city roofs covered in pictures of local indian stars and starlettes.

dr. v, the 75-year old art historian who traveled with us, told us that you can find anything's opposite in india and that's certainly what i saw while scanning all of trichy on top of the rock fort temple. india is a special place. despite swollen eyelids, drama within our little community in auroville, and seeing my life flash before me everytime i ride in an indian taxi, i still see SO MUCH beauty in india's crowded streets and expansive rice fields.

it's nice to be back in auroville- sleeping in my own bed and eating as much granola as my heart desires, but i honestly cannot wait to do more traveling around southern india. i can hear the caves in hampi calling my name!

i hope everyone who is reading is well (despite pulled hamstrings, swollen eyes, flus, fatigue from studying/ partying, and all..)! you are all in my thoughts! and those thoughts are always positive!

"he even dances like a tai chi teacher.."

GOOD NEWS! ...it's officially monsoon season!

last night it POURED and the thunder was louder than i could ever had imagined. this thunder does not produce the distant, sharp "crack" noise that i'm used to. it first announces itself with an overwhelming rumble that shakes your whole hut and then crescendoes into a huge explosion of sound. the brightness of the lightning does not quite match the intensity of the sound that assaults your poor eardrums, but it is an impressive sight as well. the whole hazy sky is lit up in front of you, and all you can do is hope that your keet-roof hut isn't THAT flammable... right?

then in the morning, bleary-eyed and yawning because the thunder kept you up all night, you walk over to the bathroom before yoga and discover that you really shouldn't be so worried about that rain... because it's not so bad compared to what awaits you in your kitchen and bathrooms.

the sinks of the bathrooms are FULL of half dead, squirming tertiary termites (according to Thlaloc, our tai chi teacher) and that's not even the worst part. the open-air kitchen/dining space has acquired a new carpet. you think.. "oh golly, it sure looks like a whole lotta leaves washed into the kitchen". upon closer inspection, you realize that the 10' x 10' area is... squirming. the termites, seeking refuge, have piled themselves up onto our dining area floor. i'm going to have to say that this occassion ranks high on my "things that make my stomach turn" list, haha..

so, we swept all the bugs out of the dining area.. and hopefully there won't be any other infestations on that level again. i may never leave my mosquito net fortress of a bed if that happens again. for real. you might be sitting there laughing and saying "oh no, just wait what will crawl all up in your space..", but i'm assuming that the worst of the creepy-crawly onslaught is over. hopefully.

(long sigh)

ok, so i have time to write this morning because i am doing more research on wastewater management and waiting a while to go check the algae. i'm hoping the rain lets up and i can assess the damage to the algae.

this past weekend was off the wall. i (and all the girls here basically) have been feeling a tad bit restrained by our teachers/guardians. everything has been planned for us (dinners, dance classes, etc.), which is FANTASTIC, but at this point we are all craving a bit more independence. so this past weekend we went into the city (Pondicherry) and had dinner at a really pretty, really french beachfront hotel/restaurant. beer has never tasted so good, haha. the beach in pondicherry is so incredibly busy on saturday nights. there are vendors selling little glow-in-the-dark gadgets, roasted nuts, prints of indian god(desses), and other little trinkets and other characters all along the rocky coast. when we were eating dinner we watched this 10 year old girl walk and BOUNCE along a tightrope on the beach as well. all while carrying a ceramic pot on her head. crazyness.

later on we went to an auroville full moon dance that was pretty fun, but we soon got tired and started to bike home. on the way home one girl (jenny) and i heard the all too familiar sounds of thumping techno beats blaring from a far-off stereo somewhere in the woods of auroville. as everyone biked back, we looked at each other and both decided we needed to find where they were coming from. so we biked around for about 20 minutes, stopping to listen for the music and then biking down various roads that seemed to lead in its direction. finally we turned down a small dirt road and the music got REALLY loud. we biked up a windy hill and saw flashing lights through some bushes to our right- excited, we sped up, turned a corner, and found quite a surprising sight.

in the middle of the woods we found the youth of auroville dancing inside what looked like india's version of a club under a keet roof. blasting lil' wayne, snoop dogg, reggaeton, and the occassional trance song, young people around our age were dancing on tables, smoking cigarettes, and crowding by the "dj booth". i just kept thinking, "holy shit, i can't believe we found this! what the hell is going on?!"

we had finally found the party in auroville and we were pretty f**kin' ecstatic. we danced for a while and talked to a couple aurovillians, but soon realized that everyone knew each other and most people were just doing there own thing. so far it seems like there are many aurovillians who want to keep auroville uber exclusive and then there are those who are very welcoming. so, we biked back, promising our one welcoming host that we'd surely return another weekend. i'm still reeling from that find, haha.. i mean, techno parties in the woods?

oh man, last night was pretty cool too. we met up with a large group of teenage girls from dehli and made dinner at solitude farm. some girls taught them to hula and i tried to teach some body percussion (that's right.. body percussion). you just might think i took a side trip to kenya next time you see me and i pull out some african body percussion... no joke.
i'm totally joking... although i did learn some body percussion. it is fun as hell though and i hope to learn some more soon.

ah man, i need to go be more productive now..

i miss you all and hope you are enjoying the fall foliage!

white girl in a sari.

well hey there U.S.A.!

oh man, i have so much to talk about yet again. and yet i have so little time to write because now i have... dun dun dun... an internship! the actual work has begun. oh shit!

so today i woke up bright and early for yoga at 6:15 A.M. when i was in the "downward facing dog" pose i felt this fuzzy, grungy creature sit up against my heels and as i looked back i realized it was... Sugar! sugar is jason and l'aura's new puppy and she has been intruding on our yoga circle every morning. we are now using her as the ultimate test of our concentration. my dilemma: should i concentrate on my breathing and posture or should i stare adoringly at the two month old puppy chewing on my yoga mat??!

then i blasted some music in the shower from my discman and speaker set to wake myself and everyone else up a little bit more. after that i cycled off to C.S.R. to do some measurements on the algae there. my service learning project/internship for the past several days has been to watch over the new algae growing in the wastewater treatment system demo there. the system basically consists of a large cement basin that has six compartments (all at graduated levels, each one is higher than the next) filled with several types of algae collected from lakes in neighboring towns. a water pump sends water down the different levels of algae in the basin all day long (keeping the algae covered in about 1-5 cm of water at any given time). my job is to bike there three times a day to make sure the pump is running, measure the water levels, add more water if needed, measure the temperature of each compartment in the basin, feed the algae nutrients, and note the weather conditions and availability of power supply.

here are some of the problems i have been running into:
(1) the electrity in auroville shuts off OFTEN (about three hours in the early afternoon, an hour or two in the evening, and then at various other times throughout the day additionally), which means no power for the pump.
(2) yesterday i rolled up on two dogs having a field day with the algae basin water. they were lapping up the water while the pump was off and when i shoo-ed one away, (s)he jumped up on the basin and planted one huge paw in the middle of the algae blooms. i then chased him/her with my notebook and got laughed at by some nearby tamil workers.
(3) one of the dogs chewed up a pipe and a filter (still works, i guess).
(4) someone shut off the power yesterday during saraswathi puja, a local festival celebrating the goddess of learning.

the guy who's heading up this project is named Lars. he's german and has been working with wastewater systems of a more traditional type for years. i'm helping him first figure out if the basin water is staying within the proper temperature range for algae growth each day and if it is stable enough to start adding actual waste water and get accurate measurements. it's really interesting stuff and i don't even mind biking out there three times a day (but it certainly makes me tired by the end of the day..). actually, i should head out there again soon to make my midday measurement...!

so, yesterday was A LOT of fun. it was the ninth day (last full day) of the saraswathi puja festival, so we all dressed up in saris (oh jeez..) and visited a nearby Ganesh temple. it felt like a really intense push into indian culture since we haven't had the chance to spend much time outside of auroville. we also visited chaturvedi, a well-known indian author and friend of our teacher, bindu. he is a spritely old fellow who talked to us about the how the indian woman's role in society has changed over the centuries. we were not told anything about him before going, so unfortunately we hadn't the time to think of questions for him, but hopefully we will visit him again. we then shuffled (limited mobility in saris..) off to a friend's sister's house in a suburb of Pondicherry. there we were given the nine grains of saraswathi puja and some bangles to remember Anandi's family by. they were really great to talk to and i will always remember how gratious they all were for sure!

when we got back i didn't even want to take the sari off right away. i shuffled over to the tibetan food buffet we had for dinner and scarfed down some mo-mos and chickpeas still in full sari. once you get the whole walking thing down saris can be pretty comfortable. surprisingly enough. i wish i had some pictures to put up, but i don't. i figured the other girls were taking enough pictures for every single person in the U.S. to get their own, so i'll see if i can copy some to bring back with me.

some people felt uncomfortable going to the temple and wearing saris, but i think our effort to show our respect/adoration for Tamil culture was received well.

well, i'm off to chase away the dogs and protect that freakin' algae..
peace!!
hope all is well!