A Long way from Home...

Sorry I have not posted in a bit, the entire city has been having internet connection issues, and well the power goes out often too, but other then excuses I have been super busy!!!I have been keeping busy in many ways possible! Such as going to school, or finding ways to not go to school (but then ending up there anyway).

Indian life
Well there are a lot of things to Indian life which I have now grown accustomed to that well I guess would have been totally shocking to anyone if they did not know what to expect. Some examples
1. You will never open a door especially in shopping in stores, someone (normally with a big gun) will open then door for you
2. If you are carrying a big bag when shopping you will learn to turn it in with all your valuables for a little white round token, and pass it over to another guy (once again normally with a big gun).
3. You never have to throw away your trash, once again someone else will do this for you, you can relax and leave freely without tossing anything into the rubbish bin.
4. Your timing is possibly the strangest thing you will ever incur. You get up in the morning around 10, eat breakfast around 11, go to school around 12, eat lunch sometimes around 2 (during school break) or when you get home from school around 4 or 5 (sometimes 6), then dinner is generally pretty late somewhere around 9-11 (depending on the day, normally on Saturdays you have a very later dinner) and then you stay up and go to bed around 12-2.
5. Life is relaxed to the extreme, though maybe not as relaxed as South America, the concept of time is very abstract. Such as I was attending a rotary event where we were to be home by 9:30 well the event did not even begin till around then and then we ended up home around 1am. Sometimes it is well annoying, but sometimes it is fun. I have never felt stressed or pressured to be on time or just in general, they live in the concept of enjoying life, because if you don’t they believe you will die (which sorta sucks, so just start loving life).
6. Bargaining is cultural, learn to do it, unless there is a big sign on the door that says fixed rates then well you will get kicked out (which is not advised).
7. It is always going to rain, no matter how hot and sunny it looks with now clouds in the sky everyone gets used to getting wet in freak rain showers.
8. Food is almost always vegetarian, if you want nonveg. food plan on forking out a few hundred more. Also for anyone allergic to milk or just cannot stomach it (in my case) you may be pretty screwed.
9. Though many think of India as a dirty dirty country, you take showers two or sometimes even three times a day, to wash the pollution that you feel all over you from riding in the rickshaws.
10. Rickshaws are the preferred mode of daily exchange students who cannot operate vehicles or motor bikes. This is sometimes a big pain. Because the languages here are almost impossible to learn (but we are all trying very very very hard) the wallas (drivers) almost never speak English and enjoy pissing you off greatly. Pissing you off by well taking you on the longest route possibly trying to overcharge you by rs. 150 when you are trying to get home quickly or just refusing to take you short distances that you are not able to walk. I have decided to pray to the gods of good rickshaw drivers and sometimes this really helps! I have more then once lately gotten rickshaw wallas who will not only take me the 5km to my friend Lauren’s house or to school, but they will let me get away with not giving them one rupee or they will *gasp, gasp* give me the right change!!!
11. (Skip this one it you are worried about me) India really has some great things to offer, but at the same time some really really annoying things too and some really annoying ideas. White is conceded in any shape or form to be the most beautiful color of skin, and then blonde to be the perfect hair color (also blonde hair is not to be reproduced and that it is a gift from the gods (They don’t sell blonde hair dye)) so this comes to be a much annoying factor of daily life in India. What some of the exchangers call “The Stare!” “The Stare” is this glance that you get from just about every guy in the country; it is a look that even if you are starving for attention you Do Not want to see! Also men love to go on about how they want to marry you or live your lives together with you, in well about 20 seconds of knowing you. Being confident in town is also something that is to be avoided. Many of the friends from all facets of the world know that they have been coached on confident walking, head held high, walking tall, and if you are getting strange looks making eye contact with the creepy people so that you know that they know (whatever you get the point). But here that is one of the ultimate turn ons in guy is making eye contact because eyes (especially non-brown eyes) are one of the three beautiful parts of the body, the solution is made to this by covering with nondescript scarves and well big sunglasses.
12. Goats, Cows, Pigs, Dogs, Horses, Buffalo, Frogs, Centipedes, Camels, and the occasional sheep are pretty much everywhere, I know this has already been expressed but really you have no idea. Just outside my house is a small field and everyday either on a walk or on the quick walk to the corner to catch a rickshaw you get to see the goats and THE GOAT LADY! The goat lady is a bit freaky but she has about 35 goats that she herds around my area of town.
13. NOISE!!! The noises you hear are always different, and well the noise is well once again wild! I have some favorite noises I hear on a daily basis:
a. RAHUL!!! There is a small boy that every morning for around two hours he will yell his friends name on the street, very convincingly Rahul is not a real boy because he will do this for about two hours looking for his friend. I am stuck on this is this boy’s imaginary friend named Rahul, but I am not crazy I have been talking to other people around the area and they believe the same thing! I believe one of my new goals in life is to find Rahul just so this boy will stop calling his name.
b. There are some pretty psycho birds all around the city that are pretty nuts
c. Honking is well you honk for everything, even if there is nothing there you honk, you honk in the middle of the night, in the middle of the morning or just to annoy everyone.
d. Back up sensors or noses in cars are pretty nuts, many people have back up sensors in cars, and many are played to tunes such as We Wish You A Marry Christmas, Jingle Bells, National Anthems of the World, Superman, selections of Britney Spears, We Will Rock You and other of Queens greatest hits, and my personal favorite My Heart Will Go On (the song from Titanic).
e. Constant construction and road work is always present, jack hammers and pounding along with the noise of things smashing is always around
f. Parades and drums beating, fire crackers and religious chanters, are always around and on the streets. You will just be sitting and you will hear something or someone is calling or praying or just in general celebrating in the streets.
g. The fruit sellers: this deserves really to be its own category…
The fruit sellers walk up and down the street at all hours of the day yelling out names of fruits and veggies. And well they push around little wooden carts that for all the Monty Python fans will immediately recognize as being the carts from the Bring out Your Dead scene…. They are absolutely hysterical!!!! So every time you see one I am always thinking they are going to start yelling “Bring out your dead, Bring out your dead!”

Well that is all of that list for now, but I will add some more things latter…



School
School here is well “different.” I believe this is a great word for it, and it is really nuts otherwise!!! It is currently approaching quarter and so far we have done NO WORK (except for one test, which I will explain latter) and they sit around and read the book to us. I have to say I have eyes and I can read and the book does not need to be read to me! Then at the same time, no one goes to school!!!!! The attendance among everyone is so bad and then when there are only exchange students there they almost refuse to teach and they enjoy telling us we are not “regular students.” Some of us exchangers have tried to sign up for sports but we get the run around that we are not “regular students.” As for the one test we have had, test here are different and well I think the teacher is a bit biased and does not like us. I received “high” marks on the test which was a 6/20! I was pretty excited to fail, when my answers were right out of the test book, for once in my life I decided not to argue with the teacher for a better grade.

The Astrologist
I know you would all love to hear about my visit to an astrologist!!!
Well he told me a few things namely I am a little too young for a serious consultation
So he had many things to tell me:
I am a double Sagittarius
My future is pretty sweet, if I say so myself, and my past is not to bad too.
Alright here it goes I am going to give ya’ll just the bullet points that I took notes on:
1. Everything in my life happens very suddenly
2. My life Motto: Go Big of Go Home; I will never do small things in life, no doing of small things will benefit me, and I will always have big plans to become big…
3. I will have three main years in my life
a. 1999-2000: He said that this was a very defining point in my life, he asked if anything defining had happened and I said I moved back to the United States after a long time abroad, but he thought it could have been future career related, and I said that I got interested in politics in the 2000 elections, and he believed that could have been it.
b. 2008-2009: This could be related to health or an accident, but it will defiantly be a turning point in life. It also may be good or bad. It could also be related to my future.
c. 2016-2017: This will be a major turning point
d. What do all these years have in common? Well he asked if they had any kind of connection and being the political nerd I am, well I pointed out that they were all American election years… Which may make a big distinction in my life…
4. I am very fond of Luxury items: Like artwork, and I will collect art. (Though I was really thinking that it would be cool purses and fast cars).
5. There is a danger of water, and of liquids, in my life (which I found weird that I am a swimmer and lifeguard, but I am deathly terrified of fish?)
6. As for my future career plans I will go into working in the fields of public agency, public relations, marketing, construction (to deal with land, not buildings), and computers or technology and possibly law. But what was really scene by the astrologist was politics and he believed that was very clear in my path).
7. I will always have lots of money, and will make lots of money (to buy the luxury items) BUT if I ever decide to give any of it away to others, I will not only lose all my money but finically I will be down a toilet! So I should keep all my money!
8. I should only help people in my line of work, and people will come to me for help but I should not openly help people in the future especially finically.
9. Between the years of 2005-2007 I will do a lot of traveling
10. In health I have family related heart problems along with weight issues, and I should be afraid of heat and I could have problems in the future with acidity.
11. In Marriage I will be much much older and right before I get married I will have a big issue which will cause trouble.
12. The Best years in my life, especially career and financially, will be from the ages of 42-58 (which will be as pointed out by my host brother as the key political running years, he is convinced I will be a politician because I am too diplomatic).
13. My stones are
a. Blue Sapphire
b. Diamond
c. Emerald
14. My best countries are:
a. India
b. Russia
c. East Africa
d. Austria
e. Hungary
(which is wild in the astrologers mind to the fact I have already been to my top one and well my second to an extent).
So that was what he told me, and he also said to me that if I ever had any questions or needed advice just to call him up, and well also that my karma with the terrorist is going to be ok. (As a note they did just attack a city that is relatively close to me, and now they are talking that Pune may be the next terrorist target, but never fear this is Heather’s blog and well I spoke to an astrologer and he said I was ok) So now that everyone knows about me and my future plans, any one want to get me a Blue Sapphire for luck for my birthday it is coming up! (Kidding).


Holidays!
One of the reasons I love India! Is that there is ALWAYS a holiday or celebration! Every day I can get out of bed, and ask what’s today and I could receive a list of what holidays and celebrations are going on! About once a week or so we get off of school for a holiday of some sort. Recently was Raksha Bandhan (rahk-shah-bahn-dahn) which is a holiday that I have to say may become my new favorite holiday, even though it was possibly one of the most confusing and awkward days of my life! On this holiday the sister ties a Rahki (a bracelet) to her brothers wrist. In this process you say a few little things, turn a candle around their head a few times when at the same time you are praying for them to protect you, and then you smear some red stuff on their forehead (specifically with your left ring finger), then you throw rice on their head (and press some of the rice into their forehead with the sticky red stuff you have just smeared all over their forehead), and then you feed them a sweet (normally chocolate) which they only bit half of and then they take it out of their mouth and give the other half to you, after that you finally tie the Rahki, and then they give you a gift! So if you have a brother like at home you do this just with the immediate family and they all watch and then your brother gives you a gift then you normally go over to your other relatives house and then do it for your other brothers! Now how is that possible now your other brothers! Well I will tell you, all your cousins are brothers too! So in this my host family took me to one of the relative’s house and we met with just my host mothers mother’s side of the family, which is HUGE! We had over 50 people in a three bedroom apartment! (And you should have scene the shoes over 100 shoes crowded the stairs!). It was pretty crazy; well I had to do the same thing with all my brother- cousins! And I did not know I had so many brothers! It was crazy, they kept falling out of the wood work they were everywhere, I was constantly saying to myself and others, are we related! There was soooo many people, and well I did get some good presents out of this deal! So in the gift count I got 202 rupees, a coffee mug, a ton of really good chocolate, some weird gold zip lock type bag? (I still have not figured out the use or purpose of this thing?). And then from my brother (Pratik) he got me a set of silver, diamond, pearl earrings and a necklace, which is possibly the most gorgeous set of jewelry I may ever own! (Some of you may be thinking that Heather and earrings! What will she do she does not have pierced ears anymore, well in a nutty decision I let my friend re-pierce them possibly just so I can wear the earrings he got me!).

Shopping
Well in attempts to find things to do, shopping of course is on my list! Shopping for well everything! I have been in a search for new cloths because none of the ones I brought with me fit right anymore (I look like I am swimming in them)… And jeans and t-shirts can really only go so far. There is some great shopping places in town, and well shopping has a very nice exchange rate, sometimes… Not to mention Barging is cultural! Really India may be the great land of fakes! Fake but AMAZING jewelry! FAKE Sunglasses, FAKE purses, all at well AMAZING prices (I am not advertising for anyone to come here, just send my parents some money, and I will get what ever you want, just send me an email (Again Kidding). I did make a really spontaneous purchase of an adorable Chanel Purse… It was a tad expensive but it really is just about the most amazing bag known to man…. Also in Pune we have malls, which are not as fun as street shopping but really do have some amazing buys, and bargains, and are a bit safer, and you don’t have beggar children coming up to you and driving you nuts! They do say some crazy things to get you to give them money or to buy what you want such as “You look like Movie Star!” (I think I have heard this line about 100 times by now!).

Culture Vulture
Well I really try to do everything cultural! Because I am on a cultural exchange and well have done some pretty cultural things, such as the other day (going back to the holidays) I got mendi done (mendi, is the proper term for henna in India) which other then smelling really bad for about two days, is amazingly beautiful! For getting it done a friend of my brothers invited two friends and I to get it done by a professional, for a holiday in which the women fast for their husbands and also if they are younger for their future husbands, they fast for one day until the moon comes out and the moon comes out sort of late and in the twilight hours when the moon is not out yet they apply mendi! So my friends and I came along for the ride and got it done. I will have to get some pictures in the near future… I am working on getting some picture of Pune on to the blog, but if you are terribly impatient, my friend Lauren is better with blogging then I am and she has pictures posted! Her blog address is www.laurenharper.blogspot.com (that is an advertisement, check it out! There are pictures some with me in them). Well I must be off for another exciting adventure, and if you do take the time to see lauren’s blog check out the picture with her and I (I am in an orange salwaar) look closely specifically at my face, and maybe you will see something else cultural! 