We are safe

Post from Margaret:

News is sketchy about yesterday's train crash and reports continue of possible sabotage by Maoist Rebels. Municipal elections take place on Sunday.  I have decided that we will hunker down until all results and any subsequent reactions are past.  I have plenty of work to do here, so it won't be a problem to stay put for a bit.  Celia will continue with art lessons, etc.

Though this is a tragedy and many are suffering as I write, I assure you that we are both fine though quite sad.

Mom's Birthday

Mom's birthday was yesterday, the 24th. Our friend Shamal brought us a cake, at midnight, in the morning. I was I gave mom a patch-bag from Alcha that I got her the day before (with her money), a keychain I made, and a patchwork I made that I'm going to make into a pillow. Shamal gave her a small 5 Star and a little baby bottle because she is a Bengali baby, meaning she talks like an infant. "Milk. Egg. Yes. My daughter." That's mainly what we can say in Bengali. Then we called Steve so he could wish her a happy birhtday. We went to bed around 2. At 8, we woke up, and we went to Alcha for breakfast. Mom had two egg rolls. Then we went to Kalah Bhavana to meet Sanchain (he didn't show up) and ended up talking to one of the photographers who had pictures in an exibit. We went back to Rotenpoly and did lots of shopping. We got yarn, knitting needles, a tape measure, a ruler, folders, and mugs. Mom's has a cow on it, and a cow handle, and mine has an elephant on the cup, and one on the handle. They're silly, but fun. Then we came home, and it started raining! It was mom's birthday rain. We stood outside, in our clothes, and got soaked. It was fun. We went to my art class after. Then later, we went out to dinner with Shamal in Boulpur. We had really good food. Then we came home and went to sleep. It was a fun birthday.

Radio Recording

Arpita was having kids read powems and sing songs for a holiday next week. She had me read one of the Tagor powems in the Easy Learning book. It was really wierd, I was the oldest one reading except Bebe, and I was reading the easiest powem. It was in Bengali though. We arrived late because it was raining (suprising, I know). When I got there, there were about 15 other kids too. We all practiced our powems, songs, and other things first, then we recorded them on a little machine with a microphone attached. It was fun. I think I did pretty well.

Day of Travel

We woke up at about 4am, and we left at 5:30. Karuna's driver drove us. It was about 3 and 1/2 hours car ride to Chennai. Then we had to wait for over an hour at the airport in Chennai becuase our plane was delayed. I really didn't want to fly becasue on our flight to Tamil Nadu, I got really sick on the plane. Ew. The flight was ok though. It took a few hours, I'm not sure exactly how long it was. Then we had to figure out luggage and a taxi in Kolkata. We offered to pay the driver extra to get us to the train station fast, but it still took 4o minutes. Mom refused to tip us though, because he dropped us at the opposite end of the train station from where we needed to be becasue he said that you can't drive up to the gate, which you can, we've done it before. Then, we were in the wrong area, so we ended up missing our train and had to get another one. Pooey. We finally got on the next train and tried to enjoy the AC. When we got to the train station in Boulpur, it was a total mob as usual. All the rickshaw drivers trying to get us to come with them because we're foreners. We finally got two rickshaws to take us and all our bags to the house. At that point, we were already melting. We had pasta for dinner, and had alot of trouble falling asleep because of the heat and the bug bites and the power going out. I miss AC.

Temple Walk

When we were in Tiruvanimali, we went on a walk around the mountain (well "hill") with a woman we met named Chandi Devi. We went to alot of the temples. We started at 5am, so we had go get up at 4:30. It was still dark. At the first temple, we had to eat chalk, it was gross. Blah! At one of the other temples, they had a tree where women hang up bags with rocks in them for fertility. It was really pretty to see all the different color bags hanging around the tree. One of the temples was really big, and it has lots of statues of the different gods. Chandi told us about Durga, a godess who cuts of the heads of ignorence. She has 12 arms and carries lots of different things, including war weapons. We got tired after a while and I was dehydrated, so we stopped to get water, sprite, and salty snacks. Later, we got chai. Apperantly we only walked about 2.5 kilometers. Then we took a rickshaw to downtown and went to a reastruant. I tried idilies for the first time, they're really good, and I had dosa. We ended up going shopping and I got really pretty white pants with embroidery and a white top too. We had lots of fun and took lots of pictures.

Blogging

Sorry I havn't blogged in so long. We've been having some internet trouble and we have been pretty busy too. Sorry. So I'll blog more now.