Ants

Those little reddish brown ants bite. Ouch. My feet.

Hool Festivle

Yesterday was the Hool Festivle in Balipara. I'm not really sure what its about, but it is a big festivle in the Shantal villages. Mom set up portraits of people in Balipara that she took. In the morning, we set up the small, laminated photos, then Anapurna came with the big flex pictures. We had two pieces of wood put on the large ones, one at the top and one at the bottom, so it would hang right. Gunja and I bought bangles (12 bangles for 10Rs) and then we walked to her house to take a brake. We watched a movie, then had lunch. After, we took a rest- with her parents and Mom- in their AC room. Then we went back to Balipara and there was a big dance contest of all the villages in the area. Each had a different color sarrie and different decorations in their hair. There was also 2-4 drummers in each group. There were lots of girl dancers, then five dance groups of men. At the end, it started to rain, so Gunja, Barto, and I went back to their house with the cameras. Mom and Arpita took down most of the pictures, but Mom has to get some today. We got lots of pictures and videos of the dances, and so if we can get internet, we'll put them up.

-Celia

Nose Piercings

So: I GOT MY NOSED PIERCED! It hurts when you scratch it.... Our friend (and mom's inturpriter), Annapurna know a lady who dose piercings. So we went to her house and she had a start by using ice. Then we had to mark the spots we wanted the piercing in. Instead of using the nose ring (like how mom's was done last time) she used a needle (don't worry, it was new) and string. So we have to use hydrogen peroxide and cream and move the string a little bit at a time. Then, in about a week at least, we can put in the earring. :)

It didn't really hurt when the needle when in, but it hurt when she took it out because it gets thicker. I would've liked to have just the earring in, because then we don't have to change it, but this way we can clean the inside of the hole. My string came untied this morning, so I'll just have to be careful.

I'll try to get up the pictures later.

-Celia

How to Tell?

Stealing the idea from Mom's blog post, from being sick to school, this is what we did:

• Tried to sleep, didn't succeed (well I didn't) (1)
  
• Worked some
• Didn't blog

• Made batik (sp?) fabric for a bad (yet to be finished with boiling) (2)
  
• More aplicayed pillow covers
• watercolors
• sketches
  

• Inagurated a library (3)
  
• Made a speech (Mom)
• Took a video (me)
• Saw a temple (us)
• Met many nice people

• Organized Alcha's library
• Pined for egg rolls (Alcha was closed for 15 days)
• Tried to make egg rolls (mom)
• tested egg rolls (me)
  
• drank tea

• Had the rooms transformed
  
• Appeared in Shyamal's movie (4)
  
• wore incredibly hot clothing
• drank more tea
• Saw them retrasform the house

• Got mom's camera lense and (5)
  
• Got the comic and New Yorker cover Steve sent
• Recieved the other box
• Which includes Mom's stuff and 3rd Rock DVD's

And anything I missed from Tamil Nadu:

• Flew to Chennai
• Met Karuna (aka our angle)
• Drove to Tiru (I slept)
• Ate at Tasty Cafe for the fist time

• Went to villages (6)
  
• Took lots of pictures
• Printed pictures
• Showed pics on the viewer
• Printed more photos
• Retook pictures
• Printed more portraits
• And so on and so forth......

• Walked around the mountain (Mom)
  
• With 2.5 lock people (7)
• Got stomach sickness (8)

• Saw the biggest temple in India (possibly the biggest in the world)
• Gave puja (blessings) (9)
• Got hit in the head by an elephant (10)

• Went to Pondicherry
• Did shopping
• Bought cool shoes (Mom)
• More cheese
• Bagettes (sp?)
  

• Met Nan and
• Chandi Devi and
• Reshe and
• Karuna's wife and daughters and
• Plenty of other people

• Went home (More info)
  

Thats pretty much it. If you ask, I'd be happy to tell you more about anything. (But not by blog or email, that would take a really long time to type.)

Notes:

1. Mosquitoes + heat + no power = no sleep for me.
2. It has to be boiled because the beeswax has to be taken out and mom couldn't do it because we don't have a big enough pot. My teacher is going to do it, but she left for Kolkata today and is going to be there for 15 days, she's having surgery.
3. Mom was invited to inagurate a Tagor Reading Room at a ruarl library. She didn't get to cut the ribbon, but she got to hold the librarians arm while he did.
4. He's making a movie about war
5. Thank you Steve
6. We really were suposed to be there for work, but it was like a vacation a lot of the time.
7. I'm not sure how many people that is....
8. Yes, I have been sick more than once. Mom just forgets sometimes
9. For puja we left flowers and moth balls (well, they were like mothballs) and gave money.
10. Yes, I pet an elephant (Noah Whiteman). You give the elephant a donation by putting the money in its trunk then it hits you on the head. A very well behaved elephant.
11. Wow, I have alot of notes.

School

So, I'm attending school now. Its different than back home. Almost all the classes are ouside and we have lots of different classes. There are modeling classes (working with mud(clay)) and drawing classes and singing classes and 2 different kinds of science, and instead of lunch we have tiffin. School starts at 6 am and goes till 11, except on days when you have 7 periods. I only have 7periods twice a week. I'm in class 8C. They're are a lot of students in each class.
We have uniforms too. the 1st-5th year students wear white button up shirts and yellow skirts or shorts. The 6th-8th year girls wear white salwar (baggie pants) and yellow kamise (long tops) and stripped doupatas (scarfs). The boys wear white pants and long, long-sleeve yellow shirts. The the 9th year and older girls wear really really pretty orange sarries. They're really nice.
Most of the classes are in Bengali, so I have some trouble, but it's not too hard. I understand English the most and the teacher even had kids ask me questions one day because I speak fluent English. It was interesting.
Today was my fourth day and I met some of the girls in my class who live in the hotels on campus. The principle said I should try to meet some of them because I live near the school and they sometimes have game nights and other things at the hostels.

All in all, its been pretty fun.

Sick

Mom got sick last Sunday. I got sick too, but I threw up, I didn't have her cold yet. Now she's feeling better, and I'm sick. I was really bad yesterday and the day before, but I feel better now. Hopefully I'll be completely better in a few days.

Tie-Dye

I did tie-dye in my art class last week. Or was it the week before? So I started by doing a little practice piece of cloth that has a few circles and is orange. I'll try to post a picture. Then I did one on a 2 meter long piece of fabric called mol mol. I had to draw out my design on paper, and copy it over. Then, for the little circles, I had to use string to tie them really tightly. When your done, it feels like there are a bunch of pebbles in them. For the big circles, you do the same kind of tieing but bugger in you want larger rings and further down on the fabric if you want bigger circles. I also have to fish on it, which I made by stitching the fish, then pulling on the strings so i could squish up the fabric and tie it up. First I dyed it light blue. Then, I had to take off some ties and tie some more, so when we died it yellow, I would get yellow in the white spaces and blue in the tied spaces and green in the spaces that were untied blue. Then I tyed and untyed more and more, and we dyed it red, so now it has white, yellow, light blue, green, light red, darker red, and maroon. Its really pretty. I'll try to put up a picture of it soon.