Sunday 27th

The food in India is incredible. I just love the variety of fruit at every meal. Today I had Jack fruit and Star fruit. Of course the mango is their national fruit and they are so sweet.

We had three presentations today at the Center for Development studies and then it was off for a back water canoe ride and then to Kovalam beach. What fun! Did I also mention this hotel is small bungalows spread out around the main reception and they all have ocean view and a hammock in our own private porch area. I think this is our down time after 4 hectic weeks of academics. You should have seen the waves on the Arabian Sea as it is monsoon season. Several of the girls went in swimming despite the red warning flag. I decided to wet my feet and hold tight onto my umbrella. I got a lot of teasing as they said I looked soooooo English!!

Tonight we had our farewell to India dinner. Lots of food, great company and even some dancing. Well it is off to Sri Lanka tomorrow. I am so excited to get our intinerary tomorrow. I know we visit a garment factory and we will go to a tiger refuge, I cannot believe how lucky I am. Signing off for sleep now. Goodnight.


Saturday 26th July

Bangalore is unusually quiet as people are keeping off the streets. Today another huge series of bomb blasts have been experienced further north. India is on full alert. We are expecting high security when we leave tomorrow. We, however, visited the Venkatppa Art Gallery and a huge monolith entitled Bull Temple. On the evening we had our home stays and it was incredible. The people here are truly so pleasant and we were lucky as our hostess had been on a Fulbright exchange as a teacher in Yosemite. She had only 6 students in her class. This school educates all of the children of the park workers. It was great to experienceanother typical Indian family meal and home.

Friday evening 7/26/08

Diane, Mary, Corinsa, Cally and I were collected at our hotels and taken by auto rickshaw to meet Gorgon’s family in laws. The monsoon season is here and it came full blast as we were trying to negotiate rush hour traffic which was already spooked by the bombings. By the time we arrived, I was absolutely soaked and I was wearing my new Indian traditional outfit as I sat on the windward side. It reminded me of the joke, “Did you just come by bicycle?” Well I had! We met them at their sari shop and of course the girls had to try and buy first. It was fun and the shop looked like a tornado had hit it by the time they had finished.

We went to their house and met the mother and grandmother. What charming people. Indians insist on feeding guests first then they will sit down and eat when they are done. They had a house maid called Money who had lived with them since age 10. Her father was unable to feed Money and her sister so he brought them to the city and thankfully Money got a great home. Each year the family give her gold which she will use for her dowry when she marries. She is only 16 and they educate her at home until she has enough English to go to school. They think this will be the year she is accepted. You see she is from the country and children have to have a certain command of English before they are accepted in school. We had great food and chat and an open invitation to visit anytime we want. The sister and brother in law fund an NGO school further up north as well a working full time at an investment company. How neat would it be to volunteer in their school. The streets were deserted when we left this warm family home. The rain had now stopped and it was back to the hotel to pack ready to leave again for the final leg of our travels in India.