At long last I shall describe the wonderful wedding event of several weeks ago. At the beginning of the term, Rachael and I learned that our host mother's brother was going to be married at the end of October, while we were still staying with their family. While some of our classmates have had awkward situations with their host families in which they know an event is happening, like someone's birthday or a celebration of some kind, but they aren't explicitly invited (or they're implicitly but specifically not invited), we were told from day one that we could come to the multiple days of festivities and even borrow Khadeeja's clothes! Needless to say, we looked forward to the approaching nuptials (I've literally never heard this word said, only written, so it seems appropriate that I should write in in my blog!) with anticipation for the majority of the semester.

Weeks before the event itself, we picked out what we wanted to wear. I decided to wear a gharara, a traditional Muslim dress-type thing one day and a sari the next day of the main wedding. Rachael chose saris for both days, and Khadeeja let us borrow salwar kameez suits for the less formal days. Unfortunately, the first day of festivities, which was presented to us as "small gathering" in which the bride would have turmeric rubbed on her. Rachael ended up feeling too sick to go (she slept all day that day and continued the entire time we were gone), so Khadeeja gave me a yellow suit to wear, and we piled into cars with her sister and nieces and some other obscure relatives whose names I don't know.

We went to Old Delhi, near Chandni Chowk, and walked through a very, very cockroach-infested alley to get to the house of someone related to someone in the wedding party (still unclear who exactly owned the house, but the hostess seemed to be someone's aunt and she was incredibly sweet, if a bit pushy with food). As soon as we got there, I realized the "eight" predicted people had somehow multiplied to 80 or so, and everyone was wearing yellow. Many young women and children and even some older woman were dancing energetically to some Bollywood music playing form a set of speakers, and I was almost immediately roped into joining the dance floor happenings. I don't consider myself a bad dancer — I'm not winning any awards any time soon and I mostly just writhe the same as everyone else — but these women and children (especially the children) put me to shame. They were confident and moved beautifully, while I awkwardly stood there and tried to imitate their dance moves, which involve a lot of hip shaking and hand gestures. Every time I tried to excuse myself, I was dragged back into the fray, especially by this one nice woman who I think was the domestic help of another woman there. Everyone thought I was just a riot (an awkward, clumsy riot, but a riot nonetheless) and the older women made the younger ones teach me some dance moves.

Eventually the bride came in looking beautiful. We later found out she has this hybrid Scottish and Indian accent when she speaks English, which is awesome. She sat on some pillows on one end of the room and a ceremony was performed, in which all the women smeared turmeric on her arms and hands and face and any other exposed skin they could find. Apparently this ended up giving her a rash (oops). Then it became a free-for-all of people picking up globs of turmeric and spreading it on one another, and I had about an inch-thick layer of yellow paste all over my face. I think I was considered a novel target so everyone there came up to me to cover me even more thoroughly in yellow. We then washed our faces, ate a delicious meal, thanked our hosts, dodged more cockroaches, and headed to our host grandmother's house. I finally got to meet her, and the women discussed more wedding preparations while Khadeeja's nieces continued to dance.



Oy vey, as usual, I left this until the last part of my night, and I think it's time for me to go to bed. I also have to put a band-aid around my headphones because there are some wires sticking out that sort of hurt when they poke me, and I'm afraid the sound is going to go soon. I need to update more about Kolkata, but I'll give some brief highs and lows here.

I spend most of my time alone because Sarah Kate and Tania are working with another NGO and I'm in a completely different part of the city. We're staying in what amounts to the living room of a nice older couple in south Kolkata, and every morning (or almost every morning), I wake up a little before 7 to go to the DOTS (directly observed treatment, short course) treatment center in way, way north Kolkata. I walk to the metro station, take the metro for about 40 minutes, which is a barbaric experience because the trains are always overcrowded and people shove like you wouldn't believe, sweat a lot because it's hot here and the metro isn't air conditioned, sometimes nap if I can get a seat, and then walk to the clinic. I've been interviewing patients, and I've also had some interviews with NGO leaders and health care practitioners, and my study is coming along nicely. Calcutta Rescue, the NGO I'm partnering with, is an awesome organization led by a very nice man named Dr. Bobby, and they do lots of comprehensive and holistic health care work in the poorest areas of the city.

After the clinics, I usually try to find lunch somewhere, which either involves buying something kind of sketchy that isn't very satisfying and then something chocolatey (you know me, carboholic over here), or not eating much at all. There aren't that many restaurants, and sometimes I kind of set myself up for failure because I like to get off at random metro stops every day to explore the city, but then I end up in areas that I don't know at all so I don't know were to find restaurants. So after I eat, I usually go read in a park or do work somewhere like the NGO headquarters, or try to do something cultural. That attempt was foiled the other day the planetarium because all that day's shows were cancelled "due to the untimely demise of our colleague," which made me (morbidly) wonder if some man had actually died IN the planetarium. That's really not a bad place to go though, because I would imagine the stars are lovely (I wouldn't know, though, since I couldn't see a show that day).

I've seen the Victoria Memorial from the outside but I haven't gone in yet. Maybe Sunday? There's a multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) clinic on Saturdays that I go to, but Sundays are kind of my day off. Oh, I just remembered! There's also a carnival thing at St. Paul's cathedral, which is this beautiful cathedral in central Kolkata, built by the British of course, on Saturday! And last weekend was the film festival so we went to a terribly violent Brazilian film about organized crime and corruption, and then a terribly tragic Chinese film about an earthquake (like, nothing positive happened in this film and most of the characters spent a good portion of it wailing, for good reason because their homes and families were destroyed by a massive earthquake). I tried to go to another film that I thought was Dutch, but it was actually this really slow Indian film and I kept falling asleep, so I just left after a little while. Mostly I walk around and read and sit on the Metro and eat chocolate. And talk to random men who always open with, "Where are you from?" I think that's funny because there's rarely even a greeting. Most of the time I just ignore people like this, but sometimes I get sucked into conversations with them when they walk beside, and some of them are actually nice and not creepy. Tania currently has a semi-stalker here (not quite that serious, but he's creepy) in the form of a French man that we've run into a few times a films. He's married and middle-aged and awkward and won't stop emailing and calling her, but she's told him now very explicitly to leave her alone (several times) so I think he's finally getting the message.

Those were largely a lot of unconnected sentences but I figured I would word dump about Kolkata for a little while and finish the wedding post another day. Summary of the rest of the wedding: I did the worm three times, we ate our weight in food (which is even more impressive considering we've all gained weight here, I think), our host uncle's friends became our pseudo-friends (and friends on Facebook), we wore really pretty Indian clothes belonging to our host mom, and then we had to write really long papers after all that was over. I'll go into more detail later, but I have to go to bed now so I can go to the DOTS clinic tomorrow and then interview the head of the epidemiology department at the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health. It's really a riveting life I lead here in India, no? Good night, and good luck!

P.S. I've completely stopped wearing deodorant here after I got this incredibly painful infection (so much TMI, sorry!), but I really don't think I can swing this is in the United States. Mom, maybe I can get some all-natural deodorant as a stocking stuffer? You know, just for a fun and whimsical Christmas present. That's all!

I must blog about my host mom's brother's wedding, but that's kind of a whole big thing and I would rather tell you all about a few smaller things right now.

Open Hand Cafe

In Varanasi, some of the girls on my program had gone to a bakery near our hotel that was run by a South African person that Goutam Ji knew. They had delicious crepes and milkshakes, and then we found out that there's also a cafe in Delhi. We had to finish our final Independent Study Project proposals on Friday, so we decided to check out the cafe. Rachael and I thought it was in the American embassy, so we headed over and asked the guard in front of the fortress that apparently is our embassy if we could go inside to get food. Apparently you can only go in if you have an appointment or know someone (which I was little annoyed at because I thought I was always welcome at my own embassy as an American citizen, but whatever), so we called Goutam Ji to see if he knew whether the Open Hand Cafe was actually in the American embassy. We found out later that is was actually in the American Embassy School around the corner, so we ventured over there and traded our passports for guest passes.

The Open Hand Cafe in Delhi didn't have crepes or milkshakes, but it did have a delicious smoked chicken sandwich, a mocha frappe, and a rocky road brownie. Liz, Rachael, and I spent all afternoon at the cafe ordering food that made us think of home and working on our final study proposals. It was a wonderful little slice of America, but it was also thoroughly disconcerting to be on the school's campus. All the students, kindergarten to 12th grade, are foreign passport holders, with the majority being American and Korean. All the students walking around were wearing western clothes, and many were white and Asian. As we were leaving many hours later, we even saw people warming up for an ultimate frisbee game! In many ways it was a relief from the chaos of Delhi, and it made me excited to see my family to see moms picking up their kids after school and buying them treats, but it was also felt weird to be surrounded by Americans and other foreigners. Overall it was a great break and relaxing afternoon of yummy, familiar food.

Shopping

Before leaving Delhi, I decided to do some shopping to make sure I didn't run out of time at the end of my program or in Kolkata. After the the Open Hand Cafe, Rachael and I headed to Dilli Haat for a little beggar-free, upscale market shopping. Liz fell in love with this blue and red sari that had beautiful work on it, but the man selling it started the price at Rs 5,000 (about $100). Liz definitely wasn't paying that much, so we continued looking around. I bought a present for my mata ji (mother) and kept looking, but Rachael and I were running out of time because we were going to another wedding reception with our host parents (we got incredibly lucky during Indian wedding season). Liz made one desperate call to Tania to get her advice on the sari, who recommended she go up to the sari seller and hand her the amount she wanted to pay. While Rachael and Liz did that, I went back to a few more stalls and impulse purchased two elephant pillow cases and a small elephant wall hanging. Rachael and I also went to Lajpat Nagar and I bought a pair of shoes (and later a duplicate pair for our host mom because she liked them so much). In my quest for a picture frame to give to Adil and Khadeeja as well, I bought a copy of In Cold Blood and some stationary at Khan Market. Speaking of which, I just finished Pride and Prejudice and am working on Wuthering Heights (and by that I mean I'm five pages in), though I might switch and read Truman Capote instead.

Kolkata

Rachael and I had a sleepover at the program center on Sunday night because our host parents were going out of town, but it was alright because the guest room at the center is super nice. Then Sarah Kate, Tania K. and I took an overnight train to Kolkata! There is much more to this story, but alas I must go to bed.

Good night!

For Halloween, our program staff decided we would have a little party at our center because Halloween is not widely celebrated in India and they knew we would want to do something. Unlike most 16- to 22-year-old girls, our costumes focused less on how little clothing we could wear and more on what, if anything, we could scrap together from the clothing we have in India. For many people, this involved making dubiously politically correct ethnic costumes, such as Mexican gangster and Russian grandmother. Harkening back to the days of high school, I opted to create a makeshift jellyfish costume. My mom had once made me a jellyfish costume made out of a sunhat covered in shimmery blue fabric, with strips of purple, blue, and turquoise fabric of different textures hanging from the brim. My mother is nothing if not crafty (and really, really good at sewing) so it was a pretty impressive last minute costume.

My jelly-in-Delhi costume, however, was even more scrapped together. I planned to pin my and Rachel's dupattas (the scarves we have to wear with all of our Indian clothes) to the edge of the straw hat that I take everywhere with me. Rachael decided to borrow my flannel (I don't want to talk about why I brought a flannel to India, other than to say that one should never ever pull an all-nighter packing and writing a final paper) and straw hat so she could be a cowgirl, so I determined I would use her hat for my costume instead. The next day, though, I forgot it as I walked out the door, and I was forced to improvise even further when it was costume time later.

I ended up using an old shipping box to pin the multi-colored dupattas to, and I had to take it off while I was carving a pumpkin because I couldn't see anything. We thought they would have candy for us at the party because that's a pretty crucial part of American Halloween, but I'm not sure they really understood that so instead we carved pumpkins and ate Chinese food. It was really fun regardless!

Avid readers and fans, I apologize for my prolonged absence from the hallowed pages of Blogger. I really can attribute it to nothing other than my own laziness and preoccupation with various activities (some of which should take precedence over blogging and some of which are just a waste of time, like Facebook). But after an extended break, during which my dearest mata ji (mother in Hindi) called me out for not blogging for a long time, I'm back in action and ready to write more than any human could possibly want to read about the last week and a half or so in India! I'm even going to use subheads.

Varanasi Boat Ride

On our last day in Varanasi, we were treated to a lovely and fascinating boat ride along the Ganga Ji (Ganges River). Varanasi, often called the oldest living city in the world, is situated on the banks of the Ganga Ji and in Hinduism, the cycle of reincarnation is broken and salvation (or whatever it's called in Hinduism, unfortunately I don't know as much as I should) is achieved if a person is placed in the river after death. We rose early to get to the river before sunrise, but Varanasi was already abuzz with life. It was a hazy morning, and people were generally moving in the direction of the river. Women were performing pujas (prayers) in circles, washing clothing, and bathing in the murky water of the Ganga while street vendors started setting up and beggars began their daily routine. We walked to the river's edge and boarded what was basically a very large row boat, operated by two Indian men.

It was a really cool experience to be slowly moving up the river as the city began to wake up. If you ever see pictures of India with women in saris standing on crowded steps descending into a river and entering the water and washing things, those are pictures most likely taken in Varanasi. I asked Goutam Ji whether people continue to bathe in the Ganga by choice or whether they lack running water at home, and he said it's a choice based on many years of tradition and spirituality. As we moved down the river, we saw scores of other boats filled with tourists, including some with tripods set up in their row boats and hoards of Southeast Asian tourists in masks to filter the dirty air. It was probably the most tourists we'd seen anywhere.

Along the shore of the river were the women I already talked about, as well as men bathing, people meditating, tourists taking pictures, and people selling things. We also passed several crematoriums on the edge of the river, which consisted of high pyres built to burn bodies on. It was an interesting sight but it felt a little too intimate to be looking at that part of someone's funereal process. The sun came up through haze while we putzed along the river, and across the way we could see a few long figures walking along a sandbar. It was all very meditative and beautiful, and it was probably my favorite part of our time in Varanasi. The water itself was gray and dirtier than in Rishikesh, and at one point we saw the body of a dead cow float by. We've heard stories of people bathing in the Ganges and surfacing next to a dead body, which is morbid and sad. I dipped my hand in but we definitely avoided bathing or swimming in the Ganga Ji.

Shopping & Train

After the boat ride, some of us decided to go back to the main, bustling market area of Varanasi. We wanted to further explore the little alleyways that criss-cross the area and make some purchases. I ended up buying a child's langa for Mariyah, my little sister for Big Brother Big Sister. It's pink and blue and has a lot of beads on it, so hopefully she'll think it's fun. I also bought some pillowcases that I may take to Leavenworth (where my family has a cabin, for those of you who are really behind on my life) or put in my room. It's a lot easier for me to make purchases that I claim (in my head at least) are for other people. I buy a lot of things that I plan to give to my parents, knowing full well that having them in my house at home means they're sort of mine too. Anyway, I also bought a pair of pants for someone but I haven't decided who yet.

We had to catch the train that evening around 7:15, and Goutam Ji made us leave the hotel at 5:30 to take autos the six kilometers to the station. That seemed like more time than we could possibly need, but the Varanasi roads were tangled and busy and crowded, so we got there at the perfect time. The train itself was ok (another sleeper train — I'm becoming a pro at sleeping in their questionably clean and comfortable berths) and I watched another movie on my computer. Side note: I have about 100 movies on my computer from Mojo (an application that lets me get movies from other people's computers easily), and it's been a godsend in India. We can't really be out at night, which means we have a lot of time just hanging out at our home stay and things like that. Being able to watch movies is nice, and I've recently given a lot of them to other people here. Anyway, I watched a movie and went to sleep, and when I woke up, I found out we were a little delayed so we could rest longer. Our "little delay" became an approximately six-hour delay, so Rachael and I were not in the best of spirits upon arriving home. We had to rally energy, though, because that day (Sunday) was Rachael's birthday and we, being the other students and I, had planned a surprise party that night!

Party Time Hurray!!!

A while ago, some of us had discussed doing something for Rachael and Poonam's birthday on Oct. 23, and Nina agreed to take the lead on organizing a party. She has a Greek restaurant in mind (which is confusing in India...) but we all agreed to let her do her thing and we would all chip in to pay for it. Nina planned everything but we decided not to tell Poonam and Rachael, so on Sunday after our long train delay, I told Rachael that nothing really had been planned but we could go out to dinner with a few people if we wanted.

I had to write down the directions and read them haltingly to the auto driver, but we eventually found the the Greek restaurant, checked our name off the list, and we headed upstairs. Nina had reserved the entire top floor of the restaurant. Dinner was provided, and it was entirely delicious. We also had two bottles of champagne and a DJ, which of course prompted loads of dancing. It was all fantastically fun! We got to relax like we were back in Amreeca (how they pronounce America here) and be ourselves in a place where there was no one else to stare at or judge us. Rachael was turning 21 so people made sure to buy her plenty of drinks, and it was generally a wonderful time with friends! It was definitely a night on the pricier end of those we've spent in Delhi, but it's nothing compared to what it would be like to study abroad in Europe.

Diwali

Last week was Diwali, which is one of the largest festivals in Hinduism. This is saying something, since it seems like every other day is some sort of holiday. Diwali has something to do with the conquering of evil/darkness, and I believe it's related to the story of Rama's return home in the Ramayana (synopsis: Sita is the wife of Rama and is kidnapped while they are exiled in the forest by an evil guy from Lanka — which I later found out is the same as modern day Sri Lanka — and the monkey god Hanuman helps save Sita so she can return to Ayodhya).

While every other person in all of India seems to have had the day, if not the week, off, we had school like normal. Since my host parents are Muslim and don't celebrate Diwali, we were invited to come back to the center later that night to celebrate with our teachers. In India, a lot of people celebrate holidays of other people's religions with friends who are of a religion that celebrates a certain holiday (i.e. Muslims will celebrate Diwali with Hindus and Hindus will celebrate Christmas with their Christian friends), which seems like a lovely and interesting way to do things, but alas, our host parents don't do things quite like that.

We arrived at the center at 6:30 and waited around for a bit, because apparently someone had proclaimed that the ideal puja (prayer service) time was 7 p.m. We began the puja with Goutam Ji, Archna Ji, Bhavna Ji, Abid Ji and his wife and son, Azim Ji and his daughter, Kishore Ji, and our really awesome kitchen staff. Goutam Ji performed the rituals at a little altar they had set up, and Archna Ji and Kishore Ji sang out of a book. We then lit diyas, which are little candles in small clay bowls, and Archna Ji gave us the red string around our wrist the is a symbol of protection (I can't remember the name). We put the diyas outside and then headed out to light off some small fireworks.

We started with sparklers, which are relatively harmless but still so pretty and fun to wave around. I was a little nervous when they were give the sparklers to four-year-old Irene and 14-month-old Raman, but I think they were very supervised/not actually holding them themselves. We then moved onto fountains and a little spinny thing that was really scary because it started spinning the second you lit it, so you were still crouched next to it. It was nothing that I haven't done before, but it was really fun because it was something different and our teachers have kind of become our family here, so being with them was nice. It was also cool because EVERYONE in the neighborhood was setting off fireworks, so we could see and hear them going off all around us in the streets and in the sky.

We ate a yummy dinner (complete with gulab jamun) and Rachael and I got a ride home from Azim Ji's driver. Our host father isn't a big Diwali fan because of all the air pollution from the fireworks, but even he was impressed by the fireworks in our neighborhood when we got home. Rachael and I went for a walk through the DDA flats (Pocket A, though, because our pocket, B, wasn't partying quite as hard) to see the fireworks. As we came around a corner, we heard a huge blast and Rachael shrieked and literally dragged me behind a car a la some kind of scene in a war movie. These were some of the biggest non-commercial fireworks I've seen, and that's a feat considering my mom's cousin Ted usually buys those really expensive packs of fireworks from an Indian reservation every Fourth of July.

After settling down a little and realizing that we weren't actually in imminent danger of being bombed, we enjoyed the impressive display of some young men setting fireworks off in the street, as well as a little girl and her uncle lighting fountains next to us. The girls mother came out after a few minutes and began talking to us and invited us into her house for sweets. I realize this was breaking the number one rule of being a child (don't take candy from strangers and definitely don't follow them into their houses), but Rachael and I felt comfortable going with her. She was very nice and we talked to her and her mother from Punjab who had just had a hysterectomy (which we heard within a minute of meeting her) while we ate some delicious Diwali sweets. After a few minutes, we awkwardly parted and Rachael and I returned to the streets to see more firecrackers than I've seen in my life to this point being blown up consecutively. It honestly sounded like a machine gun assault. After that, the exciting fireworks people left and most of what was around were just really loud things, so we left Pocket A, walked around a bit more, and returned home.

Ok, I'm getting tired now (I ALWAYS, without fail, go to bed after Rachael) but I will write more tomorrow, promise! Next up on the catching-up-on-blogging agenda: the wedding, shopping, TMI health issues (but actually), my independent study project, finals, the American Embassy School cafe, Dartmouth stuff, the other wedding, and probably more that I forget! Thanks for reading all this if you made it to this point!

Listen, my children, and you shall here, of the rest of my time in Varanasi. I desperately need to upload more of my pictures onto my computer, and then onto Facebook, but I shall put that off slightly longer because I'm trying to simultaneously watch Slumdog Millionaire, complete a homework assignment, and update this blog. Apparently Slumdog Millionaire was not very well received in India because of its harsh portrayal of social issues, but I think despite its dramatization, Indians are probably displeased with its scary level of truth. I have not personally experienced anything like that in the movie, obviously, but I know it's there and it's openly talked about. Bollywood movies, for the most part, show a glowing, overly westernized and wealthy version of Indian society, but everything I've learned here has shown me that that isn't what it's actually like for the vast majority of the population. It's also cool to watch, though, because I understand the Hindi phrases used throughout the film.

But let's get back to Varanasi. On Wednesday, we went to the arti at the main ghat on the edge of the Ganga Ji. It was larger than the arti in Rishikesh, but also a very lovely ceremony involving devotional songs, the holding up of lamps, and praying. On Thursday, we were very lucky and were able to go to Goutam Ji ki Mata Ji ki ghar (Goutam Ji's mom's house!). It's also the house where Goutam Ji and Archna Ji (reminder for my non-regular readers: Archna Ji and Goutam Ji are my married Hindi teachers who took the eight of us on the Kiran Centre workshop to Varanasi, formerly called Banaras) live when they're not in Delhi. We sat in their bedroom and ate snacks and looked at baby pictures of Goutam Ji. It was generally very enjoyable, and I was introduced to Mata Ji as "loving child," their favorite nickname for me, other than "Carboholic."

Post-home visit, we went to Hanuman's temple that Goutam Ji always used to go to. Hanuman is the monkey god that features heavily in the Ramayana, that classic Indian epic that I went to see (that Rachael wanted to leave in the middle of). Because it's Hanuman's temple, however, people feed the massive, red-butted monkey families that populate the area. So with the constant reminder not to EVER look them in the eye, we walked to the temple, checked out things, and entered the temple area. There was a pathway covered in a plastic roof, and about halfway down it, EVERY SINGLE MONKEY IN VARANASI (aka approximately 48,537 primates) decided to screech and stampede across the roof. It sounded, however, like a thunder storm/giant monkey war, so needless to say I had another monkey-induced life-flashing-before-my-eyes moment.

Every day after class, we would go to the Kiran Centre bakery in Varanasi city and buy jam biscuits and peanut biscuits and pumpkin jam. They were delicious, so we bought 100 jam biscuits to bring back to hand out during our presentation, and I bought 50 just for myself (and I'll give some to my host parents for Diwali, which is on Wednesday).

Next post: a boat ride, a six-hour delayed train ride, and a legitimate party!

Earlier this semester, we learned that Archna Ji, our beloved Hindi instructor and surrogate mother for the time we're in India and need someone to listen to us whine, can read palms. Apparently it is a family thing that is passed down from person to person. Archna Ji has always been slightly reluctant to actually read our palms, but she agreed on this trip!

She prefaced the palm reading by saying that she generally believes that these future predictions are by no means set in stone, and it is very possible to take them as a challenge to change some aspect of your supposedly predetermined future (and she, in fact, likes to think of them in this way). According to my palm, I:

-Will make and (more importantly) save "so much of money," which she said a lot
-Have strong luck and life lines, meaning I will have a relatively healthy life and good luck
-Am very close to my family and will continue to have a strong family life in the future
-Will be successful in my educational endeavors but will be bad in business (darn, no Wall Street for me!)
-Will get married in my late 20s to an attractive man, and we will have one or two children
-Am fairly flexible but also fairly emotional
-Really need to work on taking initiative
-Have a "strong sun," which represents strength and positive energy
-Have a "stronger Saturn than Jupiter," though I was never 100% sure what that meant
-Will travel a lot

Overall, a pretty happy life outlook I think! I decided that if I want more kids, I will trade some of my money for children with my friends who are apparently going to have a whole gaggle of rugrats running around.

Today we went back to the Kiran Centre and split up into groups of two to rotate through the various units of the rehabilitation department. We took the school bus about half an hour to the centre, but Sarah Kate and I somehow ended up on the bus that didn't actually have any children on it, just administrators and people who are training to be special education teachers at the Kiran Centre.

The rehab department has six sections, but we only went to Mother's Training, Parent's Child Care Unit, Physiotherapy, and Orthotics. All four units were really interesting. Mother's Training involved teaching mothers how to care for their disabled children in the home. There were two mothers there when we were observing, and they both had 8-year-old children with cerebral palsy. They were working with basic toys to teach them sizes, numbers, and colors.

In the Orthotics unit, we watched people work on making artificial limbs and calipers, which are braces used to support the legs of children with polio-induced paralysis. Fun fact: polio is on the process of being eradicated in India. So far this year, there's only been one new case, which is really exciting!

In PCCU, we saw children being evaluated, including an adorable little girl with Down Syndrome who was suffering from hypothyroidism (apparently a common condition in children with Down Syndrome). Physiotherapy involved watching children play with balls, do stretching exercises, and practice walking with walkers. One little boy went in a hammock-type swing for a while, which was adorable because he shrieked and sang Bollywood songs the whole time.

Shower time! Plus I'm exhausted. Sorry these posts have been so sparse lately! I'll try to pick it up.