Before I begin, I want to offer
apologize for the lack of cohesiveness in this post. This is really just an opportunity to share a
bunch of random thoughts and events from the past few weeks. If this doesn’t tickle your fancy, or if
posts with pictures float your boat, feel free to wait for the next post.
Along with several other
Northfield outbounds, I recently celebrated my 19th birthday. Though it was sad to miss my free half Hogan
Bros. sandwich, I got to celebrate with my host family. Along with my current host family, my second
family and several Rotarians joined in the birthday festivities. We ate pav bhaji, my favorite veg Indian dish,
and everyone got to smear cake on my face.
It was just a bundle of fun.
I don’t want to exaggerate, but
mangoes are without a doubt the most delicious things of all time. It’s no big deal or anything. I have not had any whole mangoes yet as they
are not in season until Spring, but nearly everything is available in mango
flavor. Standard ice cream flavors
include chocolate, vanilla, and mango.
Mango juice has replaced orange juice as my fruit drink of choice (my
family knows how much this one means). I
order a mango lassi or mango shake instead of looking for milkshakes. Every time I can have some sort of mango
treat I jump at the opportunity. The
best part is that mango-flavored delicacies are everywhere! You can hardly walk 20 feet anywhere in Pune
without running into a food stand selling mango ice cream, shakes, or
juice. Apart from the festivals, the
widespread availability of mangoes is definitely my favorite thing about India.
I took a trip to a peacock farm a
few days ago, which sounds really fun.
This led me to believe that the peacocks were contained, or at least walking
around all day. As I found out, the
peacocks roam wild all over the surrounding mountains and usually come to this “peacock
farm” early in the morning and late at night.
So of course it made sense to be there from 10 am to 5:30 pm, exactly
when the peacocks were not around. I was
not amused, and not allowed to walk around as I was supposed to be patient and
wait for the peacocks to come. We saw
only five peacocks the whole day, and the closest one was at least 100 feet
away. The best part of the day was
discovering I have an artsy grayscale setting on my camera, so pardon me if I
get a little carried away with really profound pictures.
I found out how lucky we are to
have use of the good old USPS. I had
heard that maneuvering the Indian mail system is quite an ordeal, but I decided
to suck it up and perform my civic duty of mailing my absentee ballot back to
Rice County. It took several hours, but
eventually I became frustrated enough to give up. When I went back the next day with local help,
it took a mere five minutes to get my envelope set to mail. Surprisingly, it cost me a mere Rs. 28 or
about 50 cents, nowhere near the $30 Sid Beaumaster had to pay to mail her
ballot. Now if all of us Northfield
outbounds can go through the arduous absentee process, all of you back home can
spend 15 minutes to fill out your own ballots.
GO VOTE!
As I mentioned in my last post, I
recently discovered these interesting places called “jogging parks,” whose
mysteries I have only begun to unravel.
Though I was originally led astray by the name, jogging is actually not
allowed at these parks. This strange
place goes by many names (jogging park, the gardens, walking track) and was
surprisingly busy when I visited with my host mom last weekend. As it turns out, the park is quite the night
scene and everyone who is anyone spends their Saturday nights there (especially
if you qualify for the senior discount or crayons and a kids menu at
Perkins). Basically, it is a small track
where older adults go to walk a few laps as their daily exercise before sitting
down on the many surrounding benches while some younger kids run around the
grassy area on the inside of the track. Though
I was disappointed to lose my chance to go running every day, a brisk walk is
nearly as good and takes up more of my empty time. I have enjoyed my daily trips to the jogging
park to get a little light exercise, as well as to get out of my apartment and
enjoy the grass and trees surrounding the small track.
Other than that, I have started
learning Marathi with my host mother’s help.
Though I already know a few helpful phrases, I decided it would be
useful to be able to read and write Marathi as well as speak it. It is slow going, but I am starting with the
alphabet. This will certainly be a
challenge, as there are 12 unique vowel sounds and around 30 consonants, some
of which I cannot differentiate. Though
I could get through this year perfectly well speaking exclusively English, it
would be a shame to miss out on learning my host language when every other
exchange student is forced to become bilingual (or trilingual). I have no misguided hopes of becoming fluent,
but I aim to learn basic conversational skills and how to read and write.
Without any large plans until
Diwali, I don’t expect that I will have a lot to blog about so look forward to one more post later this
month. Until next time!
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