India

It's a crazy place, I tell you. But the weird thing is, I doesn't feel that crazy or strange to me. It's soooo different from home, but it isn't that weird. So, it's weird that it's not weird. It's awesome.

People drive freaking crazy. If you're on a 2 lane street, there could be about 2 or 3 motorcycles and a few autos across the lanes. Motorcycles hold anywhere from 1 to 6 people on them (kids included). People drive like less than half a foot away from each other. I don't know how they don't hit pedestrians. Honking is nonstop.



Cows hang out on the street. They just walk around and block traffic. They stink. Everywhere stinks. There's piles of garbage on the side of the streets.

Our street usually gets flooded with sewage water. So we get to walk through it often. It's nice.

Some kids run around with only a shirt on. Bare butts showing.

Men are super touchy. They hold hands and put their arms around each other when walking and/or talking.

Usually I'll see men walking in groups or women walking in groups. But not very often are there men and women walking together and they never hold hands. Today I think I saw the first or second couple I've ever seen holding hands.

There's an LDS church down the street, about a 5 minute walk. There's a branch that goes there. The kids run wild in sacrament. And the guy who spoke on Sunday talked about how the scriptures say we need to keep our kids reverent and not let them run around and be loud. Oh snap.

Monday we did a bit of shopping. I found the cutest scarf I have ever seen and I almost didn't buy it because it was 5 bucks! Ha, pathetic. But that's pretty expensive here. Being in India makes you really cheap. I got some other scarves for about 1 buck each. I also got a really cute Indian shirt for 3 bucks. Saweet.

Tuesday we went to an Aids Clinic. We shadowed the doctors. Basically, a patient would come in for their monthly checkup. They take their blood pressure and check their heart beat, eyes, and tongue. They don't even care about privacy. The doctor would just tell me what was wrong with the patient and how long they have to live. They'd show us their tongue and blood pressure and swollen hands. It was pretty crazy. They even told us some of the patient's background, like that they were a widow or poor.

That night we went to the mall. They have a movie theater on the top floor. The mall is sooo nice. Like, nicer than home. There's like 5 floors. You have to go through security to get into the mall and into the theater. We saw Inception for like 3 bucks. The theater is also as nice as, or nicer than, theaters at home. The crappy thing is we had to sit on the front row because they have assigned seating and we didn't get tickets soon enough. But, it was good. We went to Subway after, which was only fair. American Subway = way better.

Wednesday we had a meeting with a guy named Subash with CARPED. We talked about women in villages that complain about little things like stomach pain and fake doctors tell them they need to have hysterectomies. They take them into private clinics that have dogs wondering around and do the surgery pretty badly. It costs a ton, so the people are in debt. They can't have kids anymore, so that causes problems. These women are from about 20-45, but even younger. It's crazy. So we're trying to raise awareness about that. They have a powerpoint to present, so I might be adding a slide about nutrition: what they should eat to help them recover. So that should be fun.

I can't decide about the food here. We had breakfast at a ward members house on Monday and I hated it. The next day when we volunteered at an Aids Clinic and they fed us lunch. Rice and Curry. And it was freaking good. Last night we went to a restaurant and got a bunch of curries. And it was gross. The only thing I liked was the tortilla things. I even got a chicken sandwich the other day and it was gross. Everything is just too spicy. All I want is a cheeseburger. Or Cafe Rio.

After going to a meeting on Thursday with Prajwala, an organization that deals with sex trafficking, we went to Charminar and got a bunch of Bangles.



I got the biggest bug bites of my life last night. There's 2 on my arm, both about the size of a Ritz cracker. It's nuts!

Today I got my first sari. Well, the fabric. I need to have the tailors downstairs make it for me. For about 4 bucks. Awesome. I'm really excited. We (Kristen, Kurt, and me) went to the mall today and saw a 3d space movie where the seats move around and they blow air at you at certain parts. It was pretty sweet.