Update. :)

Today, a girl at school asked me if it was hard being in a foreign country. To my surprise, the question made me stop and think. It wasn't the inquiry itself, but the word "foreign." I've been here for two and a half weeks now, and I can't decide if it's gone insanely quick or at a pretty moderate pace. As much as one can in two and a half weeks, I've grown familiar with India...a foreign country? Perhaps; granted, I still gape at the cows roaming the streets, and I still forget that nobody wears a seatbelt here, and my eyes still become fountains when I eat things with more spice than actual food. In these instances, sometimes I feel I'll never not be a foreigner; but beyond that, l I love it here, and in so many ways it feels like I'm finding a piece of home. 

Before I came, my grandpa arranged for Taylor and I to meet with a kind Indian lady just to chat with her and ask her questions about India. The whole conversation was very interesting, but one thing she said has been cemented in my mind: "I've found that part of me is awake in India but sleeping in America, and part of me is awake in America but sleeping in India." That claim intrigued me, and I've carried it with me throughout my trip so far.

I've found that I feel so at home here, not as a replacement of America but as a place to be alive in a whole new way. Perhaps that is why traveling is seen so often as intriguing and revitalizing; as we become parts of a different country, we discover unique ways in which we come alive. To our surprise, small pieces of ourselves find a home in a "foreign" place. It's not that we're finding a new home, per say; rather, we're finding that opportunities for life and joy infiltrate the whole earth, that our opportunity for being at home extend to different countries and lifestyles and people. No, our home is not changing...it's merely widening. And that's a beautiful thing.

Moving on to a weekly update! :)

- On Sunday evening we celebrated baba's birthday (which was on Monday) at a really nice buffet restaurant. The servers all sang to him in Hindi and clapped and lit the candles on a cake. Though baba made me eat three breakfasts on Sunday morning (he kept making me try everything, and then dadi would bring more and more out!), he's very interesting, has a great sense of humor and loves teaching me new things in Hindi...I really enjoy chatting with him. This evening he told me that he's decided that I'm staying in India and not going back.:) He's very sweet. 

- I tried jaal jeera! It's a drink made essentially of sugar, spices (not just the flavorful kind, the hot kind), water, lemon and homemade chutney. I wasn't crazy about it but it wasn't awful, and I think because it was such a typical Indian drink I was just excited to try it. :)

- It's now a well-established fact among dadi and mami that I really like chai! I asked dadi (in Hindi, hurray!) to teach me and she did, so that was very exciting. She told me that I have to teach my whole family back home to make and drink chai and I told her I definitely would!

- I've been talking to people on the bus! Beforehand, I pretty much looked out the window and took pictures or talked to Khushi, which was all great as well. As of this week though, I've begun chatting with other people as well, including a whole group of younger girls. They're really sweet and curious, and very intelligent as well. One girl, around 10 years old, said something like, "Why do we have so many wars with countries? I like all the countries. Why can't we have a big world friendship?" A child's perspective is always invaluable.

- We had art class again on Thursday and we made tile sort of things, and then painted them today. One of the neatest parts was the sink where you washed your hands. :) ...it was so high up! In the picture is a girl named Taylor. :)

The NSLI-Y group. From left front, back and to the right in the picture above is: Leah, Jenna, Julia, John Henry, Miriam, Daniel, William, Syahira, Caitlin, Jabari, Kendra, Paulina, Maddie, Esther, Taylor, and Gretchen. We're missing Greta and Kristen because they were sick; unfortunately, quite a few NSLI-Y kids have been getting sick this week.

- This week has been huge in increasing and deepening our Hindi skills; I've really been trying to speak the little Hindi I know as much as I can, and my host family has really been helping me as well. Solely because I studied the alphabet before I arrived, I was put into an advanced group of six or so others for extra grammar lessons in Hindi. We had our first lesson today and it was challenging, slightly confusing and very enlightening. :) While I certainly don't know as much as the rest of the group, I think it will help me understand the language so much better, and I'm thrilled for the challenge of it.

I'm so excited to continue my journey here! Dhanyavad for reading, for your prayers and for the comments as well!