I can't believe it's been almost a whole month in Varanasi! Time has been going so fast, but somehow it feels like I've done so much. My final paper is due one week from today, so I've spent the past few days writing that. I usually get up in the morning and go out for my usual breakfast:

and sit for a while, eating toast, drinking chai, and writing the paper (by hand!)











Then I work or wander until lunch and off to the Internet cafe from lunch until I can't handle working anymore.
Sarah left a few days ago, so it's been kind of lonely around here. I got closer with Simon, the over 6'5" tall Danish yoga master:


We've spent a lot of time hanging out, talking philosophy, and eating apple pie together.
(Katie secretly took this picture during our kite flying. Simon and I sometimes sit on the roof together sunning and studying.)












The weather here has gotten dramatically colder. The highs are still in the low 80's/high 70's, but the nights are getting cold (lows actually in the 40's!). After not experiencing cold for so long, it's been shocking. The buildings here aren't built for cold weather, because of the rest of the year, so it's often colder inside than it is out, which makes for some freezing nights.

I'm leaving on Saturday for Jaipur (with one night in Delhi in between). I have about a week and a half there to finish my paper, do presentations, and say goodbye to everyone before mom and dad arrive, soon followed by Holly!

I'm happy with the research I've done here- it's working together in the paper, which is really comforting since I had no idea how to really formulate a research project.

Here are some more pictures I didn't get to upload earlier:


The view from Mahant-ji's patio
















The view from my room into the central area of the guesthouse. The roof is open above the center, which is nice for the several hours of the day that the city is without power.













Men bathing and tourists boating on the Ganga














The candles kids are always trying to sell me. Leaf bowls with flowers surrounding candles















A flower kid tried to take a picture of Katie and me when we were out for the sunrise. He didn't know what zoom was.
















Katie at Mia-ji's restaurant

















The flower boy took a picture of his brother with my camera











The flower boy took another shot of Katie and me. This time, he got most of us.















I took a picture of the sunrise


















The flower boy took a picture of the sunrise

Everything is still going really well here in Banaras. My research is really interesting- people keep saying exactly what I need them to say! Life outside of work is really good too- Sarah and I have gotten into a good routine which includes a little too much bad tv most nights (HBO in India is a life saver), but I can justify it since I'm up at 6:30 every morning. I don't really know what to say, since so much has been going on, so here are some pictures that will have to do:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lannf33/album?.dir=1c3fscd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lannf33/my_photos

I have less than a week left in Banaras, and about two weeks until it's family time.

It just keeps getting better

Banaras keeps getting better. Katie visited me for the weekend, so I've kind of taken a vacation from work to hang out with her. I'm not taking any other vacations, so I can justify it.
When Katie wasn't around to distract me, I'd worked up a very nice schedule.
I get up at 6:30, meet Pinku-ji (my advisor- best advisor ever!) on the ghat at 7:00, do an interview on the ghat, go to Mia-ji (my academic director in Jaipur)'s Banaras family's restaurant on the ghat (outside patio looking over the river) for breakfast at 8:00, write up the interview during breakfast. After breakfast, I walk down the ghats for a while people watching and often making friends. At 11:30, we have lunch in the guesthouse. I then read/plan out my paper/do more interviews/go to the internet cafe/chill until dinner with Sarah. Sometimes we watch trash tv or HBO (it's so nice to stop thinking for a few hours a day). Sometimes we spend hours going on rants about religious studies or other topics we agree on. Then I'm in bed relatively early and up early for another lovely day.
My research is going really well. I plan on writing a draft of the paper in the next few days (be ready, mom) to see what else I need to get people to say. I'm really getting interested in this ecological religious studies perspective. Who knew?
Yesterday, I went to an astrologer (Sarah's guru- she's studying astrology for her ISP). He didn't exactly capture me, or at least I hope so. He told me that there were 5 people in my family and that my mom doesn't get along with the rest of the family well, but corrected himself when I told him he was wrong. I'm going to marry the man I was married to in a past life- we're going to meet while I travel in May. He'll be a great husband, but I'll have a lot of problems because I'm too bossy. I'm going to be a journalist, but will never be happy. I'll die an easy death at age 72. Good thing I don't believe him, or I'd be pretty depressed in my own future.
The New York program is here in Banaras for a few weeks and has invited me to their lectures. I went to one last night, and am going to another tomorrow. The more I hear about their program, the happier I am with SIT. We are given so much freedom to make this program whatever we want. We are also treated like adults- I'm living and traveling on my own in India! That's really intense, but will be so helpful in the future.
Katie and I are getting up tomorrow to see the sunrise on the Ganges. I'm more interested in the people who are also up to see the sunrise on the Ganges and to watch their pujas.

I've been having such a great time doing my research (I'm a nerd, I'm well aware). I've been going to Assi Ghat (my local ghat) every morning at 7 with Pinku-ji to do interviews. It's been so exciting when people say exactly what I want them to say without any prodding! Some main themes I've noticed with my interviews:
Indians love to talk
Indians love to talk about the Ganges
People don't want to see the Ganges as polluted
People don't know anything about the clean-up projects (even the priests and the boatmen)
There seems to be a difference, in the mind of some, between the river herself and the water
There are some odd reasons for thinking the water is pure, but they work for the people who need them
In the mind of the people I've interviewed, the river isn't polluted, but it does need to be cleaned...

I met up with the New York program last night and got invited to their events while they are in Banaras. Last night, I crashed a music concert and invited myself to dinner. I fully plan on taking advantage of their Ganges related lectures.

Now I'm off to interview someone who works in a lab with the clean-up project. Maybe someone will finally know something about the projects!

I get to see Mom and Dad four weeks from today!

Small town cities

Here's one thing that I love about Banaras (the list could go on for quite a while)

I had been emailing and calling this guy, Pinku-ji, about being my project advisor for weeks, with no responses to any of it. In my guesthouse one day, Simon (the Danish yoga master) was talking about how he's been giving massages to a guy named Pinku-ji. Yep, same guy. I then met him in the guesthouse when he was there for a massage.
I went to see him today, and he took me to talk to a boatman on the ghat pretty much to make me comfortable with the interviews. It's going to be amazing. After doing nothing for almost a week, I now have plans to interview lots of people tomorrow morning at 7 AM and other leads. I love that one connection means infinite connections here.

Also, here's a bit of information about my guesthouse:

The bottom floor includes a small, cute Thai monk who walks around with a smile on his face in his monk robes (except for when he caught me walking to my room in a towel and looked shocked). Next to him is the ethnic (Spanish, I believe) couple who don't talk to anyone. Sarah, the other SIT girl, is next to them. On the other side are the probably 6'5" tall Danish yoga master and the American guy who just graduated from liberal arts college and is studying martial arts here for lack of anything better to do with himself.
My floor includes a South African guy studying art at BHU, a Spanish philosophy lady with a mullet, another Spanish philosophy couple, and Kyle, the manager who is an American getting his masters in Indian philosophy at BHU. There are also Japanese girls, one is a dancer, one is a painter, a large Swedish woman, and, of course, me. This all makes for a very fun living environment.

The past few days of ISP have been frustratingly unproductive (no one in this country appears to respond to emails or phone calls. Shocking.), but I've been able to spend a lot of time on the ghats watching the river. I like being able to call that "research".
There are these girls who work on the ghats selling candles to put in the river. They're probably between the ages of 5 and 8 and are the smartest kids I've ever seen. Not only do they speak impeccable English, but they are amazing business women. A few days ago, I was sitting on one ghat when they came up to me. I'd already promised to buy a candle later with my friends, so they weren't harassing me about that. We were just hanging out, talking. They liked to play with the ringtones on my cell phone ("music", as they called it). A creepy guy came up while we were talking and kept talking to me in Hinglish saying things about us getting married and going to the US. As he was getting creepier (he kept saying a phrase that included the words "15 days you enjoy whole time" and I think "sex" was in there somewhere), the point when I would usually leave, one girl went over to a giant mud bank and brought back a big chunk of mud. She then proceeded to make three lingums (phallic symbols of Lord Shiva) out of the mud. The six girls then got in a circle around the lingums and did an intricate puja (worship) ceremony. They lit candles and waved them around, sprinkled Ganga water, and decorated the lingums with flowers. They then put bindis (the spot on the forehead) on each other with mud, and came over to give me the same. They did this all with amazing seriousness and concentration. We then walked back toward my guesthouse together, holding hands, and having a bit of a monkey scare on the way.
Yesterday, while eating breakfast outside on the ghat, I watched a group of women decorate a tree with string, flowers, and strips of colored cloth while singing devotional songs.
I'm probably going with the manager of my guesthouse to meet V B Mishra, a giant in the Ganges clean-up project in a few minutes. He's also coming to give a lecture on the Ramayana to the guesthouse next weekend. I'm really excited.
Last night, Sarah (the other girl staying in Banaras with me for most of ISP) and I had a many hour long discussion on Religious studies and how much we love it / what big nerds we are. It was fantastic.

ISP has begun!

You know that saying that to see if you truly love someone, you have to leave them? If that's true, my love with Banaras is true. I got in this afternoon, and felt like I was back in somewhere I belonged.
I left Jaipur Monday morning with Ally and Sarah. We took a bus to Delhi, checked into a guesthouse in the hippie tourist (ahem... Israeli) part of town, and wandered for a bit. The walk up and down the bazaar was enough to let us know that we didn't' want to go back there. We ended up spending most of the night in the guesthouse room, watching wrestling on TV (watching Kevin Federline on WWE... how much better can you get?) Early this morning, we started the trek that was flying through India. After very few bumps in the road, we arrived in Banaras at around 2:00 this afternoon. In the line for a taxi, we made friends with a guy who wanted to share a taxi. He's a nice guy, just graduated from college- a Indian Canadian who's in India to work on a volunteer project with his family and is traveling on his own for a little while now. Sarah and I checked into our guest house as soon as we got here. Because of a slight miscommunication, we ended up with one double room. That should be fixed by tomorrow, and now we just have to share for the last week that Sarah is in Banaras, but for the rest of the time, I get a massive room to myself.
When we got to the guesthouse, the manager wasn't there, but one of the residents showed us all around. He was showing us the roof, and there happened to be a man doing (really good) yoga, who turns out to be a yoga teacher, and supposedly we can join in when he does yoga whenever we want. The other residents are mostly philosophy/religious studies people from China, Japan, Spain, Canada, South Africa, now the US... There's also a Tibetan monk living there... The house is run by the same foundation that heads one of the biggest clean-up efforts for the Ganges.
Because it's run by a Brahmin family, the house has the rules of 1. no drugs 2. no alcohol 3. no meat 4. no eggs 5. no live music (nothing to do with the brahmins), and 6. no Indian men can sleep over. Besides that, we're free to come and go, it's all locked and really safe, we can use the kitchen whenever we want, and everyone seems really amazing. I'm really excited about this place and my project too! Hopefully, tomorrow, I can make some contacts to talk to about the project itself and get going.

ISPeee

I wrote a nice long entry, but it got deleted because of the lovely computers here. I'm leaving tomorrow for Delhi, then to Banaras on Tuesday. Most people are already gone, so it's strange around here. Ally, Leah, and I are currently trying to find something to do now.
I'm really excited about ISP. It's really scary, but I feel like I'm ready for it. This is going to be the first time that I'm ever living on my own, and it's in India. I guess I'm throwing myself into the fire.
We lost another student yesterday. JB is going home now instead of going off on ISP. His mom was at our last class to get him. It turns out he's been having a lot of anxiety attacks and SIT didn't think he was stable enough to go off on ISP. He's writing a paper at home, so he still gets the credit, but it's really sad that he's going. He seemed like one of the most prepared people for this. I feel really bad that no one knew he was even having any trouble.
Class ended yesterday with two practicum presentations. The snake charmers (who didn't learn to charm snakes, but had an entertaining presentation regardles) and then my folk dance presentation. The dance went really well. We were decked out in ridiculous costumes- bright yellow shirts with reflective striping are the best. That's a halloween costume waiting to happen. It was really fun to end that way, though.
Saying goodbye to everyone was very strange. We're only going to be seperated for a month, but it's likely going to be the most intense month of our lives so far. I'm really excited for everyone else and for their projects.
On Friday night, we went out to celebrate Bridget's 21st birthday since it's early next week, after we're all gone. We went to a swanky hotel near my house and sat out on the roof. It was a lot of fun to have pretty much everyone from the program together relaxing. We have a really good group here.

I'll write more when I get to Banaras. Wish me luck!