1 month to go!
Last Saturday we went into Pondy and went shopping. I am slowly acquiring all the things I want to get before I go home. I bought a pair of black puffy pants and a red kurta that I can wear with them. Kurtas are a kind of tunic. they are usually short sleeved and go down almost to knee level but are split on the sides up to hip level. They are worn with pants. The one I got is really nice. It is dark red and has trim on it with elephants. It is a little big, but the next size down didn’t even go on over my shoulders. When I see Indian people wearing them, some times they are really tight, but I have no idea how they get them on and off. Stretchy fabric is pretty rare here.
The next thing I need to get is a sari. A sari is basically a big piece of cloth that is wrapped around several times like a skirt and then goes up over the left shoulder. They are worn with very tight short shirts under them, exposing some skin. The shirts confused me for a while because I didn’t know how to get them on and off, but I discovered that they have buttons down the front. They are just never visible when there is a sari over them.
Sunday we didn’t do much. The rest of the week was pretty slow too. Lots of research and classes. I have almost all my data for my project collected. I just need one more morning to collect some more sand. I am looking at beach erosion along the coast. We also gave a lot of presentations this week. They were all pretty uneventful. People have come up with some cool projects though. Brad is dissecting barracudas and trying to identify what they eat by what he finds in their stomachs. Dale is looking at fiddler crab behavior. A bunch of people are looking at bycatch - the stuff that fishermen catch but don’t want. Eleanor is making art out of garbage we find at different places. So far she had made a bag out of plastic bags, some bracelets, and a laptop case. It looks a lot more fun than my project, but I don’t think Princeton Geosciences would approve.
We have had a lot of fun in our free time this week. Zach brought a slack line to India with him and he put it up recently. A slack line is basically a canvas strap about an inch and a half wide that gets strung between 2 poles and tightened so that you can walk on it. It moves around a lot when you try to balance on it. It’s been fun figuring out how to do it though. I can walk all the way across now!
We have also been on quite a few walks. We are starting to explore the area around feral. There is a ‘Hippy settlement’ not too far away. We can see the tops of their huts and hear them singing and chanting and drumming. They have planted lots of forests around. They are all the same type of pine tree, and the trees are all in strait rows, and all about the same size. It is a cool place to walk around. We decided to call it Narnia because going in there is like going into a different, very strange place. We have also come across their labeled medicinal plant garden and the ‘ecodome’ - which appears to be a largish muc igloo.
We aren’t really sure who the people who live there are. We know they are not Indian and that most people tend to avoid them. They are probably an offshoot of the people that live in Auroville, a few miles away. Auroville is a town started by the french in the 60s, and it has all sorts of odd people in it. They make the people at Old Songs look completely normal, and dressed conservatively. We have been there to shop and go to restaurants several times.
Yesterday, we had a really fun day. We went swimming in the giant well near Anu’s house, a short walk away. It was nice to get in the water and cool off.
In the afternoon we went out and learned to play cricket. One of the guys who works here was with us, and him and some from our group who have been watching a lot of cricket taught us how to play. It was a lot of fun. Basically, there are 2 poles - one where the pitcher stands, and one where the ball is hit from. There are 2 batters. They stand across from each other - one near the pitcher, and one across the field. The far away batter hits first. The pitcher - called the bowler - throws the ball so that it bounces before it gets to the batter, and the batter hits it. While the ball is getting fielded, the batters run back and forth switching places as many times as possible - each time across is a run. Before one of the fielders gets the ball back. Outs happen when the ball hits one of the poles before the batter reaches it. When a batter gets out, another comes and replaces him. Batters bat until they get out. Bowlers throw 6 good pitches, and then switch. The inning goes until all the batters on the batting team are out. Then the teams switch. In the professional games, there is only one inning.
After cricket, Anu taught us some Indian cooking. We made a ton of food, and she is going to send us all the recipes. Unfortunately I started really not feeling good after I ate it. I’m trying to figure out if I’m actually sick, or if it was just the food and it will go away soon. I feel better now than i did this morning.
Today is otherwise going pretty well though. We are watching and Indian movie - ‘Bollywood movie’ called Dhoom. It seems to be kind of an Indian version of The Fast and the Furious (I haven’t seen it, but that’s what other people are saying). It is mostly in Hindi, but there are English subtitles. I haven’t really been paying attention enough to follow it. It seems very dramatic, with some singing and dancing scenes and a few good chases. Now there is a boat chasing a truck through some flames. A while ago there was a song that sounded like ‘salami’ repeated over and over. It’s entertaining.
Later we are going to celebrate Holi, a North Indian festival where they throw colored paint at each other. It should be fun. We have some other American exchange students visiting this weekend and they brought the paint. They seem really nice. We cooked with them last night. They are studying social work in Chennai.
Tonight we leave for Tuticorin, down near the tip of India. We have an overnight train ride and then classes tomorrow. It will be a busy couple of days. We are down there until Thursday night. We have classes and field work and a temple visit, which should be really cool. After that, we have 3 weeks of art classes, and then I go home! This semester has gone really fast.
