Post 1

Greetings from India -

Some of you know, and some don't, but I'm in India for 3 weeks to visit my friend Anna and be a tourist. Here is my first email out, y'all told me I had to do a blog - so I set one up and it doesn't recognize my password. It's thru my gmail account, and notice I am on gmail so I do have the correct password so it's not just how low tech I am. . .

Anyways, a short update: 24 hours to get here. Yes, seriously. I arrived at 4am Jan 1st, took 2 small naps during the day, went shopping for indian clothes, and we drove (well, Anna has a driver for her job - his name is Anand and he drove) to the farm. Today I'm on a perfect time schedule! No naps or anything. The farm has cows - i've seen them but we haven't formally introduced ourselves - and a great dane named either Neo or Neow (either like the guy from the matrix, or like a cat's meow.) Neo is awesome - he's super friendly and I even cleaned his ears for him today and he let me! Also here are Margesh, the farm manager who speaks some english - I started learning Tamil yesterday, but slow slow - and Gaurarama and Krishnama, two very nice ladies. Gaurarama apparently tells Anna how she's supposed to do things like cook, but that's in Canada (main language of Karnataka, a state nearby) and Anna answers her in English - they really like each other and talk a lot like this. Today Anna and I went for lunch at Usha's house in Namaleri, she's a nurse from the nearby clinic/hospital who speaks English quite well and is friends with Anna. Many people also dropped by, and it's amazing how much communication happens with Anna speaking english and small amounts of Tamil and the other people speaking Tamil. It's just important that they're talking, even though they don't actually know what each other are saying. Lunch was fabulous because we had paisan - that's probably the name- vermicelli in milk with sugar, cashews and raisins - it's like rice pudding but way way better and more liquid. I love it! And Usha and her mother and friends are very nice. We also went to Devi's house and she fed us tasty sugared tea and showed us her wedding album. Then we went to the preschool and the clinic to check them out. Anand and Morgesh returned from errands and we convinced Anand to walk back to the farm with us - about 3 km in which we learned Tamil and talked to just about everyone we ran into, which was a lot of people as we walked thru many towns. Also, thank god for exercise, I've been sitting so much! (the farm is about a 3 hour drive from Bangalore, the trip from the airport was maybe 45 mins, and everyone we visit with wants us to sit down. and eat!) Tomorrow we will trek all over the farm I hope. We're not supposed to go walking around just us 2 ladies, we need a man with us. sigh.

Upcoming: Anna and I will travel to Mysore, a city about 3 hours from Bangalore to the southwest, the Nilgiri Biosphere Preserve, Ooty for trekking and chocolates, their specialty! and into Kerala (sw state) for greenness and the backwaters - their true name. Possibly we will hit the Periyar animal preserve/park in the south of Kerala and the town at the southernmost tip of india - the sun rises and sets on the water. We will return to the farm in time for Pongal, the harvest festival on the 14th when we get to wash and decorate the cows! And then we'll go look for the elephants around here - with help from someone like a park ranger. It turns out Anna will be travelling with me the whole time - yay! I like Anna.

-Kim

ps okay, i meant it to be short. :)