Nov 7th: Frogs

 Yes, mother, these are directly influenced by my surroundings.

Nov 4th: Mahabaleshwar

Besides being the capital of British colonialism, I don't really understand what Mahabaleshwar is. 

 There were a lot of strawberries/strawberries in cream

 SURPRISE you're in latin america! 

Yeah I have no idea what this place was.

I would never have thought that all three of these pictures were taken in the same location. 

Oct 31st: Hapz Halloween Ya'll

In which my host-ai doesn't understand what halloween is and tells me "Happy Howler!"when I leave for school:

Our program director did give us candy, however. 

Oct 30th: Konkan Coast

Everything is Beautiful:

 We biked 43 miles up the Konkan Coast of Maharastra this weekend. I don't know if it's because I grew up in flatlands IL and then went to school in cornfields WI, but I will never ceased to be amazed by mountains. 

I also can't feel my butt anymore. 

HOW I KNOW I'VE BEEN IN INDIA FOR A LONG TIME:

- The puppies that live in the courtyard where we practice yoga are almost as big as their mother

- My hair is so long that I don't need bobby pins to hold it together in a braid anymore

- They finished paving the road on my way to school. So now I don't have to walk in puddles of trash 

- I no longer have to surpress my gag reflex while watching my host mom eat yogurt/rice mush with her hands 

- I'm more used to being covered in sweat than not

- My first mosquito bite scars are beginning to fade

- Monsoon season is over 

- Sunita has completed the arduous task of navigating the Indian bureaucratic system to get her ration-card (the document that says that she exists.) 

- I finished my biscuit drawing. 

Oct 25th: Biscuits

A sketchbook update: 

a: I really like biscuits (price in rupees and ranking out of ten included)
b: ACM is really a chaco nation
c: This is being posted for Deborah, who requested more shapes. 

Oct 23rd: Another holiday I don't understand

So I don't really understand what the holiday tomorrow is, (it's been explained to me as worshipping our weapons, exchanging leaves but calling them gold, being an auspicious day to purchase items, a day to bless your technological tools, and a day that soldiers return? what?) but I do know that there must not be any marigolds left anywhere else in the world because they are all at the market on my way to school: 

Oct 22nd: Goa 2012

A Pictorial Timeline (in Summary) 

 First we did a lot of this

 Then we did a lot of this

 Then there was a little bit of this

But mostly a lot of this 

But I also have a question: 

Of this picture, which would you be more likely to stare, gawk, and blatantly take pictures of even when you are sworn at and told to go away by their male friends? 

Did you say A: the mystically garbed shaman woman wearing multiple scarves and flashing mirrors, or B: the white girl in the bikini.

If you said B, then you are indeed every Indian male who inhabits Goa! Congratulations!