Early this morning as the sun filled my room with light, I rolled over in bed and scrolled through the emails in my phone. One immediately caught my eye–from my baba (host dad) in India. He had received the letter I sent to him and was writing to let me know that both he and aai … Continue reading
Category Archives: Southeast Asia
Giving Meaning to the Going Forth
“In a sense it’s the coming back, the return, which gives meaning to the going forth. We really don’t know where we’ve been until we come back to where we were. Only where we were may not be as it was because of who we’ve become, which, after all, is why we left…” –Bernard Stevens, … Continue reading
Holidays Abroad
This will likely be one of several nostalgic 2013 posts as the new year approaches. Today, I was looking through some of the photos I’ve taken this year and realized that I spent most of the big holidays and celebrations of 2013 outside of the country. Some of my favorite holiday/celebration photos are below. I … Continue reading
“Reverse-Culture Shock”: a little perspective
As the semester came to an end our conversations naturally centered around our excitement about going home: What’s the first thing you’ll eat when you get back? Who are you most excited to see? What will your pets do when you walk in the door? How nice is it going to be … Continue reading
Why It’s Better to Eat Food with your Hands
This one took me a little while to catch on to, but in India (at least in Pune) most people eat their meals with their hands–specifically their right hand. You serve food with your left. Most nights this means using your roti to pick up cooked vegetables and spoon them into your mouth, mixing warm … Continue reading
Until then, I’ll be in India
As we near the end of the program, the familiar tug of homesickness gently nudges our attention away from India and back to the states. It reminds us what take-out pizza tastes like, what snowflakes instantly melting into water droplets on our skin feels like, what our siblings’ voices sound like when we lazily roll … Continue reading
Tilligan’s Island: Adventures in Kerala
After our stay in Bangalore, three of us boarded a plane to Kerala where we met up with three other ACM students for a houseboat cruise. Few places in the world can boast the perfect temperature and Bangalore was definitely one of them. Just a little breezy, warm enough to wear a sleeveless kurta but … Continue reading
Indian Dust Bins: A Photo Essay
One of those things that I didn’t think I’d find myself taking pictures of in India… Dust bins (trash cans) here are so much more creative–and at times creepy–than they are in the US. Here are a few of my favorite dust bins from Bangalore. There was a great penguin dust bin at Mahabalshwar a … Continue reading
Happy Diwali!
As we come to the end of our week-long Diwali break tonight, I thought I’d share some of the photos I took in Bangalore earlier this week. From the lights hung strung over major streets to the lanterns lit outside of houses and the firecrackers bursting in alleyways, the “festival of lights” certainly surpassed … Continue reading
A Quick Update from Bangalore
More detailed posts to come, but I thought I’d just take a second to go through some of the highlights of the past few days in Bangalore. On Friday afternoon myself and two friends grabbed a cab to the airport in Pune for the beginning of our week-long Diwali break. A few hours later we … Continue reading