Summary of Friday and Reflections

Well, guys, we made it through the first school week, and since we leave on like a Tuesday or Monday night or something, this means that we're 25% done. Friday felt like a rather busy day even though we didn't actually do that much. We went to our four hours of Spanish classes in the morning, and then stopped by the hotel we were supposed to stay at to see if we could move in yet. We've been staying in a hotel near the beach but pretty far away from the library and the Spanish school because there was a problem with the air conditioning at the hotel we were supposed to stay at. The people at the hotel told us that we could finally move in (initially, we were supposed to move in on Tuesday, then it became, Wednesday, then Friday), but we had to wait until 2:00pm, and it was only 12. Considering the fact that we have more bags than we do people and the bags that we have weigh about as much as a small child, we weren't quite sure how we were gonna move everything across town by ourselves. We went back to the hotel by the beach and asked if anyone could help us move our stuff, and a guy said that he could, but it had to be at 1:00 because by 2:00 he would be gone. We decided to just go with that because there was no way we were gonna lug enough bags for a small army across town by ourselves in the stifling humidity. Working extremely quickly, we managed to repack all of our crap in about 40 minutes, and have it loaded up in the truck by 1:00. The guy from the hotel by the beach drove us over to the new place, and took all of our stuff up to our room, and they ended up just letting us move into the new place an hour early. The new place isn't much bigger in terms of size/number of rooms, but it feels more homey because there are big couches and a somewhat proper kitchen and whatnot. 

Anyways, after moving into the new place, we unpacked everything and put all of our food into the cabinets and made it all real nice and proper. We then headed over to the library to fill our more late notices for about two hours. This is rather dull and mindless work, but for some reason I kind of like it. It's easy, doesn't involve any movement, and it's indoors so there's no sun demon trying to fry you the minute you step outside. You know how there are lizards or snakes or something whose internal body temperature relies on their environment? So if it's really warm, their internal body temperature is warm, so they can move around super quickly and get lots done in their little reptile world. Or, if it's really cold, their internal body temperature is cold, so they can't move much and just kinda have to sit there until it warms up. I'M THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. When it's warm, it's like my limbs shut down and decide that they aren't gonna function at the normal rate, so if I'm gonna try to make them move, it's gonna be slow and painful and nobody is gonna like it. However, if it's cold, I'm good to go, because there is always a way to escape the cold. You can always put more clothes on, or use those little hand warmer things that are like small beans in a bag that somehow heat themselves up with your body heat, or you can start a fire or something. HOWEVER. You can never escape the heat. It doesn't even matter if you walk around completely butt naked, it will still be hot, you will still sweat, you will still get sunburned, and you will still hate every second of it. Reason number 5,987,436,219 why cold weather is better than hot weather. 

I got sidetracked, that's my bad. Back to the story of the day. After we wrote a bunch more late notices, we went to the grocery store. This trip was actually an organized one: we had a list and extra money just to be safe, etc. Seeing as how we went to this store every day this week, we thought we'd already seen everyone who works there. Yesterday, though, we were checking out, and there was a new lady there. She looked at us with an odd look on her face when she was tallying up the cost of all our stuff, and then she said, "I think I know you guys. I've seen you before." To which we replied, "Well, yeah, we've been here every day this week, so you've probably seen us earlier this week." She shook her head and said, "No, no I've seen you before, a long time ago. You've grown a lot though. Have you been to San Juan del Sur before?" She also asked who Katie was, to which I stuttered out the response that she was an old friend (saying old babysitter sounds weird and from my experience merits lots of weird looks). My eyes were probably the size of potatoes by now, because what are the chances that this lady would remember us from 3 years ago?! I told her that we had indeed been to San Juan del Sur before, but it was three years ago. She told us that she remembered us from then, and that we've grown a lot, and she asked if our parents were with us too. I told her they weren't here yet but they would be later, and she sent us off with like 6 bags of groceries and a general wtf-just-happened look on our faces. Three years ago, I still had braces, my hair hadn't quite settled down yet, and I still looked like a kid for the most part. Now, my hair is a solid 4 inches shorter than it was then, I got my braces off which changed the way I look quite a bit, and I look (so I've been told) like an adult. I still can't believe that lady recognized us after all this time, especially given the number of random gringo tourists this lady's probably seen during the past 3 years. 

Upon returning to our new condo thingie, we unpacked the groceries and sat down for a little bit. Suddenly, Katie had a craving for chocolate chip muffins, the mix for which we brought with us. I decided that I would go ahead and make them cause some chocolate chip muffins didn't sound so bad at that moment. However, much to my dismay, there was no muffin pan, so I couldn't make them properly. And, there were no bowls that were any bigger than what you would use to eat cereal, so I wasn't sure how I was gonna mix up the batter either. Fear not, though, creative thinking and desperate times calling for desperate measures came to the rescue! Using a pitcher and a spoon, I mixed up the batter with minimal difficulty. Then, after consulting my mom and my aunt, I decided to make the muffins in a cup in the microwave. I dumped some batter into the cup, stuck it in the microwave, and cooked it in 30 second intervals. Surprisingly, it worked out beautifully, and we ended up with some chocolate chip muffins to eat with our scrambled eggs (made by Katie also in a cup in the microwave because the stove wouldn't turn on) for dinner. Pretty solid problem solving, if you ask me. While eating dinner, we watched Legally Blonde on VHS (lolololol so old school), which was comforting because it's a chick flick in English and what have you. 

Later in the night, we were greeted by some friends in our condo. Amara encountered a lizard (small, like the size of your index finger, unless you have really huge hands) in our bathroom, and her and Katie tried to catch it under the plunger, leading the lizard to eject its tail and run far far away somewhere. I was downstairs when all of this happened, but we couldn't find that lizard after that. When I came back upstairs, after I took a shower, Katie found another lizard in her bedroom. However, thanks to my ninja skills, I was able to catch it on her wall under a bowl. Then, very slowly and very carefully, we slid a folder under the bowl and then threw it outside. It was rather intense and there was a lot of screaming and Amara was just sitting there recording the whole thing and cackling at us. 

I went downstairs to the lobby at around 9 to get closer to the wifi router and talked to my mom for a while then Skyped with my boyfriend. The talk with my mom helped me realize that though this trip isn't exactly turning out how I wanted it to, it's ok, and there are still many things to be learned by this experience. My four week curriculum that I slaved away at was cut down to three weeks because nothing was actually organized when we got here, and then I was informed that they have a break during the school week from the 8th to the 12th (Mon-Fri). I won't be able to teach during that week either, so my four week curriculum that turned into three weeks has now been turned into two weeks. If you know me really well, you know that I hate skiing. I've done it a few times and have never liked it. But, the reason for that is because though I'm very mellow and usually easy-going, I'm a control-freak. I don't want to control other people, not that kind of control freak. I'm the kind of control freak who needs to have complete control over herself and what she's doing at all times. It's for this reason that I don't like skiing. I feel like I have absolutely no control over where I'm going because I suck at it, and I hate the feeling of not being able to control myself. So, imagine this situation from my shoes. I've worked so freaking hard at writing all these lesson plans and raising money for the instruments thanks to the generosity of my friends and family and coworkers of my parents, etc. I've learned how to say "quarter note" and "eighth rest" and "trombone" in Spanish so I can teach these kids what I know about music. I have flown to Miami and then hurried to catch the connection to Managua in order to get here, to San Juan del Sur, where everything promptly fell apart. Though we were being continually assured that everything was organized and would be sorted out by the time we got here, this was not true, causing me to lose the first week of teaching. The library basically didn't have anything for volunteers to do, thus leading them to give us late notices to fill out as busywork (not so bad but not exactly life-changing). Then I find out about this break that the kids have, which is apparently their first somewhat long break in a long time, and there goes another week of teaching. Can you see how someone who needs to have control over herself and what she's doing would start to go a little crazy with all of this? I told my mom all of this and told her how I was really disappointed that this isn't turning out how I wanted it to and how I just felt like everything was completely out of control and how I really really hate that. But, as mothers tend to do, she helped me see another side of things. Though it sucks a lot that this whole experience is turning out to be less than favorable, there are still lots of things to be gained from this. Our Spanish is still going to get a lot better while we're here, regardless of how much we teach, because it's total immersion basically the minute we step out of our condo. We're here in a foreign country in a weird little town, and that gives us the chance to people watch, explore, and get to know the culture of the town. I love writing, as you guys can probably tell, so when I'm not teaching, I'll probably be focusing a lot on writing and bettering my writing because it's something I really like and I think I'm pretty good at it. As for not dealing well with the whole having zero control over anything situation, that's a good thing for me to experience. At some point or another I'm gonna have to accept the fact that not everything is in my control, and I'll have to learn how to deal with that. It's hard, and I really don't like it at all, and I don't think I'll ever like it, but it's a part of life that is gonna come up again, and if I can somehow manage to handle having no control over anything in a foreign country, it'll make it easier to handle this kind of thing in the future. This experience has made me learn a lot about myself already, and I know more of that will come. I've learned that I am DEFINITELY staying close to home for college (call me what you will but I love my parents and I don't like being this far away at all). I've learned that I feel pretty empty and incomplete when in the absence of my parents and boyfriend. I've learned that all Spanish all day is mentally exhausting. I've learned once again that we have so much back home and a lot of times we don't even realize how lucky we are. I've realized that I'm very dependent on technology, though I think a large part of this is because of the fact that the only way I can communicate with my people is through the Internet. The list goes on, and I know there will be more revelations to come. I guess what I'm trying to say by all of this is that sometimes, things just aren't gonna go your way, and that's something that we all (unfortunately) have to live with. 

Before school got out, I watched Forrest Gump for an extra credit assignment in history. I wasn't expecting to get much out of this other than a bump in my grade, but I actually gained a lot by watching that movie, aside from just a boost in my grade. Two of the lessons that I took away from that movie were as follows. At the part where Forrest is running across the country for no particular reason whatsoever, a guy comes up and runs next to him while asking him some questions. While they're running, Forrest steps in dog poop. The guy says something like, "Dude, you just stepped in dog shit!" Forrest casually responds with, "It happens." The guy asks, "What happens? Shit?" Forrest says, "Yeah. Shit happens." I'm realizing that this is more true than I ever thought it was. Sometimes, stuff just happens, and there's not really anything you can do about it, because it just happens and you just have to deal with it. The other lesson that Forrest Gump taught me was the infamous "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." I feel like this just goes to show you that you never know how things are going to turn out. Things will pan out for the best but it might be a rocky road to get there. I'm still having some trouble accepting this but it's a slow process and I'm trying. So, to my history teacher from the 2012-2013 school year, thank you for putting that assignment out there, because I gained more from it than I thought I would. 

This wasn't actually supposed to be such a long post but I guess I had more to say than I thought I did. Thanks for reading, guys.

Aneesa

Still in Nicaragua, Still Sweating, Still Spanish-ing, etc

The wifi in our hotel decided to stop working for a while, so I couldn't post anything for a couple days. One of the guys who works here, bless his soul, informed me that there was another wifi router on the fourth floor that belongs to a guy who is paying for a room but isn't there most of the time (not sure what that's all about). He knew the password and told me, so at night I would go up there and sit in the hallway of the fourth floor while being preyed upon by mosquitoes and eyed skeptically by ants for the sole purpose of being able to use Skype and talk to my parents and boyfriend. Oh, the things we do for technology.

Anyways, I used the Notes app on our laptop to write things down so I didn't forget, so here are the things that happened on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I'll add the things that happened today at the end of that.

So. Day two. We went to the library at which we're volunteering (not that I need to specify anyways because there's only one in this town) and they spontaneously decided that we should see some rural schools to decide if we wanted to teach our respective arts (music for me, paper quilling for Amara) there or at the local public school. They loaded up the Biblioteca Movil (mobile library, which is actually just a truck) with big tupperware containers full of books and we hopped in. We drove for about twenty minutes until we got to the first school on the route. The kids were really sweet, and as usual, very entertained by our foreign-ness. We talked to them, or tried to (they were a little shy), and asked them about what they were learning, etc. We repeated this process at the other two schools that we went to, while the three library workers that came with us took the books being returned and checked out new ones to the kids. The excitement was visible on their faces and in their eyes when they came back into the one-room school cradling a new book or two and smiling from ear to ear. It never ceases to amaze me how grateful these kids are for things that we take for granted every day of our lives. Be thankful, y'all, that's the moral of this story. 

After returning from our mobile library excursion, we headed over to Spanish Ya for our four hours of Spanish classes. Not gonna lie, four hours of Spanish class is pretty difficult, even for me, and I love Spanish and usually find it pretty easy. It's like a block day on steroids (my fellow highschoolers feel me on this one). Difficult though they may be, these classes are very helpful, and I can already see/hear the progress that we're all making. Following our four hours of classes, we went to the little grocery store one block down from the liquor store and bought water and bread and other various groceries. By the end of this trip, the people at that store are gonna know us by name, because we drink so much water that we have to go there pretty much every day. Oh, and the reason why I specify that the store is one block away from the liquor store is because we always think we've arrived at the store when we're actually at the liquor store and then we have to awkwardly walk past it while a bunch of dudes taking swigs from a bottle of vodka stare at us. Yeah. That pretty much sums up day two.

Moving right along, today was our third full day in San Juan del Sur, and holy DAMN was it hot. On Monday and Tuesday, sometime in the late afternoon, clouds and a sweet breeze would take over, and that brought it to a pretty tolerable temperature. But today? No such thing occurred. From moment one of the sun's presence in the sky, it was a scorcher. We left decently early in the morning to go to the library and be put to work, and the job they gave us the worst job possible given today's weather. We got the pleasure of delivering late notices to people all over San Juan del Sur. Allow me to elaborate. What this means is that we take these little red or white quarter sheets of paper and we read them. On these sheets of paper is a name and a list of books that are past due. Because San Juan del Sur is such a small town, between the two library workers that are doing this job with us, we can get to the person's house just by knowing their name. Upon reaching the person's house, we go up to the door and say, yo, we're from the library, and we're here to tell you that you have an overdue book, so if you could find it and bring it back, that would be great, and if you can't find it, just bring us a different book and we'll call it good. In Spanish, of course. Basically, to sum up this job, we walk all over the town giving people little slips of paper and telling them to bring books back to the library, some of which were checked out as early as 2006. I don't know about y'all, but if someone came up to me today and told me that I needed to turn in a book that I checked out in 2006, they'd be out of luck. I actually have to think about how old I was and where I lived in 2006, so there's no way I'm gonna know where a book is that I checked out 7 years ago. Anyways, we're walking around delivering late notices, and this is all fine and dandy for about ten whole seconds, until I start to sweat in places that I didn't know could sweat, and my clothes start to stick to my body, and I can literally feel the sun eating away at my fragile skin through my thick layer of sunscreen. We saw some pretty interesting houses while doing this, such as one that was down a crumbling dirt path, past a few pigs and chickens, over a sewer, and up a small hill. Another one was down a backroad and up about 40 stairs of varying heights (I tripped many times). 

Something that I've observed is that San Juan del Sur is actually very similar to Bangalore. This is true in many aspects: the architecture, the dirt roads, the little shops, the stray dogs, the pushy vendors, etc. It's also true in that even though the people are very poor and don't have much, they're generally pretty happy. Granted, I think that many of them live in a drunken haze judging by the amount of liquor bottles everywhere and the fact that I've seen people walking around with shot glasses full of suspicious liquids many times since being here. Regardless, though, they all seem pretty happy. And then I think of my fellow Bellevue kids (no offense meant by this, don't take it personally) who can't live without the internet (not gonna lie, I'm including myself on that one) and have to have the newest iPhone and need to wear brand name clothes all the time, etc, and I wonder how we became like that. I think it would be worth our while to stop and think about how little that all means, and how the things that should actually make us happy are the love of those who we love and simple things like music and the beauty of face-to-face interactions. I should take my own advice, because I'm the one who's sitting here complaining to myself about how obnoxious the shotty internet connection is and how stupid it is that it's so freaking hot here (the list goes on, you get the picture). But when you're faced with a situation as difficult as this one, it's really hard to man up and take it like a champ and be happy with what little you do have. It's a slow process, this whole being appreciative thing, and it's something that we should all work on, myself included, of course. 

I hope you're all enjoying your comfortable lives back in the good ole USA, because trust me, it would be extremely great to be back home right now. Revel in the glory of the Washington weather for me if you're in the Seattle/Bellevue area, and somebody please watch an episode of Weeds while eating Cheetos on my behalf. 

Today was kind of a combination of Tuesday and Wednesday. We went to Spanish school for four hours in the morning, and then went back to the hotel and had some lunch and relaxed a little before heading over to the library to fill out more late notices. Today the weather wasn't as bad as yesterday, but we got lucky in that all we had to do was sit at the library and fill out the past-due book notices instead of frolicking all over the town delivering them. After rereading that sentence I realize now that frolicking was absolutely not the right word choice, as it was actually closer to very slow walking while dripping with sweat and cursing the evil sun. Think of the way that green slug lady in Monsters Inc. moves, and that's a pretty accurate representation of us. Anyways, we got to sit in the library writing late notices while enjoying the wifi and shade, and we made a pretty hefty amount of progress. Though it sounds tedious, I actually don't mind writing late notices, it's kinda relaxing and entertaining (one guy checked out 4 books about sex all on the same day....hmmmmm). 

I think that pretty much covers Thursday, so I'll leave it at that. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the feelings of terror and worry and loneliness and whatever else still persist for the most part, but they're becoming more manageable with time. Or maybe I'm just getting used to it, who knows. 

Thanks for reading,

Aneesa 

Perhaps our Craziest Experience Yet

Yep, that's right. Crazier than a year in India...I think. This is it: right now, Amara, my younger sister, and I are here in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua for a month without our parents. Katie, who used to babysit us when we lived in Kansas, is here as our adult supervision for the first three weeks until our parents meet us here for the 4th week. I'm here to teach basic music concepts to 3rd/4th graders at the local public school, and Amara is here to help me with that and teach paper quilling (you should look that up if you don't know what it is because it's pretty cool). I wrote all the lesson plans by myself and it was mostly my idea to come here and actually carry this whole shenanigan out. And at first, I was pretty confident that this would be super great and mostly easy and not scary at all.

I was wrong.

I'll start from the beginning. Our flight from Seattle to Miami was supposed to leave at 9:30pm (or sometime thereabouts), putting us in Miami with a five hour layover until our flight from Miami to Managua, Nicaragua. Five hours is annoying, I know, but at least it gave us lots of time. We got to the SeaTac airport nice and early to be extra safe. Then, our flight got delayed to 10:30. Still ok, though, because of the 5 hour layover. At this point, we're still fine, we just have some extra time to hang out at the airport (oh joy). But THEN, plot twist, our flight is delayed to 1:10am. Our five hour layover, giving us lots of extra time, has now disappeared, and the flight to Miami lands at the same time as the flight to Managua boards. This is when the panic sets in. Those of you who know me personally know that I'm usually a very calm, levelheaded person. Those of you who know me personally, then, would probably not believe what happened next. I lost it. I panicked hardcore. I have no idea what happened, but I freaked out like never before. I was terrified that we would miss our flight and be stuck in Miami for who knows how long. But then I started thinking about what exactly we were going to do in Nicaragua, and I started to freak out about that too and I started to think that maybe being stuck in Miami for who knows how long wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

We were on our way to Nicaragua by ourselves, where I would be teaching music. I've been playing viola since I was 4, so the music aspect of that really isn't what worried me. What worried me was the "Nicaragua" part of that whole scenario. Nicaragua = Spanish. Teaching a curriculum that I've never taught before in Spanish. What also worried me was the "by ourselves" part of that scenario. Traveling in the US by ourselves? No problem. But flying to a third world country whose main language is not English? PROBLEM. Granted, I've been taking Spanish for a really long time, like seven years or something, but I was still scared sh*tless.

I was panicking a lot. We called our parents and got the whole flight situation sorted out, and we ended up making our connecting flight to Managua with no problems. However, I was, and still am, scared to death. We made it to Nicaragua. But this whole being here alone thing? It's terrifying. It's like that first day of school excited but scared feeling that you get, except really heavy on the scared side and add the deathly hot temperatures and stifling humidity and what you have is a horribly terrified, sweaty, frizzy-haired 16 year old girl and her younger sister and used-to-be babysitter. Yeah. And I'm the only one who knows enough Spanish to communicate and translate.

I feel lost, worried, and lonely, and did I mention terrified? This trip, a whopping two days in, has made me realize that I think I have mild separation anxiety, no lie. I really don't like being this far away from my parents & boyfriend with no way of communicating with them unless I have the internet (yes, we do have internet here, obviously, or else how would I be posting this, but it literally works in one specific place in our bedroom and in the lobby, which is not air conditioned therefore it is very very hot). This whole situation is just incredibly scary. I want my mommy and daddy. There, I said it. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know how I'm gonna teach these kids anything, because I've never done it before and what if they hate me or they learn nothing or my curriculum fails or any other horribly bad thing that could happen. It's so scary. And yes, I know, anything that I teach them will be more than what they already know, and it'll be valuable because it's a once in a lifetime thing for them. And yes, I know, my Spanish is pretty good and has been good enough to get us around this far. And yes, I know, my parents are only a Facebook message or a Google Hangout away. And yes, I know, a month isn't that long and it'll go by really quickly if I just don't focus on how long a day is. But that doesn't help! It's still freaking scary and I literally feel like I have no idea what I'm doing any time I try to do anything and I have this permanent pit in my stomach and that pit is where all the emotions and overwhelmed-ness and worry and nervousness live. ahhhhhhhhhwdruwoidfusoiahwwfhewailurg

Anyways. Today was our first full day in Nicaragua, and it was a holiday called San Juan Day. There was some crazy stuff going on, such as parades and dancing and a few guys climbing up a very smoothed down tree with no branches that was covered in oil. Yeah, I don't really know what that's all about. It was cool, though, and I now know that if there are no other musicians in this teeny tiny beach town, there are at least 2 trombone players and 4 trumpet players, all of which were surprisingly good, considering the fact that they probably haven't had any formal training. We've walked the majority of the town a couple times already because it's so small that basically everything is in walking distance here (which is why I find it odd that there are so many taxis here). We've reconnected with the people we knew from last time we were here in 2010, and that was good because it helped us not feel so out of place.

To sum this all up somewhat quickly, though I am usually a very calm, stable person, this trip is bringing out a side of me that I didn't even know I had--the very fragile, scared, nervous side. Turns out that traveling to a third world country with no parents as a teenager is really overwhelming--who'da thought? Nicaragua is extremely hot and today was a holiday (the history of which I really don't know) which was interesting and I learned that there are at least 6 musicians in this town. Also, before I started typing this, I only had one mosquito bite, and now I have like 6. This experience is insane. I'm sure that by the end I'll see it as a good insane, but for now I'm gonna leave it at that. It's insane.

And I'm scared.

Thanks for reading, yall, more later.

Aneesa

To Give You a Sense of Closure

I know, I know, I fell off the face of the earth. I'm sorry, guys, you'd be surprised how busy one can get in a very short period of time! I'm sure you're all wondering what happened and how it all ended up, so, as I sit here on one of the last days of winter break, I shall tell you. The last time I posted was a long time ago, I think it was around February or March, maybe April. Regardless, it was a really long time ago. So...I guess I'll go from there!

Miraculously enough, I finished all my schoolwork with straight A's. It was tough, and it was a ton of work, but I did it. I pushed it way too close though, I didn't finish until Monday before we left India for good on Friday. I'm really glad I finished and did so well, but I'm not gonna say it was easy, because it wasn't easy at all. Anyways, I finished school, and that was a huge relief.

We left India on 3 August 2012, and headed out to Barcelona. We spent 5 days in Barcelona, and we all loved our time there. It's an amazing place, and I got to speak a ton of Spanish, and of course, the shopping and food were freaking fabulous. I literally have dreams about this one salad that we ate there, and I usually don't even like salad. It was that good. I would go back to Barcelona for the sole purpose of eating that salad...but, for reasons aside from that salad, I fully plan on going back there someday, because I absolutely loved it. :)

After Barcelona, we went to Iceland for 6 days. We did a roadtrip in an adorable little Subaru through the southwestern part of Iceland. Out of all 16 countries that I've traveled to, I kid you not, Iceland is the most beautiful one I've been to. I raved about the Maldives, and those islands are close competition, but DANG. Iceland is immensely beautiful. The people are super friendly, the food was great, the scenery was incredible, and the sheep were adorable. We all loved it, and that's another place that I'd love to go back to one day.

After Iceland, we went to Texas for a few days to see my mom's sister and her family. It was good to see them again because it had been a while since our last visit. We got to catch up, shop on tax-free weekend, play boardgames, and have some family time, which was really nice.

Following our short stay in Texas, we finally returned home on 19 August 2012. A couple days after we got back, I cut off 11 inches of hair and donated it to an organization that makes wigs for women with cancer. I did this in honor of my grandma who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2008, and it felt really good to do it. On 30 August 2012, I got all four wisdom teeth taken out. This process was quite interesting, what with me being on Percocet for a couple days and having a super swollen face and stitches in my mouth, but the healing process was relatively painless. I started school on 4 September 2012, and though my face was still pretty swollen and I couldn't eat much other than pudding and applesauce and other soft mushy things, the first day went well.

In all honesty, the repatriation process was a pretty odd one. It was slightly more difficult than anticipated. You'd expect to move back from a year abroad and slide right back into life as it was before, but that's really not how it is, in spite of the familiarity of everything at home. In some ways, it's like we never left. We moved back into the same house, we're in the same school district, my parents have the same jobs. In other ways, though, it's like we missed huge parts of our own lives. People changed, we changed, etc. India changed me as a person. It made me completely different. I feel like it made me who I should have been all along. My perspectives on so many things changed. I've seen and done so much now that I never would have seen/done otherwise, and it made me a whole new person.

People always ask me, "Oh, wow, you spent a year in India! What an experience, how was it?" And I'm always at a loss for words when people ask me that. It's such a vague question, and it really doesn't have an answer. Sometimes, I loved it. Sometimes, I hated it with a passion. It was rewarding, but painful. Good, yes, bad, yes, fun, yes, torturous, yes. All of it. So, how was India? I don't know, to be truthful. To answer about "India" as a whole is impossible, if you think about it. It's a hard question to answer. But overall, I am indeed glad that we did it, because it was quite an experience, and I learned a ton about myself, life, the Indian half of my culture, and more.

Fast forward to right now! It's the start of a new year, and I'm happy to be back in America. School is going well, it's fun, and I've made lots of new friends and gotten back in touch with some old ones as well. I started and finished drivers ed, and have been driving with my permit for a few months. Driving is fun :) We've settled back into our houses and my parents are back at work and such. I love Bellevue, it's so beautiful and quiet and it smells good and people are friendly and it's great :) I've also gotten back into viola and voice lessons, which is so awesome, because I love me some music! In addition to viola and voice private lessons, I've auditioned for and joined a women's barbershop choir, which is a ton of fun.

I miss a few things from India, though. I miss being able to volunteer every weekend and see the difference that I was making right away. I miss my best friend in the world, Kavin. I miss a couple of the foods there. Occasionally, when the Bellevue weather is particularly bad, I miss the Bangalore weather. I miss having my own bathroom. I miss a few other things, but those are the main ones. However, at the very top of the list of things that I miss is Kavin, my very best friend. I miss her more than anything :)

So, I guess that's how it all came to a close. India was definitely one of the best experiences of my life, and I'm sure I'll keep seeing this in different ways as I get older. Though it was really tough, I'm glad we did it. I love Bellevue, and I have a weird love/hate relationship with Bangalore, but I'm glad to be home and back in the swing of things.

Thanks, guys, for being loyal followers while I was posting more frequently, and I hope this gives yall a sense of closure as to how our year abroad came to an end. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, and I'll try to answer :)

I guess from here on out I'll just write about new places that we travel to, because traveling is fun and interesting and whatnot :)

Bye for now, my lovelies :)

What's Been Happening

Okay, so, I know that I've been really really bad about posting on this blog, and I apologize for that. Things have been super stressful lately and I just haven't had a lot of time to spare. That being said, this post is probably going to be pretty long, so you may wanna sit down for this. In terms of what's been happening, I'll tell you guys about school, the family, and the volunteer work that we've been doing.

School. Since leaving the hell known as Indus, I've been doing online school. That was going pretty well, and it wasn't too hard or anything, but that was only as far as I knew. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed with it, and I got myself in a bit of a situation. Turns out that I was way too relaxed with my easiest classes, and pretty uptight about my harder classes. So basically, I'm going to finish geometry, biology, and chemistry way earlier than I had originally wanted to, but I'm going to be working on English, Spanish, and AP world history for way longer than I had originally wanted to. I first wanted to be done with everything by the end of June, which is gonna work out okay, except for a couple classes (I'll get to those in a bit). Another thing is that taking AP world history as a freshman doing online school was a big mistake. It's WAY more work than I thought it would be, and each assignment takes me forever to finish. The work itself isn't hard or difficult to understand, it's just extremely time consuming and extensive. So AP world history is a class that I'll be working on until the end of July, which kind of sucks. English and Spanish are both super easy, but I was too chill about those and I'll be working on those until the first week of July. Other than all of that stuff, school is going okay. We made a spreadsheet of all the work I have to do so I know exactly how much I have to finish every week, and I'm sticking to that so I can have at least a small summer break.

Family. We've been okay lately. We're getting a little sick of being here and we all miss Washington and our lives back home SO much. We're going to visit Washington at the end of March, and I honestly don't know if I'll be able to get on the return flight back to Bangalore. Before moving here, I never realized how much I loved Washington and how much I would miss the little things that are so characteristic of Washington. How green everything is, driving across the bridge and seeing the mountains in the distance, the lack of speed bumps every quarter mile on the roads, seeing Starbucks around every corner, our house, our kitchen, my friends, our cat....the list goes on and on but I'll leave it at that. Anyways, bottom line is that we're doing okay but we're literally counting down the days until we return to Washington for good. (Literally counting down the days on a calendar countdown on my mom's phone).

Volunteer work. A much happier note. We've recently started teaching English at the Abhayadhama Boys Home, which is an all boys home about 15 minutes away from our house. The boys who are living there are not all orphans, but some of them are. They range from ages 15 to 23, and they are all there to study one of three fields: welding, carpentry, or auto-mechanics.  They pick one of these fields that they want to study, and then they complete a training program that lasts a couple years in that field. This allows them to be qualified for a job back in their village, which will give them a future in something that can provide an income and a steady source of work. My dad and a group of other good people in Bangalore have started a group called Orphanage Outreach Bangalore, and their main mission is to connect volunteers with orphanages and homes that need work done. They volunteer by giving medical exams (physicals), tutoring the kids in math or science, doing extra-curricular activities with the kids, and teaching things like English or other subjects/skills. My parents and I have started teaching basic spoken English the boys at Abhayahama to help them be more competitive for jobs in the future. English speakers in Bangalore have a much better shot at getting jobs because so many expats live here. So far, we've taught them three times and it's going really well so far. I think they like us and they're always eager to learn new things. Some of them are extremely advanced compared to the other boys there, but they are all learning fast. Each time we teach them, we include two music videos or clips from movies/TV shows just to give them a break from learning for a couple minutes and show them some music or movies that are popular among westerners. So far, they tell us that they like Michael Jackson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Captain Jack Sparrow specifically), and Mr. Bean. I'm always surprised and entertained by the things that they know about. I definitely wasn't expecting them to one day randomly call a boy (named Jackson) Jack Sparrow. Anyways, teaching English is a lot of fun and I really love doing it. We're planning on going regularly starting this week--every Wednesday and every Friday for one hour. We decided not to focus on reading and writing, though most of them already know the alphabet and how to read a little, because it would slow down the process a lot. We're just working on speaking English and having conversations.

I'll post a more recent update (I wrote this one a couple weeks ago but didn't get around to posting it until now) a little later about our trip to Dubai and our visit back to the States, and our most recent charity effort called Baking for Bacchas! I'll try to post that next week or the week after, maybe this weekend if I get lucky, but until then, thanks so much for reading even though I've been horrible about keeping this up-to-date! School is pretty stressful, but I'll try to be better about posting on here. Thanks for reading!!:)

Everyone in the universe must go to the Maldives.

Y'all don't even know how true that is. If you've been to the Maldives, I'm sure you know why I say that. We went there for a week, and it was seriously one of the most amazing places I've ever been to (if not THE most amazing place). It was especially convenient for us since Bangalore is only a two hour flight away from the Maldives. After about half an hour of flying, you're over water for the rest of the flight. Right when we were about to land, I started freaking out because we were getting dangerously close to the water and I couldn't see an airport anywhere near us. All of a sudden, a strip of land seemed to pop up in the middle of the water and the plane lands on this thing. It was literally a runway jutting out into the water, just wide enough and long enough for the plane to land on. We taxied for a long time before the rest of the airport finally came into view. Upon stepping off the plane, we were hit with a wave of stifling heat. This would have been really bad if there hadn't been a beach within five seconds of anywhere on any island of the Maldives. 

Anyways, we get off the plane and recover our backpacks from baggage claim and step out of the airport. Customs and immigration was hardly even anything worth worrying out about; we were in and out of that stuff within half an hour. After finding the guy who had a sign with my mom's name on it, we followed him to a taxi and drove to the little house we rented. At first we were confused because his name was Rifau (pronounced Ri-fah, with a short I sound), but the information on the house said that a guy called Mohammed would pick us up. Rifau said that Mohammed was at the house, and, figuring that he was telling the truth, we got in a taxi with him. The house was about twenty minutes away from the airport, on another island called Hulhumale. Hulhumale is a man-made island, but it's just as beautiful as all the other islands. Throughout the ride to the house, all of us had our jaws on the floor like idiots because we were in awe at how clear the water was. I'm pretty sure that there is no water bluer or clearer than the water in the Maldives, except for maybe it's tied with Thailand and Australia (not that I've been to either of those places but I've seen pictures). It's clearer water than Hawaii, and Jamaica (according to my mother). So we go into the house, and I'll be honest, it wasn't a five star resort or anything, but it was nice. Really cozy and cute, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living spaces, a nice patio, and a kitchen. But get this--it also came with two full time, at-your-disposal guides (Mohammed and Rifau) who would take you anywhere, tell you any random facts you wanted to know, and who were able to help you with stuff whenever you needed. AND, to top it all off, the house came with two boats as well! The guides and the boats turned out to be the two things that made our trip what it was. Mohammed and Rifau took us to several different islands and snorkeling places. We went to Hulhumale (or course), Picnic Island, Male (the capital), and a fishing island (which was not at all touristy, it was all locals). It was so awesome to have a boat that could take us anywhere we wanted whenever we wanted, and Mohammed and Rifau were so great to have around. We learned a lot from them and they were really nice. 

Literally ten steps outside of the house was a beach. Super soft white sand that led up to the clear, bath-tub-temperature water. The beach had some litter on it, which made me kind of mad, because how could anybody ever litter on such a beautiful sight?! It was even more painful to see litter in the water itself. The beach right outside the house was a local beach, and guess what that means? Since the Maldives is a Muslim country, it means that women are getting into the water in full borka and hijab. Yeah, that's right, people are getting into the water fully clothed! It was so different from the usual beach wear that you see people in--no bikinis whatsoever, not even any one-piece swimsuits! Our family all wears rash guards (t-shirts that are made to be worn into the water) because my mom and I burn really easily and Amara and my dad get super tan. Even though our good friends in a family that we've known since I was 5 think that tans are okay and healthy, they aren't any better than getting sunburned. You can get skin cancer from any prolonged sun exposure, which can mean getting tan or getting burned (true story, my padre is a doctor). Anyways, that's not something that any of us want to risk, so we put on sunscreen obsessively and wore rash guards.

The two boats that we had were a normal boat to take us to the other islands and reefs, as well as a banana boat. Yeah, I didn't know what that was either when we first got there. We later discovered that it was an inflatable boat shaped like a torpedo/banana. It had room for four people, and it was attached to the back of the other boat. The other boat then drove you around on the banana boat, and basically, the goal of Mohammed and Rifau was to throw us off the banana boat as many times as possible. It sounds like it wouldn't be fun, but it was actually tons of fun (aside from the few rope burns that we got from trying to old on for dear life to the floating banana-shaped-torpedo-like boat). 

Now I'll tell you about the snorkeling. When we went to Picnic Island for the first time (we went twice), Rifau went out with us to snorkel. The water was unusually calm and the snorkeling was amazing and gorgeous. It was our first time to snorkel in the Maldives, and it was super beautiful and really different form anything we've ever done before, at least for my dad, sister, and me. It might have been similar to Jamaica for my mom, but she went there alone. I think it was still pretty different for her too. Sooooo, when we first started snorkeling on Picnic Island. It seemed like Rifau knew exactly where to go, so we just followed him. The water didn't get any deeper than about six feet at the beginning, but it was super clear so the depth didn't really matter anyways. The coral was of so many different colors and the fish of even more colors. At Picnic Island the first time, my mom and I got massive sunburns on the backs of our thighs. Basically, our butts got so sunburned we could hardly sit down. My burn was worse, and it's started to peel a little bit now, which, let me tell you, is disgusting. Moral of that story is, put sunscreen on EVERYWHERE that isn't covered, because you have no idea how uncomfortable a really bad sunburn is on your butt and the bends of your knees, and pretty much anywhere else. 

While snorkeling at Picnic Islamd, all of a sudden, I noticed a significant change in the color of the water, and I also noticed that the coral and fish just seemed to...disappear. I pointed to where they seemed to disappear, and said to my mom, "What is that?!" She said, snorkel in her mouth, "That's the egg." I was so confused, and I had no idea what she meant by "that's the egg." Once we finally got to this so-called "egg," I realized that what she had actually said was, "That's the edge." Not egg, edge. I then started laughing really hard at myself for thinking she had said "egg," which caused me to inhale a lot of salt water and therefore cough until I thought I was going to die. After recovering from my near death by choking on the saltiest water you've ever tasted, I submerged my head in the warm water once again and almost died all over again. There was an edge indeed, and a very scary one at that. One of our family friends, I'll call her A, warned us of this before we left. She said, "The thing I don't like about snorkeling in the Maldives is that it suddenly just drops off into a never-ending abyss of nothingness. It's kinda scary." I didn't have any idea what A meant by that, but once I saw the edge of the reef, I definitely understood. It does indeed drop off into a never-ending abyss of nothingness. You'll just be chillin in the water, snorkeling and oooh-ing and ahhhh-ing at the pretty fish, then, BAM, all of a sudden, the six-foot deep water turns into an edge that leads down to the bottom of the ocean. You can't see the bottom, even though the water is so clear, because it's hundreds of feet deep. The edge is beautiful though. It has the most incredibly vivid colors of fish and coral that Crayola couldn't even begin to replicate. The fish get bigger and more brightly colored the farther down the edge you look, and the coral gets different too. Snorkeling at Picnic Island was the first time that I had ever seen this edge, and it scared me a lot. I mean, think about it. You can no longer see the bottom, the fish are huge, and you don't have a clue what could be lurking in the deeper waters off the edge. What if there's a shark down there, waiting to eat you?! Okay, it might sound irrational, but that's because it's hard to visualize. You have to see it to understand what I mean when I say all this. 

Some people take to the edge better than others, like my parents did. My dad wasn't at all scared by it, and my mom was even less scared by it that my dad. She almost immediately said, "All I want to do is dive down there. I just need a mask, a tank, and a buddy and I would be off that edge in a heartbeat." My MOTHER said that. My mother, who grew up on a farm, who thinks skydiving is too dangerous, who doesn't want my sister to get a third ear piercing, wanted to throw herself off the edge and into the never-ending abyss of nothingness and dive down there with the scary and probably man-eating fishes. Granted, she has her diving certification and she used to dive a lot when she went to Jamaica for a couple weeks, but still. The edge is everywhere in the Maldives. Any reef that you go to, the main attraction is the edge because that's where all the good stuff is. The edge is where we saw tons of different types of fish, a shark, two turtles, several eels, lots of different coral, sea cucumbers, and more. My parents went out by themselves one time and say a manta ray! They said it was "a majestic beast," which is most likely an excellent way to describe it. We also saw tons of dolphins while we were on the boat, which was really cool to see them so close. 

One of our favorite snorkeling sites which we went to several times was called Kurumba House Reef. The reef was amazing and the edge was incredible. This was also the place at which Amara conquered her fear of fish and jumped off the boat and snorkeled with us. Being the first time in about three years that she's snorkeled with us, we were all really happy that she got over her fear of fish and the ocean and got in with us. We loved the snorkeling every time we went to Kurumba, except for one time. The snorkeling was good, but the water was pretty choppy. We had been snorkeling for a little while already, when suddenly we started to feel little pricks on our skin. They itched and stung, and we weren't sure what they were. I then realized that the things stinging us were little brown floating blobs. They were almost microscopically small, but if you looked closely you could see them. Apparently, since the tide was in and the water was a little choppy, these little demon-bities as I called them (they were actually tiny jellyfish) came in with the current. Yeah, they were jellyfish. And they stung us all over. However, Mohammed and Rifau were quick to let us know that they weren't poisonous and the stinging/itching would go away after we took a shower. That turned out to be true, and the itching and stinging mostly went away after a shower. 

One of the funnier things that happened while we were there was when we were snorkeling at Kurumba. I saw these HUGE but weirdly flat fish swimming about fifteen feet off the edge. They were really hard to see, but we asked Mohammed what they were. He said, "I don't really know how to say it in English, but in our language we call it 'floating rubbish in water.' I guess that's what it is in English, but I don't know the name for it." Floating rubbish in water, how funny is that?! We all thought that was pretty hilarious. 

Alright, well I think that's enough about the Maldives for now, I might write more about these lovely islands later though. I already started writing a new version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, replacing the words to the original version with words that describe the Maldives in all its glory. :) I'm definitely going back someday! 

Also, for those of you who are wondering, we asked Rifau and Mohammed how the name of the Maldives is actually pronounced. When we asked them this, they replied with, "Well, yes, there is diving here, but not in the name." So, that means that the I in Maldives is pronounced like a double E instead of like the I in dive. Mal-deevs, not Mal-dives. :)

Thanks for reading, more later! :)

Took the day off on Thursday, because I can.

Yes, I most certainly did do that. It's not like I just decided to sleep in and watch TV all day--I actually did something "remotely nice for such a hulli girl" as my friend worded it. I went with my dad to volunteer! As I said in my last post, I had two things specifically in mind when I came to Bangalore. I wanted to learn Hindi and volunteer as much as possible. Because of Indus, I hadn't been able to do much of either of those things. Since I was recently freed from the cruel bindings that so stifled these desires for 4 months, I have been able to get straight onto doing those two things! When we go out to stores or when we're driving somewhere, my dad points to random stuff that we see and teaches me how to say it in Hindi. Also, since I've been home all day and since I've been eating lunch with him, he tries to speak to me in Hindi as much as possible. Immersion works well for me to learn languages--it's how I got so good at Spanish. Anyways, what I was aiming to talk about in this post was volunteering at Bosco Mane. Bosco Mane is an all boys orphanage. Most of the boys are between the ages of 5 and 15. Some are only there for a few days just to get back on their feet after living on the streets, but some stay for a long time. The majority of these boys come from living on the streets, even the really little ones. Some come from really far away--even from several hours away sometimes. Seeing the places in which the orphans live (both at Bosco and at Angel's) makes me more and more thankful every time for our apartment here in Bangalore and our house back in the States. It's crazy how many kids they manage to fit into one space, but you'll never once hear a kid complain. They're more than happy to be there. After all, it's either that or live on the streets, and street life can be pretty rough. Not that I would know, but it's obviously nowhere close to a good life.

What we did at Bosco Mane was the same thing that we did for the kids at Angel's. We did physical exams on them. My dad and the other doctors went to Bosco about a week before and started doing physicals, but there are a LOT of kids there so they didn't get time to finish. We went back on Thursday to finish up, but a meeting was happening in the room that they used last time. Because of that, we had to set everything up in a completely different room with a very limited amount of tables and chairs to use. This kinda took a while, and even after that we were a little slow to get a flow going. Once we finally got started, we only saw about 25 or 30 kids before it was time for us to pack up again and head out. We're planning on going back again on Tuesday, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to go again. I want to go, but since I didn't have any of my text books this week I have a lot of work to catch up on. I was pretty much doing Spanish all day every day this week, so I'm really ahead in Spanish but I haven't done anything in any of my other classes. I'm gonna have a crap-load of catching up to do in the next few weeks!

Back to Bosco Mane though. These little guys are so adorable. I think it's probably a good thing that my mom didn't go because she would have fallen in love with every single one of them, kind of like I did. :) They were mostly healthy, but a large majority of them had dental issues. Most of the dental issues could be fixed easily by better brushing habits or things like this, but some had serious issues like tonsillitis or other things that needed surgery. Luckily for them, there's a dental college and clinic really close to the orphanage so it shouldn't be too terribly hard for them to get help. A couple were also in desperate need of glasses, which will probably be much harder for them to get access to. It's so sad that they have trouble getting access to things which we Americans usually take for granted. While we were doing physicals on them, we had a lady who is an oral surgeon with us. She was doing general dental check ups to see which ones were in really bad shape and which ones would probably be fine if they started being more careful. Y'all should have seen how excited these little guys were to go to the dentist! Going to the dentist is something that 5-15 year olds usually throw a crying and screaming fit about! There was a crowd of about ten kids surrounding our dentist as she was doing check ups, and she spoke Kannada as well so she was able to communicate with the kids. They got such a kick out of going to the dentist, and it was really cool to see how interested they were in everything she was doing. I officially have a new perspective on what it means to truly give back to the community. The feeling that you get deep inside your heart after you see how happy those kids are is one that can't be replicated by doing anything else. I love volunteering!!

Thanks for reading guys! And also thanks for being such loyal followers/reading my blog whenever you come across it, because today I broke 1000 page views and they're still climbing up before my eyes! Thanks so much and more later! :)