belated

...written during the trip, but not posted. so I'll post now.

(that means that I'm back! I'll update with more soon.)

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Cookies and orange soda…that’s what I had for dinner.

Honestly…I don’t like Indian food that much. >.<>

One thing we have found that we can eat in restaurants, etc is Chinese food. It’s actually pretty common on menus in the cities. So…in the last couple of weeks, I have eaten more chicken fried rice than I probably eat in a year. It’s good, but after this trip I probably won’t be eating it for a long, long time.

On other occasions, people are usually aware of our eating habits ahead of time, so there will be some plain boiled vegetables or “chicken no spice” prepared for us. But, of course, nobody else eats it because they don’t think it tastes like anything.

If all else fails, I eat the trail mix that I brought along. (My travel companion, Ilene, brings enough food with her to last the whole trip. She could probably bring a small suitcase full of food.) I have discovered that my favorite trail mix elements (I mix it myself from the bulk bins at Wild Oats) are ALMONDS (I could probably survive solely on them), craisins, and M&Ms (the Wild Oats version). I could probably live without the soy nuts. Um…you probably don’t care about my favorite trail mix items…

One thing I do love when I’m in India is FRUIT. It is so fresh and sweet! I’ve read that you are only supposed to eat fruits that can be peeled, so I eat a lot of plantains (tiny bananas) and oranges. Last night I ate an orange that had green skin…and greenish flesh…but it wasn’t as good as the regular oranges (which are EXCELLENT).

Okay, so…that was a blog post about food. We had a good day today, but I can’t imagine that anyone wants to hear about our all-day staff meeting…

Coming home soon!

so sleepy.

I wrote this earlier today when I had a few minutes...
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I have been terrible at updating during this trip, which is too bad, because we’ve pretty much had an internet connection the whole time. Why have I been such a bad updater? Well…

…This has been a very different trip for us. Usually, if we are doing an organizational audit or normal project visit, we have a lot of activities: visiting multiple “subprojects” in one day, going out to villages, visiting sponsored families, etc…lots of moving.

For THIS trip, we have just been in cities, working primarily at our “project” (main) offices, training our new staff members and working through issues. Lots of inside time. We had thought that it would make this trip somewhat easier: not having to stay in a new place each night, being “in touch” (our cell phones and internet cards always work in the cities) most of the time, not as much traveling around…

…but it seems like it’s harder. Doing all of this training and office work has been EXHAUSTING. The other night, we got back to our room and slept from 6:30 to 11:30pm…I woke up and worked for a couple of hours because I had things to do, but slept again from 2 to 7:30 am with no problems. Yawn.

Anway…today we’re in Bangalore. The weather here is BEAUTIFUL. After many days of hot hot in Delhi and Chennai, we arrived here on the train this morning (early, about 4:30am), and it was kind of chilly! But now that the sun has come up, it is beautiful. We had a great and productive meeting this morning, and now we’re preparing to drive to the airport to head to Palay. We also had a couple of nice days in Chennai…some really productive work with our new staff, and a visit with some old friends. I like Chennai.

This trip has also seemed long. Fortunately, I feel like I have settled in so the length doesn’t feel as emotionally oppressive anymore J, but it feels like we have been traveling for much longer than 10 days. Whew. We’re on the downhill slope now, though. It’s funny…by the end of a trip, I feel both eager to get home AND frustrated that I can’t stay longer. Oh well.

naps at 6pm

...is what I do when I'm traveling. Or so it seems for this trip.

Jet lag is so weird. My body just pretty much refuses to sleep at night. Once I do finally fall asleep, it's a very light and fitful sleep, and I way up ridiculously early. Then, I work all day, we come back to our hotel, and...take naps. and then get up. and then try to go back to sleep at "night."

So today was officially day 5 of this trip (though the first two days were taken up traveling to get here...as I said before, India is FAR AWAY). We're still in Delhi, and have been working at our office here to train our new staff. We got a lot done over the last couple of days, so I think that we will have the opportunity tomorrow to visit a village where we have sponsored families. It will be so nice to be out in the community instead of cramped in an office (or hotel room)! Tomorrow we will fly to Chennai, where we will spend a few days training our staff there. It will be nice to be back in Chennai...I haven't been since last spring.

For those of you wondering, I have been feeling GREAT (aside from the nausea that I have come to expect from my malaria medication) (knock on wood). I thank you for all of the prayers and good thoughts and positive vibrations. They are very much appreciated. :)

I am finally starting to feel a little more culture-settled. It seems that I always feel a little (or a lot) culture-shocked when I arrive in India, and get homesick, but it always gets better. And I think I'm on that up-side now. But I can't promise that I won't send emo texts at times. :)

Anyway, I am missing you all, and am looking forward to coming home, but am having a nice time. Peace...