December 31st HAPPY NEW YEAR

December 31st

We did all sorts of things. Lucas and i were taken around to see Pondicherry. Here the locals just call it Pondy. Waking up in my capsule i felt a bit anxious for the first day. As i said to Luke, i just want to be led by the hand around everywhere until i get the hang of things. Its difficult when people begin speaking to you in a different language or with thick accents and you cannot understand anything they say. The culture is also very difficult to get in touch with as well. I was surprised that there weren't tons of hippies and everyone isn't into yoga. At least i haven't heard much about the subjects here. Well i have heard of some hippies that live down the road. Anu told a story about this "Hippie" who walked around FERAL campus past the gates and everything and when she tried to tell him he was on private property he looked confused. Anu made the point that these people wouldn't do that in their own country but suddenly they come here and all space is their space.

okay so my day. well i woke up around seven and had and average breakfast of bread and eggs. Then we went to register as students in Pondicherry. That was interesting i looked around the building as i have in others as well and its interesting here in India. The buildings are tattered and worn but with very little repair. The paint is chipped the furniture is old there isn't much supplemental lighting, so windows are very important. The buildings are entirely functional but without the glitz and glam you find in the US. The people are also very interesting. The woman are harsh but that's just their way. they argue and yell at each other but for good reason. The village that we live in is full of extremely hard working woman and alcoholic husbands. The woman have jobs and take care of their stuff while the men by cheep booze and do nothing. Sound familiar? These are whole communities.

Pondicherry was quite a sight. Narrow streets in bad condition and three story buildings on either side. These were intermingled with grass huts, cows, and buffalo. There is a mixture of bikes, scooters and mopeds, as well as cars racing through the town center. Rows and Rows of bikes and motorcycles line either side of the already narrow street. No one pays attention to pedestrians or signals as honking and road rage is everywhere. Its just like the highways here but compact into densely populated area. After exchanging our money we went shopping. The hub of the city/town is a market. The type of market you see in Indiana Jones mixed with Slumdog millionaire. The fish markets was completely amazing. The smell was worse a few blocks from the market than the market itself. Inside there were women in brightly color saris selling fish on low wooded tables. fabric was hung above to keep the sun out but it was still hot with all of the bodies in this confined space. Every type of fish, squid, and prawn could be found and each in various sizes. Some were huge. Some were sardine size. The weirdest part of all was that the fish were not on ice. They were just being sold right off the blocks. It was crazy to see. Anu was leading us around and told us that this was very empty for the market. Sunday is apparently the day when everyone goes to the market. (they eat meat sundays). This hard to imagine because there seemed to be many people in town. Vegetarianism is huge here, there are veg and non-veg places to eat and signs that let you know which is which.

So in the market which is entirely outside and covered by the colored cloth is what gives protection from the sun to the store fronts. Each alley way between buildings has different products in each different row. In one row there is fruit, another has pasta and lentil,sand then you get into clothing. Everything is in the big sacs and you can buy the dry foods in bulk. Its awesome. We walked past it all to textiles store to buys some scarves. They had every type of scarf you could want. Apparently they had the best prices compared to the five or six other shops next door that looked exactly like the one we were in. Each scarf was about six dollars. Scarves are the more expensive type of clothing. Pants and shirts are around 100 rupies a piece. This would translate to about 2 dollars.

After the market we went and explore some interesting natural features around us.The first was a watershed that filled in monsoon season and slowly dried through the progression of summer. Some farmers had begun to encroach on the land and use it to grow rice. There were all types of birds here.

pond herons
jungle crow and House crow (they have gray necks)
egrets both snow and great

From there we went for brief overview of the tropical dry forest which FERAL was finish a restoration project in. It was really interesting to see what the forest should look like and the low shrubs that were trying to rebuild the forest now. After a tour and a brief history of the temple that the forest surrounds, we moved on to the salt fields and the inlet where the wetlands connect to the ocean to form an estuary. Salt fields are very interesting. To produe these huge salt mounds, men and women trudge through salt water all day to compress the salt entirely by manual labor, there are no machines at work.

By the time we headed back to FERAL it was getting dark and the moon, the blue moon was high in the sky. There was lots of traffic headed into Pondi because of New Years and all the parties on the beaches. Everyone drives with their high beams on with only increases the danger on the roads as you are blinded by the lights and can't see pedestrians, bikers, or motorcyclists. Many cars have one or both head lights out with creates even more of an issue. The center lane is still just a suggestion to the drives and we pass cars as we fly into on coming traffic.I think the most dangerous part of India is the time spent in cars on the roads.

For our New Years dinner we had pizza and grilled chicken every thing was delicious, but Lucas and I could not make it. The lack of sleep was in full affect and my eyes could no longer stay open.

I Still haven't encountered any snakes yet.... thank goodness.
HAPPY NEW YEAR its here and i didn't even have to stay awake to make sure it came.
Also Lucas and I are going to want a big birthday bash at some point!

Happy birthday to the both of us. Me for December 29th and Lucas for January 2nd we both got and get to spend our birthdays in airports.