The Orient Express

Address Change

2008-04-02T09:12:00.003-06:00

Hey All,

Just a quick post to let you know my address has changed. I'm now at:

780-466-1870
9447 Ottewell Rd.
T6B 2E1

Cheers!
Isaac

Hi-ho, Hi-ho...

2008-02-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

I'm afraid I'd mostly forgotten about this poor forlorn blog, and had pretty much assumed everyone else had too, until I bumped into a friend on the bus and he informed me that there were worried people who still checked it. To them, my sincierest apologies. Rest assured Rikki, I am alive and kicking.

I'm back in Edmonton after a long winter in Nakusp. I'm all done my Canadian diploma though, so I get to check one extra box on job applocations. I've been doing a couple of temp jobs and am now working for the Provincial Archieves building them a contact database. Really I'd rather do something that involved less time in front of a screen, so I'm applying for work as a blackjack dealer. It's been somewhat delayed as the HR worker at the casino doesn't seem to understand how the hiring process works, so I've been running in circles for a little while now. At this point though, it's just nice to have a bit of an income.

The grand-master scheme is to save up money for my travels back to India. I'm hoping to stop in Montreal, Amsterdam and Israel on the way back, leaving Canada in mid-June or so.

If anyone wants to send me lovely things or call me, both of which are greatly encouraged, my new contact details are as follows:

Mr. Isaac Havard

5107 106 Ave NW

Edmonton AB

Canada

T6A 1G1

780-485-6010

ihavard2@homail.com

or, if you want to brighten my lunch-hour,

isaac.havard@gov.ab.ca

Needless to say I feel wonderfully important having such an official-looking email address.

Back to the grindstone now though. I'd like to promise that from hear on in I will never again heartlessly neglect my dear old blog, but don't like making oaths I'm not sure I'll keep. If it's any consolation, I will at least feel a vauge, nagging guilt when I go for too long without updating.

Take care, eh?

Isaac

Going Home

2007-10-10T00:24:00.001-06:00

I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment I'm afraid, and am a bit worn down to boot. I'm coming back to Canada tomorrow for medical reasons - here is a notice I posted in the common room on campus last week. Hopefully that should just about cover it.

04 October 2007

Dear all,

I’m afraid I am writing this to make it public that I will soon be returning to Canada for medical reasons. In about two weeks I will be going home to recover and will then return as a second year at the beginning of the next school year.
At the beginning of this month I was diagnosed with major depression, a psychological disorder. I had been suffering from it since last October, a span of about eleven months. The symptoms were frightening and disabling. I had recurring serious suicidal thoughts, low energy, irregular sleep, and lost interest in most of the things I enjoyed. The illness affected all areas of my life, from personal to academic.

For the past month I have been starting to deal with it and I am now doing much better due to a combination of therapy, support and medication. However, I am still almost entirely unable to handle stress and have been suffering from panic attacks. For this reason I have decided to return to Canada to fully recover and to get completely caught up on my school work before coming back. The past month has made me realize that while I can be happy here I’m not yet well enough to handle the stress of catching up. I want to be able to be happy and productive as a second year and to have the time and
capacity to be involved in this community.

When I go back to Canada I will continue the treatment I have started here. I will be attending therapy and will be on medication, and will be exercising and doing yoga. I will have excellent support from my family, who have dealt with mental health problems before. I have utmost confidence that I will get better. While home I will also catch up on my school work and possibly finish a couple courses by correspondence to get my Canadian diploma.

This has been an extremely hard decision for me to make. I love this community and am particularly close to my co-years. I have spent the past month trying to make things work here but have been forced to admit that going home, while painful, is the right thing for me to do. I feel that it would be far worse for me to spend the rest of the year here without managing, without fully recovering, and without getting the most out of my second year. At the end of the day I feel that this is a medical problem that needs treatment.

I will miss you all beyond words. I am very happy that I will see the first-years again and I’m really looking forward to coming back as your co-year. It breaks my heart that the second-years will not be here too. I have not been well this past year, but I have always been struck by what an amazing bunch of people you all are. You have been fun, wonderfully supporting, and in many ways inspirational. I love you as a group and as individuals. I’m not sure I could have made it this far without you. Thank you.

Most sincerely,
Isaac Havard

I now have a ticket for a flight leaving Bombay at 0050 Friday morning and arriving in Edmonton Friday night. I have an all-night layover before my 0730 flight to Kelowna Saturday morning and would love some company. My flight gets in at 1145 (flight number NW 1023 from Minniapolis) and I'm pretty much garunteed to be at Timmy's for a couple hours after I land.

I'm sorry that this is probably a pretty big shock for a lot of people. Everything has happened quite quickly in the past couple weeks, so I've dropped off the map a bit. At the moment I'm in a crazy blur of getting ready to leave and saying goodbye to an uncountable number of people whom I hold unfathomably dear. I'm definately not ready to go and there are slews of people that I feel I need at least a week with, just with them, before I could consider parting with them, but I definately don't have that kind of time.

For now I have to dash off to some more doctor's appointments (Is that the proper pluralisation? Doctors' appointments perhaps?). I hope this finds you all well and I'm sorry if it's confusing - it's confusing for me too.

All the best,
Isaac

Uuunnnngghhhhh....

2007-08-21T04:10:00.000-06:00

I'm in India now, safe and sound, but jetlagged out of my brain. I had a wonderful time at the Folk Fest and just as much fun in Amsterdam. I'm afraid I'll have to regale you all with stories of these travels another time though. For now I'm going back to my semi-lucid fight against the dreaded Afternoon Nap.

Hope all of you are having wonderful summers.

In the Dark

2007-08-02T18:35:00.000-06:00

The power just came back on about 15 minutes ago, but we're not sure how or why or if it will last. It went out yesterday morning around 10, while I was at work. The museum suddenly went dark and spooky, an effect not at all helped by the fact that our windows are all borded up to prevent sunlight damage to the artifacts. I went and hung out with the info centre girls for a while and we had a jolly old time.

As it turns out the power was put out for this entire valley - around 2000 residents - by one of the forest fires in the area (http://bcwildfire.ca). We're not quite sure which one, and we've been a bit in the dark for information as well. We don't get radio out here, and when the power went out it took with it the TV and internet, so small town speculation has run its course to the point that we're not really sure of anything anymore.

I quite enjoyed it yesterday because I got the day off work. My stepdad was coming back from a job in the Slocan valley, just east of here, but needed to gas up in Nakusp to get home. Without power, we had to be rescued by my mum in the truck.

So far it's been good fun - like camping, but with a really big tent that is our house. Lots of barbecued food and candles. The last thing we heard from BC hydro was that the fire was out of control and too dangerous even to fight. They estimated it would be 5 or 6 days before we had power again.

I was just settling into my paid vacation and looking forward to the next couple days of it when the power suddenly came back. Guess I have to go to work tomorrow. *Sigh*

Actually it's definately for the best. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm a wee little bit computer dependent. We're pretty isolated out here, and there's only so many games of soliare you can deal before you go crazy.

In other news, I had my long-awaited surgery last week. It was a minor little job. They just had to snip off the bone spur from my broken collar bone so it would no longer cut the tissue. Everything went wonderfully smoothly, and there were some super fun drugs involved. I spent the rest of the day in a bit of a happy daze which sadly wore off and was back at work a couple days later. I havn't really been able to do much with that arm since then, and there's been a bit of pain, but I'm wonderfully glad to know that I'm finally out of the woods with this whole rigamarole. By the time I get back to India it should be in pretty good shape. But I don't think I'll be playing too much football.

And speaking of India, I'm afraid my summer is drawing to a close. My last day of work is on Saturday, and then I'm off to Edmonton this coming Wednesday for Folk Fest. As soon as that's over I'm headed to Amsterdam on the 13th and then back to muwci on the 18th. So far I'm pretty excited to be headed back. Only a little bit apprehensive.

Other than outages and surgeries I've been doing tremendously well out in the West Kootenays. Went to Revelstoke on Tuesday. It was really really exciting, going into the big town like that! We went to the railway museum, which I thoroughly enjoyed once I got over my museum insecurities - they're funed by CPR, and as such are a bit more affluent then us. But we're more real! *ahem*

I hope everyone else's summer is winding up wonderfully, and I'm excited to see some of you soon

A Suprise Trip to Vancouver

2007-07-09T18:53:00.001-06:00

Things continue to go well here in West Kootenays. I've taken to calling it the land of the definate article (even though most small towns could probably be described as such) because there seems to be one of everything. The stoplight, the general store, the cop, the theatre that plays the movie at the time, and so forth. Summer is well and truly underway, with gorgeous hot days and lots of slighty obnoxious tourists upon whom we are completely finacially dependent. Stupid Albertans...

I now have an appointment for surgery on the 24th to get my collarbone sorted out. It's supposed to be pretty simple surgery and I should be back on my feet in no time.

The only really stressful thing around here has been my passport application. I have to get my passport renewed before I go back to India, but because of a new American policy that will soon require Canadians to have a passport to cross the border, there is a huge rush to get passports and resultant huge waiting lines. I'm in a bit of a hurry with this whole thing, so had to get my passport expidited a bit.

I had thought that the closest place to do that was Kelowna, about a three hours' drive away, so I hopped in the car with my mum, who was headed to Vancouver (7 or 8 hours away). We got into Kelowna nice and early only to be told that if I wanted it expedited I'd have to go to Vancouver. Otherwise it would take upwards of 10 weeks, time I sure didn't have.

So, with nothing else for it, I hopped back into the car with my mum and went to Vancouver. We got there in good time and it actually only took my half an hour in the passport office, rather than the 3+ hour waits you see on TV. The secret is to fill out the form online - they jump you right to the front of the line.

While in Vancouver I also went to see my gran, which was wonderful. She was pretty happy at my unexpected visit. I also got to see my sister a bit before hopping on an 6:45 bus the next morning and hauling it back out here. Thankfully there was some shuffling of weekends to accomidate a co-worker's holiday, so after two days of work I now have another much anticipated weekend. I'm thinking of attempting a bike ride into town tomorrow to see if I could do it on a regular basis.

Other than the occasional burst of excitement, things remain pretty good around here. The job continues to be wonderful and more. Occasionally the small town of it gets to me a bit - I don't know anyone and havn't yet figured out how to meet people in a small town, so I'm a bit on my own out here. None the less, it's pretty much the most beautiful place I've ever been, let alone lived, and I'm learning to drive which is good fun.

Postscript: Oooh! Speaking about small town excitement, I forgot about Canada Day! It was super exciting. I got to dress up in this amazingly spiffy green and gold 1948 band outfit and wander around town being all promotional. There was a big ole parade (though no actually marching band) with floats, and the winners of the Queen of the Arrow Lakes pageant. By far the highlight were the two boys on an ATV riding behind the horses with a bucket and shovel. They got by far the loudest applause. Afterwards there were speeches and awards and cake and all sorts of fun patriotism. The best part is that because of it all my picture ended up in the local paper. That's right, once again I was in a paper looking very very silly.

Bringing Home the Bacon

2007-06-17T18:54:00.000-06:00

I just got back from my first day on the job at the Nakusp Museum. I had an interview last night and I suppose the liked me, because they asked me to come in the this morning. So I now have a job until August, when I head back into a whirlwind of travel. I know I've only been at it for a day so I shouldn't make huge sweeping statements yet, but I have the best job in the world! I spent all day learning stories about the area and our artifacts and then telling them to other people. All day telling stories. And they pay me! So far the learning curve is steeper than the local mountains, but there are less deer eating the grass on it.

Actually, and this is a weird segue, the mountains around here really are crawling with deer. Which is really cool, but which makes driving slightly stressful because every time you see one (which is often) you're a little afraid it will jump in front of your car. In the past few days I've also seen bald eagles, osprey, ground-hogs, a moose, and something that was either a porcupine or a badger. Or maybe a really freaking huge weasel, I didn't get such a good look at it.

On the collarbone front, I finally got to see an orthopedic surgeon who (thank god) saw that there was a problem and is putting me in for surgery in about a month's time. It's nothing major, they won't rebreak it or anything, but they're going to shave off the really pointy bit that is struggling savagely to free itself from the limiting confines of my skin. It feels great to finally have a reliable answer on the whole thing and know that it will all be resolved. Though I've got the heebie-jeebies at the thought that the health care system that made me feel like I was being treated as a human again was the British Columbian one.

Yes, all in all things here are going very well at the moment. I have a job that I love and am learning more than I ever thought I'd know about Nakusp. So if you ever have a question about the Sinixt First Nations (you think the xt is hard to pronounce? That's the European spelling. They spell it sngaytskstx. I'm not even making that up) or about the contributions of the local Kinsmen to the community of Nakusp, I can help. I expect the inquiries to pour in from all corners of the globe.

I'm a Real Person Now

2007-06-12T22:25:00.000-06:00

Hello all. As the title says, I've just turned 18, and am now legally a person! That meant that I could drink for about 3 days, but then I came out to BC where the age is 19. I can still vote and sign legal documents however, which I think could lead to far more fun than mere drinking.

On a less worrying-to-family-members note, I'm safely back home from India. I had a really good two weeks in Edmonchuck and saw lots of really cool people. Missed a few cool ones too, but there never seems to be enough time. As I mentioned, I was there for my 18th birthday, and had a really nice little basement get-together with some thouroughly good folk at which - get this - almost no alcohol was consumed. Of course, earlier that day (say, oh, at about 12:02 in the morning) was a different story, but not one for this venue.

Since then I've been back home in Burton. I really really love it here. It's completely gorgeous out in the mountains, and my folks' place is picture-perfect. There lots of work to be done, from weeding and fencing to installing door knobs on the interior doors, but that's all part of the fun. And did I mention there are sheep?! Sheep! They're so cool, in a staggeringly mushey-brained sort of way. They even have a black one.

Tomorrow I'm going in to Nacusp high-school to preach to the children the wonders of the UWC movement and try to convert a few brave, overly idealistic young souls to give it a try. To be honest I'm not really sure what to say. I've had quite a year. But the program pretty much speaks for itself, so I suppose I'll just let it. I've also heard they're hiring at the museum, so perhaps I'll check that out, as anyone who saw me in Edmonton will know that I was about as broke as broke can be.

I don't think I've mentioned this anywhere offical, but I got a job in Edmonton the second day I was there, after walking in off the street. God bless an oil-rich economy!

On the collar-bone front, I saw yet another doctor today, who referred me once again, though hopefully for the last time. Nacusp has an orthopedic surgeon who comes in once every two months, and Friday happens to be his next stop in town, so hopefully that will work out. The last word was that they might have to do something minor to shave of the really freaking pointy bit, but that that would be all. We shall see. In the words of Paris Hilton's mom, "It's in God's hands now." Only not really.

I must also report that after a year of stalwart resistance, I have just caved to The Facebook and hooked myself up with an account. If you have one too, add me! And then once you're done that, please help me with how it works. What is this wall of which you speak? How do I carry out I conversation with someone. Is there any facebook specific ettiquite with which I should be familiar? And what, exactly, is the point? I remember being quite sure of the answer to this last one when I signed up yesterday, but am now rather bewildered, I must admit.

For now I have a long night of trying to figure out exactly what I shall try to impart on impressionable young minds on the morrow. I hope your nights or mornings - wherever you are in the world - prove to be more exciting, and that you are all doing very very well. Take care, eh?

Isaac

Sad Sad Sports

2007-03-25T03:27:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone. First things first, the answer to the question that has no doubt been plaguing you all since my last post. The huge glaring hole in my last post, the question which was all my mother asked after reading. The very question in fact that was the first thing I asked after retuning to campus after my trip to the hospital - Who won?

I'm afraid I was perhaps hiding the unfortunate truth in my last post, for the answer I recieved on returning to campus was not a happy one. After I was hauled off the pitch Africa came back with a vengance and cruised to a 4-3 victory, eliminating us from the finals. In the bronze medal match the next day, in which I was also not allowed to play (though you should have seen the nurse's eyes when I suggested it - like dinner plates), we lost to Asia by one point in a shootout. We had been forced to play a replancement keeper for the shootouts. Excruciatingly dissapointing.

Unfortunately that seems to have been a bit of a theme for sports of late. India just suffered a pair of crushing defeats to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka at the cricket world cup and have been as good as eliminated before the proper tournament even began. There has been a mixture of fuming anger and stone cold silence from the Indian students whenever cricket comes up - which it somehow seems to often when there is a Bangladeshi around. I also had the misfortune of checking up on the standings of the Edmonton Oilers. I fear I shall break into tears if I linger on this subject, but Smitty???

*sob*

The patch of sun through alll of the clouds has come from our RKHS - the housekeeping, gardening and kitchen staff on campus. Today there is a big cricket tournament on campus, with 16 different RKHS teams from all over Pune here to compete. Adam and I have had a wonderful morning cheering our team to two brilliant victories, landing the in the semi-finals, which we're off to watch in 10 minutes or so.

So far my Project Week has been off to a wonderful start. We get two Project Weeks a year to go off and explore India and take a break from studies. On my last one I went off to Gujarat and worked with an NGO there, and I had been planning to go to Kerala for this one. The doctor made it quite clear, however, that I was going to do no such thing. So instead I'm spending a week on campus relaxing and repairing.

As I say, it's been great so far. Most people have left to travel, so there are just a few of us left with all of campus to ourselves. It's wierd how much of a different place it has become without all the people. It's so peaceful and quiet, bar the odd cricket tourney. We've been relaxing, watching movies, and playing monopoly and the like. Incidentally, we watched Banlieue 13 yesterday, which is by far the best action flick I've seen in a while.

I've got it pretty well made for the next week or so. The pain in my collarbone has started to subside, though it's still extremely akward. For now I'm off to watch the semis. Go muwci!

Still Alive

2007-03-20T22:41:00.000-06:00

Hello all. It has been a rather deplorably long time since I updated I'm afraid, even by my standards. See, funny story. So I got back from Pune on Saturday and my friend Klara was walking me home, where I had resolved to sit down and finally write a long overdue update. As we were getting near my house, Fate, acting through my friend Iman, came running over and intervened. The Americas were playing our last round-robin game of the MUWCI Football (soccer) World Cup against Africa. Africa was undefeated and we had yet to win (the college really needs more Brazilians), but if we could pull off a win it was possible we would make the final and secure at least 2nd place. Needless to say, my steadfast, ironwilled resolved to write crumpled like a soggy brown paper bag, and I laced up and headed out to the pitch.

Miraculously, we ended the 1st half up 2-0 after two breathtaking goals from our brilliant Brazilian. Then I allowed a free kick, and shortly thereafter, far more foolishly, beat Ishan and Renaud, two large African strikers, to a loose ball. They piled into me and I went down painfully. Reaching over to my shoulder, I felt the jagged edge of half of my collarbone through the thankfully intact skin. I never actually got to see it, but at some point someone asked me if I was sure it was broken, and when I pulled back my shirt there was a collective noise of horror from those around. It was kinda cool.

After 20 minutes or so, the ambulance showed up and took me to get x-rays in Pune. Never before has that road been so long or so bumpy. We did have the siriens and blinking lights going, which was cool, but which the rest of the traffic completely ignored. The x-ray showed that the bone was in fact broken (I could have told them that), but that thankfully the shoulder did not get dislocated. I got to head back to campus on the road that had grown no less bumpy.

While I was in the med that night there were huge bursts of raucous cheer from the Social Centre that after a while were suddenly and desicively silenced. I found out the next day that Bangladesh beat India in the Cricket World Cup.

So my last couple days have been in the med centre once more. The pain is much less today, and I slept well for the first time last night, so I'm doing better. My arm's in a sling, and will be for 3-5 weeks, which unfortunately also means that I'll be spending Project Week on campus next week, instead of going to Kerala as I had planned. Still, it should be nice. I'll amass a bunch of movies and relax like no one has ever relaxed before.

I have to head off to class now. This has taken me a rather long time as I only have one hand at my disposal. Take care, and take your calcium suppliments!

All the best,
Isaac

Fire, the Mountain's Burning Down

2007-01-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. Hope you've all had a good January. Sorry for leaving you with me stranded in the Bombay Airport. In case you're wondering, I did end up making it out. Yesterday. No seriously, it wasn't so bad. I made it out that Sunday afternoon and had good luck getting back. Through a misunderstanding with the man trying to swindle me into taking his jeep, I ended up getting back to campus for only Rs. 1000, much better than the usual Rs. 3000. The swindler became the swindled. I guess there's a reason this country invented the concept of karma.

Since then the semester as been really good. Life has been continuing on at a pleasant breakneck pace. There was a really good football tourney clast weekend with a couple visiting schools from Bombay. Not only did the muwci teams sweep up first and second place, there were pancakes with strawberries and cream for sale, to which I added the maple syrup I brought to make the most blissfully delicious creation I have ever experienced.

Two days of good football also reminded me how much I used to enjoy playing it, so I promptly joined the football. Perhaps it was the wrong time to join, at the height of their glory and all. If they stay good it sure won't be my fault because they were good before, but if they don't...

I played my first game today. It was the boys' team against the girls' team. I was going to play right full-back, but the girls asked me to play keeper for them, so I did. It was a bit embarassing. I ended up fishing the ball out of the net a total of nine times, though the girls were extremely grateful for my contributions. I'm afraid to say it was a bit of a one-sided game.

While we were performing feats of spectacular bravery on the football pitch, the muwci fire service team, our volunteer firefighters, were putting us to shame protecting us from a wildfire. Somehow the hill next to us caught fire and the flames were moving towards us, so the air-raid siren was sounded and those brave folk rushed into action. Sorry if it sounds like I'm making fun of them - secretly I'm ridiculously jelous of how cool and heroic they are. They spent a couple hours running up and down the mountain beating out a fire with these implements that are essentially a cookie tray bolted to a 6-foot bamboo stick. They're pretty much amazing.

Other than that I've been working, though not even close to as much I should've. My play goes up in two weeks, but rehearsals are going well. It's pretty nice here.

Hope things are going well for you all. As I know you're all dieing to send me really big packages and ridiculously long letters, I thought I'd copy the school's mailing info from the website.

For letters:
Isaac Havard
Mahindra United World College of India,
Village Khubavali, Post Office Paud,
Taluka Mulshi, District Pune - 412108,
Maharashtra, India.

Address for Courier:
Isaac Havard
c/o N. Krishna Kumar
Flat No. 1, B-2, Golden Arch
Bavdhan, Pune - 411021
Maharashtra, India.
Telephone: + 91 (20) 22952461.

For packages they say the only way to ensure the package will arive is to courier it.

I expect an onslaught of letters and packages. In about a month, if you send them tomorrow. Take care, everyone

The Long and Winding Corridor

2007-01-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

I am presently sitting in an entirely out of place but none the less fortunately placed green moulded plastic chair deep in the innards of the Mumbai International Airport. I had quite a pleasant journey here, including a lovely conversation with a man from Winnipeg who was in the seat next to me until London. I slept a lot, ate a lot of miscellaneous and randomly scattered meals and watched Master and Commander not quite all the way through. Exceedingly pleasant.

Things stopped going quite so well when I got here. I can't honestly say I was at all suprised when the luggage carosel finally stopped running, leaving me and several others travelling from Toronto standing luggageless in Mumbai International. I was equally unsuprised when I was told that I would have to wait until 10 AM to talk to someone who might have the faintest idea of what's going on with my luggage. I don't have a telephone or an address in Mumbai, nor really the finacial means to take a taxi to a hotel for such a puny amount of time, so I resigned myself to waiting it out in Mumbai International. After all, what is a 6 hour wait after a 30 hour flight?

And so I find myself here, waiting in a peculiar seat near the Emirates office in perhaps the most surreal corridor I have ever experienced. It was lucky I've had such a long time to wait, because locating the office was quite the endeavor in itself. I made the foolish mistake of following the signs to the Emirates office only to find a sleepy looking guard, a canteen, and a sign explaining that the Emirates office had recently moved from terminal 2A to terminal 2C. After wandering 2C for a while I found a set of stairs and came through a door to another sleepy and confused looking guard. He let me go through, I think more because I sounded entirely confident about what I was doing than because he understood a word of my explanation.

It turns out he was the gatekeeper to the eerie empty stone labarynth in which an obscure collection of airlines have an obscure collection of offices scattered deep down the long arcing tunnels. Some wandering eventually led me to a wooden door tacked with a piece of paper on which it was authoritively declared that the Emirates Baggage Offices lay within. Essentially I've spend the last 4 hours sitting and musing and reading and pacing outside of that little door, though I recently grew slightly restless and wandered until I discovered this chair.

To be honest I'm not nearly as irritable, exhausted, worried or frustrated as might easily be presumed under such circumstances. The woman sounded confident enough that I'd have my bags sometime before tomorrow afternoon and I have enough confidence myself that things will work out either way that I've found myself rather enjoying my peculiar surroundings, if in a slightly bemused fashion. I have a first-rate book and, for the next 54 minutes of its battery life, a computer to sing to me. It's quite tranquil really.

Anyways, suffice it to say that I'm doing quite well in all my travelling. Hopefully I'll be home soon, and I'll pop on another quick note when I get it. I've noticed that during the long hours of inter-continental travel I tend to post more than I do in a week of staying relatively put. Enjoy it while it lasts, which as I said, hopefully won't be too much longer.

Just Call Me Magellan

2007-01-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

Ignore the timestamp - I'm writing this at around 9 AM Friday morning Indian time from a plane somewhere over the Atlantic. Once again I'm on the long but exciting journey back to India. This time though I'm flying through London which, given that I flew back to Canada via Singapore means I'm circumnavigating the globe. How cool is that!

I'm a wee bit physically tired coming off of Christmas break, but feeling none the less renewed. I had a few wonderful whilrwind days in Edmonton before Christmas. I went back to McNally, my old highschool, and got to see a lot of really wonderful people there. It was really fun - it turns out going away for a few months makes you wildly popular, and there were a lot of mutually joyful greetings.

The next day I went back for the McNally pancake breakfast and had a completely surreal experience. I went over to see Mr. Rice, my old principal (definately among the really cool people I was excited to see at McNally) whom I had missed the day before. As I got close I saw that he was talking to Mr.(His Honour?) Steven Mandel, Edmonton's Mayor and a man for whom I have immense respect, and another man who turned out to be the chief of police. By then Mr. Rice had seen me, and as I tried to keep my jaw from falling ajar proceeded to introduce the Mayor and the Chief to me! He told them I had been in India and they asked about the program and offered their congratulations and expressed their admiration. I wished them both well and excused myself to get some food only to find myself being served coffee by Councellor Micheal Phair, a personal hero of mine. I felt so wierd and important.

I have to say though, it was was more exciting to see the people I'd been missing for a couple days.

But then I was swept off again, to my parents' house in BC. They've moved to a small town called Burton, near Nacusp. Don't feel bad - I hadn't hear of either of them either. It's this lovely small town in the Kootenays. Christmas there was perfect. There was absolutely nothing to do, which I've been told bothers some people but which I found to be a lovely change of pace. I'm not sure I did much other than eating yummy food and sleeping.

I flew back to Edmonton on New Years' Eve 4 days ago for another brief flurry of old friends. It was sometimes a bit scary and stressful but at the end of it all I'm not really sure how to describe how nice it was.

Which brings me to now, once again going through the stiff knees and ambiguous concepts of time attached to flying and enjoying it anyways. I am sad that the holidays are over but to be honest I'm quite glad to be going home to campus. I will really miss everyone, but just as I realised a lot about how I feel about Canada by going to India, I have found the reverse to also be true. In some ways it has become home, and I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and having my room back and settling into the routine chaos of campus life.

Of course, I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to get to campus from Bombay, but I'm sure I'll work it out.

It was good to see everyone that I did and I miss those of you I didn't. Until I see you again, take care eh?

All the best,
Isaac

Home!

2006-12-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I'm home!!! There's snow and cold and Timmy's and... oh my. It sure is good to be back.

The last couple days on campus were fun, but there was that somewhat strange atmosphere of prolonged goodbye. People start leaving on Friday (One friend of mine actually left Tuesday), so for a day or so there is always someone to say goodbye to. Because there are so many people you're sometimes also never sure if you're seeing someone for the last time, so some people I missed saying goodbye to altogether, and others I said goodbye to a bunch of times.

Satuday morning we set off for Mumbai. It was a long bus ride, but I slept through most of it. It was, after all, the morning after my last night on campus.

We got into Mumbai at around 2 PM. We were riding in a taxi, and just when I thought I was starting to get used to India and that little could suprise me, my friend yelled out. There was a rat in our cab! The driver laughed at us a little and told us not to worry, it was "nahi problem".

We didn't have long in Mumbai, which I'm not sure was such a bad thing. It had been a while since I'd seen that many forgieners off campus. From what everyone has told me, there isn't too much to see other than the Gateway to India (which is admittedly really really cool). We spent the afternoon bartering with the slightly ridiculous street vendors (fun because I didn't actually have any money) and looking at the most sublimely ugly shoes every concieved by human kind. Before heading out we got the single best kebab roll things I have every experienced, and then headed off to the airport.

The flight was good. Once again I can't say nearly enough good things about Singapore Airlines - I almost didn't want to get off. It felt like home when I got to LA to discover that Air Canada didn't have my baggage tag and that my flight was delayed and I might miss my Calgary transfer. Luckily (and I really should have seen this coming) the Calgary flight was delayed as well, so it all came out in the wash.

And then suddenly I was getting out of the plane and stepping onto the runway and I was home. The air was fresh (only about -12, which I didn't actually find to be as cold as I expected) and there was snow! Snow! It's so beautiful. I'd missed it. Mel picked me up at the airport, and the very first thing I did was to go for a doughnut (Canadian maple, of course) at Tim Hortons, which I paid for with a shiney loonie without feeling the slightest bit silly that it was called a "loonie". It was magic.

I am finding the transition to be a bit weird. I've changed a lot in India I suppose, and gotten used to things I didn't expect. It's weird to come back and discover that your own culture has become slightly foriegn to you. We were talking in the airport about wether we could fit five people and bags into a car, and it seemed like a weird conversation. Of course you can fit that many people into a car, especially a huge North American car! Everything is so clean, and as much as I knew it was coming, it still suprised me a little when a car stopped to let me cross the road.

Equally strong though is the feeling of home. I had an amazing warm shower and slept in a huge fluffy bed and just felt good. This morning we had breakfast and Dan and I talked for a long time about hockey. I didn't realize how much I missed that. Back in India (I almost said back home there...) when you say hockey people think you're talking about field hockey - you have to clarify you're talking about ice hockey, and then they stop listening to you. It felt so good to talk about hockey, and the fan community and to feel how Canadian it was. Looking out the window at the snow and talking about the betrayal of Pronger filled something in me I hadn't even realized was missing. It feels like home.

These next few days are going to be crazy. I'm staying with Jill's family in Riverdale. Tomorrow I'm coming to McNally, so you'd all better not cut class (unless it's going to be to come talk to me). The next few days are going to be a whirlwind, and I'll try to see as many people as I can. Don't worry if I don't see you now, I'll see you when I come back to town after New Year's. If you won't be around then, then call me quickly! While I'm in town my cell phone so feel free to call. The number's 504-6997. I really hope I get to see everyone while I'm here.

Happy Christmas. It's good to be home!

Home Soon!

2006-12-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I'm afraid I'm writing this once again from my most favorite place on the whole campus - the med centre. I came in yesterday morning puking and feverish. Not much fun, but I'm doing much better now and barring disaster will be released this afternoon.

I'm coming home soon! Only 3 more days now. I can't wait to get back and see people and winter and home. This place is intense, and has been wearing me down a bit. A whole bunch of my things have gone missing, including my iPod and my bank card. Unfortunately that means I'm dead broke, with barely enough money to make it home, so I won't be able to buy all of the exciting Indian Christmas presents I wanted to. I'll buy you extra cool things in May, I promise.

As for my Christmas plans, they're a wee bit convoluted. My parents moved to the Kootenays, so I'll be back and forth a bit. I get into Edmonton very early on the 18th, and then I'll be in town until the 21st or the 22nd, when I'm busing out to Necusp. I'll be there for Christmas, and then I'm flying back into Edmonton on the afternoon of the 31st. I fly back to India on the morning of the 4th. It's not very much time, but I want to see you all, so let me know when you're free.

At the moment I'm going to head off and engage in my favorite muwci past time - checking out of the med. Take care of yourselves, and Happy Christmas!

Isaac

Spare Some Change for the Ransom?

2006-12-02T02:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Hope you're all well and Christmasy. I had such an exciting week! I got kidnapped! I don't know if you all remember, but I've been having some troubles with residency. The room I had been in had been cramped and really not working out for me, so on Monday I went and talked to the headmaster, and he recommended I move into the storeroom of one of the other boys' houses. I was mulling over who to ask, and appearently the guys in one house caught wind. So Tuesday night I got back from a really really lovely off-campus dinner with my friend Lieke, and we were sitting on my bed, relaxed as can be, with about 10 minutes before check-in. Suddenly, Mitch, Ben and Javier explode into my corner with their shirts up above their faces, pick me up, and lift me out of my room! They got me out into the courtyard, where Jake was waiting to blindfold me, and then hoisted me up on their backs and carried me half-way accross campus to their house. They took off the blindfold in their storeroom, which they had cleaned (no small task) and decorated with this awsome beach theme (which they swear was just the things they happened to have lying around), and which had a whole bunch of enthusiastic people in it. They had also already got permission for me to move and arranged everything. It was so wonderful - I've neve felt quite so welcome or wanted! I went back to my old house to pick up a toothbrush and found Mitch and Jake walking out of my courtyard carrying my old mattress. "We think you should sleep at our house tonight!" And so, I've moved in. Luckily they're the nicest guys in the world, and I wanted to live here anyways. It would have been a bit akward otherwise.

That was by far the highlight of my week, and I'm happily settled in now. (moving the cupboard was also quite an adventure. They weight a ton, and are really flimsy, so carrying them is really hard. My cupboard now tilts somewhat disconcertingly) I am a wee bit worried that now that I have a nice room I just won't leave.

In other news, play rehearsals started up this week. Having now read the script I've realized that I my character is not exactly the horrid rapist I made him out to be - as it turns out, the play is purposefully ambiguous as to whether or not he actually did it, so I have to similtaniously convey guilt and innocence. At our first rehearsal we went over, in considerable depth, a scene where I'm being tortured. For well over an hour I sat there pretending to be tied to a chair while my really good friend Leticia kicked, poked, prodded, yelled at and sat on me. It's tricky because we're so close, so she kept being entirely too nice to me, or stopping half way through to apologize, and then having to start again. Still, I'm glad it's someone I'm such good friends with. At one point she takes off her panties and shoves them down my throat. You can't really let just anyone do that. Reheasal is going well, and I'm starting to get a handle on my tricky little character. I think we go up some time in February.

At the moment campus is all spic and span in honour of Mr. Shelby Davis, who is visiting right now. I'm not really sure what to think about the guy. He funds all of the American National scholarships, and gives money to UWC students going to university in the US. Other than that I don't know a thing about him, but the campus is being cleaned, beds moved out of courtyards, a show has been arranged, and our traditional, last day of term Cristmas feast has been moved to tonight in his honour. On the one hand, I really do think it's great to show gratitude to someone who has given this place quite a lot. On the other, so much of what is being done seems really fake and superficial. It feels a bit too much like sucking up. Goodness, I do hope people still treat me like a person when I'm rich.

This week's other highlight, coming in a very close second to getting kidnapped(I still havn't got over how cool that was), was Global Affairs. This week's topic was Sexual Orientation. This campus really likes to pride itself on being open and accepting, but there are serious problems with homophobia and ignorance. One of the biggest problem is perhaps that we like to feel accepting, so these problems get swept under the carpet and ignored. On tuesday we finally began to discuss them as a college, and it felt really good. It was charged and tense, but at least a discussion began. That was the essential hurdle that we've finally jumped - I just hope the dialogue dosn't end here.

I should soon being preparing for this evening's Christmas festivities. Finally I have a chance to wear my new Kurta! I have to admit, it still dosn't feel like Christmas, and it probably won't until I get home. I'm not sure you can have Christmas with sunny days and palm trees. It just dosn't seem right.

We do have an excellent Christmas buddy tradition here. Everyone draws a name from a hat and then anonymously does nice things for that person for a few weeks leading up to the Christmas dinner. I'd been feeling a bit detached from it because, having been in the med, I hadn't done much for my buddy, and I hadn't received anything either. I thought my buddy had just been too busy, until last night Fiorella came in with an arm load of chocolate and explained that there had been a horrible mistake - my buddy had been putting chocolate into the mail slot above mine. So I was thinking I didn't have a buddy, and someone else has been getting fantastic amounts of buddy love. That knowledge made me immensly happy. For now I should go start working on my big gift to give to my buddy tonight.

I miss you all. I hope your Christmas season is fufilling and adequately Christmasy. Take care of yourselves.

All the best,
Isaac

Third Time's the Charm...

2006-11-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

The first time I was released from the med it was exciting. Today I got out for the third time, and nice as it was, it's starting to get old. In my last post I wrote that I was released on Thursday and feeling much better. Unfortunately Friday night, just over 24 hours after getting out, I was back in. But not to worry, I'm out now and today I've been feeling better that I have in a long time. So, barring disaster, I'm out of the med for good now. But just to be on the safe side, I'm going to go to bed now.

Goodnight all! (Actually, good morning to those of you in North America and good afternoon to folk in England. But goodnight to me!)

I'm Thankful for Americans Who Cook

2006-11-24T04:34:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! Happy American Thanksgiving. We had a huge American-Canadian Thanksgiving feast last night. It was so wonderful! It was a really nice taste of home. We made way way too much food - Chicken instead of turkey unfortunately (it was amazing anyways), and mashed potatoes and yams and stuffing and gravy and perogie like things courtesy of Theo and cider and more pies and brownies than I've ever seen in one room together all at once and... oh my... I was in charge of decorations and music, so I hooked up some American folk music, which I've discovered makes up the majority of my iTunes library, and decorated the table with flowers and leaves and wild grain. I made calligraphy placecards, partly to justify bringing calligraphy pens all the way to India. About twenty of us sat down almost shoulder to shoulder at a table. Turns out it was true what they said about being close to your teachers here - I was sitting next to my English teacher, and we barely had room to cut our food! The food and the company and everything was so homely and just... overwhelmingly nice. I'm still full today.

I had good reason to be thankful as well. I got out of the med yesterday after being back in there since Saturday. So once again my sincere apologies to people who wrote me things and didn't get a reply. Your letters made me really really happy in the med. Hopefully this won't become a recurring theme through these posts.

This weekend is our second Exiat, but because I'm still recovering a little, and because of the small mountain of work I accrued during my stay in the med, I'm staying home. I had been planning to go to Bombay and buy Christmas prezzies, but that plan has been moved to December. So never fear, the possibility of presents remains.

I had my very first TOK (Theory of Knowledge, for those of you lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the IB) class today! I missed the boring first class where they went over the sylabus while I was in the med, so today was all 100% baffling TOK yumminess. At the moment I'm totally in love with it, but mentioning those three little letters to second years produces an intruiging outpouring of bitterness and grief. We'll see how it goes.

In other exciting news, preparation for Theatre Week has begun! I missed my Saturday audition because - you guessed it! - I was in the med. They needed cast lists by Tuesday, so Monday all of the theatre week directors piled into the med and sat around my bed to audition me. There were like ten people all around me hitting me with things like, "say, with no remorse whatsoever, 'women deserve to be raped'," "Count to ten. Angrily. Now shyly. Now cockily" (which in retrospect might not have been the word she used, because it sounds really silly). My all time favorite was, "I'm holding a gun to your head, and in a moment I'm going to shoot your eyeballs out. I want you to convey both the pain of having your eyeballs shot out, but also the realization that you will never, ever, see again. Bang!" They told me afterwards that I was really good, but I think I might just have had a spacey look that made everything seem more dramatic. Luckily I have a history of getting very sick during productions, so I should be able to recreate my brilliance.

Anyways, the upshot of it all was that I got the part of Roberto in Death and the Maiden, which I've been told is a big deal. I'm not sure if anyone's familiar with it. If you are, could you fill me in? There's a conpicuous lack of scripts on campus. What I've heard so far is that it's a three-person, one-and-a-half hour play in which I will be playing a man who repeatedly tortured and raped the female lead, but dosn't feel that there was anything wrong with that. In Pearson they studied it in IB English, which I think says it all. Somehow I get the impression it won't quite be the light fluffy comedy I was hoping for. Jokes aside though (as I'm getting the impression they will be in this play), I'm really excited to get rehearsing again. It'll be... fun?

It's really beautiful here now. The weather is doing really weird things, and it's raining at the moment even though the monsoon should have ended months ago. It's a nice warm kind of rain though. Even now it's at least 25 degrees all day. There are little flocks of tiny yellow butterflys all over the place, and the poinsettia trees are in bloom, along with a bevvy of red and yellow flowers. It's really lovely.

How's the weather in Canada? (*collapses on the floor in evil laughter*)

The poinsettia trees at least are a reminder that Christmas is approaching frighteningly fast - only 3 weeks! I had to check that before I wrote it. Time flys here, in the, "supersonic cutting-edge jet plane" sense, not in the, "nice frolicking little yellow butterfly" sense. Soon I'll have details on when I will be in town so you guys can start planning the party. For anyone wanting a sari, I now know what measurements you need. I think. I was shown, so I'm not really sure what the names are. Shoulders and... bust and chest maybe? Around your breasts and below them.

I'm so excited to come home! I miss everyone, and I miss snow, or at least I miss some very romantic idea of snow that dosn't include 5 to 7 months of cold and darkness. Take care of yourselves, and I'll see some of you soon!

All the best,
Isaac

Project Week

2006-11-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

When I published this post, the post before it, "To Gujarat," inexplicably disappeared. Naturally, that was the only post for which I do not have a back-up. I wrote it Saturday just before I left for Project Week explaining where I was going and that I had been in ill and in the infirmary for about a week beforehand. It displayed on my computer, but judging by the emails I recieved this week I'm not sure anyone else could actually see it. My apologies

Hello everyone! Hope you're all keeping well. I am still alive - sorry for going incommunicado for a while there. I just got back from Project Week in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It was such an amazing experience!

As I mentioned before I left, I had been in the medical centre the week leading up to Project Week. I wasn't quite well enough to leave with the rest of the group on Friday, so with Sanjena and Johanna, two other invalids also going to Gujarat, I left Saturday afternoon. We had a bit of a time getting there. We got to the random gas station in Pune where the bus was stopping and waited there for about two hours until Sanjena (who, praise the heavens, speaks Hindi and Mahrati) called the bus company. Our bus, they told us, was still at the depot and would be about another hour. So we did something very very silly and decided to go for dinner - I'm sure by this point you all know where this story is going, but bear with me anyways. It's cathartic for me to tell it. We went to this little restaurant nearby where appearently Dr. Wilkinson and the architect had dinner together and drew the very first plans for muwci on paper napkins. It was a neat part of muwci history and really good food, and we got a bit caught up telling each other stories of Himalayian passes and Alberta skies and sure enough, we missed the bus. In our meagre defense, it did come 10 minutes earlier than they had said it would.

So Sanjena once again put her Mahrati skills to work and, after some time and some trouble, got us space on the 9pm bus. But, gentle reader, I'm afraid I am using the word "space" very liberally here. "Space" did not mean seats, it meant wedging ourselves in the front cabin behind the driver with no fewer than 7 other people for about 12 hours. And it it was of course an exciting 12 hours. At some ungodly hour of the morning we all had to pile off and shift to another bus because the one we were on didn't have the proper paper-work to go into Gujarat, and at around 6am the new bus broke down for an hour. Still, the night passed, and at around 9 we were extremely grateful when some people got off and we got seats. Never before have bus seats been so comfy!

Once we got there I found out that I would be working with an organization called Pratham. I had earlier thought that I would be working with Himmat, teaching local women to ride bicyles, but as it turns out they had actually learned last year, and this year were learning to ride a scooter. I still would have liked to do that, but as the last one to arrive I had little choice in the matter, so I ended up working for Pratham having been told only that I would be doing the vague and intimidating task of, "curriculum development." I must admit, I was a bit worried it would be a total bore.

As it turns out it was an absolutely amazing experience. One of the things Pratham does is to create metal trunks containing a complete school unit with all of the activites and materials required. These trunks are then used in both community and government run schools all over Gujarat. The organization also has a really neat educational philosophy. In strong contrast to the Indian school system, where children learn everything from language to mathematics entirely by rote, Pratham tries to create activites were the children discover things for the most part for themselves, and the teacher acts as a facilitator. It sounds really flakey when I put it like that, but when they create the trunks they put in really cool activities for the children to play with that are designed to get them asking questions and figuring things out.

Our task was to create a trunk designed to develop creative thinking in 6 to 14 year-olds. We spent the first three days or so compiling the trunk in this really neat storeroom full of shelves and shelves of educational games, logic puzzles, craft books, encyclopedias, and other random and exciting educational supplies - It was heaven for a little geek like me.

It was really great to actually be able to work within an NGO and see how one functions. I think they had assumed that we were university students - they all thought I was in my 20s - so they treated us like all of their other workers, which was really cool. Appearently many students end up getting a bit mollycoddled on their CI Project Weeks and don't get to do much work, but we escaped that experience. It was really hard work and there was a fair bit of pressure on us, but I'm so glad we got to expereince actually working for an NGO.

The people were really cool as well. They were really welcoming, and a whole lot of fun. It was hard work, but I have to admit that we spent a fair bit of time goofing around, playing with the educational games, and talking about our home countries. One of them it in his head that Canada was the 5th largest country in the world, and refused to believe me that it was the second. Luckily there was an Encyclopedia lying around, so I was able to reassert our national pride. We had a blast with them. On the last night our supervisor invited us over to his house for ice cream and we met his wife and daughter. They invited us to come and stay anytime, which I think I'll have to - I'm starting to miss them a bit already!

Once we had compiled our trunk we got to take it into the field to test it with an organization called Syo. I didn't get a really in-depth introduction to Syo, but from what I gather they run volunteer-run community schools. The one we went to was about 15 kids between 4 and 11 years old in a tiny little room (maybe 10" by 15" at the absolute most) in someone's house. The class didn't start until 10am because most of the children are Muslim and went for Muslim studies in the morning. It was a really neat class. They were really shy at first, but once they got that we were looking for creative thought and that there wasn't really a right answer they opened up and had a blast and did some really neat work. They did one rendition of a fish market where one child was being a fish and another was butchering him that was hilarious. I was really impressed by the teacher. He really seemed to be doing this work because he loved it - he had as much fun as the children and he had a lot of patience with them. He was doing it entirely as a volunteer, without any pay. It was inspiring to see someone giving so much of their time out of love.

Unfortunately we didn't have time to do very much revision of the trunk, and we had to simply leave our observations from the field test with them for someone else to continue our work. I heard later from Satyadeep, the teacher who was with us, that the organization was really impressed with our work. Because of us they're setting up a gap year option for some muwci students to come and work with them over the for 6 months to a year. Our supervisor also kept asking us if there was any way we could stay. Silly classes, getting in the way all the time!

The place we were staying was pretty neat. Pratham was putting us up in a "Guest House," which as it turns out was actually the top floor of their 4-story office building, built above a little supermarket. I was sleeping on a mat on the roof, so every day I got to fall asleep watching the 4 or 5 stars visible through the light pollution and smog (The air pollution was terrible - some days it was difficult to see the city centre through the haze, and my hair was so dirty). One morning I woke up and there was a hawk sitting on the banister not 10 feet away from me, surveying the courtyard below for materials to build his nest. On the last night some people in one of the houses next to us decided to use up all of their Diwali fireworks, so I woke up suddenly to an impressive display of fireworks extremely close and at eye level!

The city itself was really nice. It hadn't really been touched much by tourism - it felt like somewhere where people lived their lives. One day after work my friend Anat and I went to the Ashram where Ghandigee lived for 12 years. It was so peaceful and beautiful. It was stunning to suddenly step out of a chaotic, bustling city and into a serene park and museum. We sat for a while and watched the view of the river with a big flock of love-birds and a monkey (The monkey didn't stay for too long - he was sitting on a railing very near to us looking pensive, but some stray dogs who evidently took offense to his presence came and chased him away). I went into the house where Ghandi and his wife lived. It was very simple and sparse. Much of his writing was also on display. His penmanship was astoundingly bad, but the words were astoundingly beautiful. It's easy to see why he is so revered here in India.

The other highlight of the trip was definately the food. I love food, and Indian food especially, so I was happy as can be. I ate really well every night, mostly from a nearby street-vendor, but one night Satyadeep took us for Gujarati Thali. We went and they gave us each a big plate with lots of small little dishes on it, which were immediately filled with seven different local dishes and two kinds of dessert, and waiters came by with roti, chapati and naan (Indian flatbreads), and a couple other little fried snacks. It was such an intense eating experience! As soon as you finished a dish someone came by and refilled it, and there was limitless flat breads and desserts... I was in heaven! I ate so much I could barely walk - I think I had about four rounds of everything after I began to feel full. My friend Adam was so full he didn't eat a thing for two days afterwards.

It was amazing, but it is good to be back home. The work we were doing was a bit exhausting, and as much as the cultural experiences were really cool, they were taxing as well. It was a good amount of time - I was ready to come home by Saturday.

I have one more day off tomorrow to catch up on all of the work I missed while I was in the med and then it's back to classes. It's hard to believe that it's only 5 weeks until I'm back in Edmonton! I love it here, but it will also be really nice to go home for a few weeks, see all of the people I miss, and recharge on Canadian culture, snow, and maple syrup. I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that I've begun my Christmas shopping. If anyone wants a sari I can do my best, but you'll have to send me your measurements so I can get the blouses tailored - at the moment I'm not sure exactly which measurements are needed, but I'll find out.

I really hope everyone is doing well where every you are. Send me your news if you get the chance, and take care.

All the best,
Isaac

Exiat Primus

2006-10-11T05:07:00.000-06:00

Hello again! It has definately been a while. Unfortunately with this whole blogging thing the times when I don't get to write also tend to be the times when I have lots and lots to say, so I'm afraid we might be in for another behemoth of a post. Luckily I have class in an hour and a half, so I won't be able to ramble for too long.

In fact I have so much to talk about I'm not even sure where to begin, so I'll start with exiat because it was really amazing. At muwci we get five exiat weekends a year - two this semester and three in the next - where we are allowed to spend two nights off campus and everyone goes off and travels. For this first one, my friends Julio, Angelika and I decided to check out the religious gaves at Ajanta and Ellorah, near Auragabad. A whole bunch of other people also had this idea, but we decided that three was the perfect number for travelling, and so set off Friday afternoon without a Hindi-speaker or a second year.

Essentially our plan was to travel by jeep to Pune and then catch a bus to Aurangabad and spend the night there. We had not trouble getting to the bus station in Pune, but once we got there and bought a ticket we realized we couldn't find where the bus left from! We wandered frantically, asking people in broken Hindi who sent us in 6 different directions until finally this wonderful woman who spoke English and Hindi helped us out, took us to the bus station, and explained to us that we had been screwed over a little. Essentially what we had been told when we bought the tickets was that the bus stop was very very close and that we would definately make it in the five minutes before the bus left. Turned out it was about a ten or fifteen minute walk away (granted, maybe less if we hadn't been quite so lost), and there was a stand there that sold tickets for the same bus for less money. They told us when we got to the closer stand that it wouldn't be a problem, and there would be another bus along in half an hour.

So, an hour and a half later, we got on the bus for Aurangabad. The wait was actually kind of nice. While buying the tickets Angelika and I had gone to a little "restaurant" (Don't think of it like a restaurant back home. It was a bit more like a really small cafeteria, though they did make the food fresh) and bought some food. I'm not actually sure what we bought, but it involved chicken and rice and spices and was really really good, so we ate that while we waited. We had also bought a whole bunch of different Indian sweets in Pune which we passed around and enjoyed after dinner. They were pretty sweet, but so good! Once again, I don't really know what most of them were, but there was some moon cake (I think - correct me if you know) that was absolutely amazing. The wait was just a bit hair-raising because in light of our very limited experience with Indian buses we weren't really sure if a bus would actually come.

But, come it did. The bus ride was long but pleasant.

-Brief exciting interlude!-

Oooh! Oooh! It's getting hard to type because I'm hopping up and down with excitement!!! Podcasts are my new favorite thing. I discovered about a week ago that through podcasts I can get bits of CBC radio, which excites me beyond words! Presently on my computer I have a whole shwack of Editor's Choice, Quirks and Quarks, As It Happens, and the Best of Alberta, so whenever I miss Canada I can curl up with some wonderful dorky Canadain radio. It makes me so happy! Anyways, the point of this interlude was that with my new found understanding of podcasts, while traveling I was able to drown out the loud Indian dance pop that Indian law seems to require every jeep and bus in the country to play and listen to a really cool CBC segment on Au Noir, a restaurant in Quebec where you eat in absolute darkness. It was splendiforous.

-We now return to your regularly schedualed programming-

We arrived in Aurangabad around 1:30 ish in the morning and had quite good luck with hotels. Our second years had told us horror stories about wandering around Aurangabad for hours looking for somewhere to stay, but the first place we visited worked out for us. We got a room for three people for Rs. 500, which was marginally more that we wanted to pay, but the bed was nice and the room was clean and we didn't have to restlessly roam the city for ages, so we took it. The room had one queen-sized bed, a TV that didn't work, and a bathroom with a squat toilet, bucket shower, and sink. I slept really well. Perhaps too well actually - The next morning when we got up Julio asked me if I remembered what I had done last night. Those are fairly scary words to hear, especially since I very clearly did not remember. He laughed and told me that appearently around 3am I had rolled over and put an arm around him, and then leaned back, looked at him, and said with some confusion, "You're not Melina!" before rolling back the other way and going straight back to sleep.

In the morning we ordered three things off the hotel menu that we had never heard of before, one of which turned out to be a hot chocolate and not actually a breakfast at all, and headed down to check out. (Breakfast, for those of you keeping track, cost Rs. 74 for three people) Downstairs the hotel manager offered us a fairly decent deal for a bus to the Ajanta caves through the Indian govermental tourist agency. We were being ripped off a little, but the bus was schedualed to leave in 15 minutes (this time we not only knew where from, the hotel sent a man with us to make sure we caught it) and besides, if I am going to be ripped off I would much rather it be at the hands of the government. It made me feel a tiny bit more like a local.

Naturally the bus was 45 minutes late, but the ride was fun. I really love travelling through Indian country side. At this time of year it's really lush and beautiful, and you are absolutely gauranteed to see something you've never seen before. Julio also hooked us up with some really cool crazy internatinal music to help pass the time. It was unza unza time on that bus.

When we got off the bus at Ajanta there was a small crowd of people waiting, I assumed, to get on and take the bus in the other direction. I very quickly discovered that they were in fact waiting for us. As we got off we were surrounded by this swarm of vendors, each of whom attached himself to one of us and started being really friendly. They gave us gifts of small crystals and asked about our home countries. When I tried speaking French to my friends to throw them off, mine responded fluently. "Don't worry about coming to my shop now," they said, knowing full well that we would have to come back this way on our way back.

The caves themselves were spectacular. There were about 30 caves carved out of the side of the mountain in a big sweeping horseshoe along the bend of a river. They were carved between the second century BC and sixth AD by Buddhist monks, and included residential caves and temples. The sheer size and detail and beauty of what they had done with a chisel and hammer was staggering. In many, there was a back room with a statue of Teaching Buddha eerily lit from in front to cast huge shadows on the back wall. The walls and ceilings of many of the caves were painted with amazing patterns and 3-dimesional bulls that seemed to charge down on you no matter where you stood in the room. The carvings showed spectacular detail - in one the clothing had been carved in such a way so as to make it appear transparent. To think that people 2000 years ago could create such spectacular beauty with such primitve tools was awe-inspiring. It was a really amazing experience of India.

As part of our bus fare, we somehow ended up on a guided tour without really realizing it. The tour guide was really cool and impressively knowlegeable. "Friends, come see this. This friends, is one of the famous paintings of Ajanta. You see how the beads in her necklace shine and reflect light, and how the mirror she holds lights up this area of the painting? Ok friends, come this way now." He explained to us the stories behind the paintings and the significance of the different postures of Buddah. Unfortunately in meant we had to travel with a fairly large herd of tourists. Most of them were Indian, but they really dispelled any ideas I had about disrespectful Westerners not appreciating Indian beauty. While us "obnoxious foriegners" listened intently, they talked and wandered off and took pictures and generally frustrated the guide to no end. Ajanta also has a bit of a problem with vandalism, and some ancient paintings have been completely destroyed by graffiti, all of it in Hindi.

We left the group when they went for lunch and walked up to a vantage point from the other side of the river where you could see the complete curve of the caves and enjoyed that until the vendors got too insistant, and then literally ran down the mountain to try to get away from them. We headed back to the bus to meet up with the group and head back to Ajanta. That was where the first batch of vedors who had latched onto us when we left the bus was waiting for us. Again then latched onto us, and insisted that we visit their shops, "just to look." Julio caved and went into a shop while Angelika and I waited uncomfortably outside with a couple other vedors insisting we visit their shops. Julio didn't really want to buy anything, but the vendor started really insisting, and the vendors around us were getting pushier. We told them we had to go, but they knew the bus schedual and told us we didn't, and then got really angry and offended when we tried to leave anyways. Julio literally had to pull his arm away from a vendor to escape.

Back on the bus we talked about art and our futures and lego and listened to more crazy music until we got to back to Aurangabad.

In our continuing quest to avoid the touristy bits we headed off the main road in search of somewhere to eat and ended up at this small restaurant (again, not quite the right word) where they looked at us with baffled amusement, confused by why any tourist would want to eat there. They also spoke not a word of english, and the menu was written in chalk on the wall in Hindi script, which none of us can read, but I remembered how to say, "please say," and through that, some pointing, and a bit of guess work we ordered some food. Once again, I'm not really sure what we ate, but it was fantastic and well priced (Rs. 90 for the meal).

That night we foolishly decided to head for Ellora by autorickshaw. Some friends had told us that it was a great way to go, but we ended up paying Rs. 300 for a rather slow and fantastically bumpy ride. Still, lesson learned.

When we go there we found this little hotel (a word which I use similar to "restaurant" - it really deserves its own word) - or more to the point, the manager of that little hotel found us. We got a nice room for Rs. 350, but when he went to go get the Foriegners Registration ledger we notcied about 10 bed-bugs crawling on one of the beds. When we pointed this out to the man he told us not to worry, they were there because the light was over that bed, and promtly unscrewed the lightbulb and screwed it into another socket on the other side of the room. Before we went to bed we killed another 15 or so bed bugs under the lights, which they did indeed seem to be attracted to, and a bunch more around the room. When we woke up in the morning no one had been bitten, nor had anyone been mistaken for Melina.

We headed off early after another breakfast of suprise food and got to the caves at about 7 AM. On the way in we noticed one of the trees moving a little. It was filled with monkeys! We stood and watched the monkeys playing and chasing each other and stealing food for a bit before we headed in. They were so cool!

Because we got there so early we had a very different experience of Ellora. Not even the street vendors were there when we arrived. The first "cave" is this big Hindu temple carved out of the solid rock. It cost Rs. 250 for us foreign folk to go in (as opposed to Rs. 10 for locals) so instead we hiked all the way around it and saw it from above. It was so amazing. The Hindu carvings had a life and an intesity that the Buddhist ones did not, making them sometimes almost scary. This temple was big and very intricate, and the carvings were gorgeous. We sat for a while and watched green parrots playing on the statues of lions and elephants.

Staying off the main road, we saw the rest of the Hindu temples. Some of the others were unfinished, which gave them a really eerie feel. There were also bats living in many, one of which flew out and missed my head by a few inches. And at all of them there were new and strange and amazing carvings of heroes and dieties and deamons.

The country side around the caves is also gorgeous. To get to the last Hindu temple we walked behind this big beautiful waterfall with more green parrots nearby. The natural beauty and the man-made beauty side by side was incredible.

The last set of caves we saw were the Jain caves, of which there were many fewer. They were slightly more sparse, with big pillared galleries and intricate geometric carvings. Unfortunately by the time we were finishing up there the Indian tourists had arrived with crying children and loud Bollywood music, so we rushed through the last one a little.

To get back to Aurangabad we took a public jeep for Rs. 30 each, making us realize how silly getting the rickshaw had been. The jeep also took us for a really neat ride through some of the local villages. It was a different side of India than what we had seen in Pune. It felt just like a Sunday morning - full of life and happy. We picked up some really interesting people as well, including a couple beautiful Muslim women in the full Bhurkas.

The ride back was fun too. We didn't realize we had got tickets for a bus with beds rather than seats, so we wound up three of us on one bunk with a 2 and a half foot ceiling. Still, we ate chikki and had a nice journey. We got back to campus about an hour ahead of schedual. It was so satisfyingly successful. It felt great to think that we could just set off into India for a few days and make plans and sort things out for ourselves.

Have to run now, but I'll try to fill in some of the gaps from the last two weeks later today. Take care everyone, and thanks again to people who wrote me.

All the best,
Isaac

Mujhe muwci Pasand Hai!

2006-09-26T06:22:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone! How're you all? Why I'm splendiforous, thanks for asking! My past couple of days have been really great, and I'm settling into muwci life.

Things had been wearing me down a little for a few days. This place is really intense, and sometimes it's a bit much to take. The lack of sleep was getting to me, and I was getting a bit sick. There was also some trouble because there won't be enough beds in my room when Belal arrives (Which, by the way is tomorrow! He finally got out of Palestine and is waiting for a plane in Cairo right now) but I've been having trouble getting the green light to move, so I didn't really have a home was feeling a bit displaced. It was all a wee bit stressful.

And I was missing home too. It was funny because there wasn't one specific thing I missed (ok, that's not quite true - I really miss maple syrup. That "golden syrup" stuff here just isn't the same at all). I just missed familiarity and friendliness. I don't mean to swell the national ego, but Canada really is kinda friendly. I spent a day shopping in Pune and by the end of the day was so frustrated with every single local I met constantly trying to rip me off blind and getting quasi-abusive when they couldn't; having to fight and argue for everything. I really missed being able to be friendly with the person behind the counter.

But then I realized that while it's probably natural to experience such feelings, it's pointless to wallow in them, especially in a place like this one. So Sunday I had a great mental-health day. I knew it was going to be a good day when the caf served banana pancakes (which I ate with jam. The syrup does not deserve to be called syrup!). I had a nice laid-back morning and then in the afternoon packed a bag and hiked up Mt. Wilkinson, the nearest mountain, which is unofficially named after the headmaster and is a gorgeous hike. I never really found the trail-head and I found myself following the tiny little cow trails through really thick bush on the way up, but it was exciting. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go all the way up, but I stopped under the shade of the tree at the top of one of the secondary peaks and played Jerry Jeff Walker on my ipod and read letters and Happy Notes (!!!) from home. It made me so happy! In my theatre arts class we've been learning Lhati Khati, an acient local marshal art performed with what is essentially a quarterstaff (Called "Lhati," meaning "stick"), and I had brought mine up the mountain and spent the next half hour practicing forms with this great view of the surrounding villages and mountains. I got back home sweaty and glowing and so happy and feeling like Isaac again and took the most wonderful cold shower and got ready to go out again.

That's right, there's more amazingness to this day! Some famous Canadian pianist whose name I never really knew and have now entirely forgotten was in Pune and doing a show that night, and Theo had organized for a bunch of us to go and see him. Not only did it mean I got to go off campus, which is always a plus, it was the first time I had been to a piano concert. It was so cool! I really don't know the terminology to talk about what he played, but it was really good! Before that I never would have thought that listening to someone play piano could hold my interest and be enjoyable for over two hours, but there was so much expression in his playing that one couldn't help but getting into it and loving it. After the concert we went for delicious Indian food (which cost me about $1 CAD, by the way) and then I spent the long bouncy jeep ride swaping local folk stories with Jeremy. It pretty much couldn't have been a cooler day.

I now have my head back in the right place and am in love with muwci once again. It's so beautiful here! Every morning on my way to class I see a breathtaking view of the valley as I walk past big purple flowers and flocks of tiny yellow butterflys. My classes are amazing; I'm learning so much. I might just have to dedicate an entire post to how cool they are. As well as the stuff in class, I'm also learning yoga, juggling, the lhati khati that I mentioned, and possibly to swim now that the pool is open (yay for the pool too!). My past couple days have had their ups and downs too and it has neither been all sunshine and lollipops nor will it always be in the future, but for the most part it's good and I'm happy.

Thanks to those who sent me emails! That makes me really really happy too! As my biology teacher said to me the other day, "May Allah bless you with a thousand camels". (I saw a camel in Pune on Sunday too. I almost got run over because I couldn't stop staring at it.)

Take care everyone!

Crazy Classes

2006-09-23T09:50:00.000-06:00

Timestamp correction: this post is from Friday, 22 Sep, 3 minutes before the 6:30 jeep left campus

(Before I begin, Happy belated birthday, Dad! I'm singing "Happy Birthday" for you really loud while I type, but I don't think you'll hear. I will refrain from making the "old man" jokes though, at least in such a public forum. He's 50, by the way, in case anyone else wants to make their own "old man" jokes.)

Hello again! I hope everyone is well. My last two weeks have been so crazy! Classes began last Monday. I have a really brilliant timetable with really wonderful teachers. I'm actually really excited about class. Unfortunately the learning tends to go like love and marriage with that whole "work" thing, of which I am not so fond. But my schedual has been worked out and I'm starting to settle into a bit of a routine. We'll see how things go once the content gets serious.

The real source of the insanity has been Triveni. Triveni is a Hini (I think) word that refers to the confluence of India's three most sacred rivers, and it's the muwci word for CAS, referring to how they all come together. Every week here we do one Community Interaction, one Campus Service, one Creation and one Action. Of course, there are so many really exciting things to do that I've been trying to do way more than one of each, but Triveni pretty much only happens Tuesday to Friday, so trying to co-ordinate things so that I get to try everything has been a bit ridiculous. It's been the combination of rushing around to all the different Triveni activities while starting class while also trying to get to know all of the amazing people here that has really been intense.

I've done such cool things in the past two weeks though! For my core Community Interaction I'm working with a program called Active English. Every week we go down into one of the local villages and teach 4th grade students to speak English. Last week was just an orientation visit, so we didn't begin teaching, but it was one of the most amazing experiences I've had since getting here. On a very basic level it tweaked how I think about the world - it was just so different from anything we could have in the Western world! We went into the tiny little school and met the students. I maintain my opinion that Indian children are the most beautiful creatures in all the world. The kids there were so remarkable. The were so eager and happy and playful. They took us on a tour of their tiny little village, which had maybe 10 houses at the absolute most, though I'm not sure how many families lived in the surrounding area. There were about 20 kids in the school, from grades 1 to 4. As I mentioned, they lived happily in conditions which could not exist in Canada. Their houses were made from stones with tin roofs and inside they had very little, and no electricity. The huge Indian cows and buffalo meandered through the small alleys where everyone had come to stand in the doorways and watch us go by. They took us down to a little dirt volleyball court and while we kicked a ball around a group of men gathered and watched with really big Indian smiles. I went over to them while the kids were playing and found to my suprise that they spoke very good English, enough to actually have a conversation. They all wanted to know where I was from, and what it was like there. "Europe?" They asked. "Nahi, Nahi, Canada." I'm not sure if they had heard of it, but they were really excited to hear my descriptions of how big it was and all of the different wildlife, which I explained as well as I could with broken English and mime (the bear was by far the highlight). I'm still not really sure if they were laughing with me or at me, but they were well amused either way.

Exploring all of the village, ball game included, only took about half an hour, so we headed back to the school and tried to talk to the kids and see what their level of English was. They really couldn't communicate at all. Their English education had consisted entirely of memorized words and phrases which they didn't understand. They could count to 100, but they couldn't draw 5 things. They could respond to "What is your name?" but not to "What is my name". My favorite part was that they had learned all of these really cheesy English songs along with movements that they all got up and sang together. It was about halfway through the song when I figured out they were singing in English and not Mahrati. The other really striking moment was when, through a mixture of Enlish and Hindi and with some help from the teacher, we managed to ask them what their parents did. "Farmer" the first girl got up and said. Then the second got up and said the same, and the third and the fourth, one by one, every single one giving the same answer. In retrospect it was a stupid question, as there is really nothing else to do in the village.

I think what made it really amazing was that it was even poverty except from a Western perspective. The families all had a place to live and food, there was education and a temple, and everyone was going about their lives. All of the details were different from home, but the effect was the same. The kids were kids, the adults were adults, and the cows were cows.

I went back this week for the first lesson of English, with only the six 4th grade students, which was a bit of a different experience. They were super excited to see us, but not quite so excited to have to work. They were so cute and so insitent it was really hard to say no to them (all you teachers will be happy to know that I did anyways). Because they had been forced to memorize for the past 4 or 5 years they had learned that that was what education was. We spent about an hour trying to help them understand the difference between "my," "your," and, "his/her," and even at the end we weren't entirely sure they got it. They picked up "how are you?" quite fast but after that they couldn't stand sitting still and we couldn't stand trying to make them anymore, so we went on a little walk of some of the local shrines. We gave them piggy backs and they ran around like mad and picked us bouqets of flowers and smeared orange pigment on our forheads at the shrine to ganpathi. They were still a lot of fun but we're finding it very difficult to get them to understand any English and more difficult to get them to concentrate and listen to us. Any teachers in the crowd have any suggestions? Everyone would be very grateful for any advice.

I'm afraid I have to cut this post short here. A bunch of us are going out for dinner to Paud, the nearest town. I've been so glad to hear from some of you! It made my day to hear how things are going back home and to hear that everything is still ticking along.

Take care!

India at Last!

2006-09-09T06:45:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! I'm in India! This past week has been such a blur and so full of amazing new experiences, I'm not even sure where to begin. So far most things have been so incredible I don't even have words for them, so you'll have to cut me some slack when I attempt to describe them.

I suppose I'll try to pick up where I last left off. I don't really remember the flight from Singapore to Mumbai, as by that point I was jetlagged beyond all reason and I had all three seats to myself. I vaugely remember one of the lovely Singapore Airlines people waking me up to give me some really good food. As we flew in over Mumbai you could see little islands of light where the city was lit. When I saw the first one, about half the size of Edmonton, I thought, "That's a good sized city". As the plane continued turning I saw another, and then another, and then more as far as I could see. I can only assume that in the black in between the sparkling little huddles of street lights were unlit areas of the city.

When I got out of the plane a couple things struck me. First of all, it was hot. At midnight it was still 25 C. The second thing was that on my entire flight there were maybe 3 women, all travelling with their husbands. As we moved further into the airport I became a little overwhelmed with the people. I feel really small town saying this, but there were so many!

After clearing customs I was met by a couple of my second years. It was really easy to spot them amongst all of the locals. I also got to meet a couple of my co-years who had arrived a little before me. We had to wait until about 3 AMish, and as more people arrived we had our first little first-year bonding experience, made especially interesting by everyone's state of jetlag and travel weariness. I had Truedau on my shirt, so I ended up trying to explain Truedau-mania to a gaggle of kids from all over the world on no sleep. When everyone arrived (Air Kenya was almost an hour late) we piled into a bus for the drive back to college.

It was about a six hour drive, but I slept until it got light. At that point, on a winding mountain highway, I had my first experience of Indian driving. And let me tell you, it's quite an experience. It's much more akin to how people move through the hallways of a highschool than actual traffic back home. The lanes are suggestions at best, and everyone weaves through the slower traffic and drives in the middle of the road to take tight turns. Horns also mean something entirely different. From what I could tell, a good honk can mean, "look out I'm passing," "please move over," "be aware that I am behind you," "GET OUT OF THE BLOODY WAY!" or, "Isn't it a nice morning?" The absolute highlight had to be seeing two men on a motorcycle carrying, no word of a lie, a 40-food metal pole.

It was about 9 or 10 AM by the time we reached the college. To be honest I was so tired I don't really remember my first impressions. I just remember being so excited to finally be there, after so long! And that the people I met on the bus were really cool and that, thanks be, they had extended breakfast for us. My bag was actually to heavy for me to really lift, so Ben from the US helped me to my room.

There are 4 people to a room here, and each person has their own corner with a bed, a desk, and a cupboard. At the moment though there are only 3 in my room because one of my roomates is from Palestine and can't get out of the Gaza strip. There isn't much space, but people decorate them and they seem much bigger. I havn't done much with mine yet, but I might once I actually have a couple minutes of free time.

The first week has been Orientation Week, where we have no classes and get to know each other and the campus, pick our classes, and do super super fun admin stuff. The first couple days we mostly just played games. A bunch of them were, "get to know each other kind of games," but Ben, an Israeli second year also organized a bunch of crazy violent games that I later heard are used as preparation for the Israeli army. Imagine Red-Rover or leapfrog mixed with professional rugby. A good time was had by all, except the girl who dislocated her shoulder. (I shouldn't say that, it gives the wrong impression. The games were seriously a lot of fun, and injuries happen in any sport. But they were violent)

In between games there were also a bunch of admin things we had to do. There were medical tests, blood tests, math tests, and my personal favorite, tests of patience. We were introduced to all the subjects and Triveni options (Triveni is like CAS only more hard-core), which made me want to take all of them. For those interested, I'll be taking English A1 HL, Hindi ab initio, Maths HL, Bio SL, and Theatre Arts SL. I'm also taking a Humanity, but again I wanted to take them all, so I'm trying out Psychology and Philosophy for a while and I'll decide in a couple weeks. muwci (The acronym for Mahindra United World College of India, pronouced, "mookie") is quite laid back about academics - the first 5 weeks is a, "shopping period" where you can try out a bunch of classes. I could spend a paragraph talking about how excited I am about each of my subjects.

After, the real excitement began. Tuesday we went on a tour of the Kolvan valley, the little area we're in. They bused us down to one of the villages for breakfast (It was so good!! Yellow rice and chai... mmmmmm...)and we got a brief tour of the local school. The villages in India are exactly as I pictured them - stray dogs roam the street, women in amazingly beautiful saris walk with pots of water on their heads, and buses and autorickshaws overflowing with people amble through on the little road. This is one of those times where I can't even find the words to describe how amazing the overall effect is. It's so full of life! But at the same time, there is absolutely none of the stress upon which our culture seems to be based. It's really neat.

After the village we piled into buses again, only this time the driver I was with blared fantasticly bad Indian pop music as loud as the speakers would go. It was so much fun! The entire way to the next village all of us on the bus danced crazily and all out in our chairs to the worst dance music I've ever heard. For the rest of the day we were all sure to race onto that driver's bus for the crazy Indian dance party.

After we left the village we hiked up a mountain ("hill" for those of you in BC) to this shrine in the woods. It was a great hike, and not too far. Appearently according to local tradition the shrine is supposed to go on the top of the hill, but the priest was too out of shape, so he built it half way up and invited the godess to come down, so we didn't go all the way. Still, we were tired when we got there. We felt as bad as the priest next to this gaggle of 4 or 5 year-old boys from the village who had come skipping up the mountain with us laughing and playing and shouting in Mahrati for us to take their picture. They were so cute! I've become convinced that India children are the most beautiful creatures in the entire world. Once we got the the shrine they were still bursting with energy and really giggly, so they ran back and brought some cows for us to take pictures of as well.

The last stop for the day was this beautiful waterfall, which was especially wonderful on such a hot day. It's supposed to be monsoon season right now, but we hadn't seen any rain yet and it was swelteringly hot. We got to the waterfall just in time, because the group that went the next day said it had dryed up by the time they got there.

When we got back it did finally rain, but not any kind of torrential downpour. Just a nice warm drizzle. So a bunch of us rushed out to the football (soccer) pitch with a ball and played crazy barefoot rugby until it stopped. It was an absolute blast, but I was so sore an muddy afterwards! The only reason I didn't keel over was that people kept stopping to squabble about the rules, as rugby seems to be played differently all over the world. It was good fun though.

The next day things got still more interesting. We went to Pune (said, "Poona"), the nearest city for the first time. This is another experience that I don't even know how to begin to describe. It was so different from anything we could ever have in Canada! The driving was worse than on the highways, because there was more traffic, so everyone seemed to casually amble along all at once and dodge each other when they got too close. And there were so many people! Canada thinks it has big cities, but we have nothing like this. Such a whirlwind of life and colour. The day we went it was also the festival of Ganeesh, so we kept bumping into random parades and people throwing pink powder. It was so surreal to see an old grumpy looking street vendor with bright pink hair.

For our introduction my second year from Canada, Theo, organized a scavenger hunt to acquaint us with the city. It was a great idea, because otherwise it's so hard to tell where to start, so we jumped into a couple autorickshaws and went to a couple places taking pictures of ourselves doing stupid things. We started at Mahatma Ghandi road, which is the main street with lots of higher-end shops and hotels. From there we went to Inox, the movie theatre, and were almost kicked out for trying to take a picture of someone bathing in the fountain. The people being yelled at were only saved by both speaking their native tongues really fast and acting confused. After that we went to the German Bakery near the Osho Ashram, famous for specializing in tantric sex. There sure was a weird crowd in the little cafe there...

Outside the cafe we stopped by a street vendor to get a picture of me in a sari. She picked out this beautiful blue one and even taught me how to put it on, but then wanted to charge me 300 Ru for it. A really expensive sari will cost 120, and this one was a little dirty and not very well made, so we tried to leave, but she was really insistent and got very very angry that I had tried it on and now wouldn't buy it! She was so persuasive I actually beleived her when she got indignant about trying something on and then not buying it, so I ended up buying the sari for 100 Ru, which was far too much. I'm really going to need to work on my determination with the street vendors.

Our last stop was the junk market, another crazy surreal indescribable experience. There were vendors everywhere under tarps designed for people a foot shorter than me selling rusty old tools, clothes, Bollywood movies, wallets, coins, stolen watches and DVD players. I want to say everything you can think of, but it was actually nothing you would think of. There was a man with a heaping pile of remote controls, and a woman with boxes of old coins. I paid 4 Ru (about... a dime?) for lunch, this deep fried potato dish in a bun with little green peppery things. It was so good! I got really sick on the bus ride home, but it was so worth it!

Ok, I just have to talk about the food for a while, because I'm so in love with it. It's so yummy! Everything is spicy and flavourful and cheap and plentiful. I love the caf food and consume it in huge quantities. All of the Indian kids laugh at me becuase I get so excited by every new dish but it's so tasty! To heck with college, it would be worth it to come to India to just sit around and eat all day. Come to think of it...

The day after Pune we bused out to a mountain a couple valleys over that had this old fort from the 1700s on it. It was such a great hike! It was a couple hours to the top, and it had hard bits and easy bits and sketchy bits and a waterfall, and then when we got there we were in this really cool old fort! Most of the structures were gone and the interior had become entirely overgrown with wildflowers. And the view from the battlemets... The entire way up, every time I stopped to admire the view it was a little more amazing than the last time, and by the time we reached the top it was absolutely breathtaking. We sat up there and had a great picnic lunch with this dog that had followed us up before reluctantly trekking back down to the buses. I've been saying this a lot, but it was so fantastic!

Today there has been nothing on the schedual, so I've been relaxing, finally updating my blog, and doing laundry (between mud rugby and violent orientation games, I really had a lot). I still can't quite believe that I'm here or that I still will be tomorrow. Every morning I'm totally taken by the view from campus and the beautiful weather and all the singing birds. It's so amazing here.

There's so much that I've left out or forgotten, becuase it's impossible to capture such a crazy week in one little bit of writing, but suffice it to say that it's been a hell of an experience after only a week. I'm doing really well here and I'm happy beyond words. I miss you all and I'm dying to hear from you.

I'm in India! How crazy is that?

Onwards and Upwards

2006-09-03T03:25:00.000-06:00

Ignore the timestamp on this post - I had no internet access while travelling, so I've just added it now.

Onwards and Upwards
-------------------

Edmonton International Airport
Local time: 15:11 Wednesday

So I'm off! Three months after finding out I had got the scholarship, 6 months after sending in my application, and 8 months after deciding to go for it, I'm sitting at gate 66 waiting for a flight to LA. I'd almost want to say, "finally," if there only were less things I'll miss.

From here I'm flying first to LA, then through Taipei, Singapore, and then on to Mumbai. I think I have about 6 hours in LA and 9 in Singapore, for a grand total of 36 hours of traveling. It's a fair bit, but I really love flying and I have a backpack full of books and and TV shows as well as my computer, so I honestly don't think it will be that bad at all.

And after all that travel, I'll be in India! I'm really exhausted right now, and fighting off sleep (up till 3:30 packing, as per usual), but still a wee bit giddy with excitement. There's - well, there's so much! I'm not sure how many times I've told someone I'm excited in the past couple weeks, but even after excessive repetition it still holds true. Right now I'm most excited about the people - around 200 people from all over the world! The internationalism is something I've never experienced to this extent before, and I am, as I've said a lot recently, really excited!

Singapore Airlines, I Love You
------------------------------

Changi Airport, Singapore
Local time: 14:30 Friday
Edmonton Time: 00:30 Friday

I'm very very tired. At least I think I am. I'm not actually that sure anymore. I've been in transit now for 32 hours and I have another 12 or so to go before I get to Mumbai. I'm not sure who told me it was 36 hours of traveling, but I'm beginning to think someone was lying for my benefit. While traveling I've also been forcing myself to a sleeping pattern in sync with Indian time in an effort to sort out the jetlag, so I'm not even sure what time my body thinks it is anymore. Only that my body thinks it's time for a nap.

But time zone confusion aside my journey thus far had been wonderful. Sitting next to me on my flight to LA was Chris, a fellow Edmontonian who is emmigrating to Australia to marry his fiancee. As it turns out, our routes have been the same up to this point and he's ever such a nice guy, so we've been keeping each other company. At various points along the way I've also talked to two missionaries from Nebraska who are on their way to Malaysia to work translating the bible, an American teacher headed for Sri Lanka, and a woman from the Orange County off to... the Philippines I think to work with the Tsunami relief effort. It's so neat to hear people's stories, and especially inspiring to see that so many people are traveling to help people. And don't worry mum, I'm being sensible and self-reliant and not giving away personal info, so stop worrying.

The other highlight of my travels has been the airlines. Not AirCanada, they were unsurprisingly miserable. The AirCanada plane had just been equipped with a brand spanking new entertainment system, complete with an outlet for plugging in my laptop, but this new system had yet to recieve government approval so we couldn't actually use them. Singapore Airlines on the other hand, has blown my mind. I can't actually believe it's air travel. The first thing that tipped me off that something wasn't right was the employees. They were all uncannily friendly, and not just the ones being paid to be! It soon got better. Upon boarding Chris and I discovered that instead of your run of the mill in-flight movies, you have a screen in front of your chair that allows you to play your pick of 70 some odd movies, a whole shwack of music, and some hand-held console classics anytime you want (I'm not going to lie, I totally took Pokemon for a spin). And the food was amazing. Granted, airline food in general has improved greatly in the last little while, but these meals were a cut above. I had a cup of coffee this morning (I think it was morning. Times of day have become increasingly abstract lately) that I enjoyed because it tasted good rather than because I was desperately in need of the caffine. That's sure not a typical airplane experience.

I can't believe I just devoted such a long paragraph to the praises of an airline, but I sure was impressed, and I sure have been traveling for a long time. Despite growing increasingly out of it though, my level of excitement has been steadily building. I still can't really say that I've wrapped my head around the fact that I'm going to India for two years, but I have wrapped my head around the fact that I'm in Singapore, and that my next flight will actually land in India, and that whatever the experience will be like, it's really only hours away. That has provided excitment enough to blow through my layer of drowziness.

For now I'm off to go sit next to a big window to remind myself that no matter what silly ideas my internal clock my have, it bloody well IS daytime. Take care, all!

I Believe Some Introductions are in Order...

2006-07-20T18:46:00.000-06:00

Welcome aboard the Orient Express! My name is Isaac Havard, and I am a Canadian student on my way to India for two years with the United World Colleges program. For more info on the program and where I'll be staying, swing by www.uwc.org or www.muwci.net.

In the months after I found out I was going away, countless people have reminded me of the importance of staying in touch. "Write me emails to let me know how you're doing!" everyone said. Unfortunately, I quickly realized, that to write and email to every person who had asked for one would take up all of my time. My emails would then consist of, "Hi, I'm in India writing emails". And thus, the Orient Express was born.

This is a blog, but I personally do not want to air my private feelings for the entire internet-connected world to see. This will not be a diary-style blog, but rather a travel log. That, after all, was the purpose for which the blog was invented.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy it. And just because I'm writing here does not mean I will entirely shun personal corresponedence, so feel absolutely free to email me at ihavard2 -at- hotmail -dot- com. Take care now.

All the best,
Isaac