Coming back so close to the beginning of the school year has been an overwhelming process. After upwards of 24 hours of travel, my mom and I moved all of my things into my new house. I have a lot of things. I was greeted with a flood of familiar faces and things that I know so well but everything still felt kind of different. There’s comfort in the familiar, but I still find myself feeling oddly unsettled. One of…
It is my final night in India and I’m overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts. I left Jhalawar Friday evening and spent the weekend in Delhi with Cearet and her family. This is all so bittersweet. I really cannot find the words to explain how grateful and thankful I am to have been here and to have been granted access into the lives and culture of so many beautiful people and places. I am humbled, I am thankful, I am sad,…
I travelled alone this weekend to the city of Jaipur. On my first day I walked through the Pink City to the Hawa Mahal, and perused through the bazars that lined the streets. Because I was alone, I found myself engaging more with the people around me than I would traveling with friends. While purchasing some trinkets from one of the stalls, a shop owner and I struck up conversation. The shopkeeper offered to show me a temple down the…
It doesn’t feel like I have been here for 3 weeks. I have settled into a routine with work and the days are passing quickly. Not much has changed over the last two weeks, save for the weather. The monsoon season ended as abruptly as it began, and after a brief week or two of rain it is now over. This may change the way I structure my research and questions around the monsoon, but I still have ample time…
I landed in Delhi on Thursday night and stayed 5 evenings in the city getting situated to life in India and oriented to work at the Antara Foundation. My first few days here were essentially spent resting, as I’ve been having difficulties adjusting my sleep schedule to the time difference here. In between naps I began to acquaint myself with the city surrounding my hotel, exploring markets, trying cafes, shopping at fruit stands and clothing stores, and generally just wandering…
I leave for India in 36 hours. Over the course of this summer I have typed and erased this sentence more times than I can count, the measurement of time gradually shortening. Writing has always been difficult for me, and trying to organize my thoughts for what I know will be a public blog has been more fear inducing for me than the whole traveling alone across the world for 7 weeks thing. I deliberately chose to spend the latter…
