Nomoskar! (That's hello in Bengali)
Wow it's hard to believe that it's already February and that I'm over a quarter of the way through my semester here.
Earlier this week on Tuesday we got back from North Bengal! We visited 2 places- Chilapata, which is in the tea garden region (you've heard of Darjeeling Tea?) and Neora Valley, which is 6000 feet up and in the foothills of the Himalayas. We saw wild Elephants, Rhino, Bison, Peacocks, and other crazy animals I thought I'd never see! The area was unbelievably gorgeous. I didn't realize how much I missed nature, quiet, and just green everywhere. No horns honking, polluted air, or garbage in the street. It was beautiful. I took a lot of pictures too! On our way up the mountains, we passed through many villages. It was interesting to see the facial features of people changing as we went further north- from Indian looking to more east Asian- Nepali looking. But wow it was a good trip, good to get out of the city and be together as a group again. Some of us really want to go back and travel further north to Darjeeling. We'll see if that happens.
But I guess it's good to be back in Kolkata. It was nice to be "home" again and settled, but I did not miss the noise, smells, and chaos. Our host family was clearly pleased to have us home again though. A few highlights from this week:
-We went to the Kolkata Book Fair on Wednesday. It is one of the largest book fairs in the world. It felt like the MN state fair without the delicious food everywhere, so that was missed. But basically publishers from all over came and sold books- books of all types. It was really interesting!
-We made chocolate chip cookies and brownies!! Me, Katie, Brynn, and Ashley have been really wanting to bake and show our host mom, Arundhati how to bake sweets, so we did a test run and wow did they turn out great! We had to do some innovating though- for example, they don't sell brown sugar, baking soda, or chocolate chips in India. Talk about crazy! So we used honey instead, and a substitute for baking soda called Kabar soda. We bought like 10 chocolate candy bars and broke those up to make chocolate chips. Also, most Indian kitchens do not have an oven, instead they have a fancier (a big bigger) toaster oven that heats up to like 300 degrees Fahrenheit (that was another thing- we had to convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius). We did like 9 cookies at a time, and they were soooo delicious! Our host parents and brother just ate them up (literally). The brownies also turned out well.
-It was our host brother, Vinayak's 13th birthday on Friday, so we celebrated with a family dinner and eating cake. That was really fun to hang out with the family so much this weekend.
-This morning we made scrambled eggs! (another thing Arundhati claims she "doesn't know how to do"). Turned out really tasty.
We've started school for real (sort of). This has been so crazy. We haven't had one regular week of school. The problem is, Madhu has had the hardest time trying to translate CSB/SJU's credit policy to St. Xavier's and it has turned out to be a huge mess. I'm not complaining because I know it has been really stressful for Madhu and I don't exactly mind not having a ton of class, but we're all wondering when things are going to be regular! For example, next week we don't even have a full week of classes because of a Hindu holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday called Saraswati Puja. It celebrates the goddess of learning. Apparently we have to wear yellow or a sari if we have one. I'm excited!
Well that's all for now! I've added more pictures, so check them out!
Love you!
Elizabeth
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