Saturday April 5, 2008
Today is another beautiful day, again its super hot but that’s ok. Plenty of water and shade is abundant. So yesterday I ate dinner with my new friend Dev and we cooked a tasty dinner at his apartment. Dev went out to the market and I stayed at his apartment and watched a bunch of kids play marbles. These kids were really good, I don’t remember how I played marbles as a kid but these guys were having a lot of fun. When Dev got back he made a really delicious and spicy curry and I made some good ol mess. I got some onions, turmeric, a small chili, lots of tomatoes and lamb and cooked it all up with some other condiments and ate it fresh flat bread. While we cooked, we watched some TV and let me tell you there are some awesome shows and channels on here in India. They have a few channels dedicated to movie trailers, news in every language in India, which is a lot, and awesome kids shows. I watched the movie trailers for a while and there are some really incredible looking Bollywood films. Every movie seems to have a lot of singing and dancing except for the war epics, which look well epic. We watched some cricket for a while b/c it’s been a long time since I’ve watched any cricket and Indians love it. When our food settled Dev drove me back to the campus on his motorbike in the dark. Indian roads are terrible at the best of times but this particular road back to the campus is horrendous. You have to weave back and fourth from one side to the other to avoid huge holes and big rocks in the road. I was worried anyway b/c the ride is really bumpy and then Dev starts talking on his cell phone while riding a motorcycle on a crappy road. No helmets either, so I’m a little bit freaked out especially b/c there are a million bicycles on the road as well and they don’t even have lights. We finally made it and I turned in for the night.

As for today I need to do some laundry, which is looking like a difficult thing, and I need to take staff family portraits but I’ll do that later when the kids are back from school and the parents are done with work.

Ahh haaa I didn’t do anything of the things I said earlier, instead I went riding around town with Dev. We went to a Buddist Temple and two Hindu Temples and I even got blessed by a Hindu Priest who had a great philosophical conversation with me about Christianity and Hindu. We shared some similar opinions about God but that’s about where it stops but he was a really nice man who prophesized that I would get married in 6 – 9 months. He was a great man to talk to but Dev said we had to be going, so I sadly left the man to ponder his thoughts at the temple. At the other Hindu Temple I got yelled at for taking pictures, so I deleted them and that was that. The Buddhist Temple was really neat, it was huge and it had an exhibit in it about the life of the founder of Buddhism. Dev says that on our travels we’ll see many more temples. In between temples we stopped at a real estate firm where one of Dev’s friends works. This guy was really into his real estate and was telling all about the booming market here in Nagpur. Boeing just bought 75 acres here and they are planning a huge development. The Airport is nearly done with a new terminal but there are plans for making it 10 times as big. Nagpur is in the centre of India, so it makes it a prime spot for trade and it’s a great location for air travel from East Asia to West Asia. This guy was convinced that if you invest here you can double you money in a year! He even said that in 2 and half years if you sell they’ll guarantee double your money. He was even trying to recruit me to rep in America! He also wanted me to think about buying a townhouse in the Tech Park. He obviously didn’t understand when I said that I was a recent College Grad with no job and no money. Later on when Dev was buying our train tickets to Bokora I talked with an old homeless guy who just came out of a pawnshop. He was excited b/c he had some money to have a really good meal and he was telling that it was good day. So I took his picture and wished him good luck as he went off to find a restaurant.

Other observations: there is obviously not a law against public urination b/c everyone just pees into any stream available and people don’t care about littering they just throw all there trash on the floor outside. Then the cows and stray dogs rummage through the rubbish for food. They don’t have rickshaws anymore but they have auto-rickshaws, which fill the streets. I SAW my first Camel today on a bridge over a river, it was just hanging out and I didn’t get a picture b/c we were riding by on the motorcycle. I’ll get a picture of the next one I see, and I still haven’t seen an elephant, they have pictures of elephants everywhere but no elephants. I was reading in the newspaper this morning that just north of us is a whole bunch of tigers and they are trying to bring their numbers back up. In the same article they also mentioned a group of villagers beating a jaguar to death that came into the village. Random.


Monday April 7, 2008
Today when I got up I was just talking some people outside my room when the huge beehive I can see from my room erupted and all the bees came out and moved in a giant black cloud across the campus and away into the distance. I’m not sure as the reason for the mass exodus but they was probably two queens and they split, but that was sooo scary watching all the bees just 20 feet away swarm together in a cloud.
Today is a Travel day, not fun, but I wrote a lot of things about my journey in my diary, I’ll copy it down for you.

“Sitting at the Train station waiting and waiting. It’s awesome to see all the different types of people. A buddhit Monk just walked by talking w/ a man wearing a complete England Football outfit from the World Cup. They got on the train and were followed by two more monks who were really old and when I say Old I mean really really old, hunched over walking with canes they nearly missed the train, they had to hobble fast and jump aboard. I’m sitting on a marble seat and right next to me on the floor is a man sleeping and he is covered in flies. People just throw there rubbish on to the tracks. No one has any regard for cleanliness. A Muslim women just walked by covered head to toe in a black shoal. It is a billion degrees out here and I don’t understand how she can deal with the heat. But the cutest little girl in a dress that looked like a figure skating dress, all showy and bright colours with sequins, was pulling her along. Other than that lady in black other ladies are wearing the brightest colours, it’s amazing. Bright yellow outfits and blue ones and bright pink as well. Every once in a while you’ll see a policeman officer walking by with his big baton, the baton is very interesting, they seem to be clear plastic. Everywhere is people wearing very western clothes, I’ve even seen some pairs of shorts today! Which is amazing b/c no one wears shorts in India. Even people working in the fields in blistering heat don’t wear shorts. Yeah fields here have always got people in, no trackers or combine harvesters, just mass labor. On the way to the train station I saw my first white guy, he was riding a scooter like he’d been here for years. I saw him as we passed the hospital district, so I’m assuming he was a Doctor.
Here in India I’m told its custom to get married before you are 25 b/c if you don’t you are considered to old. But I have nothing to worry about b/c that Hindu priest said I would get married soon. I just saw a huge bold guy with a big red beard. A few guys in nice suits jjust walked up, they look really sharp, maybe I should get a suit tailored while I’m here I’ve heard they are really cheap. Oh and another thing I’ve noticed and experienced is that guy friends like to hold hands when they walk somewhere. I had to shake this one guy off a couple of times. I was not into it. Apparently it’s totally normal but what’s weird is that I never see any male female affection. Moustaches are in here in India everyone has a moustache. I think that’s all they can grow actually. You can buy lays potato chips here, I think lays has a factory here b/c Indians have embraced the chip, America did that a century ago. I went into a book shop at the station to try and find Shantaram, a book about India but they didn’t understand me and I couldn’t find it. Pretty much all of the book were in Hindi anyway.

Well it’s 18:22, I’ve been on the train for 4 and half hours and my back is sore and have a headache. I’m hungry but I’ve been told to avoid train food. We traveled through some of the most beautiful country side on the way north, some great forests and woods. Huge termite mounds populate the trees and dirt. Huge beehives hang in clusters from big trees. The air is dry and dusty and when a train swoops by on the other track hot air streams in and blasts your face. Dust gets in your nose and dries out your nostrils and air shoots into your tear ducks. A family of five w/ four little ones sit opposite me with beady eyes and vacant expression as they stare at me. The smallest girl struggles to stand upright as the train jolts back and fourth. The mother hands the kids some 100% pure glucose, apparently for dinner. Father mixes his with water and gulps it down. I spend my time looking at the dry and dusty landscape as fields and rock outcrops wiz by. We hit a few industrial areas on the way which are teeming w/ life. Smoke plumes from stacks and workers labor away. Guards patrol barbwire fences and boys with canes herd cattle around the perimeter. The screeching of wheels on the track and vendors chanting fills the cars with a constant ring that penetrates your ear. A one legged man crawls the length of the cars sweeping and asking for change. I give him a granola bar and he gives me a bow and a smile.