Hello friends!
It has been way
too long since I’ve written a blog post and so now I have a few for you to
catch up on! As many of you know, my life has been pretty crazy this past month
with many transitions. The last time I wrote a blog post I was in Kenya but
since then I have been evacuated from Kenya, been a tourist in Ethiopia for 9
days, visited with family and friends in America while slurping up milkshakes
and flown to India. All within about 5-6 weeks. It’s been kinda crazy to say
the least.
It all started in early July when we found we were being
evacuated from Kenya for security reasons. We officially left the country about
3 weeks later after a few consolidations, transition meeting and packing/saying
goodbye to our communities. Saying goodbye to my kiddos was one of the hardest
things I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t know how many of them I’ll ever see
again and that is the hardest part of it all. Leaving America to initially go
to Kenya was tough but nothing compared to waving to my kids and not knowing
when/if I’ll ever see them again. They don’t know how to use the internet and
all of the students I taught will graduate from Sipili School for the Deaf
within a few years since the youngest kids I taught were in 4th
grade. It’s really hard to think about and I am crossing my fingers I can go
back within 4-5 years when it’s possible for me to return to visit.
I am still in contact with my school and there is still hope
for the bus project!!!! Many of you know that I have been actively working with
the teachers to raise money for a school bus and this is still in the works.
Originally I was going to do a Peace Corps Grant but now that I am a Returned
Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV), I am no longer eligible for the grant. I am now
currently working with my family to try and figure out a new plan involving
PayPal so that I can still raise the $10,000 that my school was counting on
with the grant. I will keep you all updated on that news and hopefully very
soon I will have more information on the progress but I am very excited for it
and hope it all goes well!
After Kenya, I visited Ethiopia and had a blast! And I wrote
separate blog post on that which will be either right before or right after
this one.
Following Ethiopia I flew back to ‘Merica and it was crazy.
It was so good to be back and see people but it was also just strange. I hadn’t
really fully processed that I had left Kenya and wasn’t going back and then
being back surrounded by people was a lot but mostly great! I ate a lot of good
food including a milkshake almost every single day I was back, Chinese and
sushi and salads-delicacies! And caught up with people who I hadn’t seen for a
while too! In addition to all of that, I also had officially decided to travel
with the University of Pittsburgh to India.
The brings me to the last country, the one I am currently
in. I am now in India as the Resident Assistant to 17 University of Pittsburgh
students from now until the middle of December. I am so excited about this new
adventure! We arrived in Delhi last Monday and drove the 7 hours up to Mussoorie
on Tuesday. Delhi was pretty toasty which makes living in the mountains that
much better! Mussoorie is a beautiful town tucked away in the foothills of the
Himalayan Mountains and I am already falling in love with everything. The other
bonus about being on this trip is the company. Not only do the students seem
pretty cool as well as the staff here at the Center but I am also here with
Nate’s Dad who is the main professor and leader of the trip and Nate too! After
being in a relationship living on separate continents for 22 months and only
seeing each other for about one of those months, we now get the chance to
experience what living in the same community is like and I couldn’t be more
exited!
This week has mostly been figuring out the system, meeting
the staff & students, figuring out what my job will entail and orienting
myself with everything and everyone. I am living at the Hanifl Center which is
connected with Woodstock School (an international school about a 10-15 minute
walk away). The students live in a dorm directly next to the building I’m
living in and will have class in the building that I’m in as well as meals.
They have a pretty sweet schedule which is half made of classes pertaining to this
area and half made of excursions, whether they’re day trips or 10 day treks. I
will be going on some of the excursions, most likely the large 10 day treks and
exploring northern India with them. Also while I am here during the day I will
mostly likely start to help out at the Woodstock School doing whatever they
need me to a few days a week or if I can find a senior activity center, then I
hope to help out there but so far I haven’t had any luck finding one. My days
will be working at the school/running/self-teaching myself ASL/reading/attending
the occasional lecture and whatever else until 5pm when I am on duty so I hope
to find something cool to do a few times a week while the students are in
class.
I also must mention the food here and town. Nate and I
walked to town yesterday (about 45-60 min walk away) and explored everything.
For him, it was remembering stores he loved and reminiscing about ones that had
left from when he was here last about 4-5 years ago. For me, it was exciting to
see food being sold that I remembered from when I studied abroad my junior year
in southern India as well as clothing but also just exciting to take in
everything using all of my senses. We had lunch at this little dosa place that
Nate loved and I had some of the best masala chai I’ve had in a really long
time. We also bought some juice on the side of the road that we watched being
made with pomegranate, oranges and apples and it was like I was back in
Ethiopia with all the fresh amazing juice, made me so happy! I also bought a
brightly colored hanging chair (blue, purple & pink) which is gonna be soo
sweet when I have my own place in America to set it up…assuming I can get it
back to America somehow hahaha it may be slightly larger than I thought and
doesn’t fit into my suitcase exactly… We also were able to buy a few books at a
bookstore that Nate knew and it will be perfect and I can see myself returning
many times. The last main place we stopped was this super cute café that has
some American things in it and is run only by Indian women. It had a good vibe,
cool decorations and delicious masala chai and crepes-you can’t go wrong with
that! The last thing I gotta say is about the food here at the Hanifl Center
and how amazing it has been. I’d heard the food might get old after a while and
not be as interesting to eat often and I know I’ve only been here a week but I
gotta say, I don’t see myself getting bored with the food. After living in
Kenya and eating only maize with beans & kales every.single.day. for lunch
and porridge 95% of the time for breakfast, this food is glorious! We had
cereal-3-4 types on daily rotation, some sort of egg (scrambled or hard
boiled), a type of different bread (bun, chapatti, toast) and a fruit with
juice and PB/jelly/cheese to put on our bread. Sooo goood!! And let me just
throw it out there that we had chocolate mousse with lunch 2 days ago that had
actual chocolate chips!!!!! On the top of it! sayyyy whattt?! My mind was
blown! So overall, yeah, things are good here J
I’ll probably update you all again in a few weeks once things get into a
routine here.
And I leave you all with words of wisdom/thoughts on the
world from my headmaster from Sipili, a slightly ridiculous man.
·
“Don’t walk alone because it could kill you.
How? From stress. It’s twice as tiring psychologically to do that compared to
walking with other people”
·
“It’s hard to find a hearing impaired teacher
who is fat because it takes a lot of energy to teach”
·
“Medium heavy rain could kill you-it’ll just
soak into you and kill you”
·
“If you take Viagra without a partner-in fact,
you could die”
·
“Americans don’t like white hair”
·
“All short men are hot tempered”
·
“Everyone has
sex before marriage. Anyone who says they haven’t/didn’t are lying and probably
want to keep it private and that’s why they won’t tell you”
·
“When it’s cold, all the girls are moody”
·
“Everyone who has a green card is definitely a
slave”
·
“Two wives are better than one”
·
“The most wise people are very sexy”
Have a great start of school/start of September!
Love to you,
Linde-Whose-Back-In-Indi
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