On the Road: Bapatla

And....we're off!!

Sunday morning the whole batch participated in the Mega Pink (race for the cure against breast cancer) 3-K run around Coimbatore. First we all warmed up by doing zumba...in a crowd of about 200 people...in India! Quite a hilarious experience. The course went around our area of town which gave us a chance to say goodbye to various sites as we passed them. Goodbye to restaurants like Myx, Coffee Day, AFC, and Marry Brown's. Goodbye to sites such as All Souls, Gugu's, and the crocodile median. And goodbye to entertainment of Racecourse exercisers! We were quite proud that our Alex Wilson ended up coming in first place- way to represent Pennsylvania from India!

Batch 5 after the Mega Pink run

The rest of the day was spent packing, cleaning the apartments, and saying goodbye to friends before boarding the train in the evening. I think we would all agree that we could have used another couple of hours of sleep on that train when we reached the station before 7! 

Director Kirk has been visiting Uncle Babu and his wife for many years in the rural town of Bapatla. Uncle runs a school for children who have lost their parents. For the next 2 days we get to visit the children in their classrooms and play with them. Our students even designed a program to put on to entertain the children tonight! We will also be learning from Uncle about the humanitarian projects he runs. We may even have a chance for some site-seeing to the Bay of Bengal.

Bapatla, Andhra Pradesh

Next stop... Kolkata!!

(photo credit: Faith Boyle)

Packing Up and Heading Out!

We can’t believe we only have 5 DAYS left in Coimbatore! The time has really flown! Was it really 3 months ago that students flew into the city and began their experience? Was there ever a time that they didn’t know how to barter for an auto, or dodge across the streets, or eat with only their right hand, or find their way on the bus route by themselves?

Tina in her costume for dance presentation

Tayler's beautiful painting of a traditional Toda woman

Stevie's handmade cookbook, Emma's mobile and the clay pot they made together

 This week is crazy with trying to finish everything up. Students have final papers and projects to complete-art projects to create, a clothing design to finish, and a cuisine final to cook, and an exam to take. Meanwhile, they have to get in last minute shopping, eat out at favorite restaurants and say goodbye to all their friends and the life they have made here.

Faith is exhausted after all her hard work

We leave for our north trip on Sunday evening. It is going to be a wild and exciting ride: 18 days, 76 hours on trains, 7 cities, rafting on the Ganges river, visiting Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying, seeing the foothills of the Himalayas, and of course- taking pictures in front of the Taj Mahal! 

Follow us on our journey across India!

Happy Onam!

Happy Onam from ISP!!!

             

      Onam is the harvest festival in the neighboring state of Kerala. Today, Onam was celebrated at school through cultural dances and a ‘rangoli’ or ‘flower design’ competition. The students were off at their internship sites for part of the day, but came back early in order to watch the festivities. Rangoli is an intricate design in a circle that is created entirely with different varieties of FLOWERS!! The Malayalee (or Kerala) students at BACAS competed in teams to create the best rangoli design. Taylor, who is an art major, thoroughly enjoyed watching the designs come to life.

In the afternoon, the Malayalee students put on a show with traditional (and non-traditional) dances and songs. The girls wore beautiful white saris which are traditional in Kerala and many of the guys danced hip-hop. There was even a girl who sang a Taylor Swift song in a 'southern drawl'!!

               

This was truly a cultural introduction for the students to life in India in the way that programs are run but they definitely enjoyed it! Each state has pride in their unique culture and so it was good or us to get to experience that energy!

To see more photos from the celebration please visit our Facebook page: India Studies Program (ISP)

Still Traveling. Still Processing (Three of Three)

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“In India even the most mundane inquiries have a habit of ending this way. There may be two answers, there may be five, a dozen or a hundred; the only thing that is certain is that all will be different.” 

- Eric Newby, Slowly Down the Ganges

Still Traveling. Still Processing. (Two of Three).

Holi, the Festival of Colors

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“Creation and destruction are one, to the eyes who can see beauty. And the greatest praise to India is this: not only are her people beautiful; not only are her daily life and culture beautiful; but, in the midst of the utilitarian, humanitarian, dogmatic world of the present day, she keeps on proclaiming the outstanding value of Beauty for the sake of Beauty, through her very conception of Godhead, of religion and of life.” 

- Savitri Devi

Still Traveling. Still Processing. (One of Three)

This is just a small series to let you know that we're still here. Our time in Coimbatore has come to an end but our travel component is just beginning. These next couple posts are quotes about India that allow you to question some of the things that our own students are continually being challenged by. Enjoy, friends!

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“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East -- especially in India -- I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving -- it is not in the result of loving. ” 

-Mother Teresa, A Simple Path

In Pictures: Roof-top Party!

Holi, a religious festival celebrated all over India, is known as the Festival of colors. It celebrates the beginning of the new spring season and commemorates many events from Hindu mythology. It is most commonly celebrated in Northern India but our ISPers were able to celebrate it in the South with a little help from some friends. Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to our Holi Celebration:

"Before" 

We began our party at sunset, on the roof of our apartments. T-shirt color of choice: white. (For obvious reasons.)

Getting the "color" ready. The dye in this bucket was used to fill up the squirt guns. 

Ashley and Abraham prepping the colors. There were two buckets filled with color and a bunch of pouches filled with colored powder. (Everyone got their own pouch of powder to throw).
The rules were simple:

1. Avoid throwing color at the eyes and mouth.
2. Have Fun! (Heavily emphasized by Abraham).
3. Observe rules 1 & 2. 

(slow moving) Action shot!

Ingredients for a Holi celebration: colors and friends! (Roof is optional). That's all you really need.

Downstairs apartment. They love each other.  Clearly. 

"After"

Without a doubt, one of the best nights of this semester. These pictures (and our t-shirts) will definitely be some of our favorite things to show off to our friends and family back home. 

Beyond BACAS: Familiar Faces:: Lakshmi (The Dog)

Here’s our second Familiar Faces installment. It might seem odd to you that we’re featuring a dog as our “Familiar Face” but if you walked Race Course every morning, you’d understand why this post is dedicated to Lakshmi.

{Typical Lakshmi pose}

A walk to school would not be the same without a greeting from our favorite Indian dog (dubbed “Jake’s Dog” by the Second Batch of ISP students). Regardless of the time of day or day of the week, Lakshmi can be found on some place along Race Course road. She is extremely friendly…. when she’s awake. More often than not, she will usually be napping on a sunny patch of sidewalk. And while she’s usually found close to one particular store, she was once spotted far down the road, closer to BACAS. Turns out that on that day she had followed Jake Maude to school (he frequently reminds the group of how much he’ll miss her when we leave Coimbatore).

{Have we told you that she's REALLY friendly?}

Come to India! As if you needed more incentive to come join us, you’ll be greeted by this adorable dog every morning. 

Happy Singles Awareness Day India!

Although Valentines Day was a couple weeks ago, we thought that you'd appreciate hearing about how we celebrate here in India.

 While friends and families celebrated, or completely ignored, Valentines Day back home, our ISP students decided to put a twist on their V-Day party celebrations. In order to come to the party, guests had to dress up like a famous pair or group such as peanut butter and jelly or Batman and Robin. Students invited their friends and peer mentors and encouraged them to dress up. In keeping with the breakfast for dinner theme, chocolate chip pancakes and caramelized bananas were served.

Some of the party-goers during dinner.

Jake Maude and his peer mentor Poornith as "India and Gandhi".
Not pictured: Gandhi's salt (held in Poornith's left hand). 

You know it was a good time anytime Gandhi makes a guest appearance. 
Some of the other guests included: the three blind mice, “power on” and “power off” (that was hilarious in light of all the adaptations our students have had to make over the semester [that pun was unintentional, I promise you]), John Smith, and Pocahontas, and the rainbow. Yes, the rainbow.

Each color looked amazing! Their outfits never cease to amaze us. 

The night ended with a round of limbo (using Gandhi's staff as the limbo pole) and everyone joining in with the Macarena, which has become somewhat of a tradition during the hostel visits. 

The group consensus: costume parties are the best way to spend Valentines Day.

For more photos, see our Spring 2012 Facebook album.

3 Weeks Left in Coimbatore

{photo from our recent trip to kerala}

Things have been a little quiet around these internet parts lately, for which we apologize. Rest assured this is not because things here at ISP have been quiet! Quite the opposite, in fact.

We're in the process of finalizing a list of students for next semester (already!), planning for our two-week travel component (departure t-minus 3 weeks from today!), paper writing, learning and talking about contextualization and cultural relevance and how to make the most of our remaining few days of this semester. We're planning for two more visitors for the ISP lecture series next week, as well as planning our final weekend trip leaving tomorrow morning- bright and early at 5am!- for Tanjore. (Also, because of the monsoon rains and lots of meetings, our internet access has been slim, but that's a side note. :))

{photo from ISP staffer Kandyce Pinckney's trip to Varanasi in 2008}

We really can hardly believe that we're already talking of wrapping up our time here in Coimbatore. We're excitedly looking forward to traveling to Calcutta, Varanasi, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur in the north, but looking toward the end of our classroom academics, paper writing and project presenting with a little bit of that crazy busy feeling. While we can't wait to see Mother Teresa's 'Mother House' in Calcutta and take a boat ride down the Ganges in Varanasi, we're not looking forward to saying goodbye to our professors, friends and neighbors here in our little city. This semester has flown by!

This past Tuesday we visited a village called Nehemem, where 300 families in the village are all involved in the weaving and production of saris that are then sold in government cooperatives. We're hoping to have those photos posted early next week, followed by those from this weekend and more notes from our ISP lecture series. Stay tuned for those, and thanks for understanding our silence!

We're Halfway There

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“So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.”

-Mark Twain

It's hard to believe we're past the halfway point of our semester. We've been looking back on how far we've come, looking forward to Christmas and thinking about how to talk and think about our experiences here after we return, and we're excitedly anticipating our two-week travel component to North India in just under a month. 

Thanks for reading, friends, as we journey together through this semester and onwards!

Happy Halloween!

Just because we live in a country that doesn't officially celebrate Halloween doesn't mean we can't bring a little funk and fall flavor to our corner of it!

Here in Coimbatore, we celebrated Halloween in costume, with music, games and food.

Lentil brittle, no bake cookies and beignets (creole donuts).

Aladdin, Jasmine and the Genie showed up (yes, Sarah the Genie really is painted blue. She won best overall costume and dinner as a prize for her efforts!)

Calla as a pirate- wearing a thumb drive around her neck for creativity points.

Adam came as the birthday king, which was appropriate as he celebrated his 21st birthday on Saturday!

Happy Halloween, friends. Enjoy some crunchy fall leaves for us!

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You can see more pictures from our Halloween party in our Facebook album here.

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“They drove past buses that dripped people the way a sponge drips water, and arrived at a thick forest of human beings, a crowd of people sprouting in all directions like leaves on jungle trees.”

-Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories