monkey attack!

so our house in under a monkey seige right now. they launched a sneak attack last night, breaking some pots, knocking over everything in the living room, and stealing some peas. They were waiting outside our room this morning, watching from the roof, planning their next move. We have to run downstairs and lock the doors to keep them from stealing our secret chocolate stashes. Maybe if we hadn't destroyed their natural habitat, they wouldn't have to go to such retaliation methods. But i guess we deserve it. hehe.

In other news, we are going to the small village like 5 hours south, staying in a Havela (sp?) (old mansion) run by all women, who will even take foreign men to the market with them! (very taboo, these seem to be some pretty cool ladies). and yoga classes will be beginning soon! woo! its finally warm and sunny out, i'm sitting out on our school's patio, soaking it up.

i'm considering getting a new piercing, any thoughts?

love,
sarah

pics!

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Old Delhi


Fields near Jaipur
Jeep up to Amer Fort


Amer Fort

publish more soon! don't have much time! Sorry!

just business.

hey guys, i've got some business here first of all.

ok, first phone calls. you can all call me now, i have a cell phone, so run out and get some international calling cards and start dialing!

011 91 9950713894, hit it!

and if you want to send any care packages, or preferably just letters expressing said care:

Sarah Beck
MSID c/o
15 Uniara Garden
Jaipur 302 004, Rajasthan
India

also, my return home has been pushed back from April 28th to May 28th... Ian is jumping across the pond and we are going to travel around for a month! woo! sadly i will not be in the states for the big 2-1, but i'll be sipping on coconuts right out of the shell fresh of the vendor cart here, so don't feel too bad everybody.

so today we went to jager (sp?) fort here in jaipur, its about a 30 minute hike up this worn down mountain up from Amer Fort. It was so nice to get away from the sounds of the city, and for a while meghan and i just layed out on top of this flag post in the highest point of the city, rumor has it. it was so sunny and nice, and there were secret passage ways and gardens and spectacular views. sadly enough, also camel and elephant rides, which i did not take part in. i want to take them all out of there, i couldn't stand watching them walk up and down this fort path all day, in their own excrements, being prodded by the man directing them while the tourists just waved and laughed. ugh. i wish this program was a little heavier on the "development." but i have high hopes things will get better, especially in the internship.

we may or may not have located a coffee shop that has wi fi, and if so, i'll be arranging skype talks, and hopefully upload some pictures already!

hope all is well at home,

sarah

oh man.

so these last couple of days have been crazy. wednesday we went to the literature festival here and saw benazir bhutto's niece, fatima, speak on her family, life, and her journalism. she is only 5 years older than me and she is so smart and accomplished, and been through more than i could imagine. it was wild. then later that night we got to go to a private screening of the movie atonement, and after got to sit in on a discussion with the writer of the book, ian mcewan, and the screenwriter of the movie, an oscar winner, and nominated for atonement. crazy? yes. and its wedding season here, so everynight we get to watch fireworks go off! man, if i ever get married it'll probably just be at a courthouse or something, but if i change my mind, i'm going to have one like this. so over the top with decked out horses and almost a carnival after with everyone i've ever met. hehe. fridays we don't have class, we have "field trips" instead. this friday we rented a bus and went to all the touristy things in jaipur. ugh touristing. i really don't like it. don't get me wrong, i really wanted to see all the things we saw and its so nice of the program to pay for us all, but i guess i just like to do things on my own time and my way, no guided tour, just wandering. it was a lot to take in too. so last night, completely worn out from the day, my roommate and i went and cuddled up in bed with two other girls living in the same house as us and watched anastasia, and laughed about how nice it made russia look. of course we didn't make it through the whole thing, because we go to sleep at like 10:30... but our host family stayed up with friends singing songs and partying until 3 in the morning. hilarious.

miss you guys,

sarah

school

so i started school yesterday. hindi is intense, and i'm hoping to get down the basics before i move for my internship, but we'll see how it goes. our family is helping us too and we hear it everywhere so i hope that will make it a little easier. its unusually cold here, and there is no heating, so i've been sleeping in my northface (yea, i'm so glad i have my northface, yes i own a northface, and yes it was a good investment) and 2 pairs of socks and 2 heavy blankets. its so hard to get out everymorning and bucket shower. i don't think i've shave my legs until its like 80 degrees out. i need the extra insulation. hehe. we've been learning a lot and a lot of my views have been challenged. it's crazy, today i was reading an assigned article about the servant/master relationship while baarti, my families servant cleaned my dishes. its such a weird feeling. and we've been learning a lot about women in indian culture, assanged marriages, child marriages, history, its crazy. indians take so much pride in their culture, and while some things don't seem to make sense from a western perspective, when you hear someone who's lived here their whole life talk about it you start to understand. i wish i could even begin to explain the differences between living here and in the US, but literally its like night and day. but i need to go back to class, breaks over. love you all, miss you.

home stay.

so i moved into my home stay today, i live in a house with four families that are all related, and betsy and i share this beautiful big room, i'll send pics when i figure it all out. we are walking around jaipur trying to get our bearings, some bottled water, and sunscreen. we just popped in an internet cafe for a minute. tomorrow i start classes and i'm way excited. i think we are also geting cell phones tomorrow, and my address, so as soon as i can i'll post both. incoming international calls are free, so family get some phone cards and give me a call, just remember when its noon there its 11:30 at night here. so my house is in a quiet part of jaipur across from the central park in jaipur, which is huge, 4 km around. today they were having a rose festival so we walked over and checked out rajasthan's most beautiful flowers. hehe. apparently they have free shows by some of indias famous musicians a lot, and i can just go to the roof of my house and listen. awesome? yes. i love the house because its so open, all the doors and windows. my host dad is a civil lawyer and his wife stays at home. they have a servant, which is very common in india. they have a son and a daughter, the daughter lives around here and is an architect around my age who recently got married. they son works for an IT company in a different part of india. well, i feel like i'm posting a lot, hopefully i can keep it up, and family, i haven't heard from you, let me know you're still out there.

sarah

jaipur.

this is going to have to be a short one even though i have so much to tell. we made it to jaipur, it took about 6 hours including stops at these beautiful outdoor restaurants and sadly enough a mcdonalds. (don't hate me ian, i had to choice in the matter, but their veggie burgers here taste just like falafel.) we drove through miles of mustard seed fields which are these beautiful yellow flowers and a mountain range older than the Himalayas. beautiful. we've been staying at the rajasthan hotel, and i've been having some new experiences for sure. such as bucket showers. the bathrooms are huge and the "shower" has no curtain so i am just out in the open dumping cold water from a bucket to get the soap off. its really so fun and hilarious when i think about what i'm doing. we made it to our school today, which is in a (slightly) quieter part of jaipur and its in the second floor of a house, and its got a huge sunny outdoor patio and a room of just pillows and rugs. some things are scary, like the traffic and the honking (which is used to just say "i'm behind you" and not "i'm mad," which is hard to get used to) and camels, elephants, and cows all over the place. but i'm really in love with it, today we even accidentally met the second in command of the biggest university (over 500,000 students!) in rajasthan (the state i'm in) and we are hopefully setting up conversations between some of his students and us. so many people are willing to help you, its such a warm culture. and its beautiful here, today there isn't a cloud in the sky and probably around 75 degrees. well i'm off, going back for my last day in the hotel, tomorrow i move in with my host family!

love you all sooo much!

so i made it everyone! the 14 hour flight was a total breeze, no worries. (anna, i flew right over uppsala (sp?) i wanted to call and tell you that i was completely within seeing distance of you, but i had no way, so i waved and smiled, i hope you saw it) they had those personal screen tv's and me and the guy next to me had a really great time watching office reruns. oh yes, they had the office. hehe but really i spent most of it sleeping and reading and arguing with the attendant, who didn't have the vegan meal ian called in for me. so in protest i ate around the cottage cheese dish and handed it back to him with a frown face. but the air port was crazy, people were lined up on both sides when you walked out with signs, and there were hundreds of them, all staring at you. very paparrazi (sp?) ish. but we got to the delhi YWCA Guest House and all packed in for the night. today we began our orientation, walked around delhi for a bit, and got lunch at this southern indian style restautant. they had divider trays so nothing touched (yay) even though you were supposed to mix everything together and eat it with your fingers (but only your right hand, making things a little difficult). But so tasty. The people on my trip are really awesome, all just trying to make a difference and learn new things. we are leaving in a little to go explore "old Delhi." The craziest thing for sure is the traffic and just the sheer volume of people. there are no traffic rules, except you get out of the way for things bigger than you. too bad for the rickshaws (which all run on compressed natural gas, come on america, get with the times). everyone is always honking, its kind of like a crazy rollercoaster meets a really weird dream. Also, grandma momhe, you were right. monkeys everywhere. but they haven't stolen any of my things yet. there are also a lot of wild dogs, but not scary, they just lay and sleep a lot. Also a lot of poverty, that i am not sure i was completely ready to see. It's so hard, so many little kids begging, going out in traffic and asking cars. It's eye opening and scary and real. So far we have been in kind of this touristy bubble within the comfort of our group, but i'm preparing myself to get outside of this. On a lighter note, much talk has been going around about taking indian dance and meditation classes, so i'm super pumped for that. tomorrow we drive to jaipur, and on sunday we move in with our homestays. woo!

well, time for me to go, but i love you all, and i am going to come back with so many pictures and stories and trinkets, so get ready!

oh yea and please send addresses if you want postcards/letters/cool stamps.

love,
sarah

One Week

Ok so seven days and counting. Yikes. I cracked open my hindi "teach yourself" book last night. oh man. it is kind of fun because its like a secret code you have to crack before you can translate it. I've almost got the alphabet down, one slow step at a time. I'm up in champaign for the week, telling myself it'll help me focus, but really I've just been hanging out with Ian, going on walks and cooking enchiladas, running "errands" which seem to accomplish very little. I've decided winter break is not geared towards productivity though, more towards hibernating, so i'm not going to be too hard on myself.

Those last few days I was home, I realized I'm officially moved out for good. Adult style. I am going to miss it. Of course i'm going to miss the people i love. But the actual place too. I know i tease a lot about going to the doctor's office in a double wide trailer "parked" in gretchen wilson park, but i love it down there. But you'd be hard pressed to find a place so unassuming, where strangers wave at eachother, or you walk into a restaurant and know at least half the people in there. My grandma's houses are in walking distance of eachother, and in the spring daffodils still grow a quarter mile from my house where my greatgrandma used to live. It's weird the things you notice when you aren't there anymore. I sometimes thought i have little in common with my friends at home, but really the things we don't have in common are all just all surface stuff that doesn't matter anyways. I know their histories, their families, their flaws, their best qualities, and i could go months without talking to them and pick up right where we left off. I am so lucky.

oh and anna, i downloaded skype, but i have no idea what i'm doing with it. hopefully I'll figure it out before i leave.

and thanks everyone for the kind/encouraging e-mails. they mean so much to me.

sarah

America

dear friends and family,

I decided I won't spam you with India/life updates, so I'm making this so if you feel inclined to see where my travels have taken me, it's all right here for the taking! First let me all say that I love you guys, thanks for taking time out of your day to see about me. Right now it's 3 in the morning and I leave in T minus 11 days. I find my life is currently a jumble of travel size shampoo, travel documents, and extra socks. Hopefully it will all make its way into the one suitcase and backpack I plan on bringing. Yikes. I'm working on minimizing my life... so if anyone knows anyone who needs lots of size 8 shoes or small/medium clothes, please get in touch with me or my momma.

Anyways... life lately... I've been having an amazing winter break. I've been spending a lot of it up in Chicago, i've got something up there that i just can't seem to stay away from. I rode home from there today, on a venture that took nearly 12 hours. Frozen trains and various delays. It wasn't all bad though, I got a lot of reading done, and spent most of my delay talking to this Chinese guy who moved to America a year ago and works in a restaurant in Springfield. I liked that he used "beautiful" to describe everything he liked. He wanted help pronouncing words in English, and found the word ear very hilarious. On the way home I listened to a very special tape and imagined all the places I could have traveled to in the amount of time it took me to get home. Thanks for picking me up mom, you're the best.

Maybe the next post you read, I'll be on the other side of the planet, or just somewhere in Illinois. We'll see.

Sarah