Computer problems

Hey everyone, sorry my computer charger broke a couple of weeks ago, so in an effort to save all possible battery I haven't been spending enough time on the computer to write any blogs.

Everything is starting to settle in a bit, life at the homestay is actually getting more exciting though. When we first arrived, it was our host mom and dad, grandma, host "brothers" (close friends of our real host brother who have lived in the house for several years now), host sister, and the two maids. Now our real host brother has come to stay for a bit with his wife, so there are 12 of us in the house. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, their two cousins are coming for a week too, making it 14. It's been a lot of fun getting to know everyone, going out, and always having someone around to hang out with. Last Tuesday, they took us out for chat, which are kind of snacky dishes generally sold from roadside stands and served around tea time. We had pani puri, the picture, and something else I can't remember the name of, but it was some of the best food I've had here yet.

I guess I'll clue you in more about the food here. So far, my breakfasts have been pretty American, we have corn flakes and milk, toast with peanut butter (!), chai, and sometimes there will be an Indian dish to accompany it like idlie and sambar. Idlie is a little circular patty made of rice meal or corn meal or something and is always served with some kind of "sauce". In terms of sauces, there's sambar and rasaam, both with a soup-like consistency, rasaam more so, sambar generally has lentils or some kind of bean in it (from what I've gathered). Idlies are also eaten with chutneys a lot, which tend to get very very spicy here but also have more flavor than a lot of dishes. Some people will have a tea break around 10 or 11 with some biscuits, they have them strictly scheduled into all of our CIEE activities. Lunch and dinner are always rice. At the international hostel where I eat my lunch, they'll serve a bean salad, fruit, mithai (dessert balls), bread (normally chapati), then rice with daal and 2-3 vegetable dishes. Dinner with my host family is similar, except with the addition of rasaam. They also will generally have one plate of a little of everything, then have a "cool down" plate with just rice and sambar and yoghurt, which really helps put out the fire on your lips. There'll be a tea break sometime between 2-4, when people are getting back from school, and dinner around 8. Most places have silverware, but at the homestay we eat with our right hand. The rules are: the right hand is considered pure, so if you're not eating, pass with your right hand. If you are eating, then the purity of your right hand is tarnished and you pass with your left/drink with your left/pour with your left. This is where I'm very thankful to have maids/servers around so I don't have to worry about serving myself with my left. The dishes are all brought out separately in ceramic clay pots, one for rice, sambar, rasaam, and each vegetable dish, all covered with tin or aluminum small plates to keep bugs away. It kind of reminds me of tapas in Spain.

Wow, sorry, still stuck on Tuesday. Wednesday, CIEE took us to the Henry Martyn Institute, which is a school and operation that works to reconcile different faiths to live in harmony. When we first got there and they were giving us a history of the institution, it was originally designed to give Christians a better understanding of Islam so they could use that knowledge to convert them to Christianity, and at that point I was definitely a little ticked off that they would bring us to a place like that, but then they explained that over the years their goals have changed to bring an understanding of all faiths to each other by having centers around that provide education to equal hindu and muslim students, giving sewing and health classes to equal numbers of hindu and muslim women, celebrating all festivals of all faiths with people from all faiths to help harbour understanding. It ended up being a really neat place.

Saturday is when my host brother and his wife showed up, and for dinner they invited us to TGI Fridays for their friend's birthday (her choice I swear!). It was nice to get some American food. It seems that the only "cheese" they have here is paneer, which is absolutely terrible and used basically as tofu in dishes. All five of us on the program from WI have been dying. So I got some loaded potatoes with sour cream and some pasta with cheese on it, too. =). It wasn't until after I ordered/ate all this that I learned of the custom for birthdays. If it's your birthday here, you pay for everyone. So this girl I met for the first time and barely got a chance to talk to paid for mine and Rebecca's meals.

Sunday we took a trip down to the Old City again, where Charminar is. Two problems though, one was that we left around 10:30-11:00am, meaning it was the heat of the day the entire time we were there, and the other was that I wasn't planning on coming really so I'd worn clothes that were entirely inappropriate for the Old City. The Old City is the most conservative part of Hyderabad, where even Hindu women tend to cover their heads. I was wearing a v-neck/cami combo with no scarf. When we got there, a group of begging women came over and started talking with us, and one of the older ones as a semi-joke semi-you-need-to-take-care-of-this-as-soon-as-possible was pulling up my cami and pulling together my v-neck and trying to pin it there without a pin. It was actually quite funny but definitely got the point across. I borrowed a scarf from one of my friends I was there with. Another kind of funny thing that happened there was a boy (10 or 11) came up and asked where I was from, and when I replied the US, he immediately responds "¿Cómo estás?", so I had a nice little Spanish conversation with him.

Besides that, there have been a lot of people getting sick so far, myself included (not bad though), and a lot of things where I'll see something and tell myself "I'm putting that in my blog" and never remember to. I'll try to work up a system for that. Also, since my battery will be fully charged again I'll try to get another set of pictures up.

Tomorrow maybe?