test test test because so for some reason my last two posts didn't post

Sorry I haven't posted in such a long time!!! Things here are awesome, but busy!!!

One of the most exciting pieces of news since my last post, I met the Capoeira Pune group!!!!!! This is so exciting!!! I love to train capoeira a lot, and the caporistas all seemed so cool and great to hang out with too!!!!! I am very happy to have met them! The problem, I have only been able to train at one capoeira class :( last week I wasn't able to make it at all! Part of the problem is that they meet kind of far away. It's not too far compared to other parts of the city, but Pune is big!!! Also, I'm still not fully comfortable with navigating on my own through the city. The rickshaw drivers are pretty good, but I just don't feel that comfortable going to new parts of town, on my own, late at night. The other reason it's been hard to get to class? lots of work!!! There is tons of stuff to do here, and I am getting to learn and do a lot. I also have responsabilities, and I want to take them seriously and do a good job!! With time I hope it all works out and that I find a good balance. I have to keep reminding myself, I've only been here for three weeks, and need time.

Yesterday I had the day off and did a big walking too of the area surrounding Sangam. I am sure feeling safer and more at ease than I did my first few days. I walked all around, past the golf course, jail, and mental hostpital. Those were just the large landmarks. There were homes lining the streets and some larger appartment buildings. It seems everywhere you go you are going to see tons and tons of people!!!! My walk took about 1hr20min if you want to go to google maps and look up the squaure route I took, with those landmarks at the corners.

Last night was a pot breaking festival. All over the city teams form human pyramids to grab hold of the pot hanging up high. They stand on each other's sholders. Apparently the pyramids in the more central part of the city get to be 7 bodies tall. I crossed the street with two SV's (sangam volunteers) to the neighborhood over there and we saw that the first pot had already been broken and we were too late. Down the street a couple blogs was another party. There were flowers and garlands hung between two lanp posts on opposite sites of the road. Maybe 15, or so, boys/teenagers/young men, were dancing really crazy under the pot. There were two barrels of water on the side of the road with a hose going in, and some guys throwing buckets of water on the dancers, making them dance even more!! They also had giant loud speakers playing india music (some of it might have beem from bollywood movies). Some small girls (9yrs old ish, they told us) came up to us and were so lovely and happy to talk to us and shake our hand!!! They were really great, they wanted to be in our photos and were asking about where we were from, and telling us we were sweet!!! 

The pot breaking festival was fun, but there is so much I don't know about Indian culture! Only the boys were dancing. apparently there are other festivals where girls can dance. Also, apprently some of the dancing boys had been drinking, but I have been told that this is frowned upon in this neighboorhood. Actually on this topic, I went to a nightclub last Saturday that seemed similiar to all the nightclubs I've been too in other parts of the world, just with a few differences. The dance floor was in a seperate room (actually all the tables and bar were outside under a tent), and to get into the dance room you had to be in a couple (your group had to have equal number of girls and boys). Also, the place closed down at 11:30pm and turned on the lights and off the music, like they do in canada at 2:30am. Apparently there is an 11pm curfew

aak! I need to go! I'm being called, read my update later!!!

On the first day of the event (july 23rd), we took a walk around the neighborhood. One of the women who had worked for Sangam in the past, invited us into her house and showed us her tray of spices. She was ready to welcome us, with this rangoli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangoli) infront of her home.

Also as part of Indian afternoon, we were able to get our hands (and feet) professionally decorated. Several Mehndi artists came in! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehndi)

I find it an interesting example of India that the girl doing my mehndi, something I consider Hindu or Muslim, is wearing a cross on her necklace, something I consider Christian. Both are fashionable I guess. I was told that nose piercing, which once was one of the signs that you were married has become something of fashion as well.

Here's a look at my first attempt at rangoli. (Actually I remember being a brownie and a girl who'd been to sangam coming in and doing it infront of us. Maybe we got to try then, I can't remember). On the last day of the event we had an Indian afternoon followed by a Maharashtran dinner. The tailers came back with our Sari tops and punjabi suits so we were able to wear them. You can see some of the event participants working on their rangoli, in their India dress, in the background.

As community relations intern, I've been getting to acompany different groups to their Community Leadership Development Projects during the current DYP event. Yesderday I got to go with the group to Maher. Maher is a large, and organized, organization. Here is their website: http://www.maherashram.org/?q=node/13, so that you can learn more about them. We painted walls and worked on posters explaining Maher's activities. We also had a bit of time to do some songs and games with the women. Girl Guides are great at leading these sorts of things! It was a fun day, but we worked hard! This picture was taken between two songs/games.

Since I'm currently in training, I'm getting to participate in most of the current Discover Your Potential event. It's awesome!! Sangam really knows how to show us Pune, by expanding our comfort level, without throwing us into the deep end! On the second day of the event, we went on the Laxmir road tour. It included Sari and Punjabi suit shopping, haggling for bangles, drinking chai on the street, touring the museum in the black palace, and seeing how may carrots we could buy in the market for 10 rupees (other pairs were given other challenges), among a few other sights. This picture was taken from a window looking over one of the balconies of the black palace. I forget what they're called, the people that live there :S

Wow! What a day. I got up for 8:30 breakfast, and then went walking on the road from sangam. I thought I would come to a market, but it was just fruits being sold along the street. Noone stared too much, and there weren't that many car honks, but I still felt like a foreigner standing out. There was only one scary beggar, a young girl. She had this giant braided whip that she snapped on the ground infront of me. She then asked for money and when I refused, she snapped her whip again. I was afraid to cross her path, and looked at some men selling fruit for what to do. They were pleasant, and waved the girl away and told me to walk around. Eventually I got by.

After the walk I came back to Sangam and read all these cards they have in a box. Each card has a little discription of a place to visit as well as the address so that you can hand it to a rickshaw driver. I had midmorning tea, and then set out with one of the volunteers who had a day off.

We went soooo many places! and it was quite the adventure!!

First we went to a bank and a punjabi suit shop, then we spent imense amounts of time in this wonderful chocolate cafe. Ottawa definetly doesn't have a chocolate cafe this like this. They had all sorts of different hot chocolates (like spicey ones, cinnamon, thick cream, marshmello, whip cream, coffee, etc...) and different chocolate milkshakes, I ordered one with nuts, they also had chocolate cakes and brownies, etc...

After we went to find the tribal museum, but we had some difficulty finding it so we stopped in at the botanical museum. This was quite the experience. Though we could see the museum sign was to the right, we were told to go to the left. We entered the buiding there, and a scientist (it said on his door) invited us into his office and had us sit down while he looked a student's work that he brought to him as we were sitting down. He then seemed very curious to learn who we were and what we were doing in India. He googled Sangam right infront of us, and asked for our emails. He told us the only way to see the musueum was to write a letter of permission, addressed to the head of office. We wrote and signed the letter. Then we took it up to floors where a woman signed it. We went back down one floor where a woman scientist chapperoned us to the museum. Though she was full of Indian traits, she was also full of the universal scientist traits and was quite excited to speak about the work. She, like the first man, was a bit hard to understand, but it was nice they at least spoke english.

After walking around some more we finally found someone that knew where the tribal museum was and it instructed us to follow him. There was this long bridge that he took us under lengthwise. First we stepped over maybe 8 sets of railroad tracks with blobs of human waste all over them, then up a little hill. I was getting quite nervous, and was tempted to go back. The next section of the bridge had quite of lot of makeshift homes with people living there. At this point I didn't want to continue, but then we could see the museum about 100m away. We followed him, and I tried not to make eye contact with any of the poeple, esepecially the men. It's terriblly prejuduce that I have this feeling of danger only because the people were poor, but I couldn't supress the feeling. The people didn't do anything. The man seemed to know people or live under that bridge himself. We went to the museum.

The tribal museum was really great. It had all sorts of art, masts, painting, jewlery, from the different tribes of maharashtra. I recomend it, and will let you know, it's on the other side of the bridge from the girls college. At the museum, in a section called "black magic" I saw the same braided whip the girl had snapped at me on the street.

After we went to MG road, with lots of shops. I was competely overwhelmed to consider buying a punjabi suit or sari, but there were nice to look at!

Now I am just typing this blog up before going to Sangam supper.

I arrived around 4am (Pune time) to Sangam, after a 4hr journey from the mumbai airport. The trip wasn't too noteworthy. People crowded into the baggage claim belt a lot more than they would in Canada, but they were all quite polite. It was just crowded and different, it wasn't rude or scary.

My plane Munich to Mumbai had barely any none-Indian looking people on it. Maybe 5 or 6.

My driver was easy to find, he was standing with a sign with my name on it. I didn't feel hassled by 1000s of indian drivers like what I was worried about. However I did note that spending a couple hours sleeping at the airport, to wait for daylight, would have been difficult. I was happy to have a driver arranged. 

After arriving at Sangam I unpacked my stuff and slept until lunch. I'd forgotten about daylight savings time, so I was thining there was a 10.5hrs difference, but really it was only 9.5, so I had time to meet a couple of the sangam volunteers before eating. Everyone seems so nice and welcoming here!!

After lunch a volunteer gave me the grand tour of the premis, and after an IT guy came in and set up me up to the staff wifi. During this time I feel asleep and did not wake up until supper! I had planned to walk around in the city a bit, but that didn't happen.

After supper I stayed up talking with some of the other staff (including volunteers and interns). We were from Canada, Kenya, United States, Australia, Korea, and England. It's really fun to learn about guiding in other countries! and to hear about everyone elses experiences!!

Here is a picture looking out my window, on my first morning. I finished unpacking and the sun was starting to rise. It was cloudy though, this is monsoon season.

This is a handy little device. It's filled with a clear fluid, and is plugged into the wall. You switch it on at night and it keeps the mosquitos away.