Namaste!

Namaste! I’m writing to you on the banks of the Ganges on a slightly soporific Monday morning. Since arriving in India, I have refused to check the temperature because I fear attaching a number to the heat will only increase its intensity. The heat was one of my biggest concerns about living in India (particularly because we will be here during the summer), but so far it has been quite manageable. We’ve all adapted our own techniques for dealing with the high mercury, but my personal favourite has to be the Bollywood celebrity look. I wear large sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around my head as if I was some famous actor attempting to look discreet. In reality, the headgear draws far more attention than I intended, but it keeps me cool, so I’m sticking with it.

Living at Ashish’s Guest House and Café with the other interns has been wonderful so far. Our rooms are on the top floor, which also houses two clotheslines, a myriad of potted plants, and a flat rooftop perfect for stargazing and surfing the Internet with the super-convenient wireless connection. And after my jumpy first encounter with the house lizards, we have become friends—distant friends. As long as they stay where they are, eating bugs on the wall, I happily remain cordial. When their poop ends up in my bed, I begin to question the boundaries of said friendship.

My work activities have already taken me through the beautiful BHU (Benaras Hindu University) campus and to a farm in Dagmapur, Mirzapur. The farm visit was an exposure trip for the students at Tulsi Kunj, and we all learned about the crops and plants that grow there as well as the farm animals. The previously mountainous land wasn’t being used very well, so the farmers dug 15 metres deep to cultivate viable farmland. It was pretty neat to see the diverse tropical vegetation thriving—banana, papaya, mango, and cherry trees, as well as every type of vegetable you could imagine. The farmer had no problem boasting about the achievements of the farm, which included an 8 kg cauliflower and a cow named Sita who produces 20 L milk/day. We had sabzi and chippati for lunch and were back on the 4x4 traveling home, the kids belting out what I can only assume were Indian equivalents to “On Top of Spaghetti” and “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”.

- Kelly Anne