H1N1

FYI everything here is less than reliable, electricity, movies, Internet, phone service, worm free eggplants, etc. Last night we were sitting in the younger boys room and the light kept flicking and being annoying and Kesav told me "It has the Swine" HAHA! So the new joke is everything that breaks or that is being shady and annoying has swine flu.

Every once in awhile No'rbu, Bikash, & Kesav will meet in the kitchen at night to play checkers and the new favorite I taught them, Go Fish. Which they call "gold fish" which is confusing when they are asking "Do you have a Gold Fish?", then to say no they say "Gold Fish!" Which sounds like they didn't hear the fish name so they person asking say "G! Gold Fish" "Yea I know...GOLD FISH!!!" I'm sorry if you didn't follow that because it's funny.

While playing I figured out that I can play an entire game of checkers and "Gold Fish" without using English. In fact most of my Hindi phrases are useless in the real world. When am I ever going to need to say "King Me!" or "Do you have a hammer head shark?" in a real life situation. Oh well. I'm also learning the script they use, which is really beautiful and totally complicated but it feels more like art and less like studying so I don't mind. ओके सो इ'म नोट थिस गुड अत हिन्दी बुत थे त्रंलाटर थिंग मेक्स आईटी लुक लिखे इ'म फ्लुएंत।

I did some math the other day and I have 87 more days in India...I really don't want to waste them! I'm trying to get everything out of this that I can but also trying to stay unstressed because 1. I want to get away from the stressful way I lived during school, working all the time, and worrying too much. and 2. Being stressed here is really looked down upon, reading a book or scripture, meditation, having tea, and 'freeing your mind' are virtues here, where at home too much of this and you are considered lazy. Here you are considered centered. I want to keep living like this back at home, but I'm not sure that's even possible, bringing this philosophy and lifestyle home and trying to make ends meet will be like fitting a square peg in a round hole, for a lack of a more creative analogy. I get homesick from time to time especially in the evenings or when someone cannot understand my English so there ends up being a big misunderstanding.

I did some more math and by the time I get home Cameron and I will have lived in the same city for 116 days of our relationship, and the other 242 were spent away, either I was in Portland, he was in Nashville or at camp or I was in Ecuador or India. 116-242! One week after getting home we will have been together a year, some might think it should not count as a year seeing as we never saw eachother or even communicated during more than half of the year. I think it should count as two years; anyone who has been in that situation knows what I mean. Although I was told two days ago that
"Cameron is making new girlfriend, because you are too long away."
When the boys and I watched Prince Caspian in Hindi tonight, the mouse with Eddie Izzards voice "Jai Ho, Jai Ho! Aslan!" I smiled. I've asked several people and still can't pin point the meaning of Jai Ho, it's similar to the English hail, or long live.

I'm enjoying the time to read so far I've read Matthew and am working my way through John, Walden, The Jungle Book, The Deathly Hallows, The Hobbit, Man's Search for Meaning, The Great Divorce, The Four Loves & The Time Machine, supplemented by several Alice philosophy books, that, trust me, are difficult even though they are 1/2 illustrations. These children learn English based on these books, that's why they are all so smart. I recently found Boom speak 5 languages, and No'rbu 7! Nepali, Hindi, Bihari, Tibetan, English, Italian, and his "mother tongue" (tribal language.) AND he know some German too! (By the way he is 12 years old and I never see him study, he's always playing football or cricket.) Do you feel dumb? I do.

Okay...the internet is starting to have swine symptoms so I better post this before I lose the connection. Namaste! बाय फ्रिएंड्स इ लव एंड मिस यू अल!!!!