WOW.

I apologize for not writing sooner, this is the first time I have had access to a computer and ten minutes to sit down and write. Where do I begin?? Even though I have only been in India for two days, what I have already experienced could probably fill volumes. I'll try to recap...

We left JFK a little after 9:00 PM on Saturday night. The flight to London was about 6 hours, and then we had a two hour layover at Heathrow. From there we flew for about 8 hours to Mumbai. By the time we arrived, went through immigration, found our bags and connected with our hosts, it was nearly 3:00 AM (India is 10.5 hours ahead of US. Right now it is 5:15 PM here and still around 7 AM by you)

We spent Saturday night in a "flat" in Mumbai. I shared a room with the two other female GSE team members. In the morning, we walked to a Hindu temple in Mumbai before going to a smaller airport to catch yet another flight. This flight - to a place called Hubli - was delayed about three hours. It was a small plane and took only about an hour to get to Hubli.

My host family here in Dharwad is amazing. The Dad (Nagraj) is a civil engineer and he has a wife (Neeta) and two daughters, Rachana, 15 and Krutika, 7. They have this Indian saying that translates to: "treat your guest like a God" and they certainly have been doing that.

They are always trying to feed me. The food is great but due to this damn anti-malaria medication, I have no appetite. Glad to report that the nausea and nastiness has subsided (come on - you honestly didn't think you could through an entire post without a reference to my bowels, did you?)

Before I left to come to India, lots of people told me about the extreme poverty in the country. But I could have never imagined the things I have seen. Remember the Sally Struthers, "Save The Children" commercials? Well, that shit exists. We really have absolutely no idea what this part of the world is like.

Never really having paid attention in class, I seemed to have missed the lesson on that whole Indian caste system. Like I said, I could write volumes, but I won't. Instead, I will post some of the 500 pictures I've already taken (as soon as I figure out how to do that from here... it might have to wait until I come home)

This morning we had an orientation meeting with the Dharwad Rotary club. Afterwards we visitied an Aruveydic hospital (see honey? I listened!) and then took a detour to a textile village [read: sweatshop] to see cotton being processed, made into thread, woven and dyed to make fabric. This particular textile mill provides the fabric for ALL the Indian flags in the entire country.

Today is some sort of festival where the people pass out sweets and say: "Take sweets, be sweet." We're going to some sort of celebration and Neeta and Rachana are planning to outfit me in a sari. I am psyched!!

I guess that's it for now. Tomorrow we are going to a new town and a new host family. I hope they're as great as this one has been.

Namaste.

PS - Wolf, I think that text message I sent will end up costing like $50 :) I will call home as soon as we get a sim or calling card - I promise!!