GONE TO GOA

We arrived in Goa late last night after three days at the Rotary International district conference. The conference was held in the city of Hubli, which is the second largest city in the state of Karnataka.

A little bit about India... There are 27 states, and the district with which we are in exchange spans parts of three of the states: Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. Every state has its own language (Kannada, Marathi, Konkani) In addition to the state languages, the people all speak Hindi (the Mother tongue) and English. Kids in school all learn at least three languages, and some elect to take on a fourth or fifth.

Me? Um.. I think I remember some drinking songs from German class.

The conference was a blast. There were about 1,500 Rotarians there from 300 clubs in the district. It was held at this huge outdoor reception venue called Gokal Garden. It's where lots of weddings are held (Indian weddings last 3 days and there are typically over 1,000 guests!)

We heard a lot of great lectures during the days spanning topics of environmentalism, education, service and religion. In the evenings, we ate amazing food, attended cultural programs of music and dance, and hung out with our friends from Gadag. The Indians know how to party, I'll say that much :)

Our GSE team gave its presentation Sunday morning to a crowd of over 1,000 Rotarians. We also got to meet the outgoing team from India who will be traveling to New Jersey in April. They are an awesome group: the team is made up of three young ladies and one guy, and is led by a woman. All of them are either doctors or lawyers, or engineers, and they were selected from a huge pool of candidates.

My current host family in Goa seems really awesome. They have a beautiful house and two dogs. I'm sitting here at my host's kitchen table (he's got a laptop with wi-fi!!!) and his wife is doing the crossword puzzle... (those of you who know me know what a comfort this is!)

In a half an hour, one of the girls from the Indian GSE team is picking us up to do some sight-seeing. I'm exited to see Goa in the daylight. We got a late start from Hubli yesterday, and the trip took about 5 hours on terrible roads.

So I guess that's all for now. Will check in again soon. Hope everyone is well!

Namaste.