The End.

Yeah, I know. So I left Vizag ages ago. But I am finally updating this now, so better late than never.

So when I left I decided to take bunches of pictures of my unforgettable friends. And I think that is what I want on my last India blog because what matters to me the most in India are these people.

A few days before we left, we went to my Telugu teacher's house for dinner. We took a picture together. My teacher is in the striped sari. Can I just tell you, she is one of the most merciful people I know on this earth. She gave me a much better grade in that class than I would have gotten with any other teacher for how I well I did. I love her for that, and I (to quote the aliens on Toy Story) am eternally grateful. 

These are three of our translators. I worked mostly with:

Karuna (who is getting married soon! Without a dowry!)

and Rajyalakshmi (the funniest woman in the entire world). I love them and will never forget them. 

And yes, my hair was wet. And it made puddles on my shoulders. In the last month, I averaged about 3 showers a day  to cool myself off in the India heat.

The little neighbor girls came to visit me one last time while I was packing to leave. 

I think I said this in an earlier blog, but regardless: If I ever adopt, I might be wanting some Indian kids.

My friends! Who also happened to cook for us and teach me some Indian cooking skills. (I hope I can remember...)

This is Silaza. Silu for short. This is the closest she would come to a smile. But her real smile is quite contagious.

Lova gave me a big smile :) She always would, even when I messed up the chapati and made it look like a map of some unknown country.

And beautiful pregnant Durga. I can't wait to hear about whether it's a boy or girl! She should be having her/him soon.

And this is the cook's dog. He likes to bite. But he has had his shots. And in the end, he really is quite adorable. Even though he pees everywhere. And his daily goal was to try to get in my bedroom. Probably so he could pee in it.

So I miss all of these people. (And maybe, I might, perhaps, kind of, sort of, miss the dog. But maybe not.) But I do have great memories of everyone, which I am keeping forever! I am so glad God gave us a way to keep memories. What a great invention on His part.

And yes, I had some very hard times being homesick and such while I was in India. But I am very glad I had this opportunity to go. I learned so much that I could not have learned any other way. I feel like I have really grown - which is such a good feeling... (I am currently basking in this wonderful feeling. That is what the ellipses represents.)

And now I am home with my family for a short while before Spring Semester hits. Boy have I missed them, and now I am leaving them again already? Yeah, it is silly.

But this next stage of life is coming, and I am excited for it. After all, I love BYU. 

So, BYU. I will see you when I head over to class on Tuesday. 

And India Blog, I guess this is the end. Soon I will be printing you out for my scrapbook. See you then!

And readers, thanks for reading. And looking at my pictures. And writing me notes. You make me feel good inside. 

And that is all I have to say. This is the end of my blog. The End.

P.S. Here is that jumping picture I promised once upon a time. This is a good last image for my blog I think.

Srimantam - A Baby Shower

At our program house, we have wonderful people that cook for us. Yes, I know, we are completely spoiled. Anyways, Durga, our main cook, is pregnant, and Amy D. put on a Srimantam for her. A Srimantam is an Indian version of a baby shower. It was fun seeing these different baby shower traditions, after having gone to a couple of baby showers in America just a few months ago.

This is Durga. First there were quite a few ceremonies, probably to bring her good luck in what is to come.

During some of these ceremonies, our translator Rajalakshmi stood next to Durga because the pregnant woman is supposed to stand next to a married woman with no children.

One of the ceremonial parts involved Durga getting lots of bangles to put on her wrists. We each got to put a couple of them on her.

Then she sat in this cool throne thing.

This is Durga with some of her family.

And Durga with us students and a few translators.

Then there was food to give to everyone there. Sweets and fruits, which are always a plus :) Notice the cute half-size bananas. We have those all the time here. They have a slightly different flavor than regular bananas.

Our cute little neighbor girl came to this Srimantam. This is her enjoying the grapes she got.

After the Srimantam, the neighbors and friends that had come all left, and then the cooks and translators served us a really nice lunch traditional style. It was very kind of them.

The day was quite a success, and I think Durga enjoyed it a lot. We were all glad to be able to give her a special day, because after all, she feeds us wonderful food on a daily basis. We just plain love her!

Rajahmundry

We took a trip for a few days to a city called Rajahmundry. We saw a ton in a small space of time, so it was exhausting, but I am glad we got to experience it all.

We took a train to and from Rajahmundry. It was my first time on an Indian train. We got really great seats because there was air-conditioning. But you can also buy seats without that luxury. And my friends that rode a train to Calcutta before had cockroaches in their part of the train, so I was very glad we had chosen these particular seats rather than the cheaper ones.

We spent one of our days traveling in a car all day, stopping at cool places. The first place we stopped at was  a place where people are cremated. We went for the sake of Kirsten's research - it is really fascinating because people in India haven't done cremation for very long, and now they are doing it here at a few different places. The cremation places looked like candy land or something from Alice and Wonderland. It was awesome, I must admit. I am still unsure why it was so colorful though.

Here is me, at the cremation place.

Uh, this is where they cremate the bodies. 

Then we headed to the river, which was nearby.

This is a statue that stood near the river - it was just beautiful, I had to take a picture.

This is Krishnayya, one of our wonderful program directors.

There were many people bathing in the rivers. It made me glad for my bathtub. Especially when I learned later how dirty the river is. 

After the river, we went to a nursery of plants. This was amazing, guys. It made me want to work at a nursery for my next job. What a wonderful job - surrounded by beauty for your whole day, every day. Especially with the colorful tropical plants here. It was pretty hot though, that would be the one downside.

This cactus was interesting - it was attached to the base of a coconut tree. Weird, eh? The tropical plant best friends with the desert one.

So the people that worked at the nursery just loved us. So they were generous enough to give us each a coconut full of coconut juice. Very kind of them. Because it is "good for health". But despite that, coconuts are not filled with coconut milk. Coconut milk comes from the flesh of the coconut. Coconut juice is quite a different thing, and it is not very pleasant. But don't worry, I kept my manners and drank the whole thing. I just felt pretty nauseated for the next hour of of the car trip.

Then we went to a famous sweetshop that serves a special kind of kaja (the best stuff ever). But the kaja was not the only cool thing they make there. They had all these beautiful desserts, in different shapes and designs. 

Little watermelons

Roses with pearls

Apples 

Pumpkins 

Strawberries - boy do I miss strawberries... 

This is the famous kaja we ate. I had two :) It was too hard to restrain myself.

You really could get all sorts of sizes of this kaja. Look at those huge ones. Honestly, buying one of those would be like buying your own heart attack. But at least your taste buds would be happy.

After looking at the sweets and sampling them, we got to back room where they make all the sweets. Most of the students in the program were appalled by the lack of cleanliness, but honestly it was a lot better than I expected. I mean, this is India. Clean isn't exactly a common thing here.

After that we went to the place where the river meets the sea. It was beautiful and it was nice to walk around on the beach before we got back in the car for the long trip home.

On another day, we spent an entire day on a big boat on the river. I discovered that I really don't enjoy being stuck on a boat for that long, but it was a good experience to have.

This is super random but cool. On the boat, someone had CTR shoes. I mean, it must have stood for something else, but not to me :) 

We got out of the boat a few times and got to enjoy the beauty. 

There was this weird tree at one of our stops. I didn't climb on it too much because I didn't trust my own balance - it was on a steep hill. But I did a little bit.

So that was our Rajahmundry trip. Now we are back doing our projects and research. There ain't much time left :) We are really buckling down now... It's a good thing we had a little vacation right before we hit the work harder than ever.