"Sick" Moves

AGAIN, sorry for being away for so long. It feels a lot more natural to write when I want to then to force these posts out as soon as I can. Anyway, for the updates. Where can I start.

To continue from the last blog post, language learning is finally getting up to a decent start. I have abandoned trying to learn Gujarati and started from the very basics of Hindi, alphabet and all. It is known now that just as much language learning must individually then inside my weekly language class. Even though my new Hindi teacher is fantastic, I still have been trying to learn independently on various phone apps. Either way, I can almost read most words, which I am quite proud of for only having worked on it for about a month now. If only I knew what they meant. Learning a new alphabet makes Spanish a walk in the park. Never again will I complain about a Spanish class.

More on language, kind of. I have started student teaching English in a night class for local sixth and seventh graders. I have always known I wanted to be a teacher, I have just never been sure which subject. At least, this will answer part of the question. I am hoping to start volunteering about 6 hours a week, once festival season cools down a bit. The most interesting part about it for me is to see how people who don’t speak English as their first language have to learn it. I see lessons about “Passive Tenses” and “The Past Imperfect Tense”, which are topics as a native English speaker I never had to study. Maybe it will help me a little bit on my grammar too.

My largest festival yet. Recently I have celebrated the festival on Navratri which is celebrated for nine days mainly in the western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. The festival mainly celebrates the female goddess Durga, who triumphed over an ox- headed demon after a nine-day battle. The festival is celebrated differently in different regions of India. In Gujarat, the main celebration is the traditional style of dance, Garba. Garba is almost, what an American would call, line dancing with an Asian twist. Almost every day for the nine days I did some small amount of Garba. The highlight of the festival was a very large program held at a friend’s society, where we all danced until about one in the morning. Navratri has held the highlight of my exchange thus far.

For the holiday, the rest of the AFS students from around the country came to visit Ahmedabad and stayed in the city for a few days. As expected it was wonderful to be able to see all the people that I started this journey with. It was also astounding to see how much everyone has changed, the problems the have overcome, and the problems that they are still struggling with. The AFS student crowd will always be the strongest support system that I have here, I know that I can always turn towards my fellow peers to help me.

I guess the “not so good” part about having a lot of AFS kids at the same place is food must be organized. And sometimes, that food shouldn’t be consumed by unexposed western stomachs like mine. The only negative part of my past few weeks has been that was quite sick. It started with an upset stomach and escalated to some vomiting and 102-degree fever. (We cover it all here folks! Even the not so pretty.) It was only to bound to happen. I feel much better now, but that could only be for the fact that the doctor put me on about 4 different antibiotics, in addition to an injection that I’m still a little unsure about. I guess I can call it a cultural experience, In Indian culture families rush to the doctor quite quickly, even for some food poisoning. Maybe it’s because basic medical care doesn’t cost half a fortune. America take notes.

Even though I was sick for the last few days of Navratri, it still has been the highlight of my stay. You will see pictures of my traditional Navratri Kediya. I also made an appearance in the local paper for my Garba performance.

AFS Garba Gathering