So it's been exactly one week from today since I've been here and I've seen so many things and experienced so much so far. There just so much to take in at once, and at times it gets to be very overwhelming. The food, people, mannorisms...everything is just way different than anything I've ever experienced.
<Classes>
Classes started 2 days ago, so Monday August 16th. I'm taking Indian Culture and Civilization, Introductory Hindi, Environment and Health , and Bharatanatym, which is classical folk dance. This morning I actually participated in Yoga, which starts at 6am when the sun is just rising and goes for a full hour. Since there are a lot of people who do it, the instructor moved us to the top of the building which was so amazing!! It overlooks the city of Mysore and I feel like those poeple on FitTV who do yoga in exotic places. I start dance next week since the instructor is peforming in different states this week. The most interesting one for me as of right now is Hindi, but it's probably because this class is more hands on or I guess you can say verbal. There's only four of us in it so it's more or less one on one at times. The culture and civilization class is ran by Dr. Rao, who is practically the "principal" for all intensive purposes. He's like in his 70's or 80's and is really passionate about what he teaches. He is also very quiet and his voiced is a little muffled so it's hard to understand him ,but thank God for powerpoint. The professor for the health and environment class is also very passionate she's actually a Doctor too so I hope to follow her around at some point and see what a day is like for her. Yesterday at the end of our class she asked our class if we have been through etiquette yet, which kinda scared us because we thought we were breaking all kinds of rules. and aparently I was...Well we have to take off our shoes before entering any of the classrooms, so I did, and sometimes the floor is a little crusty so I put my folder under my feet to avoid gettng my feet dirty. After class she talked about how it's disrespectful to have your feet touch paper because paper represents knowledge which represents one of the gods (Shiva, I think). If it happens accidently your suppose to pick up the paper put it towards your eyes, as a way of showing that you acknowledge what you did. She wasn't mean about it or anything, and she didn't expect us to know this, but I guess it was just a warning, so now I wear socks to class.
<Your Invited>
So a couple days ago we were invited to attend a puppet show, that was only spoken in Kannada. It was called a Leather Puppet Show and is native to Karnataka, which is the state at which I'm living in right now. It is a traditional form of entertainment that has been preserved for hundreds of years or more, and was performed by this family. It was over 1.5 hours of non stop drumming, singing, talking, and everything that goes into a puppet show. It was very entertaining but may have made more sense to me if I understood what was being said. I guess for us it was merely for the experience, and not so much learning the story or lesson behind it. A few days before that we attended a show lead by one women who danced for what was almost two hours straight. At the end I found out she was my dance teacher for the Bharatanatym class. It was very dramatized with lots of sharp movements, facial expressions (especially with the guys) and just LOTS of energy. Halfway through her performance all the power shut off, and they had to get someone to fix it then it began again. It was reallly long, and just her by herself performing the whole piece with guy playing a violen, a women singing, and another guy on the drum. It was yet a again another cultural experience that for me, was a little hard to follow and lasted more than my attention span could hold. Finally, August 15th marked India's Independence Day, which our group was invited to attend in the celebration. So we were up bright and early in the morning to join in the ceremony. It was held outside right in from of the institute. Lines were drawn in dirt on the red sandy floor and in front they assembled a picture of Swami Vivekananda and in brightly colored powder Independence Day was drawn out in the colors of the India's flag. There was a whole ceremony which I recorded (which you can find in my videos, sooner or later) Lots of singing and speaking and lectures.I concluded this week that in India, cultural things take lots of time and can last for hours before you know it. In America things like this are very limited in time, whereas here they take as much time as they need. This is my opinion of course, noone sat me down and told me this, it is just from what I have observed so far. Even the weddings, which is something that last for days.
Hmm Lets see just some random things I noticed:
Well tomorrow I get to look forward to "An encounter with the Indian Kind" Which of course means snakes!!! The professor said "you cannot have India without snakes" So I'm sorta looking forward to that even though I'm terrified of snakes. And on Friday we have an all day field trip to the wildlife sanctuary! Very excited about that!
<Classes>
Classes started 2 days ago, so Monday August 16th. I'm taking Indian Culture and Civilization, Introductory Hindi, Environment and Health , and Bharatanatym, which is classical folk dance. This morning I actually participated in Yoga, which starts at 6am when the sun is just rising and goes for a full hour. Since there are a lot of people who do it, the instructor moved us to the top of the building which was so amazing!! It overlooks the city of Mysore and I feel like those poeple on FitTV who do yoga in exotic places. I start dance next week since the instructor is peforming in different states this week. The most interesting one for me as of right now is Hindi, but it's probably because this class is more hands on or I guess you can say verbal. There's only four of us in it so it's more or less one on one at times. The culture and civilization class is ran by Dr. Rao, who is practically the "principal" for all intensive purposes. He's like in his 70's or 80's and is really passionate about what he teaches. He is also very quiet and his voiced is a little muffled so it's hard to understand him ,but thank God for powerpoint. The professor for the health and environment class is also very passionate she's actually a Doctor too so I hope to follow her around at some point and see what a day is like for her. Yesterday at the end of our class she asked our class if we have been through etiquette yet, which kinda scared us because we thought we were breaking all kinds of rules. and aparently I was...Well we have to take off our shoes before entering any of the classrooms, so I did, and sometimes the floor is a little crusty so I put my folder under my feet to avoid gettng my feet dirty. After class she talked about how it's disrespectful to have your feet touch paper because paper represents knowledge which represents one of the gods (Shiva, I think). If it happens accidently your suppose to pick up the paper put it towards your eyes, as a way of showing that you acknowledge what you did. She wasn't mean about it or anything, and she didn't expect us to know this, but I guess it was just a warning, so now I wear socks to class.
<Your Invited>
So a couple days ago we were invited to attend a puppet show, that was only spoken in Kannada. It was called a Leather Puppet Show and is native to Karnataka, which is the state at which I'm living in right now. It is a traditional form of entertainment that has been preserved for hundreds of years or more, and was performed by this family. It was over 1.5 hours of non stop drumming, singing, talking, and everything that goes into a puppet show. It was very entertaining but may have made more sense to me if I understood what was being said. I guess for us it was merely for the experience, and not so much learning the story or lesson behind it. A few days before that we attended a show lead by one women who danced for what was almost two hours straight. At the end I found out she was my dance teacher for the Bharatanatym class. It was very dramatized with lots of sharp movements, facial expressions (especially with the guys) and just LOTS of energy. Halfway through her performance all the power shut off, and they had to get someone to fix it then it began again. It was reallly long, and just her by herself performing the whole piece with guy playing a violen, a women singing, and another guy on the drum. It was yet a again another cultural experience that for me, was a little hard to follow and lasted more than my attention span could hold. Finally, August 15th marked India's Independence Day, which our group was invited to attend in the celebration. So we were up bright and early in the morning to join in the ceremony. It was held outside right in from of the institute. Lines were drawn in dirt on the red sandy floor and in front they assembled a picture of Swami Vivekananda and in brightly colored powder Independence Day was drawn out in the colors of the India's flag. There was a whole ceremony which I recorded (which you can find in my videos, sooner or later) Lots of singing and speaking and lectures.I concluded this week that in India, cultural things take lots of time and can last for hours before you know it. In America things like this are very limited in time, whereas here they take as much time as they need. This is my opinion of course, noone sat me down and told me this, it is just from what I have observed so far. Even the weddings, which is something that last for days.
Hmm Lets see just some random things I noticed:
- Well my key has this plastic extension that youit slide into this other things on my wall which gives the room I'm in electricity. I gues this is their way of preserving electricity.
- At night I can't fall alseep unless my headphone are in because there is construction going on right outside my window, even after 3am in the morning.
- The electricity goes on and off constantly and I've already experience approximately 15-20 power surges, where the electricity in the building shuts off completely
- Cows walk around randomly everywhere (it's true) and they also leave behind their presents all over the road, so my shows never enter my room. I guess this is why they adopted the "take off your shoes before you enter" policy
- There are geccos all over the the place. And yesterday I saw a mini dinosaur run in front of me crossing the road (j/k...it looked like a iguana, it was running...kinda funny)
- There are other students here who are here to learn the different Indian instruments, so every now and then someone is playing their flute down the hall, and it makes me feel like I'm in a movie or something lol reminds me that I'm in India. It's kinda fairytale-esque.
- I met a girl name Jyothi whose really nice and speaks really good English with a heavy accent. I painted her nails a couple days ago and she requested that I paint her hands two different colors and one with polka dots because she saw my hands had polka dots on it.
- The weather is actually really nice, its not scorching hot like I thought it was going to be. It's very cool. I guess because it's monsoon season, every now and then it would just start raining out of nowhere.
- Our food is brought in by a family and we have cut papya every morning and it's always very sweet.They get offended if you miss a meal and if you don't eat everything on your plate, so I take really small portions to avoid that, because you all know how I am with food.
- In India, Chai tea is very common. After classes we have tea and coffee breaks and there is always some kind of biscuit/cookie to drink it with.
Well tomorrow I get to look forward to "An encounter with the Indian Kind" Which of course means snakes!!! The professor said "you cannot have India without snakes" So I'm sorta looking forward to that even though I'm terrified of snakes. And on Friday we have an all day field trip to the wildlife sanctuary! Very excited about that!
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