Almost India

Yesterday was the halfway point of the trip. I’m sad and surprised that it’s already gone this fast. It literally feels like we just left Ghana and that was a month ago. But we get to India tomorrow, and to say I’m excited is the understatement of the year. I did manage to bring 3 overstuffed suitcases full of clothing inappropriate for India though. The only things I have that are acceptable are sweatpants and tee shirts. It’s a good thing that my flight to Delhi doesn’t leave until 7:45 pm the first day, so I’ll hopefully have some time to go shopping and buy a sari or two… or at least some linen pants.

After Delhi, I’m going to Varanasi, and Agra (where the Taj Mahal is). I really wanted to go in the Ganges River in Varanasi (Hindus believe that the water will cleanse all of your sins away if you bathe in the river, and I thought it would be a cool experience) but then I was told that not only are people’s ashes thrown into the river, but also some dead bodies. Apparently there are so many people that want their ashes thrown into the river after their death, that they don’t have time to burn everyone’s body completely. So they will cremate half of a body and just dump the remains into the river. I think I’ll just stick to watching everyone else cleanse their sins.

I went to a lecture on Indian culture last night and learned some important facts. You can’t use your left hand… EVER. Don’t wear leather (not that I even brought any on this trip) and always step into a room with your right foot first. I also learned (confirmed my belief) that I will not like Indian food. All of the inter-port students (students that live in India that met us on the ship in Mauritius to tell everyone things that we couldn’t find in guide books) said that pretty much everything is spicy. I like hot food, but not curry. It’s going to be a lot of naan for me in the next week! I’ve been stocking up on mini boxes of cereal from breakfast too though, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.
On another note, I’m finally getting wireless internet in my room! For a while, it seemed like literally everyone but our part of the ship was getting wifi, but we finally have it, so I’m writing this while lying on my bed!

Ummmm… some other random things from the past week or so:

We stopped at Diego Garcia a few days ago to drop off 2 students that needed to be flown to Singapore to get medical treatment. It’s a British military base in the Indian Ocean that is fairly top secret. We were instructed by the captain not to take pictures under any circumstances (though I know some people definitely did). But I’m told that you can google the island and get info on it (I wouldn’t know since we don’t have internet though).

I let my friend Chance give me a haircut. I decided it wasn’t worth it to pay $40 for just a trim. I was a little nervous, but he did a really good job.

I’m fasting for 24 hours. A group of students on the ship is doing it to promote knowledge about starvation in India. The poorest 5 states in India have more starvation than the poorest 26 countries in Africa. And these people are all living on less than $1.25 a day. I’ve been sans food since 6:30 pm last night, and it’s only 2 pm here (we’re 10 and a half hours ahead of Pittsburgh now) but so far, so good.