A Catch up post

The wifi was out for nearly a week, so I have enough pictures to write 5 blog posts or so, but because I'm lazy, I'm gonna condense it all into one.

Tuesday was Ghandi’s birthday, so there was no school. I spent the day with my host sister, Sanjna, watching tv specials that I almost understood. Wednesday was my college’s last day before Puja holidays, so they had a big cultural program that afternoon. One of the students lent me one of her sarees, so I wore that for a couple hours. 

cliché inspirational posters dot school hallways everywhere.

the school's statue of Ma Durga

public bathroom aww yeah

Saturday and Sunday it rained pretty much nonstop. And really, rain in West Bengal = the most kickbutt rainstorms ever. EVER. Flooding is considered routine around here. I would say that I love the storms, because I’m the type of person that enjoys being out in the rain, but I love wifi more and the storms knock it out for DAYS ON END. (Though, on the plus side, my host sister and I have bonded over our mutual despair on the lack of internet.)

I took a pic just as lightning light up the sky, cause I'm awesome like that.

Monday we spent the day in Calcutta. Sanjna goes to college there, and since Puja holidays are beginning on Wednesday (think Christmas break) my host mom and I went with her to pick up some more of her luggage. We wandered around Cal for a several hours, visiting a couple clothing markets before it started raining – Diwali is coming up, so my host mom needs a whole bunch of new outfits. It took me until the train ride back to figure city felt vaguely familiar: Calcutta is pretty much the India version of Boston.

at the bus station

Sanjna's dorm

indoor market

I saw shaun the sheep, a fact that makes me very happy.

funky yellow taxis that are seen only in Calcutta

train station

 

 

Tuesday I traveled to a nearby town with my host father to submit my foreign residence papers. I’m supposed to have then all submitted by the two-week mark, but when we went to finish everything up, we discovered that we didn’t have all the paperwork we needed. The process is very similar to the visa fiasco; it’s amazing anything gets done over here. Ah, well. The four hour drive gave me time to see more of the country side. I didn’t think that the Foreign residence office would be so far away, so I didn’t bring my camera, which was upsetting because the office was in a really pretty park area and I missed out on some pretty fantastic how-did-that-cow-get-there? photos.