February 21st

Another week has flown by. I honestly cannot believe how fast the time is passing here. I can feel myself starting to think and act more like I belong too. When I get into a rickshaw I tell them how much I will pay instead of asking, I now pick and choose which breakfasts to get in the mess hall depending on the day (Tomorrow is banana buns! My personal fave), and most notably, every time I see another white person on campus I automatically ask myself ‘what are they doing here?’ and I find myself staring for no reason at all. I quickly realize that I am doing exactly what I wished others would stop doing to me but I’m realizing it’s very hard not to be a little bit curious

                Classes last week were pretty time consuming. Between my 5 classes here, one online course for Arcadia, our Hindi lessons, our Bharatnatym dance class, and our 6:30 am yoga, our days are always full and the homework piles up quickly. Other than a typical student complaint about homework, I can’t say a bad thing about anything pertaining to the program so far. Well, there are a total of 9 mosquito bites on my right arm alone but I take my malaria meds daily so they should be fine… right?? :/

                Yesterday (Sunday), was a national polio eradication day here in India. We got to visit a lot of the vaccination sites that were set up all over each town. The program is primarily sponsored by WHO (world health organization) and the Gates foundation (as in Bill Gates of Microsoft). It has proven to be really effective and last year was the first year since it began that there were absolutely no new cases of polio recorded in India! woohoo :) It was nice to hear that it really was making a difference since it’s a fact that most projects and public health missions in India only receive $.15 out of every dollar given. There is a lot of corruption and bribing that goes on behind the scenes in India so a lot of programs don’t receive half of the money that has been given to them. Anyways,  I got to immunize some of the children so that was really cool and surprisingly really easy.  All it consists of is two drops from a vile containing about 20 full doses of polio boosters. The booths were set up in bus stands, in health centers, even in half of a store that the owner donated for the day. The next day after almost every family came on their own to get their children vaccinated, were door to door checking to see if the families had received the service.

And today marked the beginning of my birthday celebrations! Tonight we went out to a Hookah Bar and had some delicious Oreo milkshakes and Pan Masala Hookah. My roommate and her friends came and surprised me with a birthday cake that read “happy birthday Tmily”. Apparently Priyanka’s Es look more like Ts. Fun fact about birthdays in India: when they buy you a cake, they expect you to eat most of it… like half of the whole freakin’ cake. Everyone takes turns feeding the birthday girl/boy and most times smearing it all over their face (I avoided this part very tactfully). And then later on when back in the hostel. A few of the girls came in and gave me some birthday bumps which is when you’re grabbed by your legs and arms and hurled in the air the same number as how old you are turning. I can definitely say I had a typical Indian Birthday though and that makes me happy. We were invited last minute to go onto Manipal’s Chancellor’s personal boat tomorrow night so that will be a very fun end to my birthday I believe and will keep my mind off of the fact that I miss everyone back home terribly and I wish I could have them all here with me.