5 Days!

It feels like sooooo much longer. In a good way. I just got to the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, which so far seems really nice, I've met two Japanese women and one woman from Toronto who are also volunteering here btu have yet to really figure evrything out. But it's only been a bout an hour.. just stealing some internet time b/c the Canadian girl let me use her laptop.

So. The last two days in Agra, I went to an old city/mosque/palace abandoned by the Mughals called Fatepur Sikhri, to THE TAJ, the Jama Masjid mosque in Agra, and to Agra Fort.. basically lots of amazing Mughal architecture, red sandstone and marble, carvings and gem inlays and hard to describe.. hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon. I've also been adjusting to It, the reality living, walking, getting around in India. And mostly It's amazing. But I can't really think how to coherently describe what it's like at all, so I'm just going to go stream of consciousness here.. the traffic, of course, always honking and crazy rickshaws and motorcycles and motorcycle rickshaws and cows and buses and cars (and they drive on the other side of the road, I didn't realize) but I haven't seen any accidents yet, or caused any by attempting to cross the street. The clothes.. women in everything from saris to shalwar kameez to jeans and tank tops and everything in between, men in turbans and robes or trousers and sweater vests or tight flared pants and fake designers shirts. Animals-monkeys climbing around on the rooftops, on the entrance of the Agra Fort, in the trees.. camels pulling carts by the Taj Mahal.. I walked past this boy on the street and he said "cobra, ma'am?" and he was actually holding a snake! Constant debates about how/where to spend money, do I walk? Or pay for a rickshaw and support the driver? Or walk and give the money I would have payed to a beggar? The gorgeous mosques, at two of the.. 4 or 5 I visited guys talked about Obama and how excited they are that his father is Muslim.. listening to the muzzein calls to prayer. Riding in a taxi/jeep back from Fatepur Sikhri squeezed next to two women in Saris, the teenage girl listening to music on her cellphone, blaring Hindi music almost drowning out the honking, watching the sunset.