Upload update

[uploader's note: the last two Evergreen Stables videos are now up in the post "This Shall Make Thou Bored-eth." Without looking, I think it is two posts before this one. Enjoy! - The Uploader]

A bad idea

So we are sitting in the living room watching tv when Daddy gets up and lights a match. I figure that he's going to make coffee or tea so I go to offer to help. Suddenly, he pulls his arm back and throws the match four feet away to the far side of the kitchen floor. I watch the match sizzle out confused. The conversation that follows went something like this:
"What
"Why'd ya do that?"
"I smelled something funny and wanted to make sure it wasn't gas (cooking gas) that would fill up the house and kill us in our sleep."
"So you check by, if it was gas, blowing up the kitchen?"
"Admittedly it wasn't the best idea ever."
"Uh huh"
This is completely non-India related but this gives an idea of how being here messes up both our heads. Also, it's just really funny.

[uploader's note: two more videos should be up in the two posts below. They took me 90 minutes to upload, so please don't ask the Boo for more video, more often]

This shalt make thou bored-eth

That is unless you absolutely ADORE horses, chickens or dogs. Or frogs. Mostly horses though.

This shows how loose the horses and humans are around each other. That's Kayla by the way.




But then again the humans do ask the horses to do difficult things. Here's Kayla being trained to eventually have all four legs on a tiny block.




Here is an explanation from Bettina about a little of how the stable works:



And finally a random frog. I caught this guy on the stable wall:

Evergreen Farm, continued

The Horses:

This video focuses mainly on Kayla. At three years old she is the youngest equine on the farm. Also at about twenty seconds I focus on two horses scratching each other's butt. Just to let you know that is a sign of friendship.




This is Moksha and Crystal Air (Kris for short). Kris, Moksha's mother, is in the front. They are grooming each other in companionship. You can tell them apart because Kris is slightly bigger and has an upside-down crescent on her forhead while Moksha has no face markings.




This is Opaline, the horse I work with. One of the instructors has a toddler son who calls her Opalet. In this video she is having her hooves clipped. The dog is a friendly doberman named Sultan.

HORSIESSSSS!!!

So, I've started taking natural horsemanship lessons at evergreen stable. I will enjoy describing conditions but while I search my head for the right words, I'll first show you the equine residents.

The Ponies



This is Honey. She is the oldest. She is sometimes nippy on the ground but you can tell she is clever and sweet when you get to know her.




Nicky is four. As Honey's daughter she is sometimes temper-mental, but still sweet.




This is Geruda, Rudy for short. He is the only male in the stables, and I think Nicky's father. He is also the only pinto.

Animals galore!

Finally after weeks I've seen an elephant! The Vinayagar (Ganesh) temple sometimes has an elephant( ya know 'cause Ganesh is elephant-headed) waiting in front of the door, just standing there being fed and gawked at. Daddy had seen the elephant earlier that week and so we decided to go check. When we get there we see everybody pushing and shoving themselves through the motorcycle barricades, but of course this is typical Indian behavior, nothing special. But when we get through the barricades, there she is, a 10 ft high elephant. She's standing on a wooden platform, her face is decorated with blue, white, red, purple and yellow face chalk. Around her feet silver anklets hang, jingling as she moves, and around her neck she wears a gold chain, attached to which is a plaque carrying her name, Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth.



Also, I've now seen two wild, male peacock. The first was in a field. He was displaying. For those of you who have seen peacocks at zoos, wild peacocks are much, MUCH bigger. He was four feet tall, and he had a FIVE FOOT LONG TAIL! Also, peacocks can jump much higher than you would expect them to be able to. He jumped to the top of a meter high fence! He didn't even flap his wings, he just jumped. The second one was on the side of the road, scratching at the ground. It was cool to watch him eat. This one was smaller though, maybe 2 and a half feet. He had about a 4 ft tail.

Videopalooza, part 10

Videopalooza, part 9

Videopalooza, part 7

Late and out of order, but part 7

Videopalooza, part 8

I didn't forget part 7, but it wouldn't upload. I'll keep trying and get it up soon.

Videopalooza, part 6

Videopalooza Part 4-5

Videopalooza part 3

More in a little while.

Videopalooza, parts 1-2

Also, Blogger can be slow and we have to go to internet cafes to do that so these videos will be put in various posts.

Finally, a Saturday off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We decide to take the day and finally tour India. My dad suggests Mamallapuram. Well even though Mamallapuram is a 95 kilometer (one way) trip, we decide to take a tiny TVS-50. Ah, 2 people, 90 lbs of bike, and a 50cc engine on a 200 kilometer (130 mile) round trip. Well we just get outside of Pondicherry and we start seeing birds. We pull over so I can take a look with my binoculars at the little egrets in the marshy areas around the road. Under the tree we pull up next to is an adorable puppy. I call to her (yes, I'm sure it was a her) and she starts wagging her tail furiously. She then crawls on her stomach under the tree root towards us. I come up to her and she immediately rolls on her back and tries to lick my hand. I then get up to leave but she gets to her feet and dashes in front of me. Then she starts rubbing against me. I can't resist petting her more. The she sits in between my legs, her tail hitting my calves, and looks happily up at me. I felt bad when I finally left.

We see some really cool birds too. The coolest ones by far were the pelicans. 20 wild grey pelicans. It was really cool. They were eating and you could see their beaks bulging as they swallowed. Sooo cool.

When we first get to Mamallapuram we first go to see the five pandyas. They were five ancient Indian heroes. The buildings are named after them. 3 of them are made of a single stone. Animal statues are also there, carved from a single stone. The 2 larger buildings are from 3 separate stones.

I would also like to mention the fact that people kept offering to be our tour guides, even to the point of trying to force themselves on to us.

We then went to a fruit stand for some watermelon. And we got mobbed. I decided to buy a souvenir from a guy on the street so while my dad gets the money out of my wallet, everyone starts sticking things in my face and telling me prices. To be honest, it scared me a little.

We tour around and see the temples and sculptures. One of the coolest things was the giant monkey troops. Each with 5 babies at least. They all played with each other.Also, after we saw the picture of Mahishasuramardini, or Mardini who slayed the demon, we saw the funniest thing. A big, huge monkey was walking around. He came straight up to a guy who was holding a sprite bottle. He swiped the bottle from his hand and drank from it. That's right, he put the bottle to his lips, lifted it up and drank. Then, because the bottle was still half full he took the bottle in his mouth and walked toward a discarded water bottle. He carefully put the bottle down and sucked the last few drops from the water bottle up. Then the monkey climbed on one of the rocks and chugged the last of the soda.

Then we went to the croc park. It was set up to save local mugger crocodiles,but got so big that now it is home to crocodiles and alligators from all over the world. We saw the currently biggest crocodile in India. And... I FED THEM!!!!!!!!! There is a promotional thing, you buy some raw meat, 60 rupees a kilo, and feed them. I bought 2 kilos, or 4.4 pounds, and climbed on the feeding block and threw the meat into the pit. The pit is double walled, so one of the bigger crocs (when I was done), jumped onto the inner wall. His front feet hung over the barrier and he opened his mouth really wide and held the position for minutes. I really wished I'd had more meat to throw to him.

Now for the NIGHTMARE, NIGHTMARE, NIGHTMARE RIDE!!!

Never, EVER, drive in India at night. You can't see the bicycles on the left or the cars on your right. They also have no traffic control. The cars on one side, in an attempt to pass each other, kept going outside each other again and again so that they formed a no-gap wall across both lanes. This nearly killed us multiple times. And Tata, you were worried about crocodiles. And then the people with things, namely sugarcane, sticking out from the sides of bikes nearly skewered us. It was, it was... ugh, so horrible I can't describe it. So as not to lessen its horribleness I'll stop trying. Wish me luck not getting killed.

Most of you are aware of my deep love for animals. Well, today's events were started because of that. I insisted that we go see the Pondicherry SPCA and ask about volunteering. It mostly deals with cows but there's also a forlorn looking dog shelter. With no help to be found we decided to leave. It was still early so we went to the botanical gardens, which are the oldest botanical gardens in India. We kinda wander a little but we both are listening for unknown bird calls. Suddenly we hear a aw aw aw. The sound leads us down a path. "Maybe it's a monkey" I say hopefully. "There aren't any monkeys in Pondicherry, you have to go out of the city" he replies. We turn the corner and guess what. 25 ft ahead of us is a wild monkey. And they are wild, the botanical gardens is just like a nature preserve, though an extremely small one.

Anyway, we start to creep forward. Then stop again. Here comes another one! She's fat, extremely pregnant. We near the monkeys again. The female continues on the path but the male starts to climb on the bench. He's close and cute. The male starts to walk away so we decide to follow the female. Before we find her the male runs up with a cookie in his hands and perches on a post eating it ( I mention this because it was cute). When we find the female it turns out to be beyond our wildest dreams. It's a family of monkeys. 6 in all. There was even another female, who'd already given birth! And we were really lucky, too. The baby was a new born, born within the last 24 hours, even! So there was the alpha male, the pregnant female(oldest of the monkeys), younger female, new born, and a pair of yearlings. The yearlings were really cute. I don't know if any of you have seen Orangutan Island or any monkey/chimp shows/videos, but if you have you've probably seen the young primates using young trees as springs and vines to get between trees and to play. That's what the yearlings were doing! ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was 3 ft away from a troop of WILD MONKEYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After our fill of monkeys, we keep walking. We found a red beetle and a common king fisher. Then we found huge brown bats. We saw them stretch their wings. Then one flew to another tree and we got a good look at them. The bat had a 3 ft wingspan! Most of the bats around here are small. Also, I've never seen wild roosting bats!

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know, I know, I should have already written this post, but I wanted to get more information...

First of all, a couple of things you should know but I don't need to elaborate:

1. There are exactly 50 kids in my class, hence many teachers don't take questions except privately. Some don't even stand in front of the class to teach, they just write the lesson on the blackboard

2. (not school related) I can watch Avatar here, in Tamil!

3. For reasons I don't know, I am in 7th grade

4. Here they call grades "standards"

5. Because English is a second language here, the English class is similar to what we learned in 4th grade

6. Everyone is really short here. I'm taller than most of my friends, who are in 7th grade! There's even an eighth grader who only comes up to my waist, the high actual waist (belly button height), not the imaginary one at your thighs below your stomach where most kids think your waist is.

7. Most of these Tamil kids don't speak fluent Tamil! They speak English because they go to an English speaking school. I even knew a word my friend didn't, kudirai (It's hard to spell in English characters, but it's pronounced koo-dee-rye): horse.

8. They only have squat toilets at school, with no toilet paper!!! Any of you wonder why here they eat only with the right hand anymore?

9. There is school on Saturdays

First off they are impossibly strict here. Just today my teacher made 12 kids do 100 squats for not getting their tests signed. And a kid got slapped for writing his homework to small. And all you "manly men" who think it can't be that bad, well, in 1 week the French teacher hit kids 2 boys so much and so hard that they both cried. She'll rap you on the head for misspelling a word, and beat you with a ruler for getting less than 90% on a test. The kids are so scared that they flinch as they come up. Talking in class gets you a slap on the head. And in this country's legal documents it states " all children have a right to be free from physical or mental violence of any form!"

Also, I have a uniform. Pictures are coming. Mon. through Thurs. is a classical Indian outfit. A chudithar (this is for the girls). A long long-sleeved white shirt down to my knees with blue puffy pants (though you can't see that they are puffy, the shirt hides it. The puffy design circulates air.) and a blue dupatta (thick cloth scarf, neatly folded) adorned by the Amalopavam logo. My hair must be in braids, tied with white ribbon. The outfit is completed by a specific kind of black leather sandals. The same on Friday except all white. On some days I have coaching (gym)and then I wear white sneakers and socks (also white).

Pics

More pictures of the market. There are more to come, but click here.

Vultswagon

Yes, I know it's spelled wrong. Actually it's a pretty terrible pun. But first you need to know the story.

So, we get a bus home but the closest place was the main station so we went there. Of course it's a great place for rickshaws to wait. They assume we're ignorant tourists. That we don't know what everything costs or is worth. So they mob. 6 of them just come up to us and say where do you need to go (cause obviously your white and incapable of walking). My dad turns to me and I say I want to walk. So he tells them no thanks. Then we start walking away. And they descend on us again! They say auto rickshaw is much faster. My dad decides to ask "yevlo?" (how much?). Rs.(rupees) 60. 60, really? That's 3 times what a (good) Tamil barterer will pay. We decide not to go by auto. No thanks, is our answer, and we walk away.

Before I continue I would like to mention I am currently watching the equivalent of an Indian American Idol. Also before I forget, Blue Team should go to www.pcvgames999.webs.com. It's a cool site, I'm a moderator! It's made by Blue Team's very own Jay Z! Clap, Clap!!!

Anyway, they get this shocked look on their face, like, hey, white people decided to walk. Then they start pestering again. Vultures, I tell my dad, slightly hysterical. They're like vultures! My dad seems to be in a bartering mood (though he denies it now, trying to hide his love of arguing). We know as foreigners we can't expect a completely fair price. My dad says Rs. 25. He also wants to walk so he sets it insanely low. No, no, 40, comes the reply. She wants to walk, says he glancing at me. An argument (the one my dad had been itchin' for) ensued. We started to walk. Suddenly one comes and says that he'll take us. So we do take an auto. It's a victory to get a price that low.

So, in short, the drivers of autos are vultures. That makes their weapons of mass destruction (destruction of westerner's wallets, that is) there vulture mobiles. One could even venture to call autos vulture wagons. In short vultswagons.

Market Day

Pictures I took at the Sunday market. There are a lot more, but it took my dad over an hour to upload these. More are coming.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/slaybelle/sets/72157614828779037/

Edumucation

Before I forget to mention it there is a mural in my school that reads "Parents are Gods"
Think about that..

Last post I mentioned how proper Indians talk in English. Here's why. I know it sounds silly, but to be fair this is for people learning English as a second language. Here is an excerpt from my English text book.

It is Babu's birtday. He gives a chocolate to Seenu who politely refuses. He says it might harm the teeth. Babu argues
that it will not harm the teeth. Their argument is shown below.

Seenu: Wish you a happy birthday, Babu
Babu: Thank you Seenu. Please have some chocolates.
Seenu: No thank you.
Babu: Why? Do you think that chocolates will harm your teeth?
Seenu: Yes, they will.
Babu: But this is dairy milk chocolate. It won't harm your teeth.
Seenu: Still, I don't agree with you.
Babu: At least try one. It's Amul chocolate.
Seenu: Whatever it is.......I don't want it.
Babu: If you brush your teeth after eating chocolates, nothing will happen
Seenu: However, I am still not convinced.
Babu: Alright, let's go to a dentist and consult.
Seenu: That.s a good idea!

Another one says:

A thief stealthily entered a house. He threatened the inmates with a knife and asked for the jewel box. The child who was sleeping woke up and started crying. They pleaded that they had no jewel box but only an ox. The thief went near the ox to take it away, but it kicked him. The thief lost a tooth and ran away.

This one is from my science book:

a) Leaf margin is notched by broad nosed weevils...b) Citrus leaf lamina with ventral pits is caused by citrus psyllids....e) paddy leaf with elongated deep scarification is caused by leaf beetles and larvae of hispid beetles....f) leaf lamina is extensively skeletonised by leaf skeletonisers.....i) Rice: the binomial of rice is Oryza sativa [and] is attacked by a number of pests...Rice bug sucks the sap from developing grains at the 'milky stage.' It causes 10 to 40 percent loss of rice yield.

And that's just one of six rice pests described! My dad (who is typing this for me right now) is guessing this is because rice is sort of important here.

The Gecko

I know Nadine will like this post. So, yesterday I'm coming out of my room and this shape darts out from beneath my feet. It's a lizard! A gecko to be precise. It looks spotted but I can't tell what kind it is (not that I know any kinds of geckos). I corner it but then it shows me one of its great adaptations. I starts climbing up the wall. It touches ground behind me and runs underneath the door. Then it runs up the door frame and clings to the top where I can't reach. Then he does that gecko thing where he licks his eye. So I call to my dad to help and he is being a wuss. He's afraid to touch it. He does chase it down though. Now to get away the gecko is jumping like a foot through the air. I felt bad for him but we needed to get him outside. Then he jumps on the wall. From there I try to grab him so he jumps at my dad's face. In response my dad screams like a nancy. To be fair, the gecko was fearsome, with its scary gecko teeth all a-gnash. Then my dad went out. I chased it for a little bit. The gecko jumped on my arm. As it jumped off I try to grab the gecko but only manage to grab his tail. This is where it shows me another of its great adaptations. Its tail comes off! Then I scream like a nancy (no offense to any Nancys reading this). In the wild if a bird grabs it by the tail a gecko uses this skill to escape. Oh, and the best part, the tail is still moving. So eventually I catch it in a glass and let it go.

Guess what. Do any of you know the story of Ricki Tiki Tavi? Has anyone seen the drawn or cartoon version of him? That's not what a mongoose looks like. Even the slighter brown mongooses are bigger than that. How do I know this you ask. Well, I happened upon (this is how people talk here, and I'm starting to pick it up, ugg) an indian grey mongoose. In the wild. It was soooo cool.

Ooh look, a chipmunk is eating the grape bait I put out. Gotta go.

Waiting just waiting

I am working on a long general info post so if you don't hear from me for a while, that's why. I'll get it up as soon as possible.

The Indian "Mall"

I've decided to call the post this because Mary asked me if there were malls and I said that the markets were basically the Indian version of a mall. Well, I went to a 'mall' on my second day. We had to go before some of the stalls started closing during the hottest part of the day. The market, on the nutshell, was a maze of tents containing stalls and tables in every possible place you could cram them while still having room to walk. There were spice stalls, shoe stalls, fruit stalls, jewlry stalls, rice stalls, and one table where all they had was jackfruit. There was even a noodle stall that had Star of David noodles!

But then Daddy had to show me the fish section of the market. I think it smelled worse then even the street that always smells like raw sewage, the Petit Canal. And that street is almost impossible to avoid crossing. It's like having to cross a river of skunks who had beans for lunch. Anyway, it was kinda cool. There were even fisherman selling sharks they had caught! So we get home and I'm boiling hot. The fans are turned on and we finally could relax and cool down.

Until the ninjas attacked!!!!!

Naw, just kidding. I just thought this post was a little short.

Sorries

Because of poor internet access I can't always post or write emails, so although I can't get in touch as often as I hoped, please keep sending emails and commenting on my blog.

Also, the computer can be tetchy so I have trouble posting pictures sometimes.

I'm here (sing-song voice)

Finally, I'm here! I took off from Philly at 7:00 PM Sunday and, by Philly time, got to London at 2:00. Then we had to go through security (again, ugh. What could we have done between getting off the plane and getting to the security line, which took all of 5 minutes?!?!?!?!?). Then we took off to fly to Mumbai, which was an ok flight. I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer (awesome show) on my dad's Ipod and then tried to sleep. Sleep, ha ha, as if. After trying to sleep for an hour (and failing miserably) I gave up and played Dragoneer's Art on my PSP. The stupid Fuming Sprigets and Death Furies kept killing me and even if I beat them, the Demon Servant would kill me when I tried to save the Fire Dragon.

Anyway, I finally fall asleep, so I miss breakfast and wake up, only to see lunch has been served! Jet lag is really annoying! We arrive in Mumbai and have to go through security, again! Has the world sunken so low that they distrust the general public this much? So, I'm in a new county, on a new continent, on the other side of the world, and I can't even go through security with my dad!! India is so sex segragated that there are different security lines for men and women! I'm on the other side of the gates, stuck in a slow moving line and my first experience in this new, yet still incredible, country is being seperated from my dad.

That aside, I got to the gate and waited two hours. Then it was off to Chennai, on another flight. A car picked us up and took us to Pondicherry. The trashcans in Chennai were PENGUINS. In Pondicherry they were RABBITS. What is up with this country?...??

During the drive I saw at least 50 cows, 30 goats and and probably 100 dogs. No monkeys or pigs yet, but beautiful birds and wretched bugs are abundant.

So what the trip was...
1. plane from Philly to London 6 and a half hours
2. plane from London to Mumbai 12 hours
3.layover in Mumbai 3 hours
4. plane from Mumbai to Chennai 2 hours
5. car from Chennai to Pondicherry 3 hour

GRAND TOTAL: 26 AND A HALF HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I saw some Pondi sights like the temples and the beach and had a jolly good first day.

The Super Grandma Rap

I know this does not relate at all to India but it is really funny. Click here to see my awesome video or just watch it:

Some pictures

Some introductory pictures of India for Blue Team, thanks to my dad!

Testing...

This is just a test to try out typing on my blog. I also wish to warn you all be using the words quaeritate and jobler often. They are words I adopted from this awesome site, www.savethewords.org, that deals with words in danger of being taken out of the dictionary. They mean, in order, to ask and someone who does small jobs. I'm sorry I can't post anything, being, y'know, I'm still in the great U.S. of A. Ahh well, I'll have more to say in a week.