..SouthAsiaRocks..

Christmas day was good. We met at another couple's house and had a party!! This is a pic of some of our friends that came :) We hope you guys had an awesome Christmas!!! YOU ROCK!

Merry Christmas!!! Well, it doesn't really feel like CHristmas here (since hardly anyone celebrates it) so we've been doing different things so that it feels like Christmas :) We decorated this little tree outside with the kids that we live with. We made ordaments and even decorated the pot :) We also found lights and a little fake tree that we decorated and put inside :) It's fun :) Merry Christmas everyone!! We love you!!! - A&A-

Belive it or not, it's actually getting cold here! We bought a space heater the other day because it gets sooo cold in our house. (The only problem is that our power is out about 12 hours a day, so we can only use the heater the other 12 - oh well :) This is a picture of Ama. She's the helper for the family that lives downstairs from us. She was really cold, so she got under this huge blanket. :)

Here's some pics of our language helpers :) The first pic is of Adam's lang helpers - Depanch and Sunny. The next pic is my lang helper Jaia and her mom.

Yesterday there was an elephant just walking down our street!!!! It was awesome! His owners were asking for money and also for food for their elephant... We paid 10 rs. (25 cents) to take pictures of the elephant and to video him :) It was fun :) In the bottom picture, you can see a baby on top of the elephant... some parents pay to have their children put on the elephant for "good luck" or something like that... It was just funny seeing a large elephant walking down a small narrow street :)

Adam and I were hanging out with a Snake Charmer the other day!! He put the snakes around our necks and everything :) It was crazy!! (don't worry, they take the teeth and the posion out of the snakes before they use them - which makes it a little dissappointing when we see them now :) This guy had two snakes - it was aweome :) 

Well, Adam and I actually got to spend the day as tourists yesterday - it was fun :) The first thing we did was go to the famous place - Humayun's Tomb. It's funny because the price for nationals is only 10 rs. and for foreigners it is 250 rs. - pretty big difference :) We had lots of fun :) Next, we decided to go to the zoo :) At the zoo there were two different prices also... not as big of a difference, but it was 10 rs. for nationals and 50 rs. for foreigners. When we got to the ticket counter, we spoke to the lady in the language here and she asked us where we live. We told her and she was so excited and impressed with our language that she let us in for the local price!! It was a small language victory :) The zoo was fun! We didn't get to spend very long there because it closed a little over an hour after we got there, but it was cool!! I fell in love with this cute little bear. I didn't have the settings right on my camera, so the pic isn't very good, but you ...

The fireworks keep coming!!!! They have been going non-stop for days! They are soooo loud. When they go off, they rattle our whole house. It's really cool though - the sky is so bright and colorful!! Oh yeah and you can check out the old stuff that's in the archives -->

Today was Dewawalii - we decorated our floor - it was fun!! It looked really cool when we were done :) When we woke up this morning, our house had been deocrated with long strands of Marigolds and leaves from the Mango trees. It was very elaborate! At night we had dinner and everyone wears something new. I wore a saree and I even tried to put it on myself - and I did a pretty good job :) (but they did have to help me fix it :) We had a great time.... we spent the day visiting friends, giving gifts of sweets and eating sweets :)

Today was the beginning of Depawalii – everyone celebrates it differently. The family we live with celebrates 4 days of it. Today is the beginning, and tomorrow is the main day of the holiday with fireworks and crackers going all night – VERY LOUD ;) Tomorrow they will decorate the ground (I’ll take pics) but today was just many lights and shopping and a few fireworks (all night). The green stuff that Shakshi is playing with is to decorate the floors with tomorrow. It's sawdust from cleaning the floors that has been dyed... It looks like Christmas here – almost EVERY house has lights… it looks cool! There are tons of stores set up on the side of the roads that have statues of their gods in all shapes and sizes. Another thing that they do is to put candles around their house. Eleven is the lucky number. They put the candles around the doors and in the front of the house. They make the candles with cotton rolled into a wick and then they pour cooking oil into the little mini clay pot...

The kids that live downstairs from us kept telling us about a performance they were going to have at school that was coming up…well, it was yesterday, and it started early in the morning, so we had to get up early and all cram in their car. Anyway, we get there and it was a whole school athletic meet. It was awesome!! They had all sorts of athletic events. Shakshi was in the dancing group. They did a dance – it was cool. Raj was in the PT group (kinda like PE) – they did stretching exercises together to the beat of a drum and the sound of the harmonium (a mini organ that is a lot like the accordion – you have to pump it – it’s crazy) :) They had competitions after that. They had all sorts of races… it was funny. They would call people (usually grandparents – because they are very respected) out of the audience to hand out the awards for a group. For example – they had the 100 meter race and they called Mr. Singh, grandfather of Shapangi Singh to come forward and give out the honors for...

This is a pic of Adam and the kids that we live with . They live downstairs. We play with them everyday from 3:00-5:00 :) On this day we were playing a game with Big Red gum... I don't know if you know it... In this game you put the gum in your mouth - then you lick the silver part of the wrapper and stick it to your forehead... and you see who can keep it there the longest... (the cinnamon makes it start to burn after a while) - Anyway, it was funny and they thought it was great :) 

I love to take pictures of feet (I know, a little weird) but this was too fun to pass up :)

Today is a special holiday for women :) I got to dress up in my Saree for the first time. It was very hard to put on - I'm definitely not a professional yet :)

This is a picture of me wearing my Kurta Pajama. This is the type of outfit that I wear pretty much everyday.  

Our monkey friends visit us frequently :) This monkey has a baby that is really funny. The baby likes to hang and climb on everything - especially wires and things like that - it's funny :)  

This is our favorite Veggie Man :) He comes by our house in the morning and late afternoon. He's cool.

Adam and I went out to a village the other day with a friend. Adam got to milk a buffalo. He wasn't very good at it though. He only got a few drops :) Oh well...

We saw some fun things when we first arrived at the capital. This first picture is of a boy that was selling beards outside the red fort. I thought this was hilarious!

OK, I"m going to attempt to post some pictures. This first picture is of our house. We live on the top floor. The family that owns the house lives on the bottom floor. Here are the the kids that we live with - (L-R) Youb Raj, Puru & Shakshe

OK, here it is again :) Me and Shakshe.

Here we are in a new place!! This pciture is of me and Shakshe - the girl that lives downstairs from me :)