Mumbai!

My last week in Ahmadabad is a blur of activity as I begin to make firm plans to live in Mumbai. Tulsi has begun an internship with Times of India so will be staying in Ahmadabad at least until mid January. I’ll be on my own which is both exciting and frightening at once. I don’t have too much time to worry because there are preparations to make and still more weddings to attend. Friday night Tulsi and I board a bus for Mumbai.

Before I know it we are whirling around the city looking for a place to stay. Since I’m not sure if Tulsi will join me in a month or so, I want something I can get out of mid-jan and doesn’t require me outfitting a full apartment. Paying guest (PG) arrangements are common here and the way to find them is through a broker. So we meet 3 different guys of varying levels of sketchiness, taking dizzying rickshaw rides around Bandra, the area near my office, to visit elderly aunties with rooms to let. On Sunday, I decide on a place walking distance from the office where I will work. My new home is a room shared with 2 other girls in the (fairly luxurious by Indian standards) flat of a woman, her son and her niece. By that night I am all moved in to my new home and saying goodbye to Tulsi before she takes the train back to Ahmadabad.

I go into the office on Monday unsure of what to expect. I find a casual atmosphere and friendly, goofy team of 3 Americans and 2 Indians working on an exciting approach to changing the world: shape young people who care about their communities and are willing to take action to make change. It took me about a week to be assigned any real work but it feels good to be busy again and its nice to have a routine. I get to the office around 9:30am walking 15 minutes past tall apartment buildings, a hospital, catholic schools, and shops stuffed with food and cigarettes, bags of snacks and Rs20 sachets of anti-hairfall shampoo and neem facewash hanging under red Vodafone signs.

The Youth Venture team, of which I am now a part, shares the office with Ashoka’s regional staff of 3 cheery Indian ladies. Upstairs is “the hub” an office space run by Unltd, another social entrepreneurship organization. Its always full of interesting national and international personalities and holds learning lunches and screenings of TED talks. The YV teams hangs out with hub regulars, going to dinner almost every night. I join them a few times but also meet with Tulsi’s cousin Shivang and Naina, a friend of his I met when we were first in Mumbai. Some days I just go home after leaving the office around 7 or 8pm and make some Maggie (ramen noodles) and chat with my roomies before sleeping.

On Saturday Chitra, a school friend of Tulsi’s who I met at a wedding and who lives in Mumbai, takes me with her to visit her auntie in Churchgate. I am submerged back into Guajarati as we snack and chat. Later we go to Colaba where there are street stalls to browse full of sandals, bags, western clothes, kurtis, scarves, and colorful jewelry. On the train home and sitting in a rickshaw in traffic, I am impatient to arrive at the party for YV Venturers (the youth we help to run projects in their communities). When I finally arrive I join them for games and several speeches about how amazing their accomplishments are. They are pretty inspiring: a 16 year old putting 80 slum dwelers back in school, a 20 year old who teaches life skills to girls living in institutions.

Sunday I meet up with Shivang and a big group on his friends who are lively and super inclusive. We eat at a nice little restaurant in Bandra where the Italian food that tastes surprisingly un-indian. After 3 hours of animated conversation they drop me home where I finish out a lazy evening by going for south Indian food with my roommate and walking home. There are a few details left to iron out here in Mumbai but I am well on my way to striking in roots.

Silk burn and bangle bruises

There are red marks above my hips and my right hand is a bit tender from being squeezed into borrowed bangles that are too small but I am proud of these signs I have worn my first saree last night for Shruti's wedding. Shruti, who has been a friend of Tulsi's since they were in primary school, has involved us in nearly all of her marriage ceremonies. Hers is an arranged marriage with a guy from Ahmadabad who lives and works in London. They spend hours on end talking over the internet or phone until he arrives a few days before the wedding ceremonies start.


We go to Shruti's house where she shows us the piles of new clothes she has bought which will be displayed at one ceremony showing how her family has equipped her before giving her away to the grooms family. We accompany her to the salon and to the ceremonies at her in-laws. We return to her house for mandy where henna is painted on our hands so we must eat gingerly help each other answer phones to avoid smearing the flowers and curly-cues. In the morning on the day of the wedding, we have missed a ceremony where a yellow paste of turmeric is smeared with blessings on Shruti's face. Mid-morning we go to the party plot where the wedding itself will be held to join cousins, aunties and uncles who look on while the pundit guides her parents through blessings for the gods represented by coconuts. Afterward Shruti is sent off to the salon while we return home to rest and change. Tulsi is excited to wear a brocade blouse she has had made to match several of her mom's sarees and while her auntie makes accordion folds to be tucked and pinned in the borrowed saree I will wear, Tulsi drapes two or three before deciding.


When we arrive back at the party plot the grooms family is dancing outside accompanied by a band. Shruti's mom and sister stand at the entrance ready to receive them, backed by aunties and uncles. The groom is blessed before entering, a friend guarding his face with a handkerchief against the playful tradition of Shruti's mother grabbing his nose. The bride and groom sit on fancy chairs on a covered stage to perform the marriage ceremonies. Shruti's parents sit on the floor with the pundit while her siblings and Tulsi are on hand to adjust her heavy veil or pass her a handkerchief. Photographers and videographers from each side shine bright lights on the entire proceeding. The bride and groom put garlands of flowers around each other's necks, are tied together with a cloth, walk in 4 circles around the ceremonial fire. More mischievous traditions involve the bride's side hiding the groom's shoes and selling them back, on the last circle the bride's brother holds the groom's toe until he is payed off. The many guests go to fill heaping plates before the married couple and their families sit to eat. Afterward they return to the bride's house to do one last pooja before returning to give gifts to each individual in the groom's family. At the end the bride says goodbye to her family, crying as she leaves them to join her in-laws and husband.


We are slightly less involved but equally dressed up for the festivities for a few other weddings before heading to Mumbai. The city is a striking combination of concrete high rises and slums. It is humid and warm with a yellow light and busy energy that feels familiar. We stay with Tulsi's family, first in an older neighborhood of narrow streets in south Mumbai. We walk to the beach crowded with families and couples and see the harbor ringed by streetlights. Later we are in newer areas, shopping on linking road, meeting with friends of Tulsi's in Bandra, sampling the posh restaurants on Carter road and walking along the seafront. We take the local train to Andheri, squished together in the ladies' car, to meet the owner of a production house that might have work for Tulsi. The bus we take back is mired in the constant traffic which reminds us of LA. I meet with the woman I have been in contact with about an internship with Ashoka's Youth Venture. (Check out their work here: http://www.youthventureindia.net) I have been up in the air about whether to stay or not but they have a lot of interesting work to be done and will allow me to ease into using Hindi. I think I've just decided to be here at least 6 months. Its scary but also exhilarating. There are a lot of details to arrange but first we return to Ahmadabad.

Agra, Dheli and Weddings, Oh My

We step off the sleeper train at 7am exhausted, sticky and dirty. Tulsi feels sick. Our mission in Agra is to see the Taj Mahal but first all we want is to clean up. We ask the rickshaw driver to take us to a 5 star restaurant where we figure we can use the restrooms to change and freshen up. He tells us frankly such a restaurant is not in our budget. So I hop out at various mediocre spots to fain enough interest in breakfast to check if the bathrooms are up to Tulsi's cleanliness standards (which are higher than mine ).

We find a place with a relatively clean western toilet, cushy booth seats, and no other customers. Tulsi sleeps until her lemon ginger tea and my parathas come and then again afterward. I eventually nod off over my Hindi book. The proprietor doesn't seem fazed that we have spent only 300 rupees and 3 hours in his restaurant and gives us advice on how to get to Dheli that evening.

Around 11am we make it to the Taj Mahal where there are thousand of tourists snapping photos and wander through the surreally symmetric complex. The marble is inlaid with semiprecious stones from all over the world and the tricks in the architecture make the building both more impressive and durable.

We take the bus from Agra to Dheli, its driver honking shrilly like the horn rather than the engine is propelling us past rice patties, women carrying firewood in fabric bundles, stacks of cow patties stored for construction, a farmer on an elephant, families making bricks, and small crossroad towns that line the road with food shops, chai stands, tables of produce, and rickshaws.

Arriving in Dheli, we shower and meet with friends of Tulsi's from her study abroad stint here. The city is sprawling with wide, busy streets and a lot of green. The next day we go to a famous market and meet more friends for lunch in P.C., a huge complex of shops built by the British.

We venture into an old, mainly Muslim area of the city to visit the orphanage where Tulsi used to volunteer. The neighborhood looks much more like the rest of the country than most its metropolitan capital, we pass a wholesale market where things are being carted away by cow and camel. The staff at the children's shelter is happy to update us that nearly all the kids who Tulsi had taught were now reunited with their parents. (Many run away or are lost in the metro or at the train station and, having no way to contact their village or relatives, end up at such drop-in centers indefinitely).

The mood is a bit somber until leaving the metro we find a group of young people stopped at the bottom of an escalator, fascinated but scared to test these moving stairs. Each of us grab one by the hand and steady them through their first ride, everyone laughing triumphantly at the top.

On the upscale express train back to Ahmadabad we feel pampered by the cleanliness and meals provided. Further pampering follows as we prepare for the next week full of weddings with eyebrow threading and facials.

To warm up we hit two receptions of Tulsi's father's business partner's sons. These are formal affairs with lots of catered food on grassy party plots. 500-1000 people eat off plastic plates and line up to take pictures with the bride and groom. We'll be part of the whole week long string of events for 4 childhood friends and 1 neighbor. We dance with one family, rise early the next day to accompany another bride to the beginning of her 5 hour day at the salon , return to the first girl's house for a mandy function where henna is painted on our hands, then go back to the in-laws of the second's. In all of this there is eating, lots of it. The next week will continue this way until we go to Mumbai.

Rajastan 2

After a few days in Ahmadabad we are back on the road again, this time driving with Tulsi's parents and snacking on homemade goodies.


Our next tour of forts and palaces, much grander and older in this part of the state, starts in Udipur. Called the lake city, it is situated around two lakes with one palace in the city, one high on the overlooking hill, and one in the middle of a lake. We arrive at night, walking through a few gardens and stopping at a large traffic circle to rent a paddleboat on the manmade pond in the middle. The next morning we visit city palace, which is again divided into a museum, a hotel, and the royal family's personal residence. As we leave, our guide points out the prince (25, unmarried, and an engineer, as we've already scoped out) speaking with some men on a balcony a floor above us. Tulsi waves and he waves back. We put him on the top of the perspective husbands list.
Our next stop is Nathwara, a pilgrimage town for followers of Shree Nath Ji . I learn the story as we drive up winding roads, further into the mountains. The statue of the god is not manmade but rather was found on a mountain near Dheli so no 3-d replicas can be made. The growing group of followers keep only 2-d representations of the god come from all over to make offerings and pray to the god in this small town where the statue was moved for safety during Mogul rule. We walk through narrow streets lined with shops selling pictures of Shrinathji, sweets to offer the god, saris, toys, rajistani jewelry, and At the temple, we wait with hundreds of others for the opportunity to see the god. Once allowed in, people run to the small area where the god is housed, pushing and struggling against the press of people to have one or two minutes in front of the statue.


Back in the car, we are dodging trucks carrying huge blocks of marble, Tulsi and I jumping out of the back seat to push when we stall out on a hill. We visit Ajmer's famous mosque whose press of people has much the same feel as yesterday's holy place. We drive to Pushkar where there is the only temple to Brahma, the world's creater. It is a small town where there are thousands of temples and many foreign tourists. We continue on to Jaipur, a big city with shopping malls and movie theaters alongside ancient gates and palaces.


Jaipur's fort has the third longest surrounding wall in the world and saw most of its battle action before Mogul presence. We take an elephant ride up to the Amber Palace and bond a bit with Lukshmi, our elephant, who is 40 years old and can take your tip with her trunk. That night we go to Chokidhani an all inclusive place with all you can eat rajistani food. It turns out to be quite a ways out of town getting further away each time we stopped to ask for directions, but is worth the trip.


The next stop is Kota, where Tulsi's mother grew up. The house where the 3 generation joint family lives feels like am Indian soap opera set. Everyone is warm and welcoming. After dinner we go for a spin with Tulsi's 18 year old cousin listening to Hindi hits and Michael Jackson on the way to get crushed ice drenched in sweet syrup.The next day we pile 6 in the car to drive around Kota. We visit the palace (relatively small and rustic) and the lake and cruise past the hostels where thousands of students stay while taking test-prep classes. We return home to be stuffed full of parathas and soup before Tulsi and I get on the train to Agra.

Rajastan 1

Nov. 6
Boarding the 3-tier sleeper train to Jodhpur feels like my first step into foreign surroundings but manage to sleep until we arrive in the morning. Jodhpur is an introduction to tourism in Rajastan: we visit the fort, palace and marketplace. All are grand because the Marharaja is one of few who has retained his wealth. He has an unmarried polo-star son who, after seeing his picture, we put near the top of Tulsi’s list of potential husbands. We follow the advice of a local contact of Tulsi’s cousin who runs a handicraft export business. He and his family are an excellent example of the hospitality for which Rajputs are famous, having us over for dinner, conversation and delicious food.

Welcome to the Jodhpur-Jaisalmer bus. Although you may have paid full price for your seat, others have not so they will be squeezed five to a sleeper compartment above and anywhere else they can find space. Please note that the windows are your emergency exits so feel free to spit, throw trash, buy water bottles or fried snacks through them. In the aisle, veiled aunties lead to uncles in loose cotton robes, these lead to more uncles in tight bellbottoms and heavy mustaches. We will be stopping at every small town along the way and announce ourselves with a honk that sounds like royal entrance horns each time we pass in the opposite lane. Also, please be prepared for further delay, as we will inevitably experience a flat tire about 15 km from our destination.

At the hotel in Jaisalmer , we meet a Bengali couple as we plan our trip to the sand dunes. We join them to tour the fort and make friends at a local café before heading into the desert. We ride camels to the dunes where we can see the sunset. We grill Salim, our camel’s owner, about himself and his village and find out that although he looks almost 30 years old he is only 18. We continue to make friends, first with some teenagers selling cold drinks to the tourists, then with the hotel’s driver and his cousin who owns a small shop nearby. There is a cultural program with music and folk dance, then dinner, then a stroll on the dunes under a full moon. In the morning we take the hotel’s open top bus to the nearby village where our friends live, visiting the tank where women in bright saris and children are drawing water in metal jars to carry home on their heads. On the way back to Jaisalmer in the taxi we have shared with the Bengali couple, we catch up with the safari bus and switch over for the rest of the ride waving royally to kids along the highway.

We end up with tickets for the general compartment on the train to Bikaner but there are few riders so it is not the dangerous, stifling, packed-full affair this compartment usually entails. But, as we chug through the desert everything is covered in sand even with the windows closed. Pulling out my Hindi book starts a conversation with the family across from us who are traveling to visit a sister married into a small town on the way. They think it will be funny to feed me the spicy vegetable they have prepared for the trip so they stack pudis onto newspaper for Tulsi and me. We are hungry and the vegetable is not spicy for me at all, but it doesn’t seem to ruin their fun. We say a warm goodbye before the train begins gathering dust again.

In Bikaner we stay at a hotel owned by a retired army man who is extremely enthusiastic about the history and sites of the town. We visit the palace but skip the recommended restaurant there for a local all-you-can-eat place our rickshaw driver suggests. The next day we wake early to visit the famous rat temple and the fort, since we are cutting it close to return to Jodhpur and catch our train. At the temple I am prepared for the floor to be covered in rats (and you have to take your shoes off, of course, before entering). Apparently, many of the rats have been dying so they were numerous but one could walk easily without touching them. Tulsi was excited to go initially but after seeing the first rat I practically carried her through our quick visit.

Our bus to Jodhpur is the picture of haste speeding through the desert. Honking shrilly, we overtake a camel cart and swerve back in time to miss a cargo truck going the other direction. I can just catch a glimpse of a small concrete house, mud huts, scattered goats, a figure in a bright pink sari with a silver water pot on her head and children on each side.

Here is our route, well, more or less:

View Larger Map

India!

Oct. 25-29
My first week in Ahmadabad falls between Dewali (new years) and the peak wedding season. For those of you that don’t know, I am staying here with Tulsi, a good friend from college, and her family. Most of our days are filled with meeting people for meals, visiting or receiving visitors and running back and forth to tailors and fabric shops. There are alterations to have done, old saris to be made into Punjabi suits, matching fabrics and laces and scarves. As expected the traffic is crazy – cars, rickshaws, motos, bicycles, cows, and pedestrians compete for the road. Days begin and end late, they start with masala chai and are punctuated with delicious meals.

We do make a day trip to Nadiad and Baroda passing tobacco and rice fields on our way to the 12th birthday of a cousin. Back in Ahmadabad, we prepare bio-data to submit to the marriage bureau for Tulsi’s brother-cousin in the US who is trying to find a suitable Indian bride. Marriage, weather love or arranged, seems to be everyone’s favorite subject.

Next, Tulsi and I strike out on our own for a week in Rajastan!

Up to Date

Oct. 24, 2009
A layover I Singapore. I have just enough time that I could go out and explore the city. The adventurer in me has read the travel guide on the flight from Hong Kong and is itching to see the sights. Then there is the rational me that says if I want to get a job or have any friends left I better spend some quality time with my laptop. It has been pretty crazy lately and my gateway has sat most of it out. So lets back up here, where have I been the last two weeks?

Oct. 8---
Even my send off from San Francisco is chaotic with last minute unexpected visitors from Juneau and the ladies next to my assigned seat on the flight to Miami asking me to switch with their friend 10 rows away. After losing sleep to so many errands and goodbyes I thought the first step in my new life is to sleep but apparently it’s the overhead bin luggage shuffle.

I’m a little overwhelmed by how much love I’ve gotten from the Bay Area. I’m so lucky to have the friends I do. Everyone has been so supportive of my decisions and goals. It’s scary to be on my own in the big wide world but its also exhilarating.

The notes I was taking went downhill quickly from there, apparently the fatigue finally hit me. I continued in a sleepy haze through the delightfully bilingual Miami Airport where I vaguely remember eating a guava and cheese pastry before boarding my flight to the Dominican Republic. I woke in time to regret having an aisle seat on the decent to Puerto Plata Airport. My Uncle Art met me at the exit and promptly bought me a cold Presidente beer before driving me past palms and sugarcane fields to his beach house in Sosua.

My uncle’s house is unbelievable. It looks like its straight out of an in-flight magazine article on tropical vacations. First thing, I went for my camera and discovered it had zero battery (which never happens, I swear) and I had not brought the cord. So no pictures, but I’ll try to be descriptive.

That first night we went to the next town over, Cabarette, which has a wide beach lined with bars and restaurants. The lounge chairs are collected once the sun goes down and replaced with tables and chairs. Though we had planned to meet them later in the week, we happened to run into friends of my Uncle’s who had been working on education related projects on the north coast. Tricia, who has tons of connections and ideas about possible work for me in the DR, is now starting up a coffee house and a new foundation. Sarah who used to work with Tricia, is now opening a Montessori school. Both had interested opportunities to offer me in terms of community development work but neither could pay me.

Having seen mostly the walled-in houses and gated developments in Sosua and along the highway, I was glad to get a fuller sense of the area. We drove through Los Cheramicos, a mostly Dominican town across the bay from Sosua. Brightly painted cement houses and shops line narrow but paved streets where motorbikes and cars pass food carts and people gathered outside in plastic chairs. I also got a glimpse of a poorer neighborhood, small houses with dirt floors, front rooms with hand painted signs, their inhabitants sitting outside on the narrow, rutted streets, watching us pass curiously.

I saw a whole other picture of Sosua when we drove home one night thought the main street. It was lit up by bars full of (mostly foreign) men and girls with a lot of make up and not so many clothes. Sex tourism is big in the Dominican and apparently Sosua is part of the scene.

I’d like to report that all of my time was spent learning about the country and its people, observing the burning social issues, and picking up local slang, but truthfully, especially the first weekend, I spent a lot of time at the pool soaking in sunshine and relaxing.

By Monday I was ready for some less sedentary activities. My uncle had a massage scheduled in Cabarette so I took the opportunity to check out Sarah’s Montessori school. The space was perfect, light and airy – just missing a few more things before little ones from the nearby neighborhood would have an unusually well supported start at education. I helped varnish some low tables as Sarah told me about her plans for the school.

We ended up eating lunch with Sarah and her boyfriend on the beach in Cabarette right next to a windsurf/kiting/sailing rental place. It came up that I had taught sailing which excited my uncle since he knew the owner of the rental place. A couple conversations later I had a “technical interview” the next morning. Returning the following day I was introduced to a friend of the owner’s who was to be my test student. It was definitely not my best lesson but we had a great 2 hours on the water. Apparently I passed the test, leaving me with a good possibility of paying work should I decide there is some underpaid calling in the area I must answer to.

Though my uncle’s Spanish is quite good in daily situations, I translated a bit for his newest household help, Olga. She was the night guard’s cousin’s sister in-law, or something like that. Once business was out of the way I kept her company in the kitchen, learning the recipe from her as she made Dominican stewed chicken. I also learned that her little house was built by a foreign development project and her eldest of five daughters had been adopted by an American family and goes to high school in the US.

I was impressed, especially by her example, of how much foreign impact there is on the lives of Dominicans. There is this distasteful situation of hundreds of Dominicans making the rational economic decision to go into some degree of sex work or another which is fueled by a certain brand of tourism. There are half empty and half finished all-inclusive resorts sprouting up with, I’m sure positive and negative impacts for locals. At the same time here is a woman, who speaks no English and tells me she is semi-illiterate, whose life has will be dramatically changed if her daughter is able to get her medical degree and return home as she has planned.
Wednesday evening my uncle’s girlfriend arrived and we went to a Hungarian restaurant in Sosua. I was constantly surprised by the ex-patriot community in the area. Our Hungarian waiter spoke some English but almost no Spanish!

Before I left the US I wrote to an organization called AgroFrontera doing agricultural development work closer to the Haitian border on the north coast and in the Ciabo Valley. They were generous enough to let me visit so I woke up early on Thursday and boarded a cushy, air conditioned bus for Santiago, a larger city about an hour and a half south of Sosua. From there I switched to a gua gua, a smaller, less well appointed bus, headed for a little town called Villa Vasquez where I was to meet the program director. The plan was to accompany him to the coast where the organization was beginning to work with fishermen. The gua gua stopped at each town along the highway making the trip about 2.5 hours and giving me a great tour of the Ciabo Valley. The road was lined with rice fields which I later learned were the reason for the fairly good ratio of cement to wooden houses I also observed. It turned out that our trip to the coast was canceled so I learned quite a bit about AgroFrontera’s work with rice farmers on sustainability as well as the history of rice production in the area. Super interesting stuff, fabulously warm and helpful staff, but of course no job for me. My return trip, after a delicious Dominican meal with my hosts, was long but air conditioned.

Friday morning we visited the school my uncle had helped to build. The Directora was extremely happy to have us and explained how they taught over 400 low-resource students, k-12, in 7 small classrooms. She was proud to have the largest computer lab in the area of about 12 computers sharing a room with the small library. I learned just how much better this school was than the public ones from Santa, the lady my uncle had to the house to do manicures and pedicures. We chatted about her business and life in the area. She told me her daughters had seen us at the school earlier, that they had switched there from a public school after receiving scholarships. She felt they were getting a much better education and had good chances of finishing high school and possibly continuing to college – huge achievements she never had the chance at.

Saturday we went shopping for all the little things my uncle’s house needed to function as he would like. In order to find some les s common things, we drove into Puerto Plata and went in a few circles on the one way streets of the historic downtown. The shuttered, wooden buildings were easy to imagine in a colonial era - very Pirates of the Caribbean. The rest of the city resembled others in Latin America that I’ve visited – all cement and loud signage.

That evening I met up with Claudia, a friend of a friend, who lives in Santiago, and 3 of her buddies who came to stay in Cabarette for the weekend. (Dominicans work 5 and a half days so Saturday and Sundays are the big nights to be out). I went with them to the hostel and we had a chance to bond before they took me out dancing. We hit up the beach bars at Cabarette filled with techno, reggaeton, and mix of tourists and locals before driving to Playa Dorada, outside of Puerto Plata, where the scene was much more Dominican both music and dancers. By the time I had my fix of bachata it was 5am but the club was still packed when we left. We split the next lazy day between the pool and the beach in Cabarette. It was great to spend a full 24 hours in Spanish and learned from people my age about the country. I was really sad to see them go.

Monday I was off on the next adventure but hoping I could return to the DR soon. I said goodbye to my Uncle and flew out of Puerto Plata arriving in Miami in the evening. As planned, a friend from Juneau, Moose, flew in to meet me and take advantage of the one night layover. Moose runs a Tango school but also works for Alaska Airlines – thus the ability to fly last minute for a one night party and the dancing skills to make the former worthwhile. Unfortunately, I had not planned on the hotel shuttle mysteriously loosing my bag, but they did, and have yet to find it. Moose and I handled the situation by getting some last minute digs and hitting the dance floor anyway. I managed sleep about an hour before catching my flight back to SFO with just my purse and a shopping bag.

My three days in the US were a whirlwind of visiting with my sister and my parents who were in town to see me off, luggage sorting, and last minute shopping to replace the most essential contents of my missing bag. Late Thursday night I was at SFO again, passing out just after take off on my way to the next big thing: India.