Happy Losar!

For those that may not be aware, not only was yesterday Valentine's Day, but it was also Losar. This is the lunar New Year as celebrated in Tibet and is the biggest holiday of the year for our Tibetan students. Beth and several other teachers decided to wear their traditional Tibetan chubas to celebrate the occasion.

Ordinarily, these dresses are worn without an apron by women who aren't married. There was one other married woman besides Beth in the picture above, but she must have forgotten to put her apron on.

Dave was able to get in on the Tibetan dress action yesterday, too. One of our students brought a new shirt back from Nepal that actually fit Dave. We looked very sharp in our new Tibetan digs.

Unfortunately, this will probably be the last time that Beth wears her chuba in India. Her clothes are starting to get a bit tighter lately, and it won't be long before the baby makes it impossible to squeeze on.

Dave and Beth

The Blue City

Jodhpur is another one of the cities in Rajasthan. It is called the "Blue City" for obvious reasons.

We stayed in a neat haveli, which was an old mansion with a courtyard in the middle. The room was comfortable, but the door was a bit of a squeeze for Dave.

Most of our first day in the city was spent waiting for midnight. This was New Year's Eve and we had no Dick Clark or Time's Square. We ate dinner and played a few games before laying low.

We pulled ourselves away from our books shortly before midnight and went up to the roof to celebrate 2010. Though we have never experienced one first-hand, we imagine a warzone to be similar to Jodhpur at midnight on New Years Day. The shear volume of fireworks being set off was amazing. It was also remarkable to see how absolutely dangerous these celebrants were.

The next day, we went to see Jodhpur's fort. Like that of Bikaner, it was very well preserved and it even had a nice little gift shop at the end.

We also spent some time in the bazaar there and did some shopping for spices.

Judging by day one, it seems as though 2010 will be a great year!

Dave and Beth

Camels, Camels, and More Camels

The next stop on our tour was the city of Bikaner. This was a smaller and more relaxed urban center in Rajasthan, but it had one of our most unique experiences. To begin with, we visited the old fort that the rulers of the area used to occupy. It was really well preserved and the audio tour was quite nice.

After that, we went to the annual Bikaner Camel Festival. This was quite an experience! We were met by hundreds and hundreds of camels and camel drivers. Most were decked out in their finest.

There was an amazing parade of camels around Bikaner's municipal stadium. One of the best parts was that this event was not too touristy. The vast majority of the spectators seemed to be Indian with a few scattered Westerners. It was wonderful to see the camel beauty peagant.

There was also a contest to see who could shave the best design into their camel's wool.

We also really enjoyed the Mr Rajasthan contest that was held. I don't think that this little boy won, but it may have been a result of his attitude.

We spent a couple of hours in the hot sun, but it was definitely worth it. The only sad thing was that we had to miss the camel races that were organized for the next day because our train left too early. Oh well...maybe next year...

If you want to see more picture of these crazy camels, check out our website.

Dave and Beth

Celebrating

Though our grades have been completed and entered since Monday, we still had one extra week of school to complete. Since there was little motivation to start anything new, much of our time this past week has been taken up by celebrations of the end of the semester. On Wednesday, we had our advisor group Christmas party. We played games,

decorated Christmas cookies,

and had some great Tibetan food.

We also made our students bring in a sock so that we could have a traditional Christmas stocking for each of them. Some of them are actually our socks, but they got the idea when they saw all the candy and presents stuffed inside.

In addition to our advisor group Christmas party, we also had a banquet with the whole of the middle school. Though he was not actually present in India any more, there was a place reserved for Dave's student teacher, Matt.

We also had a fantastic visit from Santa Claus.

He dropped off a present for everyone, though some were more appropriate than others.

We love our students, but we are definitely ready for them all to head home. We are excited for the plans that we have during this Christmas break, even if we have to stay in India.

Dave and Beth

Rockin' Around

With Christmas fast approaching, we've done a bit of decorating around the house to make it feel more festive. We've got some great Christmas candles and we've rocked around the Christmas tree (even if it is only a foot and a half tall).

We've also strung a couple of rooms in the house with some great paper stars that are popular here in India. The one closest to the camera has a great pop-out image of a very Caucasian-looking holy family.

Finally, we've put up Christmas lights. These are, in actual fact, Diwali lights, but they get the job done. We try not to look directly at them for fear of inducing a seizure because of the crazy lighting pattern.

It's definitely not the same as being in the Chicago or Michigan for Christmas, but it is alright. We're definitely looking forward to seeing some family a couple days after Christmas.

Dave and Beth

It's Time to Celebrate Diwali...

Yesterday was Diwali here in India. This festival of lights is one of the biggest celebrations in the country. It is almost as much an Indian cultural occasion as it is a Hindu festival. The preschool kids at Woodstock spent most of Friday afternoon decorating the Quad for the holiday.

The feeling of celebration was also very apparent in the bazaar this week. Most of the shops had metalware, fireworks, garlands, and Shahrukh Khan posters out in front of their stalls.

The school also put on another fantastic fireworks spectacular at the dorms.

One of the best parts of the night, though, was the view down into Dehradun. It is a bit difficult to see in the video below, but there were nearly constant explosions as far as the eye could see.

One of the most interesting parts of Diwali this year was the way that it is clearly marking the time. This is the last of our two Diwalis in India and it just seems to draw us closer to the end of our time here and (thankfully) closer to being back at home in Chicago with friends and family.

Dave and Beth

Price of Fashion

Our dear readers can be forgiven for assuming that the first picture above is a photograph of Beth's feet. In fact, though, these are Dave's formal shoes that we bought in Jaipur especially for independence day. Thankfully, we were able to find something approximating his size, but they were still a little uncomfortable to wear. This, though, was the least of the inconveniences that we had to endure to look fabulous yesterday. As mentioned in an earlier post, Dave was sporting his new sherwani. This is a long Indian dress coat of Muslim origin. It looked quite smart and there were even a couple of other staff members wearing them.

One part that Dave did not enjoy was fitting into his new churidar pijamas. These are designed to bunch up at the ankles, but when they are held up for a picture it is clear just how impractical they are. The waist on these pants was about twice as large as it needed to be and the length is, obviously, a bit long. These weren't terribly comfortable to squeeze into, but they definitely looked good.

Beth is an old pro at wearing saris. She has tied them on enough that it doesn't really take her very long. The real problem for her is the bangles that she wears with a sari. You can see her glass bracelets in the picture below with our friends Jennie and Megan.

The problems started when Beth tried to take them off. She slathered her hand in lotion, but some of the glass bangles still broke. You can see the effects of these breakages on Beth's hands.

All of this pain and inconvenience was well worth it, though, because we looked fantastic.

Dave and Beth

Taste of Freedom

After the flag-raising ceremony yesterday, we had a great selection of vendors that set up shop in the quad for an all-you-can-eat extravaganza. To protect us from the rain, the whole quad was covered with a big shamiana.

At any good Indian function, you need somewhere to get your masala chai (though Dave stayed away from this and stuck to water).

The kids were excited about eating something different and out of the ordinary. They stood in long lines to get chicken, dosas, kebabs, naan, and many other delicacies.

This man was cooking up the kebabs which were quite tasty.

They also had a tandoor oven cooking so that we could have fresh-baked naan. It was amazing to watch him sticking his hand in to put dough on the clay sides of the oven to cook.

The aloo tikki was especially good, as evidenced by Beth's glee.

This vendor told us he'd been making this kind of bread for 22 years. He was quite adept at spinning the dough in the air like a pizza and then flipping it on the hot grill with his bare hands.

We also had plenty of sweets to sample including jalebis. These are a bit like the deep-fried funnel cakes of county fairs. After they're fried, they're soaked in a super sweet honey syrup mixture. The round ones are gulab jamuns. These are kind of like donuts that get the same soaking treatment.

It was a great meal with lots of variety. We may never get anything like this all in one place again unless we stick around here at Woodstock for another year (don't worry, moms and dads, we're not planning on it).

Dave and Beth

Colors of Freedom

We just got finished with our second Indian independence day celebration here at Woodstock. It is a really great experience to take part in the national celebrations of another country. The festivities themselves were very similar to last year. We had a speaker, we sang the national anthem, and a student raised the flag. The only real difference was that it was inside this year because it was raining.

After the ceremony, we had a food court in the quad for lunch with vendors from the bazaar. We'll make a post later about the jalebis, dosas, etc. that we ate, but we wanted to focus on the diversity of our school here. Students and staff are asked to wear either formal Indian clothes, formal western clothes, or their national dress. It is a great show of where students and teachers come from and gives everyone a chance to show off their best. Here is us with our advisor group students all appropriately attired.

Other kids cleaned up quite nicely as well. Where else but Woodstock will you see Tibetans and Koreans wearing their national costumes, a South African wearing an Indian kurta, and an Indian wearing a western double-breasted suit.

We have a lot of Korean students here. Most of them wear their Korean clothes, but one of our advisees decided to stand out from the crowd and wear a chuba instead.

We also have students from Thailand and families from Tibet.

One of our fellow teachers was wearing his traditional Persian clothes and here two of our advisees were wearing clothes from Nagaland and Tibet.

Here's another Korean dress and a Japanese kimono. The other picture is a traditional Bhutanese costume.

Beth also got a chance to pose with two of our students that have moved on to high school; one from Nepal and one from Germany (too bad Beth didn't bring her dirndl). We also have students from Thailand and Taiwan.

These boys were a bit embarassed to be shown in their Nepali clothes, but they looked great.

It is amazing how many groups of people are represented among our small student body. It is wonderful to see the pride that they can take in their cultures while still being respectful and appreciative of others. The freedom that we have in India allows us to share with each other and learn from each other.

The final part of this post is our annual Indian dress-up day picture. Dave had a new sherwani made and looked quite sharp while Beth was wearing one of her fancy saris (pay close attention to Dave's shoes).

Dave and Beth