and am listing here to keep myself accountable

video of train to goa, seeing waterfalls

the rest of my photos

boy the cat, milk, for the folks on hampshire st. :)

coconut milk for joe

uhhhh cant remember. 

puppy for enya, elaine, leanne, dma, vikram

there were so many butterflies, i havent seen a single one since back

puppies. ahh the puppies.

i miss being on motorcycles

miss the 30 minute bus ride to Hubli everyday… the view is so much better from Dharward to Hubli than SF to Mountain View. 

i miss having my time in the morning for chai

kind of miss taking bucket showers. 

the air. was so different. 

totally miss the bells on the water buffalo

miss autos.

music. 

miss our apartment :( 

miss anu! 

You’re the only person I can think of who likes coconut water aside from myself. So…. fresh fresh fresshhh coconut water for you!

It’s really not as sweet as when packaged and enjoyed in the U.S. But we pulled over on the side of the road in Bangalore and got some coconuts. If there’s flesh on the inside you get that also. They take a huge machete thing and hack at it, drop a straw inside and enjoy!

:)

I’ve only been in Mumbai for 3 hours… and you’re supposed to pay according to the meter… but I’ve gotten enough fake auto rules explained to me.. that I’m starting a list.  (like metered fare… etc.)

- From the domestic airport we’re not allowed to take passengers to departures, only arrivals.. 

- They don’t allowed metered fares when we’re going to the airport its a flat rate 

- There’s a 100 rupee parking fee for parking at the airport (no)

- Only outside airport do they use metered fares

* I got fed up.. tried to find an ‘outside’ auto.. to take me… and he tried to charge me 3,000 rupees. back to the ‘airport’ auto and….

- If you take an auto from the airport its a flat rate

- Whatever the meter shows you have to pay double (really… uhg) because he has to drive back to the airport

Haha. 3 hours later I’m in a cool cafe in Mumbai… waiting for 6pm to roll around so I can go back to the airport. Really.. really don’t want to leave India :/ 

Thats tea.. and behind it the sea! I wanted to give you a cup of tea, because everyone drinks tea like crazy here for any reason at all. Usually a cup in the morning, one in the afternoon, and every time you visit someone’s home. This particular cup of tea was enjoyed in Trivandrum, Kerala. 

There’s something special about being sure of what you want, no matter how small it is. For me, its not something I can think my way to… like what do i want right now what do i want right now.. I wake up, and I feel like I want a cup of tea, so I make myself a cup of tea :) It feels good, easy, right. There’s no thinking required at all. 

It’s also not opening a thing of tea and soaking it in hot water. I take out a pot, add the tea masala into the milk, heat the milk until it boils, add sugar and some water, pour it into a cup through a small sift, and then enjoy. The whole process takes ~10 minutes, and it’s really nice :)

When I think of drinking chai I’m going to remember being calm in the morning before stepping through my door :) Or in the afternoon to take a break from it all. Quiet in my mind for a few minutes. Lets make chai one morning girlie :) something we can share. 

See you at home :)

I probably shouldn’t be gifting my friend’s dog… haha, but meet Maya :)

Maya’s a puppy! Officially, she’s only a year and a half old. She’s about to have her second litter of puppies :) Yes. Her second litter. Puppies don’t get fixed in India :) Which means there are lots of stray puppies running around. She’s Suma and Avinash’s dog! Pictured is Suma (who is also too awesome) :) 

Just the other day, we walked into an industrial area to talk to a small factory owner (Fanus, who works with a lot of the Berkeley PhD students who come to Berkeley, who now is also working with me as a translator haha). I saw a puppy (like the size of a kitten), walked up to it knelt down and started petting it. When Madhu, another co-worker of mine I went with, was like… jessicaaaaaaa theres another one its coming!!!! And then a few seconds later there was another puppy ^^ Up on its hind legs while I pet his head. Cute, cute, beige puppy with a white diamond between his eyes. So adorbs :) 

There are lots of stray dogs running around in India.. kind of like Taiwan. None but the puppies can be pet. Some of them are ‘adopted’ by i.e the security guards of the industrial area, or shop owners, or hotel employees, etc. 

Back to Maya. Maya is a lab, and is sooooo loving! She’s living with Suma and Avinash’s friends because they’re temporary place is too small (waiting for their other place to be built). As soon as people come she burrows into whatever she can find and won’t stop ever!! So cute :)

She’s going to have puppies at the end of September, so I won’t be in India to welcome them and love them, but Avinash loves dogs so its all good :) He ran a dog show in Hubli and had a pet-related business a while back, but is working with NextDrop now. It’s really good to know I’m not the only one gushing over dogs here :)

Anyways. If I could give you one of Maya’s puppies I would :) 

Other dogs in India!

:)

baby ants! they’re totally full grown. but they’re tiny! cutest ants ive ever seen, and there are some nasty fat ants I gawk at every day. those ones are like the water buffalo of ants. but these little tinies are like, bryan’s dog small/cute. 

so one day, Anu and I were trying to map out the communication that goes on between the valvemen and other parts of the water board by using… post-its. you know, to be VISUAL, and help ourselves see what was going on. because its so damn confusing what goes on.. everything runs on its own weird non-system and differently everywhere. too hard to keep track of in your head. 

it took a while to finally go out and buy post its, so it felt pretty good to stick em up on the walls for our map. and these ants that were moving across the wall.. i tried to leave them alone as much as I could. 

but we couldn’t figure out how to draw the lines of communication. painted wall… no white board… trying to find string somewhere in the house… nothing small enough that could get stuck on a wall… until i realized we had floss. 

PROBLEM SOLVED YO. PROBLEM. SOLVED. up goes the floss with the puddy, connecting these post-it valvemen like maddd. we end up with like 4+ lines of floss going in and out of each post-it node to indicate calls. and we were nearly finished mapping what we knew when… these ants. 

they had stopped moving sideways?

and 10 or 15 of them had kind of stopped where the floss cut off their trail mid-way across the wall. and then more came. and a few more. and they started spreading out along the line. hahaha. 

i look at anu and im like. wait….. give me that.. is there.. is there mint on the floss?… is this mint-coated floss? 

:) it was. we were feeding our gorgeous visual communication map to the baby ants. haha :) I thought you guys would enjoy so I snapped a picture before tearing it down :)

my coworker says their edible because they dont have bones. :) Emily sometimes lets them in to clean up the cockroaches killed overnight. ha :)

Pratik and I once laughed heartily over what it meant to some to be vegetarian, and how they tried to get their fair share of protein. Something about more not-eating-meat than eating-vegetables haha :) Highlight of the conversation was basically… you’re vegetarian? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT LENTILS ARE?

They’re a protein heavy “bushy” annual plant in the legume family, says wikipedia… and they have the third-highest level of protein of any plant based food (after soybeans and hemp). You should eat them once in a while if you’re veg to get your protein fix. I also didn’t know that they were drought-tolerant :) I hadn’t had lentils yet in India, but we ordered lunch one day in our office and out popped lentils :)

I knew a lot of people were going to be vegetarian, but I didn’t know it would be so different to see how it all worked out in society. On restaurant signs, theirs always veg, non veg, pure veg, pure non-veg. When I’m eating with new people for the first time, I’m always asked if im veg or non-veg. :) I’m always like.. what? as if non-veg is a word i’ve never ever heard of before. Haha :) And honestly I’ve only had meat once so far :) The veggies here are really good. Which is cool also because I’ve been trying to cook more vegetables :)

The other thing I eat a lot is carbs! You eat with your hands… so its ripping a piece of naan or chapati or roti or something else.. and grabbing whatever else with it. It’s really weird for me to touch food with my left hand now haha. 

Anyways the lentils were really, really good. Had them with some roti and eggplant and ate on the floor with some coworkers :) 

Pictured above by the way, is a tiffin, something that was once passed around as somewhat of a foreign object in our “entrepreneurship to address global poverty” class. Funny now, because I use them everyday here to get the food we order (we order food every other night ^^), and so does everyone else.

Annnnyways… here are some lentils Pratik :) Hope your dad’s vegetable garden is still doing well (though i realize it’s been 4 years since we last talked about it). aha :) Let me know if you want anything else from India :) 

P.S. Check out the newspaper under the tiffin :)

P.P.S. I haven’t found anyone trying to sell me books on the road yet (only tissues….??)…HAHA. or I would’ve given you that :)

Ignore every old post on my tumblr for now because… I’m in India! And I got you something :)

I’ve been stuck over what to get people from India, and honestly, also stuck over what to bring back for myself…some .. ‘things’ that bottle up my time here… little pieces of India to pass out that try to do this place justice… something that might remind me of what I see here. But none of it is working (I really like the mug i got myself here.. but really a mug? apparently its of India’s wall street equivalent… but the mug celebrates the crows that sit on the power line OUTSIDE hehe not the actual street :). 

I can’t even begin to describe just my first week in India.. and I won’t even try to (in the normal way). 

So… I’m going to get you something different, that will cost me nothing but however many rupees I pay to upload these posts. But.. it’ll double as a place for you to see what I’m doing in India, triple as a way for you to know why i think you’re awesome, and quadruple as a way for me to hold on to my time here. Because its as fun as seeing a herd of goats run by (GOATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!sdlfkdfd) but they’re still running by and I want to take one home :(

Check back here for your “something from India”, and I’ll give you a heads up if I get you something :) If you want to make sure I get you something, let me know :) Leave a comment or.. something. haha.

This first one is for Rebecca :) PURE JOY.