Ketchup - 01/05/13

Love these guys

BEN - Today was to be a lazy day.  We slept in for as long as humanly possible before waking up and deciding to stay in for the day, and get some chores done.  We got on the internet and were able to book our hotel for Delhi, our plane tickets home (we have about 10 days to explore Seattle and Portland), check finances, etc.  Of course all these businessy things were intermingled with episodes of Spartacus, our new TV obsession.  Our only outing for the day was a trip to the Indian buffet for lunch, scrumptious as always.  We spent the rest of the afternoon writing and trying to catch up on the insurmountable task of our journals.  Both Gabby and I were also able to video chat with our parents which was much needed seeing as we will most likely have no internet for the next week.

Seeing as this day was pretty uneventful, here is some things that have been on my mind.  As we drove with Rafish the past few days in the heart pounding, vomit inducing traffic of Bangalore, I immediately started to think, 'how can you tame this, or apply western standards of traffic to make it better?'  I then realized that, there is no need or even room to make it 'better.'  This is how it works for 1/5 of the world's population, and they are completely content with what from my western perspective seems like 'crazy' traffic.  Who am I to apply rules to a system (or for that matter a culture) that has been working without them for longer than my culture and system has even existed.   This would become a constant struggle in my mind; learning to accept what is, rather than trying to make it fit my perception of what is should be.  LET IT GO and join the madness.  Ok, that's my philosophizing for the day.

Monkey in the bamboo

We spent the night twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the sound of a bus.  We were waiting to meet Bob Davis, who I have been emailing with for months.  Just as we were giving up and concocting schemes with the front desk as to how we would meet them, a giant bus pulled in.  I went down to very briefly meet Bob and the rest of the team.  Everyone seemed very nice.  The group is mostly older, with a few exceptions and all seem to be related somehow.  Tomorrow we put all our faith in these people and drive to Carmel Matriculation School.  It should be interesting.