It's July!!!

It is officially the last day on June. I’m fully expecting tomorrow to bring torrential rainstorms too cool this place the eff-word down. That would be nice, but seeing as how I was told the monsoon was predicted to come early this year, I’m starting to doubt there will even be a monsoon at all. Aside from the obvious ecological problems, this would be bad for two reasons.

First, and foremost, I am looking forward to it cooling down a few degrees. While I’m at Gram Chetna I can escape from the heat a little bit by hiding indoors for the majority of the day. But when I’m out doing my touring I wont be able to hide from much. It’s not like I’m going to chill in my hotel from 11 to 3 everyday. Well, I might. But I don’t want to feel like I have no other choice.

The second reason is that if it doesn’t rain in July, August in Rajasthan will not be green. Also, the lakes in Udaipur will be all dried up and nasty. Pushkar normally has a huge lake in the center, but it was all dried up when we went because there has been no rain lately. Basically, Mother Nature needs to get the memo about the world revolving around me for the next six weeks.

Today is Wednesday, and that means tomorrow marks my fourth week here at Gram Chetna and my fifth week in India. That blows my mind! Although my time here has been mostly business, and not all that much fun, it’s really flown by. I’m half way done! I’m in the home stretch! Three more weeks working here and I’m off to Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and the Taj Mahal! It would be really easy to visit the Taj on a long weekend before I’m finished with my internship, but my 26th birthday is August 7th and I’ve arranged my calendar so I’ll be at the Taj for the day itself. But as awesome as that is, I’ll most likely be traveling solo, which isn’t at all what I pictured while imagining my plan back home. I’m afraid I’ll have to wait for the cake, ice cream and birthday hugs and kisses.

I suppose that’s it for now. In the last few days my spirits have greatly improved because of some lovely messages from friends and family back home. Well, not so much family, just friends. Apparently my family doesn’t take the time to write emails to their daughter/sister struggling with culture shock in a foreign land.

Yes, you. Feel guilty. Feel very, very guilty…

MCC