have I told you lately how much I love this country?
haha.  this is what our rooftop Holi celebration looked like. colored powder. paint/squirt guns. wet floor. great friends. amazing night.  

oh, and I think I have a new favorite t-shirt. lol.  

(ps-click on the pictures to make them bigger, in case you haven’t already…that’s just a shout out for those who are technologically challenged haha) 

beautiful weekend with some beautiful people. 
i think i harder laughed this past weekend than any other weekend of my life. 
and i definitely sweated more (it was 93+ in our hotel rooms….no AC bleh.)

we danced on buses, went swimming in the Arabian Sea (twice) and had an amazing time on the “BW” (pronounced by the group: beeee dub-a-yah) or Back Waters of Kerala. 
it was an incredible time in the amazing state of Kerala.

Sometimes I forget that I am halfway across the world from home, in a culture extremely different from my own because life here can be incredibly normal. I make trips to the grocery store, enjoy apartment life, hang out with friends, do some homework, and go explore the city. Sounds like normal college life, right? But then there will be those moments when I’m sitting in a rickshaw, walking down the road, or trying some new food that I am snapped back to reality.
I am in India.

The smells, sights, and sounds are so foreign yet daily life seems so familiar. The values that propel this culture are extremely different from many of my own. Americans are so task oriented. We are driven by our schedules. We are highly individualistic. Most values that we hold are in stark contrast to the values that Easterners, particularly Indians, hold. Because this is a collectivist society, they care so deeply about relationships and family life. Not that Americans don’t, but their desire for close family bonds, respect for elders, and submission to those in authority just further exemplifies where their values lie. They seek to show hospitality to everyone, especially foreigners. They have this deep love for their country and they want others to experience something of that love. (To some extent, I believe that is why they share so much of themselves with us). And their expression of their religious beliefs continues to astound me. Religion does not just affect one aspect of their life; it is integrated into nearly everything that they do because their beliefs are so central to who they are.

And this small description does not even begin to scratch the surface of how drastically different our societies are. As the differences in language, food, values, priorities, communication and expression of self continue to be revealed to me in various ways, my perception of this culture continues to change. The more I come to know about this culture, the more I come to understand the people, their desires, and their struggles. And the more I come to understand about their culture, the more I am challenged when I examine my own. No one culture is right but are the things that I’ve admired so much about my own culture really worth my admiration? Are my irritations with this new culture justified simply because I’ve done things differently all my life back home?

My perspective, of both the Indian culture and my own culture, is continuing to develop. In many ways I’m thankful for this newfound perspective but in many ways I’m bothered. Bothered with my frustrations of my own cultural values, bothered that my opinions of comfort are being challenged, and bothered that I know I won’t be able to look at the American culture the same way. It’s going to be something that I will continue to struggle with; something that will continue to transform me long after this semester ends.

In all honesty though, I know big changes on the way. It’s good to be irritated and bothered and challenged. I don’t believe that God called us to a life of comfort.

I asked for it.
I asked for it.
I asked for it.

Literally, I did.
Today was supposed to be my “rest day”. Today was supposed to be the day that allowed me to catch up and relax and get ahead. Instead, I felt like I did just the opposite. I am frustrated. I am anxious. I am weak.

“I want to see your glory as Moses did.”

The other night I asked Him to give me opportunities where I would have to constantly draw my strength from Him. I woke up this morning and asked Him to bring me to my knees daily. After today I am exhausted, spent, and beat and all of my usual comforts are doing nothing for me. And I thank God that I have been disappointed all day long.   

“I want to walk in your presence like Jesus did.”

I asked you for opportunities to draw my strength from you. I asked for you to be bigger in my life. I asked to be brought to my knees. I asked for it and you answered.

But this is exactly the way want it. You are real and bigger than and stronger than and incredibly tangible.
I am weak and in need of everything you are.
You are here.  

“…I long to stay in your presence this is where I belong.” 

“here’s the mail
it never fails
it makes me want to wag my tail,
 when it comes I want to wail:
MAAAIIIILLLL”

Haha That was just a shout out to Blue’s Clues.
But today I got mail! ( :
And if I had a tail I would definitely be wagging it.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I got a care package from home and it was EXACTLY what I needed. This semester has been amazing, but it is not without its challenges. We’re halfway there and it was the perfect time to receive stuff from friends and family. I made a couple suggestions (or “requests”) to my mom, but other than that I was pretty surprised when I opened my box. And by surprised I mean stoked because I LOVED everything in there. 

These were just some of the goods to make the long journey from the good ol’ “U.S. of A” to the subcontinent of India. There were Trader Joes Choco Cats and cinnamon Alphabet cookies, individually wrapped trail mix (heck yes!), Almond Joy (favorite candy fyi), Raisinets, M&Ms, a magazine (I love flipping through magazines), Chex Mix, pretzels, Trader Joes peanut butter AND the Trader Joes equivalent of Nutella (which tastes REALLY good with the Choco Cats/cinnamon cookies!). [other items not pictures: CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS! I already attacked the bag. Heheheh Valentines Day Chocolate, and candy/pictures from Teddy and Mary Pee.]

Say “hello” to my lifetime supply of Clif Bars. Ok, not really lifetime but I am determined for them to last me the length of this trip! I counted the weeks left and rationed them out (: In case you were wondering, it averages out to about 2.875 Clif Bars per week.
Then there’s the Little Miss Sunshine t-shirt from Mawm and Cah-los (Mom and Carlos) that I’m pretty much going to wear under everything. And if you direct your attention to the lower right section of the image, you will see lovely notes and a box from some of my favorite people EVER! Brit, Julia, Isaiah [Eeeelias], Shelbs, and mom: RUMBA NANDRI! (the spelling might be off but it basically means “thank you A LOT” in Tamil). Seriously guys, it really does mean the world to me.

And lastly, here’s Sandeep the Sip-a-saurus:

Thank you, Britney Pace.
(Seriously, when I read that it was from you it all made sense. Who else would send me a dinosaur sippy-cup?)

I’ve decided that Sandeep will chill out in my fridge with my carrots and apples and keep my water cool until I get home. Also, I plan to take him to school to meet my Indian friends. Just saying.

There were a couple of other boss items in my box but I only post all this and tell you because I think you guys are all pretty great. I love you tons and I miss you all dearly. Your constant prayers and encouragement are helping me more than you could ever imagine. No joke.

Stay excellent, friends.

Also, I just smashed a mosquito.

( :
(written Monday Feb 27) sorry if the pictures age HUGE. lol

Without a doubt, Angel had it, and that gift of hospitality was demonstrated countless by this awesome woman of God. This past weekend, Alyssa and I had the opportunity to stay with an Indian family and experience daily life, as they lived it. We stayed with the (last name) family but spent most of the weekend with Angel since her husband and daughter spent Saturday at a wedding reception several hours south. The entire weekend experience, like the majority of the trip, was somewhat foreign but, at the same time, felt relatively normal.

Friday night was spent at their apartment, getting to know one another before eating a late dinner together (In case you weren’t aware, Indians often eat dinner past 9 PM and are often shocked to find out that we eat dinner between 5-7 PM.) After Angel returned from dropping of her family at the train station, we all had a really great conversation about relationship dynamics, marriages in India, and how the older generations feel about some of the changes their culture is experiencing. Arranged marriages are the norm but the younger generations are trending towards “love marriages”, however this can only happen if the parents agree to the union. This tends to worry the older generations since they feel as though the parents know better and can pick a better match for their children.

This conversation gave Alyssa and I a lot to think about and we sincerely appreciated Angel’s willingness to talk about this aspect of her culture. The next morning she cooked us Bombay Toast, which is the Indian version of French Toast but BETTER, and we headed off into town. Angel took us to a museum and to the local zoo. Both were within walking distance of BACAS, our college, but we simply hadn’t had the chance to either place.

(Panorama of the zoo)

Angel also treated us to Domino’s for lunch because she knew that we would enjoy pizza. And while we were waiting for our taxi, Angel bought us sugar cane juice from a roadside vendor. I was a little bit nervous about drinking the juice (during our health seminar during orientation, we were warned to exercise caution when eating from street vendors) but I was so thankful for Angel’s generosity that I drank it and completely loved the taste!  

(the sugar cane vendor)

She put the sugar can through the grinder several times and squeezed all the juice out of the cane, then added lemon and ginger during the end of the process to give it added flavor. It ended up tasting a lot like lemonade.

We got home, “took rest” (the Indian version of a nap), and then got ready to go to the Don Moen concert. Angel had to stay home to take care of the dogs, but Sheela Jon, a department head at BACAS and coincidentally Angel’s good friend, met us at the concert. And since Angel knew that we would be gone for several hours, we were sent with snacks and drinks, and specific ones that we had casually mentioned that we liked earlier throughout the day. We had been so blessed by her hospitality that we decided to buy her the newest Don Moen CD.

(Don Moen Concert)

On Sunday, we went to a Tamil service in the morning, came back, had lunch, and played with Joanna, Angel’s daughter who had returned from the wedding, before we headed back home to do homework. It was so great to be in a home and experience daily life with Angel. In many ways, it was very normal to be home, eating with a family, watching movies, and enjoying the weekend in the city. But the food, dynamics, and pace of daily life all differed in various ways. I don’t think I could express to Angel and her family how truly grateful I am for her hospitality. I can, however, strive to treat others with the same love, hospitality, and generosity that we had been treated with.   

I miss pretzels, trail mix, and good music. 
(Pandora doesn’t work internationally because of certain restrictions, groove shark is undergoing maintenance, my iTunes hasn’t been updated in some time, and Youtube takes FOREVER to load because the internet connection isn’t always excellent.) So, I REALLY miss music. hahah

but more than missing those things I miss all of you! 
*AHEM*
Celiz Aguilar
Bishop Appasamy College of Arts and Sciences 
India Studies Program
#129, Race Course,
Coimbatore, INDIA 641 018 

Send me mail! I would absolutely love it! (And if you feel so inclined to send me a mix CD of music you love right now I’d especially LOVE that. Really.) But in all seriousness, I would love to hear form you. Rest assured that whatever you sent (CDs and edibles aside) would probably end up on my wall in my room and all the members of my group would hear about how great you are. 
( : 
Happy Tuesday, friend! 
Stay excellent. 

I was not anticipating the first wave of homesickness. It had been a week since I was in India and I was seriously enjoying myself. It was all so foreign and there was so much that needed to be done and taken in that, in retrospect, I didn’t have much time to realize what I had left behind. We were constantly going and doing and seeing and meeting and experiencing that the reality of it all hadn’t set it. And if I wasn’t doing something for the program or trying to learn how to do something for myself I was getting to know my group and the other students here.

But certain circumstances left me away from any sense of familiarity, on a crowded bus, in the middle of the city. It was the first day of internships and I had two student guides, who I had met earlier that morning, going with me to Families for Children. I had been looking forward to my internship experience since the day I learned of my acceptance into the India Studies Program. And any time anyone asked what I was looking forward to about my study abroad trip, I always mentioned something about my opportunity to intern with a non-profit. But nervousness set in when I started to realize just where I was and what I was doing.

I was disoriented. I was away from my group in a big city, away from my family in an entirely halfway across the world, and going off to do something I felt I was incapable of. I stared out the window and realized: I am inIndia. 
The smells, sights, and sounds hit me all at once.

I couldn’t get around without the help of these two student guides because I would get lost.

None of the advertisements on the street were recognizable. 

I didn’t know the songs blaring on the bus speakers.

I couldn’t talk to the woman next to me because I didn’t speak her language.

And I felt absolutely alone. 

I missed the familiar. I missed the known. I just missed home. 
On previous bus rides, I had someone from America with me to either be enthralled or uncomfortable by it all. I had someone there to experience and understand it with. But it wasn’t even about the bus ride. Once I arrived at the Families for Children location I began to doubt. I was expecting so much from this internship but I started to realize it could all just be a huge disappointment. What if this isn’t what I wanted? What if I’m not capable of doing what they need me to do? What if I can’t understand them because of the language barrier? What if it’s just not worth it? And so on and so forth…

Before the tour we were directed to the library to help with different, menial tasks. In all honesty, I was relieved to not have to interact with anyone. I am a people-person. I thrive off of relationships and I LOVE being with others but at that point I just needed to be away from people and do something I knew I was capable of doing. I had never found so much comfort in a library. And let me make it clear that I love libraries. In that Families for Children Library, while filling out info cards, I felt like a natural affinity towards the children’s books I used to read (which included everything from the Bernstein Bears to the story Quasimodo in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and anything that had any remote relation to America (including American Graphic Art of the 1920’s [which I had never previously been interested in before]). I was desperate for anything that came from, or was about, America. 

And as I’m writing about it now, I can’t help but laugh at myself and find comfort in how amazing my God is.

We eventually went on our tour. We visited the children with cerebral palsy and watched the physical therapist as he worked. I held a little boy’s hand the entire time and played with him in his crib while the therapist helped another girl learn how to rotate her shoulders. In the few minutes we spent in that room, the boy got a strong hold of my heart and thinking about him now makes me so much more excited for Thursdays. I want to visit him and see him try to stand. I want to hold his hand and play with him. I want to hear him laugh again. Another part of the tour included a visit to the room of the patients who had various sorts of diseases. A lot of them were special needs children, some had polio and couldn’t walk, and others were bedridden. I met Joti, a twenty something woman who, from what I observed, was confined to her bed. She greeted me warmly and asked me to sit down as she pulled up a chair next to her. We talked and talked and talked and talked and the entire time she just held my hand. I asked her what she liked to do and she said “read my Bible”, which was positioned right behind her at the head of her bed. I pulled it on my lap and tried to show her what I had read that morning only to realize that her Bible was all in Tamil, the local language. We laughed. I definitely cannot read Tamil. I asked her about her family. She shook her head, looked around, smiled, and replied, “These people are my family.” 

We spent the last hour or so at the library finishing the task we were working on earlier that morning. At that point, however, it was a completely different experience. No longer did I want to be in that library out of fear, nervousness, or anxiety. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to hold and listen to others. I wanted to laugh just BE with others. No longer was the library a place for me to escape from everything else I was scared of. Instead, I took pride in completing that menial task knowing that in some way, I was serving those people who I had just met. If I was going to be in that library every Thursday for the rest of the semester, it would be alright with me knowing that this would be the way I could contribute to those people. 

For a while I prayed for God to just give me peace, strength, and a deep love for this country. I missed home and I just wanted my love for this country to overrule my (strong) desire to be home. I still pray for those things, but not as fervently as I used to when I first got here. Instead, I pray for the Lord to show me His heart. I want to know what His heart breaks for. I want to understand more of His love for these people. Each of my own desires reminds me of how much more I want to desire Him. I want to know I’m capable, but He is my strength. I want to feel known and understood and I can be confident in the fact that my creator knows me better than anyone else every will. I want home but He is my home. All familiarity, comfort, and peace ultimately comes from Him. 

This past weekend (Jan 21-22) in pictures:

• A panorama shot of the bus we spend about 12 hours in! haha
• A woman from the home for destitute and abandoned women. She was a really great teacher( :
• The Meenakshi temple (with hundreds of thousands of idols on the sides!) 
• Me and my girls on a roof by the temple. 
• She held my hand the entire time we were at the shelter for children who were HIV positive. She showed me her room and let me put a flower in her hair. 
• When I wasn’t holding her hand, I was carrying this guy around on my back. He was a BLAST! We pretended to be elephants and airplanes ( :
• And when I wasn’t holding her hand or carrying the little man on my back I was pushing her on the swing. Beautiful kids. 

loved it.