babies, temples, and rain.

the view from my seat at char dukan every day, from Anil's Cafe.


from partway down the driveway of the hospital, you can see the shanty homes where people live, covered in thick black plastic to keep out the monsoon rains.
the entrance...on the way out, it's in english script instead of deva-nagri and hindi
when the cloud descends

i've gotten to see a few deliveries in the past week, which has been incredible. it also makes me have strange dreams...like the one where i was going to be a surrogate for one of the nurses here. don't worry, mom, that won't happen.

(it was an adorable boy, with an old man's face and hands, who actually was at a target weight for newborns in the US--doesn't happen often here)

this weekend, neetu, sarah, leigh, and i went to amritsar and the border of india and pakistan.

at 4am, we ventured out of our guest house to go to the morning services at the Golden Temple, a Sikh temple that is incredibly beautiful. i appreciated that both men and women have to cover their heads and take off their shoes. we watched the progression of the sunrise, watching the temple change colors and observing the pilgrims who had come to worship.

look at me, wearing a salwar kameeze.

a big show happens to close the gate between india and pakistan at sundown, in a stadium with people from each country on either side chanting and exuding a thick air of patriotism. as foreigners, we got to sit in the vip section, probably to keep us 'safe' and them not liable for the rowdy crowds in case something happened.


we took a sleeper train from amritsar to dehradun, and spent Sunday in Hardwar. it started to pour when we were up at a temple on top of a mountain, and ended up having to just go back to Mussoorie and miss the big things we wanted to see--we had to drive through a knee deep street river just to get out.

on the way back, we saw a jain temple on the side of the street. we stopped, and it was being redone--but they let us in. the architecture was incredible.

i am slightly ashamed to say that on the way back, we stopped at an indian mcdonalds. but i would not order the 'surprise veggie burger' off the menu.

it looks like i will be moving to the villages on wednesday, so hopefully i will come out with photos of my host family and more daily life next time.