Going to be home in two weeks. fourteen days.
Am endlessly excited.

A lot to say about Dharamsala but not enough time. Cooking classes were excellent (cannot wait to make momos and tingmo for y'all), teaching English was nice (had two Nepali girls which was fun for me) and our one day trek up the beautiful snowcapped mountain was intense.
Just a few short thoughts:
-Tibetan people are the nicest. Sweet and genuine and gentle. And they practice what they preach.
-What happened in Tibet is atrocious and the fact that I knew nothing about it, even more so. China took over an entire country, and persecuted and exiled many of its people. Please, inform yourselves.http://www.freetibet.org/about
- The longing of people here to return to Tibet is eerily reminiscent of galus bavel
-Eli's english class was asked what would make them happy and every response was one or both of the above: "Help others," and "Hear the Dalai Lama speak." That's great.

Also, we went to a concert of a local band here. They were surprisingly very good- a blend of Western and traditional music. Check em out-http://jjiexilebrothers.com/

Leaving for a ten day silent meditation retreat tomorrow. (I know that's insane). Flying home on the 12th so I'll be incommunicado until then. Wish me luck!

So the Taj Mahal is quite beautiful. Less so when you're sick and delirious as I was on the day we visited. I'm pretty sure Elie has a series of embarrassing pictures of me curled up on random benches, sleeping away my fever.

Thankfully, I was cured a few days later and had a week to enjoy Rishikesh- which is considered a spiritual center and yoga capital of the world. For me however, Rishikesh will always be reminiscent of several different things. Like the place where I celebrated Color War. The place where I met a real, live guru. The place where I shared a meditation cave with John Lennon. And, the place where I learned how to be a Chabad Rebbetzin.

Let's break it down-

Color War

So, it turned out that there's this ancient Hindu festival called Holi. AKA the FUNNEST holiday ever. It celebrates spring (and some other weird stuff) with bonfires, dancing, several illegal substances, and most importantly COLORS. As in, people take colored powder, or colored water and throw it on each other. All over. All day and night. By the end of Holi the streets are filled with happy looking aliens in varying shades of bright pinks, purples, reds, greens, blues and so on. It's amazing. Kind of like the best Color War you can ever imagine. Also, it luckily coincided exactly with Purim so I didn't even need to dress up...

Guru

We heard from a few people about Prem Baba (Prem- Love, Father-Baba), a Brazilian spiritual teacher (and originally a psychologist) who travels around the world holing retreats and talks. I decided to go to one of his Satsang and entered the ashram at around 10:30 to find several hundred people sitting on cushions and chanting/singing. I didn't understand the words but the feel was nice- calming and peaceful. After about an hour, Prem Baba came in and spoke. I wouldn't say he said anything earth-shattering (love, love, love) but there was something there in his countenance-shining, and bright, and open and friendly. Sometimes you can just tell when a person is good or happy or holy. After his talk there was some more singing, some dancing, and people lined up to meet him, touch his feet (a holy practice) , and give him gifts (nothing crazy- fruits, flowers, and the like). I went back a few times, mainly because I really liked the feel of the place. He's visiting New York in the next couple of months, so if you want an alternative experience, check it out. http://www.prembaba.org.br/home_eng.htm

Beatles

Not to make generalizations here or anything but the Beatles are probably responsible for bringing Eastern philosophy to the Western world. They spent some time in Rishikesh at the Ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yoga (and you can read all about the ensuing controversy here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Mahesh_Yogi#Interaction_with_The_Beatles)

The Ashram is still around today, although completely deserted and run over by trees and brush. It's weird that no one's capitalized on the place (I mean, people would definitely pay for guided tours, and a In The Footsteps of the Beatles Retreat) but it worked to our advantage. Me, Bru, Eli and our awesome new friends Ilana and Bloom played in the Ashram for a few hours. There are all these cool nooks and crannies, random meditation caves, underground bunkers/halls and the like. The best part was making up where the Beatles had actually been- at the end of the day we decided we had meditated in John's cave and did some yoga in Paul's room.

Lastly- How I learned how to be a Chabad Rebbetzin

Our first day in Rishikesh we hit up the Chabad, as per usual, and met the Rabbi and his wife Miri (who is sweet and kind and probably 20). They were new to India, having come on shlichus just for Purim-Pesach time. Let's just say they didn't have so much experience cooking a Seuda for hundreds of people, and at 8 AM Purim day I found myself up to my elbows in Challah dough. Spent the rest of the day cooking and organizing and- sof, sof, I now am confident in my abilities as a Chabad wife, and am proficient in pulling off a Seuda for the masses. The most entertaining part of the day for me (other than the Holi celebrations outside) was how invested Chabad was in the effort to smuggle alcohol into Rishikesh for the seuda. (Rishikesh, as a Hindu town, is pure veg and totally dry)

We're in Dharamsala now, home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is by far my favorite place in India- that might have something to do with the fact that we're basically in Tibet here. And it's surrounded by gorgeous, snowcapped mountains. Getting here was insane though.

Besides for the fact that Bru and I were trapped in a taxi that started rolling backwards down, and then off, the side of a hugely steep mountain, our train ride was noisy, bumpy, and uncomfortable. I was having trouble sleeping and was wide awake at one in the morning when a large Indian family illegally (aka they didn't have tickets) entered our space. Quite noisily. Elie, Bru and the GleishBlooms awoke as a result. This family then tried to squish themselves into our area. Noisily. They turned on the bright light. I think some of us were pretty agitated at having been awoken and asked for some quiet as well as for the light to be turned off. They didn't listen, kept the light on, and proceeded to talk. Noisily. One of our group reached over and switched the light off. They turned it back on. We might have tried pointing out that they were in our compartment, that it was one in the morning, that they were making a lot of noise, and that people wanted to and had been sleeping. It didn't work. So, after one final straw (it might have been an entire family attempting to sit on Bloom, but who knows) Elie had it."Okay, you know what!," he yelled out. "Tomorrow, I'm going to eat an entire cow, just for you!"

I'm sure I'll have adventures to post (momo cooking and Buddhist philosophy classes are in the near future) so more to come....

What can I say about India? Really?

India is deceptively honest, or honestly deceptive- I'm not sure which one is a more accurate description.

Everything here is bold. People don't hide things.

Desperation is the best word I can think of, and I see it all over.

It's present in the sight of grown men squatting on train tracks to relieve themselves, it glares in your face as a young girl holds up her baby brother to your taxi cab window and begs for milk, it glances at you while a crowd of street children surrounds you, crushes you, chanting 'money, money, money.'

And the desperation becomes even uglier as the wealth disparity emerges too- you see it as you walk from an air conditioned train car filled with wealthy businessmen sipping chai on their leather seats , to the doorway between compartments, jam packed with large families crouched on the urine stained floor, or as you ride a taxi pass luxury malls and Audi dealerships on one side, muddy slums and leper colonies on the other.

But nowhere is desperation more present to me on a daily basis than in the voice of the shopkeepers. These people are anything but subtle. They flock, they pounce, they attack. And you've never heard voices so heavily laden with anguish . It's all there- in the rude "Come here you," the pleading "Please, please to come in," the slightly sinister "Yeees, you have look," even the funny "You enjoy spend money?,"- their words literally drip with sadness, hope, and despair.

Yesterday, as I attempted to navigate the swarms of people in the market, I walked past a simple store selling trinkets. The same bangles and mirrors and carvings as every store on that street, and the one before it. One shopkeeper stood outside.

"You come here," he demanded

I shook my head no and continued to walk on.

He looked back after me.

"No?" he questioned.

I half smiled and shook my head again.

He looked at me 'No." And he sighed . But I'll be waiting for you..."

I think I sighed too. Because it was as if all his hopes and dreams, everything he ever wanted or will want in life was just pinned on me, was throw on my shoulders.

But what can you do when you encounter that every day, hundreds of times?

AKA, what can you do when you're in India?