Aap kaise hai?

OK so, SO much has happened since I last blogged! We moved in with our host families- I am living with the Pundit (Priest) of our settlement (which would be similar to a chief of a village) and it's AWESOME. My family is so wonderful, the food is Ah-MAZING, and we live on the top floor of a nicer two story cement house. When I say the house is cement= it's grade A. I live with my Matajii (mom), Pitajii (dad), Bhabi jii (sister in law), and her four younger girls (who call me 'Fua' which means Auntie). It's actually really great and best of all.....My Hindustani name is Chandni (chan-da-ni)!!! It means moonlight in Hindi, which is really exciting. The oldest girl who is 6 I think- Ridhi is this awesome little girl who helped me unpack...no joke, and cleans the marks on my wall for fun. It's crazy. She's really sweet and helps me with a lot fo things. The food is sooo good we have fresh roti and other foods everyday. Seriously, you just pick stuff out of the trees here and bring it home with you. However, I do wish we would have more fresh vegetables- Hindu people LOVE to fry things...goo.

Yesterday evening we went to Ramaayan- it's basically a Hindu bible study/reading. It was so cool. We dressed up in sari's and drank Chaa- tea that is extremely milky and sweet- and we ate prasaad (blessed) sweets. That's another thing I'm worried about- It's tradition for Hindu people to invite you in for tea and sweets (it's because they want your friendship to be a sweet one) and so there have been a few afternoons where we had tea and sweets multiple times in a row. We also learned how to make all of the prasaad foods yesterday afternoon, some local women showed how to prepare it. Basically everything was prepared with pounds of his ghee stuff. Yeah, in case you didn't know, they DO sell melted butter (ghee) by the 1 liter bottle. Oh and that's another thing- Fijian people go through chinii (sugar) like you wouldn't believe.

Another random thing is that I shower by bucket and hot water now. It's surprisingly effective. We have a hot water heater (which is NOT common) in our ghare (house) but we have low water pressure so it won't work. It's actually quite nice though.

The hardest part is of course learning another language and also living in a house where you don't completely know how to act. I feel like I've been here a month, the language part is SO exhausting. And it's hard to fit in to a new culture completely when you haven't been brought up in it. BUt I am learning a lot...I just hope I will be able to use the language effectively.

The outifts are very fun though, my matajii is sewing me an outfit (she's so sweet, she looks exactly like how a classic older Indian lady would look like...I love it). I think my favorite part is the tiikaa (the sticker on your forehead).

Training for business environment looks like it's going to be really intense though, we went over it the other day and to be honest our agenda scared the pooh out of me. But I'm not alone so I can't be the only one who felt that way!
Today we had our first water safety course- we drove out to a local beach (yes, it was SO pretty) and played in the waves after we covered a few subjects.

Sooo ok I'm actually a bit tired- the water wears you out. AHHH and most importantly- I GOT A CELL PHONE- my number is 679-742-3685. If you call from the US, I think you dial: 0512 and then my number...oooh I can't remember though. But Im sure you can google it. And I think you get cheaper rates if you call through skype. OH, and another thing- I think I will more htan likely be near a city for my actual site and I'm almost positive I'lkl have internet access. SO if you want, you can call me through skype for now on my cell and then later on in August we can talk for free!

Ok so whoop! please call me if you can- I would love to hear anyone's voice at this point! :0) (oh and the best time to call me is during the week around 12-2 or after &:30my time) 7:30

OK, I miss everyone! xoxo
-Cray