Hindi school and Navdanya

Last week was our first week of Hindi school. It is incredibly civilized: three hours every morning, including a half hour chai break. The teachers are hilarious; one is completely obsessed with owls and told us about an owl puja that he's seen performed many times in the surrounding villages in which one captures an owl, slits its throat, and makes one's enemies step on the owl blood, bringing them misfortune. I need to attend one.

This weekend we went to Navdanya, which is an organic farm and seed bank in Dehra Dun started by Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist we met in Delhi. Each morning we did shramdan, which Gandhi invented and wanted everyone to do for an hour every day. It means doing physical labor for the benefit of the community. We weeded and picked rocks out of a field for our shramdan.

We got back to Mussoorie just in time for the parade in honor of Krishna's one-week birthday. Super awesome. The streets were packed, with the men standing on the sides of the parade and the women and children on balconies overlooking the parade route. After we had dinner and drinks in town which is always an interesting experience. We went to a restaurant that we heard had cheap beer, but the restaurant did not have beer on the menu. Whe ordered it anyway and a waiter ran out and bought warm beer from somewhere else and brought it to the table in a bag really shaken up.

I'm planning on actually putting up pictures soon. Right now it's time for lunch and laundry.

xoxo Sarah