Sorry!

Hello all,
I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Things have been ridiculous busy here, and I've mostly been trying to catch up on sleep during my free time. Last week was my last week at my primary school, and this week has been my first week at an Anganwadi (something sort of like a daycare). The Anganwadis are basically daycare plus for both children and mothers, and are funded by UNICEF and run by the Indian Government. The purpose is not only to give the kids (between the ages of 1.5 and 3) a foundation for their primary school education, but also to acquaint them with social and emotional skills, and to give their mother's a break so they can do the things that they need to do with their day. In addition to this childcare element to the Anganwadis, they also have a women's empowerment aspect in which women can come and spend time with other women from their village, and work on their English, and the Anganwadi workers help them with banking and medication and contraception, as well as the facilities provide lunch for both the children, mothers, and pregnant women. It's a really interesting idea, and I'm enjoying talking to all of the mothers, as well as getting to spend my days playing with these kids :)
Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, we went to a town called Manali, which is about a seven hour drive North of Dharamsala. I'll say this much--I never get car sick, but this time I did. That drive was absolutely terrifying, and I never want to experience something like that again. Take Indian driving... which consists of never using the brakes, and only using the horn and flashing your highbeams in order to let people know that you're coming, and add that to single lane roads winding around mountains, surrounded by both extreme cliffs crashing into a rapid-y river, and cliffs looking up towards highly landslide prone boulders... Goooood times. Not only do you have the windy cliff roads of death, but you have a tunnel that must be at least twice the length of the Holland Tunnel cutting underneath the mountiain, with a complete lack of any type of ventilation system. But... Manali was worth it. It was much cooler there... I was actually fairly freezing the entire time I was there, which was definitely a nice break from the constantly humidity and heat we have here. We saw a temple which still practices blood rituals, and I got to hold a lamb, and there were yaks everywhere that you could pay to sit on to get your picture taken. We did some shopping, and went to a good Italian place for dinner, and just had a good time enjoying some western food, and amazing views. On the way home (on yet again... the windy death drive), we stopped to spend about an hour white-water rafting which was so much fun. Although... It was a little bit gross when the completely clear river we were rafting in, the Beas, merged with another river and we saw a dead cow carass in the river, and then from then on the river was completley brown and smelled like... well... you know... :-/ All in all it was a really fun weekend, and I'm so glad we ended up going because the following week all of our 3-weekers left us to go back home, so it was a nice time for us to spend together before they all left.
The week before we went to Manali, we went on some pretty cool excursions. One of these excursions took us to the capital of the exiled Tibetan government, where we went to the Tibetan library in order to discuss the situation in Tibet with the director of the library. He was so cool, and actually had been the Dalai Lama's interpretter for 15 years before he started working to preserve Tibetan culture through this institution. He was a very interesting man, and had a lot of really insightful things to say, so that was a really interesting discussion to have.
We also stopped by the Norblingka Institute which works to preserve Tibetan culture, and saw many of the traditional crafts of Tibet, and watched people make different things, and got to look around in their store where they sell the items they make there. The institute was amazingly gorgeous, with water and trees everywhere, and this absolutely amazing Buddhist temple, with the most incredible artwork I've seen yet.
In addition, we met with the director of the Anganwadis this past week, and got to talk to her and ask her questions about their procedures, and their shortcomings, and their training, and anything that we were interested in. The project is really a very interesting idea, especially when juxtaposed with the pre-school/daycare system in our own country. The kids are really sweet, and I think that at least at my Anganwadi, the workers really care about the kids and the women, and are actually very interested in giving them the foundation for their primary education that is necessary. I think in seeing the educational state that many of the children are in in the primary schools, I'm going to focus a lot on teaching these kids the very basics in order to better prepare them for when they do transfer into the higher schools in a year or two.
Ok, that's all for now, but if I remember anything, I'll post again and add to this one.
Much love :)