Age of Aquarius

Hey, guess what? I STILL have a phone at my disposal where you guys can call me! It's amazing I know, especially since all the phone calls I have been making to you guys over the past 6 months have been dependant on my schedule, now you can choose the most convenient time to call me, kinda like going to Baskin Robbins, there are just so many good options. Now I know what you are thinking, it's a though decision since there are just so many time options to choose from. And I bet everyone's fingers are probably sore from all the finger push ups you guys have been doing in preparation for dialing this long hard Indian phone number, but your going to have to push through the pain and give me a ring because every time there is a phone call I get this wonderful little jolt thinking someone is going to yell out "Juli! You have a phone call from your wonderful friends and family who love you enough to call you in India!" But alas, this scenario is never played out and I am left feeling dejected and sad... So again the numbers are:

00-91-413-2677682
or
00-91-413-2902655


To figure out the time difference you add 10 and a half hours, so when it is 10:30pm your time it is 12pm my time. I am at work by 6:30 every morning and don't go to bed till late, but the best time to call is between 10pm and 12am your time, and you can in the morning my time during work/volunteer hours that's fine.

Now I don't remember if I have mentioned this yet but there are certain rules Sadhana Forest volunteers are asked to abide by. A couple of the important ones are:
1. No drinking or drugs during your ENTIRE stay at the forest, both inside and outside the community
2. No gossiping about other people, if you have something to say say it to their face.
3. No competitive games such as cards or chess because it breaks the working together community atmosphere.
4. No bringing in food that is either processed or non-vegan.
These rules will be important for an understanding of the following post.

March 20: I spent the morning working in the forest passing buckets back and forth in a chain from the mud pool up to the trees we are watering. Since two hours of passing heavy buckets can be quite boring my new victim Tom and I decided to spice it up a bit by playing a little game. I was already receiving each bucket from the mud pool from a frenchie named Silvahn and I would ask him a word in french every time we did a bucket pass and then pass both the bucket and the word on down the line of about 20 volunteers, thus Tom and I learned how to count to 10, the colors, and some useful swear words and pillow talk in French. It was pretty funny toward the end because people at the top of the line would start passing words back down, so we were hearing words and phrases in Japanese, German, Swedish, and Tamil (which is the native Indian language of the region we are in). So that made the time go a lot quicker. Every Friday night it is a ritual to watch an eco movie and have a huge bonfire. All the Sadhana boys bring their drums and guitars and harmonicas and we have a bon fire jam session party. Since it is my wonderful roommate/ chauffeur/ gay boyfriend Tony's birthday tomorrow the guys all stripped down into their little skivies and jumped nearly naked into the mud pool at midnight. It was a good night :)

March 21: It is Tony's birthday today!!! We went out to this AMAZING french restaurant and ate until it hurt. I had a pesto pasta, garlic bread, molten chocolate cake for dessert and Tony and I also had 2 glasses of wine each (thus breaking rule #1), whoops! But you know what, it was his birthday, and we have been here for three weeks already without breaking any of the rules... well I snuck some cheese in once, but I ate it the next day and disposed of all the evidence.

March 22: Lazy lazy lazy Sunday. I found the Douglass Adams book Goodbye and Thanks for All the Fish in the library this morning which made me sooo incredibly happy because it is the fourth in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series and it is exactly where I left off reading the series. So I spent most of the day just lounging around and reading. Oh yeah, we left once to go down the road to buy fresh grape juice smoothies blended with ice and sugar. It seems all our conversations now revolve around food. Some of the important conversation topics include how fantastical our last meal was, what we are currently eating and the non-vegan sauces we wish would be on our Sadhana food, where we are going to eat second dinner while we are still eating our first dinner, the ice cream we get from Richie Rich almost daily, where we can get the best cheese and peanut butter to sneak back into Sadhana (breaking rule number 4), and the fresh pesto and cheddar sandwich from the deli. Another popular topic of conversation at Sadhana is talking about what is going on with your body when you go to the bathroom. How many times a day you have gone today, what color it is, which bathroom is your favorite and for what reasons? Personally I choose the one with the post holding up the roof so I have something to hold on to while I am squatting it out, although others prefer the outside toilets because they enjoy the breeze filtering through. And the best part about this bathroom sharing is that there is absolutely no shame whatsoever to talk about this topic when you are traveling. You can have a bathroom conversation with the cutest guy in the room upon your first meeting and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Strange... yes. Do I like it... maybe a little bit.

March 23: I don't know if I have talked about the Swedish girls yet. They are adorable and always have the cutest little braided hairdos which I have also been trying out on my long hair in preparation for Swedish cultural assimilation. Their names are Louiza and Freya and I have been quizzing them all about Sweden for the past week. We have been doing some language exchanges everyday, similar to Friday's bucket exchange. So far I have learned how to say "cheers" and "Im just joking" in Swedish. I count these as among some of the most important phrases, next lesson we are working on pick-up lines and pillow talk, haha.

March 24: I got to work on the Eco-Dome all day today with Tony and Belgium Bakery loving Nicolas. The Eco-Dome was modeled after a project created by NASA in the 70's in preparation for future possibilities of living on the moon. So what we are doing at the moment is making a lime/sand/clay/mud pool water concoction and covering it over this little igloo shaped dome which is about 8 feet tall and 7 feet in diameter. So that has been my job lately in the morning work sessions, do a little slap with the mixture, spread it around evenly, and smooth the surface until it looks polished. Slap, spread, smooth, mix more lime. Slap, spread, smooth, mix more lime. Slap, spread, smooth, mix more lime. If you say it in various tones and volumes you can make quite a few entertaining songs and dances, we only have to resort to that though when no one has a charged Ipod, otherwise we bust out my mini-speakers and have a jam sesh.

March 25: Wednesday is Hummus for dinner night! Everyone gets so excited about this night because all the Israeli guys team up and spend a whole day preparing the hummus. Everyone fights over who is going to be in the kitchen to help cook for the night, and tonight it was me! I was accompanied by the adorable Swedish girls, Belgium Bakery Nicolas, my Tony, and this cute new guy from New Mexico named Mike who is shaping up to be quite a feisty little victim. Since everyone has been well informed about my amazing ability to start fires in the kitchen even if I am just standing still I was assigned to chopping garlic, roll out the pitas, and squeeze lemon juice. The boys worked on pita flipping at the grill while I got to gossip with the Swedish girls (rule number 2 down the drain). It was amazingly fun though, it was really the first time in a while I have gotten in some good girl chat. We have weekly women's circles, but those are more about issues facing women and the concerns we have for the society we live in, not "OMG Mike is soooo cute!" So it was nice for a little change of pace.

I have been thinking about my plans for the rest of my time in India, and since I have met so many amazing people I think I am going to hook up with some of them and travel up to the Rainbow Festival in the North, or maybe ill continue on with Tony for a while more down South. I really have to spend this week working on my plans, but I will keep you guys updated.

Love you everyone and I hope to talk to you soon!