Goodbye India. Hello.... Paris?

So we leave Wednesday night. Wait, we leave Wednesday night!? That's in two days. That's in too few days.

Don't get me wrong, I am VERY excited to see family and friends that I miss very much. I'm even excited for dollar theater date nights again! AND I can't wait to move into our new apartment. But India.... Oh India. How I will miss India. I can't go on and on about it though because I think I'll start crying here in this little Internet room in Delhi. That would be embarrassing. So let me just say, I think the worst of leaving is over. I said goodbye to our Ahma-la. I said goodbye to my Rogpa babies. That's all I can say without getting too emotional.

But here we are in Delhi. I love Delhi, interestingly enough. Delhi is... in your face. Always. You can never forget that you're in India when you're in Delhi. Even when you find the Hollywood movie channels on the T.V. in your hotel room. But Delhi doesn't take long to grow on me. It was hard at first, coming from the fresh mountain air and rolling hills of McLeod Ganj down into the beast's belly. Delhi Belly. But Delhi has some charm. Dusty, sweaty, power-outage charm. For example, last night I ate one of the most delicious meals while sitting on the roof-top restaurant, looking over the city and up to the sky, where hundreds of kites were being flown in the breezy dusk air. I fed some Thai fried rice and chicken to a stray cat, who enjoyed sneaking up next to me and playing with my scarf. I had the incredible company of my best friend/husband, and we watched the sun set and drank fanta and hot lemon with honey. Hindi and Punjabi music blared out into the night, as well as sounds of the street and crowds of Main Bazaar.

So this is the Delhi I've come to love. Just in time for us to leave. But, looking forward and having a positive attitude... we are going to Paris!! Man oh man is that going to be great. I'm trying to finish planning it all out, and I can't wait to see all the amazing sights and eat all the amazing food. Paris will be a crazy difference from here, but it's all part of the adventure. And then it's back to home, back to work, and back to school. We will graduate in April and start saving saving saving in order to come back as soon as we can. Our goal is 2013.

Well this is pretty much my last post from India. I'll try to keep this blog up, regardless of class requirements. Thanks for following, and can't wait to see you all!

Observations

Well, I have officially finished my observations, so my field work is done. I still have a bunch of work left, such as expanding my notes, coding them, looking for parallels, etc. And don't forget the many papers I'm yet to write with the information I've gathered. I have a long road ahead of me in my project, but the fun part is just about over ;)

But I look forward to sharing my notes and findings with others, and to maintain the great friendships I've made here.

Something I've found while abroad is that we are all just humans and we basically want the same fundamental things. We just have different ways of going about it sometimes. In the context of families, and from what I've seen in my observations, mothers are mothers and children are children. Children are funny and say hilarious things, and mothers laugh and repeat the humor to friends. Children are sweet and sensitive and mothers cuddle them and love them. Children say something profound and mothers are proud and in awe. Children are naughty and mothers discipline them, with the hope that they are teaching them to be better people and learn from their mistakes.

I suppose I didn't expect families here to be much different. So what was I here to learn?