Done with being different...

Ok, so let me preface this post by saying that in no way am I ready to come home, in no way am I regretting any part of this trip and in no way am I feeling any sort of anger. What I am feeling is awkward! (I know that i still haven't updated you all about the Taj and the weekend and the work week but allow me a moment to vent if you will.) Being the only blond haired blue eyed gal on the trip (and let's be honest here... a pretty darn good looking one at that! :)) I have received a lot of attention from the guys and girls here. At tha Taj Mahal (a place where you would expect to see tourists), our guide had to keep yelling at people to stop them from taking pictures of US! We are at the FREAKING TAJ MAHAL and the best you can do is take pictures of the white people? Are you serious?! On Sunday it was particularly awkward... we went to the biggest mosque in Delhi... so there I am, wearing a rented house coat and a shawl covering my head, and men are coming up to me left and right! Some asked to take pictures and others would just walk up and stand a few feet away and take my picture without asking. Jerry, the great defender, ended up coming over and being my bodyguard. WE WERE AT A FREAKING PLACE OF WORSHIP and you are focused on taking MY picture! Last I checked, it does not say anything in the holy book about taking pictures of gorgeous blonde haired blue eyed people in the house of prayer! After that we wentto India gate... a huge sculpture. Next thing you know, people are surrounding us with their video cameras out and recording us. Jerry made a joke about being offended that people didn't want HIS picture. It was pretty obvious they only wanted to take pics of the ladies. Back in Bawana, we've resumed our celebrity status with everyone waving and yelling hello. the young men are getting a bit more bold about staring and even Lau Sing (the coordinator) has had to ask some of the young men to leave. Dan and Jerry have started making jokes about having to have to walk on either side of me as my bodyguards. They are both REALLY sweet and SUPER protective of Amy and I while we are on the site. Then today, when my patience was running a bit low, the engineer/mason on our site did something that completely embarrassed me, it wasn't anything major, just a bit annoying. I ended up telling Ray about it and he immediately went and had it out with the engineer. I was really impressed with the way Ray handled it and although it was SUPER awkward on the site for the next hour, it was all better by the end of the day. I was also really floored to see how Dan, NAtasha Jerry and Amy supported me... they are SUCH a great team!! Then, in the afternoon, some of the girls were trying to talk to me, they wanted me to write my name on their hands. It was really sweet until they started pinching my cheeks and pulling pretty hard. I don't think I've been pinched that hard since my great aunt Vespa (oh wait, I don't HAVE a great Aunt Vespa! :) ). I guess that my tolerance, coming of the heels of stuff from Ghana, makes me less patient about people staring at or noticing me. Imagine that... ME... not wanting the attention! :)

Ok, I am done venting :) Aside from all of that attention, I am having a great time! It is hard to believe that I will be leaving here in a meager 2 days! Well, that is if they manage to work out my flights! Yup, you read that right... still no confirmation about my flights!!!! Ok, so here's the scoop on the weekend! The Taj was AMAZING! We got there and had to go through security (full on pat down... separate guys and girls lines!) The drive there was MUCH longer than we expected... it was supposed to take 5-6 hours but took over 7 hours! Too many camels, elephants and traffic on the roadways!!!! I rode with amy there and it was really nice getting to know her better. We arrived @ the Taj @ 1:30 or 2pm. What a sight!!! For those of you who don't know, here is Taj 101... so, the emporer Shah Jahan had a favorite wife and he called her Mumtaz. She died while giving birth to their 14th child. She made him promise to build her a momument after death. And so he build the Taj in order to give her a unique resting place. The Taj is made of marble and is the only non-porous marble in the world. If you shine a flashlight on it, it is not really white but thousands of different colors. the writing on the Taj is all in Arabic but is specifically designed to be smaller at the bottom and larger at the top so that standing in front, it all appears the same size! The designs on the Taj are actually where the masons cut out the marble and then inlaid precious gems (instead of painting the design on). I don't exactly remember but there are a lot of things with the number 22 (22years to complete, 22,000 masons, 22 minarets, etc)... for those of you who know me... 22 has a big role in my life :).

After the Taj we ate outside at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Taj... what a view! By then, we were running really late and were not able to get into Agra Fort. we stood outside and took pics and the guide told us about how Shah Jahan was imprisoned in his own fort by his son for 8 years until his death because the son wanted to overthrow his father. After the fort, we got roped into the typical tourguide trap... they take you to some place for shopping and you don't really want to be there. In the beginning it was really cool... they showed us how the masons/artists did the marble carving for the Taj. But then they brought us "downstairs" to their showroom where they had pieces for a minimum of $300. We didn't get on the road back to Delhi until almost 7pm. Amy and I ended up talking most of the way... she's had a really interesting life and I find her very insightful. At about 10:30 we stopped at a coffee shop. I ordered some coffee and then went into the incredibly overpriced gift shop. there was a group of about 6 guys/shopkeepers standing around watching a bollywood movie on a small t.v. screen. I ended up standing near them and watching it with them. they were quite amused and brought me a chair. They movie was SERIOUSLY cheesy and had these three guys up on a ladder spanning between two buildings and wer about to jump when their girlfriends showed up and tried to stop them. Then some overweight "caretaker" guy shows up with a chainsaw and tries to cut down the ladder. RANDOM!!! I was in there so long that the waiter even brought my chai (tea) into the gift shop for me to drink with the guys. After the movie was over, they put on some Punjabi music videos. Hilarious! Ava came in after a bit and they changed it to a drama about a father and son. I was pretending to translate what they were saying and at some point I said "luke, I am your father." The guys in the room started to crack up! I love that these guys who don't know any English understand the Star Wars reference!!! :) We got home at about 2am and went to sleep soon after. At 7am I awoke with a rumble in my tummy! I ran for the bathroom and Natasha, having overheard me said "shoot, I used up the last of the toilet paper" so she got out of bed and headed to the front desk to get some for me! I told her that she was in the running for best roommate of the year! The toilet paper roles here are RIDICULOUSLY small! And we always end up running out, Natasha commented yesteday that they must think we are eating them the way we are going through them!

on Sunday we first went to the Ghandi memorial (basically just an eternal flame like the one for JFK). Next we went to the biggest Mosque in Delhi, India gate and finally on a rickshaw ride through the narrow streets of Old Delhi. Natasha and I were in the same rickshaw. I felt so bad for the poor guy peddling to bring our bums around! It was complete madness being on the crazy streets of Delhi with nothing to protect us from zooming motorbikes and buses!!!! It was AMAZING though! By far my favorite moment of the day!!! We also went to the Lotus Temple, a beautiful temple of the Baha'ia faith.

On Monday we headed back to Bawana to get some work done! The place had never smelled so terrible before!!! But the children were still just as adorable! The engineer was starting to be a bit more playful and he would tease us about the way that we (the girls) were catching the bricks being tossed. After we came back from break, the mason's wife (who I was pretty sure didn't like us very much, became really animated and wanted to take pictures of our team. She then turns on her cell phone and starts playing music. Next thing I know, she is shoving the cell phone down my shirt and INTO my bra!!!! Uh... wow, how much do I owe you for the free grope? :) LOL... it was all in good fun though, she really wanted us to have music. Amy has been bringing her IPOD to the site and puts it in her back pocket so we've titled it the "buttpod." Well now we have a "boobpod" to match! :) After lunch, we were finishing bringing the last of the bricks from the street to the site. Unfortunately, they laid the bricks over some slabs of granite ONTOP of the sewer. Since I was the shortest, and the one with the strongest stomach, I got the fun job of straddling the sewer... one foot on the street and the other precariously perched on an unsteady block of granite all while squatting!! With my nose about 6 inches from the open bubbling sewer (don't ask me why it was bubbling... I don't really want to know!), I spent about 30 mintues like that passingbricks across the sewer. At one point, the slab I was standing on gave way and splashed into the sewer. Luckily I have quick reflexes and only got a splash on my ankle. Poor Chinmoi accidently put his whole foot in the sewer last week... YUCK!!!!!

Poor Dan was sick Monday night, Clint was sick on Saturday and Amy, Liam and I have all been sick. Delhi belly is NO JOKE!!!

On Tuesday morning, we were tossing bricks and the mason's wife was being much chummier! I found a random hair clip/barrette ontop of the pile of bricks. Next thing I know, she is coming over and has put it in my frenchbraid right in the middle of my head! All I could think about as I smiled gratefully to her was "DISGUSTING! This was probably in the sewer.. and if it wasn't, do you KNOW how much head lice is here!! Every morning walking to the site we see people on their steps picking through a loved one's hair. YUCK!!!!" It was very sweet of her though!!!

Last night, we went to a Bollywood movie. It was hilarious!! To get there we took 2 person rickshaws. I was with Chinmoi. There as one VERY scary moment when the guy made a turn in front of an oncoming bus! Luckily we survived! :) First of all, we had to go through a VERY thorough security screening! They brought the women aside and gave a more thorough rubdown than I've ever had... TSA would be proud!!! Second time in two days that some woman has felt me up! :) lol!!! The movie was pretty funny eventhough it was entirely in Hindi. It was called no problem and is about a heist... lots of slapstick humor, dancing and a huge gorilla fart that blows everyone away at the end... WHAT THE HECK?! :)