Some Lovely Snaps

So, here goes for some photos of where I'm living now!! Thank one of my fellow program-ees, Rachel, for some of the snaps of campus, which I have unashamedly stolen from her facebook account.

So, these first few pictures are where I lived on campus the first week I came here. I lived in the Ladies Hostel, LH IV, to be exact. above you can see the sign to the ladies hostel where I lived, as well as a corridor in the Hostel. my room is around the corner. Oh, and bikes are the main mode of tranportation around our campus. I have a bike which I ride everywhere provided I haven't forgotten my key somewhere : ).

This next picture is of where I called home every day from, before I had my own cell phone, that is. It is right outside the gates to the ladies hostel. The booth with the international phone is called the STD booth, because the phone is an STD phone. Yes, the jokes have already been made, re-made, and gotten old. I can say, "I'm off to the STD booth" now without even cracking a smile.

Below is a picture of the typical squatter. These toilets are actually healthier than Western toilets, or the name for the above ground toilet we use in America. The posture you have to take to use them is medically better for you. I have also recently mastered the art of using the bathroom without toilet paper. There is no toilet paper in an Indian bathroom, unless you're in an expensive restaurant or the guest house. Or unless you buy it yourself. What you use to clean yourself (for those interested) is that small bucket you see on the right, which you fill with water from the orange bucket and use to rinse and wipe yourself off, left hand only.
Down here are a few other campus snaps. Most buildings have courtyards in their center. Pictured here are the courtyard in the ladies hostel, where I hung my clothes to dry, the courtyard in the Social Sciences building, and a wall in the social sciences building, which I thought was really pretty. Many hallways are lit by natural light.























Below is the general store, known as ghops (pronounced GO-PS, I know I'm spelling that wrong). I buy AMAZING mango juice here, and sometimes biscuits.




I think that's going to be it for campus pictures, for now. I was trying to upload a few more (some buildings, a sunset photo I took from these rocks) but the internet is being slow on me, and I'm afraid it will cut out before I've even posted these. So I'm just going to publish as is : ) And in the future, I will try to be a bit more regular with my blog entries...once a week is my goal.