This past week I spent mostly at my friend's organic farm about an hour and a half outside the city. There the heat is more fun and bearable than in the city - until the power goes off and there are no fans to move the air around and the mosquitoes begin to swarm. I love it there. It has some of the things I desperately miss: a kitchen, friends, fresh air, quiet. The days fly by and melt into each other out on the farm. It also has a lot of the things I will miss when I am back in the States soon: Gujarati, my Indian friends, banana and papaya trees, buffalo and goats, amazing birds, camels and elephants to do the landscaping, so many things. There are a million things about India that fascinate me, that keep my curiosity and imagination peaked all the time.

I've begun to dismantle my room, to give stuff away and plan what is to be sent. Taking things off the wall and emptying bookshelves has suddenly shifted me into moving mode, and in a matter of hours I felt I already had one foot out the door.

I'm a little nervous about going home. There is so much ahead of me: writing a dissertation, facing a changed committee, finding a new apartment, perhaps facing no prospect of work in the coming year in my department. I'm dying to be there, and yet I am scared of forgetting some of what I have seen and learned here, and I am a little nervous about the challenges and unknowns I face once I get home.

Goodbye little sisters

My research assistant and I left Dungarpur together for the last time yesterday. I will return later this year, but she is off to London in a few months for a Master's program in development studies. We had an amazing last day filled with realizations of all the friends we have made on our weeks and weeks of staying there. The guys that own the restaurant we love, the guys at the hotel that were once so grumpy and recently had become so kind, all of the amazing people we have met in villages, the countless cups of chai we were given. And our close friends: P.lal our driver, guide, guard and friend and Madhu our friend, fellow researcher, and slumber party hostess. P.lal told us that he planned to hang a photo of us in his house to remind him of all of these weeks we spent together and all of the fantastic adventures we had. He told us that he wanted to do this because we had become not only his friends but also his little sisters. We promised to work on our Hindi and English, respectively, and to meet again in October.

I could not help but remember how I felt the first time I arrived in Dungarpur, months and months ago, so bewildered and uncertain. I knew next to nothing about the place. Now I recognize the roads, see people I have met in the streets, have grown very fond of the landscape and people, and know an awful lot about seasonal migration and cotton seed production. I am excited to write about everything I have seen and heard. I am also glad that that was not my last trip. I still have lots of questions and a strong urge to spend more time there and understand more about the social, agricultural and economic changes taking place in the area.

I'm off to Rajasthan again tomorrow morning early, until Thursday. I'm hoping to get a lot done (12 interviews?), but I also know that it is supposed to be 109 degrees at least one of the days I''ll be there. Because of the food issue I went to the store today and tried to come up with some ideas for things that I can make without a kitchen of any kind and in a funky hotel room that is bound to be rather hot. I think it should be alright. Breakfast is the main problem, since there are no real restaurants open at 7am when we head out to the villages, and I think I have that settled with cereal, fruit and boxed milk. We'll see. I'm not feeling 100% after the stomach infection, but I'm planning to be really careful and to take it easy. I'm thinking we'll start each morning at 7 and try to be back by 1130am or so. Wish me luck!

Well I survived food poisoning only to move on to a stomach infection several days later. This has given me time to think, draw, stress out, watch movies, write, plan and read. I'm currently reading Winter's Tale. It is impossible to describe how strange it is to read such a book, which is so completely and utterly a love affair with all that is winter, while it is 100 degrees at 11pm. Though it is already an enhanced and magical version of winter, it seems almost like the whole idea of winter is made up to me. I think this sensation is particularly strong because the last book I read was Sacred Games, a fantastic novel about crime, set in Bombay. Though both are about large amazing cities, they seem like different planets. Having this time has been a gift, though. Watching movies and reading novels, lots of them, is something that I haven't been able to do in years. These are things that graduate school has made difficult if not impossible. I am now feeling more and more prepared and excited to get into the next phase, that of writing my book. I won't pretend that my dissertation will be the kind of thing lots of people will pick up to read, but I hope it can later be turned into something that people will. Still, the process is the same. I am allowing myself to plan for it and dream about it, and yet be realistic about the pain and suffering that is sure to be a part of the process. Writing brings out my issues with confidence and it leaves me feeling like an impostor. But I have a lot to write about, and I'm excited about it, so I am hoping that that will get me through some of the hard times.

On the last trip to Dungarpur we realized how very difficult it can be to find good clean food in a small town in Rajasthan. When we arrived all of the restaurants in town were closed because Holi (a Hindu holiday involving throwing colored powder on each other) was still in full swing. The restaurant owners told us they had to close since there was no one willing to work - for the next four days! We ended up having to eat at a few roadside stands, particularly for breakfast, and somewhere along the way I got food poisoning. For several days now I have been trying to come out of this, but I still feel weak and sick to my stomach. We had to leave town a few days early to get me back to where I could rest and get well. I am hoping to head out to my friend's farm for the next few days and get some work done, cook for myself, and relax until I am really better. I had forgotten what this kind of thing does to you, especially when it is also really hot outside.

All day today I was fighting against the assumption that I do not speak Gujarati. In a store a clerk asked my friend for my name and even though I replied in Gujarati he didn't listen and kept looking at my friend. When I asked a rickshaw driver to take me to a particular place he refused and complained to someone that since I could not speak Gujarati he would not be able to communicate with me. I told him in Gujarati that I do speak and he would not hear me. I asked, "Bhayaa mané Gujarati aavre ché to problem shu ché? (Brother, I know Gujarati so what is the problem?). Again he said no and again I repeated the question. Finally he said "barabar" (fine) and we were off. On the road we talked for a while and he insisted on speaking very slowly and I insisted on mocking him and also speaking very slowly, but eventually we were both doing it in good humor. On the way home I said a word or two and the driver looked at me in the rear view mirror and said, "Gujarati aavré ché?" (do you know Gujarati?) and I said, "haa bhai" and we had a nice conversation. When I reached campus I passed a big group of young boys that work in the canteen and they started saying in Hindi, "here comes the english girl" and I almost turned to them and said, "careful mané Gujarati aavré ché ané Hindi bhi aati hai" (careful, I know Gujarati (in Gujarati) and I know Hindi (in Hindi)) but I don't think it is really worth it since they have gotten in the habit of teasing me and saying things in a way I don't understand. Probably they would just tease me more. I try not to get so upset with them, after all they all work seven days a week, don't ever get to go off campus as far as I can tell, and they are just kids. I completely understand that most foreigners these people may have met do not know Hindi and certainly don't know Gujarati, but it's sad to face the same barrier in communication all the time.

There are so many cool things about being here. I learn so much everyday. At the same time I would give just about anything to be able to shop for and cook my own food. I'm also dreaming of the day when I can once again feel anonymous, normal. I look forward to eating meat and drinking wine and wearing a tank top without feeling like I am perpetuating the very strong stereotype of western women as 'loose'. I have been going to a women's film festival the past few nights and that has been really refreshing. I have enjoyed the discussions after the films immensely. But this type of thing is few and far between. It's taken me a while to realize how the extremely conservative nature of this city has impacted me. I am shocked when I see a real kiss in a bollywood film, I almost never leave campus without a dupatta (a very large scarf, worn in such a way that it hides women's curves). While I still get frustrated that men never let me go ahead even when it is my turn, and sometimes they even push me aside, and I don't think anyone would give up a seat on the bus for me, I have come to expect these things, and even to accept them. I look forward to returning to my own way of life, and once again getting to be who I am all the time.