HELLO!

I haven't written in a while because UCH became increasingly difficult to explain the longer I lived there, the more I loved it......but I've got to get back in the saddle again! So I'll tell a little story about what I did yesterday. I should be able to handle that.

We're in Mumbai right now......first thing I noticed here was that there are no rick shaws!!! As faithful blog readers know, I was just privy to the musical stylings of a certain Mr. Rick Shaw.....so to have his namesake(s) so abruptly pulled from my life was a bit shocking. I think I'm sounding like Kate these days......oh dear. Instead of the rick shaws there are very small (by US standards) black cars with yellow roofs.....fancy! Deepa is styaing with the mother of a friend just outside of Mumbai while us four are in a hotel in the city, so I haven't seen here in two days!!!! That's the longest separation we've had in four months.......but we're meeting her for lunch in an hour, so I should be fine.

Kate and I chose to rise and shine at 6:30 yesterday morning though there were no singing children or cups of Chai awaiting us.......what inspired us to stir at this ungodly hour you might ask? Laughter. No, no....I'm serious - an elusive passage in Lonely Planet mentioned that there are many "Laughing Clubs" throughout Mumbai and you know Kate and I - we simply HAD to get to the bottom of it. We strolled around India Gate and thought we'd been had by the people who write Lonely Planet sidebars, but no! Off in the distance, a small crowd of enthusiastic aged people were clapping in a circle. They happily welcomed us into the fold and we joined in for half an hour of guided laugh exercises including "cell-phone laugh!", "computer laugh!", "Bow and arrow laugh!", and then a whole slew of racist laughs which included everybody from the Chinese to the Danes, to the Americans (we slap our knees and say 'Yay!', in case you were uncertain). It was specitacular. Afterwards, a group of us went across the way for toast and tea in the lobby of a hotel that the son of one of laughin club' regulars owns. He was a kind and toothless gentleman and spoke at length about something - either Sudan or Sweden, I wasn't certain. We'll be back at the club tomorrow morning, and we're bringing Zach and Phil......apparently there are fifty of these clubs around the city - some of these people have been laughing together for 12 years!!!

Mumbai is incredibly cosmopolitan (and unique if number of institutions centered on laughter is how you judge uniqueness) Of course the byways and side streets here are as crowded as ever - we took in our fair share of that yesterday while looking for souvenirs and just strolling around. (I'm terrible at bargaining.....) Phil went to his first temple and I bought some Mahandhi Cone (Henna)!!! We ended up walking a very, very long way - the day before when we were scoping out Lonely Planet, we read about a cool area of town but decided it would be too expensive to get a rick shaw there, but then we sort of just ended up there - Chowpatty beach! A sidenote - Zach has a freakishly good sense of cities.....he's from New York so it's not shocking that he's better at getting around than me, but after three months at UCH, Kate and I reeeeeally aren't exhibiting "urban cool" so his skills are especially obvious. He wanted to find Fabindia (a store) and just sort of....FOUND it and then decided we were going to The Bombay Store.....and we did! That sort of thing is nothing short of miraculous to me. ANYWAY - At Chowpatty Beach, we made a bold attempted ar meaningful repartee but many, many vendors had another thing in mind. They wanted us all to buy peanuts, cotton candy, chai, twirly-thingies, massages, etc....they were particularly assertive with Phil - maybe they sensed that he hadn't been here as long but several men tried to handfeed him peanuts, and another began to massage Phil's head whilst Phil batted at him and stared stoicly in the opposit direction.

Well, it's almost time to meet Deepa so I've got to wrap it up......have a lovely day! Sometime soon I'll sit down and try to gathre my thoughts on UCH, but it's too early just yet. Have a lovely day! Email me or Kate or Deepa - we want to hear abotu your lives and we love you all.

Love,
~Alice