It's been about two weeks since I had to leave my old apartment. It was a huge shock that I immediately had to leave--crying and asking "why me?". After I left her place, I brought my things over to Dennis's house (the director of Champlain-Mumbai campus). Since I wasn't too thrilled with the apartment that I had looked at right after Cynthia told me that I had to leave, some people from the college were going to try and find a better apartment....and they definitely did! The one that I had previously looked at didn't have good water, no internet, no dresser or space for anything. Pretty much it was just a bed and bathroom. I know that I can't be picky about everything, but I knew that I couldn't function with just that for 3 more months.
That afternoon, I met with Depica and her mom (Depica's a student at the college and will be spending the next three semesters over in the Champlain-Burlington campus). They took me to a vegetarian Chinese/Indian restaurant which was a very weird concept for me. But very tasty! Try to imagine chinese food without the meat (replaced with rice or tofu) and with some Indian spices. We then were going to go to the planetarium but they only had Hindu shows that day. So I'll probably be able to go later in the semester or whenever I'm free. Since we were already in that section of town, we ended up going to an art museum. There were some landscape paintings, abstract paintings and also a whole floor about the history of India, including some artifacts. I have to say, before I came here I didn't brush up on my Indian history. So it was a good refresher. It was really nice though just talking with Depica. Since I'm studying abroad now, she's able to help me out with things and and when she comes over to the US, I'm able to help her with things.
Saturday, I slept in. I didn't realize how exhausted and how much little sleep I had gotten in the past few nights. After waking up, I went to the school with Kathy (Dennis's wife) to meet with Pamela (my social work professor) and Dennis. We just had to talk about the logistics about where I was going for my internship, how many hours, etc. Then while waiting for Dennis to finish up some work, one of the culinary professors at the college brought Kathy and me to one of the Ganesh idols.
Ganesh is one of the Hindu gods. He is an elephant/man with four arms and symbolizes new beginnings. Because of his look, he is a very popular god among the children. Right now, the Ganesh festival is going on. All Hindu families either buy an idol of Ganesh or are given one by someone. For either 1,3,5,7, or 10 days someone in the family has to stay in their house and be with Ganesh. Ganesh can never be left alone. After sitting with Ganesh for a number of days, they immerse the idol into the water, which is why everyone has to get a new idol every year. There's been a lot of articles in the newspapers here about how much people are polluting the water when they leave the Ganesh in the water. Some people have started to buy ecofriendly Ganeshes, but not many. I wish I could've taken a picture of the Ganesh that we saw because it was beautiful! Especially being an outsider though, I didn't want to take pictures and disrespect the religion and traditions. It was probably about 7 feet tall, and was painted with gorgeous colors all over. Since Ganesh is the god of new beginnings, I saw it fit for the Ganesh festival to be going on right as I was having new beginnings of a new apartment and new life in Mumbai.
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