Friday, June 15, 2007

Bats, Bats, and more Bats

So last night we had our first official welcome ceremony with other guests. There is a group of independent guests staying here from Taiwan and we held a ceremony for them (and it was also a way for us to practice our parts before the events begin). During the ceremony we had a few un-welcomed guests of bats. The bats live in the flags that are displayed in the hall. They also fly up and down the hallway upstairs. Julie thought they were birds until I told her at breakfast that they weren't birds but bats. I don't care about the bats because they eat mosquitos and anything that eats mosquitos is all right in my book.

Our first event starts tomorrow. All of the participants will be here by dinner tonight. I've been super busy getting the event books ready and helping the other girls with their duties. We are all a little nervous that we won't get everything ready in time but CL, the programme manager, seems to think that we will be ok. I'm sure that this first event will seem really crazy and chaotic but I think that it will be really fun.

I've been getting a lot of questions about clothes. For me during work, I have to wear a polo shirt, navy blue pants, and a scarf. I also have a navy blue punjabi suit that I can wear during work. When we don't have events, I can wear my official WAGGGS t-shirts that they supply to us. We also have an official WAGGGS sari that we wear during the welcome ceremonies. The centre supplies our uniform. During off work, we can wear anything that we would like, although we have to take into consideration that we live in a very conservative part of town so the centre suggests that we keep everything between shoulders and knees covered. Participants have to have everything between shoulders and knees covered as well. We also take participants shopping for saris and punjabi suits that they can wear during the Maharastrian dinner. The centre has a tailor that comes in and makes the sari blouses and petticoats and alters punjabi suits if necessary. The clothes here are extremely cheap and even getting something tailored is very inexpensive.

The monsoon still hasn't started and it keeps getting hotter and hotter. It rained some last night and it cooled things off considerably but it sure has heated up very fast today.

Our first event starts tomorrow so I'm not sure if I'll have a lot of time to blog in the next week but I'll try my hardest to keep you updated on the event!

christa

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mom can't wait to hear how the first event goes. Sounds like you are truly enjoying yourself. So glad you have stayed healthy. Bats in a hallway - don't think I would like that much. So have you seen any cows? And where do they keep the camels? How about some pictures of Sangam. Would love to see where you are living.