We're pretty sure this isn't what it looks like but it still cracked me up. Perhaps "punching" refers to some kind of road toll ticket? Indian English has some odd (to my American ears) phrasing and if I was faster with my camera I'd have dozens of pictures of entertaining signs. We all laughed so hard at this one that I made my cousin stop the car and pull over so I could hop out and take a snap.

Someshwar Beach, near Mangalore.

Aside from the gorgeous trees and flowers, the other awesome thing about Patte was the coconuts. Bonda (tender coconut) is one of my favorite things in the world. You can buy bonda from roadside vendors even in Bangalore, but the bonda you get here is much fresher and tastier. At Patte they had Kundri coconuts which are specially bred for bonda, and the taste was fantastic.

Here's how it works. With a long curved knife you hack off the top of the green coconut and make a hole.
Then you can drink the bonda-neeru (coconut water) inside, as my nephew here is enjoying. Sweet and slightly fizzy.
Then you cut the coconut open, and eat the white coconut flesh inside. Smooth and slippery, and lightly sweet.

Now I'm in Kasaragod, on the west coast of Kerala. My cousins' kids are on a holiday break, so I've been having tons of fun playing with all my nieces and nephews. Usually I have to visit each house separately, but because of the holiday, we're all together in one place, which makes me so happy.

Yesterday we spent the day roaming around at my cousin's husband's native place, Patte, a beautiful large estate with coconut, areca nut and rubber thotas. Here's my niece walking amongst the areca nut trees.

The Ganesha carving on the front door.

Now I'm in Udupi, staying with my cousin and her family in their new house, which my cousin basically designed herself. When I visited in February, I came in the midst of construction so it's cool to see it fully realized now. The house is gorgeous -- high ceilings and beautiful detailing.

The city of Udupi is less appealing though. Every other breeze brings a fishy smell, and the mosquitoes are driving me nuts at night.

Last night I went to Mangalore's new multiplex for a late show of Dhoom 2, the latest action/thriller starring Hrithik Roshan and Abishek Bachchan. Utterly ridiculous and totally entertaining. I've seen movies in India before, but this was by far the nicest theater I've seen here -- plush seats, shiny new facilities, good popcorn. Aside from the presence of so many brown people, we could have been in Ohio. Half the dialogue and song lyrics were in English! Packaged for global audiences. (And I think most of the moves were ripped off from American movies and TV shows -- I recognized a few tricks from Ocean's 11 and 24.)

The English it easier for me to follow the movie, but I found it annoying at times. (Movie songs definitely sound better in Hindi!) But the whole experience was tons of fun and I'm definitely going to make it a point to see more movies before I leave.

There's a squirrel under the TV! I saw it scamper from the balcony, through my bedroom, into the living room, behind the sofa, and finally under the TV stand. It's a tiny thing, the size of a chipmunk, but it has a bushy tail, so I'm guessing the critter is some type of Indian squirrel. I'm definitely going to be more careful about picking stuff up off the floor of my room now that I know that squirrels are passing through...

What I really signed on to write though, is that tomorrow morning I'm headed on my first vacation from my vacation. My four-week, three-state tour: First I'm taking a bus to Mangalore, on the west coast of Karnataka. I'll spend a couple days there with my aunts and their kids, and their kids' kids, and then head to Udupi, where my cousin and her husband just built a new house. Next I'll head to Kasaragod, a small city on the Kerala coast, to spend a week at my dad's eldest brother's house. That big, old house is like a second home to me, because I've stayed there on every trip since I was a baby, and it was always my favorite place to visit. From Kasaragod I'll head out on small trips to relatives' homes in more rural areas where my mom and dad grew up. After making the rounds and seeing everyone, I'll go back to Mangalore and from there take a night train to Chennai, on the east coast of Tamil Nadu. A weekend in Chennai with more family and then finally back home to Bangalore...I'm sure I'll be snapping photos like crazy, so look out for more pictures soon. Happy holidays!

We had another Blank Noise Project action last night and got page 1 coverage in a Karnataka paper!

One thing which cracks me up (and sometimes drives me crazy) here is how often people ask me about whether and what I've eaten. My relatives call me all the time and one of the first questions is always (depending on the time of day), "You've finished breakfast/lunch/dinner?" If yes, then the mandatory follow up, "What did you eat?" If not, then "What will you eat?" Very few questions about what my job entails or how I'm feeling, but detailed inquiries into my daily diet. (This is mainly true of my older relatives -- my younger cousins don't really care what I'm eating.)

I've noticed this on previous trips of course, and just thought that's how my family members express concern for me. But now I know that this is a national obsession. If I go to the beauty salon in the afternoon, the ladies will invariably ask me if I've finished lunch and what I've eaten. On a visit to a school for work, one of the teachers I'd never met before inquired as to whether I'd eaten. (No 'hello' or 'what's your name' but just 'You've finished lunch?' in Kannada.) And yesterday, my bus driver asked me if I'd eaten! I guess it is just one of those social niceties, like asking about the weather, but I'm still not quite used to it.

Speaking of lunch, on Thursday I went to MTR! I've wanted to eat at Mavalli Tiffin Room since I was a little kid and my mom started making saaru with MTR rasam powder. MTR started as a B'lore restaurant in 1924, and 25 or 30 years ago they launched a line of food products and snacks that I've been eating my whole life. The food was awesome. For Rs. 80 (just under $2) each, we had a thali meal. Basically they give you a large steel plate and waiters walk around with big pails of food that they dish out in individual servings. Unlimited quantities. Rotis, pongal, bisibelebath, sambar, rasam, more food than you could possibly eat. Amazing....

I absolutely love the city cows. They're so gentle and peaceful, and completely unbothered by traffic. You don't find them in all parts of B'lore -- I've never seen one downtown, for example -- but they are all over my neighborhood. On my street, at any given moment, at least three or four are snoozing by the side of the road or foraging through trash. I've seen people feeding them rice and vegetables, and many appear well-cared for, with bells hanging around their necks.



The sign she's reading says "No parking in front of the gate."

I visited one of the primary schools in our pilot program last week, in Mariyappan Palya. All of the schools we're working with are government schools operated by the B'lore municipal government. I attended a meeting with a few parents of children at the school and wandered around the school grounds, peeking in classrooms and talking with a few of the students.

(A little background: Unlike in the U.S., here all middle class children and many working class children attend private schools -- which vary widely in quality and cost. Urban parents with any money at all refuse to send their kids to government schools because they are infamously, uniformly awful. Rural government schools are supposed to be somewhat better, but still nowhere near adequate.)

Here's a shot of one of the nicer classrooms. Most of the school's classrooms had no desks, so the kids sit on the floor during their lessons, but this cramped room at least has benches. Another depressing fact: for 250 children at the primary school, and another 250 children at the adjoining high school, there was only one toilet.

But the kids were really lively and adorable, and I had fun meeting them. Several classrooms were unattended (absent teachers?) and when I poked my head in, the children all shouted "Miss! Miss!" to get my attention and shake my hand. When I pulled out my camera, they went totally nuts. I couldn't really even take any good photos because they were jumping up and down and shoving each other to get closer to the camera.