June 26th - Rohan's notes

I have arrived safely in India. I started school on June 13th, and school here is very different than in America. We have eight periods and one 25 minute lunch break. Between each period we have a few minutes of free time. Each period, we have a different teacher teaching a different subject. The teachers are very strict and one of them yelled " If you have left your brains at home, then don't come to my class". !!

The soccer field has absolutely no grass, just dirt. It is very hard to play soccer as many kids slip, slide and get hurt, as I have done 3 times.

The basketball court serves as an assembly place also.

During the few minutes between periods, everyone in the classroom goes absolutely crazy, yelling and hooting, hollering and pounding on the table. There is no classroom library, just the school library, which we visit once a week.

At school, I have made 4 friends: 2 Americans, 1 Dutch and 1 Indian. I ahve also made one enemy, who calls me "Dirty American Brat".

The roads are terribly bumpy and half of them are made of DIRT. I take the bus to school everyday, and we bounce up and down on the roads. There are few traffic lights, just on the main intersection roads, and we DO NOT wear seat belts.

I have gotten sick already on the 21st, and stayed home all day and skipped school. My mother was clever enough to get some medicines from the local doctor to have on hand, because she knew we would fall sick sometime or the other.

Everyday, at 5:30 p.m., all kids in the complex go to the clubhouse and play soccer for about 1 hour. Now, this field has grass.

I live with my cousin, but we will soon move to our own house. It is really cool, having a spiral staircase that goes to the roof. A lot of houses here have that, including my cousin's house.

P.S. The tome here is different from the American time, because of the time zones.