ive been missing entry days ebcause of lack of time so here is a cap for the ast few days..
-Thursday
Spent most of the day doing gropu debriefing stuff, email, and shoping... BUT ht highlight was the 20 min hike up the side of a HUGE hill to get myself to the tallest point in the village which doubles as a kali temple (hindu god of the bloodthristy perswasion). It was awsome for 2 reasons. Frist we stumbled onto a hindu pilgriam song circle... second, the entire hill was overed in trees and MONKEYS!!! entire families.. scratch that.. entire possies of monkeys were swarming the hill and playing around, on top, and in the temple... i'm nt sure if you can tell... i like monkeys...
-Friday
The start of a long day...
With the official group trip being over 2 friends and I got up early friday morning to buy our tickets to varanassi. Ironicaly, EVERY train that went directly to where we were ging was booked for four days.. We had 3 options.. stay in Darjeeling and give up on seeing anything but varinasi, agra, and delhi. Try to get on the waiting list that had 30 ppl ahead of us, OR take a 20 hour train ride intertwined with 2 hours of auto rickshaw rides. All this of course AFTER a 3 1/2 hour jeep ride down the mountain. We decided to try our luck and take number 3. O i forgot to tell you.. number 3 meant taking half the gtrip in the lowst class seats and at points waiting in areas were you, your bags, and everything you see is covered with flies. The highlight was getting on the WRONG train at one of our stops but in trying to get on ths train we had to litterally fight to get a seat as people would THROW themselves onto the train AS IT WAS MOVING...lol
To be honest.. though not showing for 2 days + the heat and dirt made me fel disgusting.. i had an AWSOME time... all expereince that does not lead to death, lasting pain or dismemberment is a good thing and though we wanted to jsut give up at some points.. we met the most amazing people and though some bad things happened .. alot of good came along. I think you have to be willing to face the bad in order to realize the good... there is ALOT of good in this country under the surface... all it takes to find it is to give up the western idea of comfort and be positive about finding it... Your find kindness and lve everywhere.. if you look beyon the scams.. the men who do wrong both to each other and to women... you will find the smile of a child.. you will find the stranger who does everything he can to show you thwe way... you will find the richshaw driver who likes to tell bad jokes.. you wil find you are surrounded by people wonderign why tourists woud come to see them...
After everything.. I think that i am at peace here... and though this trip is challenging (now that volunteering is finished i now face the challenge of dealing with the comfort levels of other) I Thank God that of all palces and of all times.. even dispite the fact that i am a student and REALLY cannot afford to travel... i am here.

So now im in Varinassi for a couple of days... a friend from France is meetings us in Agra on tues and i think i'm finnaly going to see the taj mahul... should be good times

But ya.. i'm back in Canada aug 31st... i can't believe it is almost over... now i jsut need to figure out how the heck i'm getting to my brothers place from the airort because i'm flyig home alone..hmm..