this is your birthday song/it isn't very long....hey!

it's funny, in a rather paradoxical way, that when I think of India last year, I think cold. My first trip three years ago conjures up yellow sunshine rays, and a mix of too hot and (when the air conditioner ran for too long) too cold. last year it just was cold, and in a land without heaters, you just throw another itchy blanket onto that uncomfortable, coconut husk-stuffed bed, and call it good. I especially think of my overnight train trip, where I tried desperately, in broken Hindi, to make the young man passing out blankets understand that I was freezing and needed another one. I also remember the conference that took place in a concrete building, starting about 9 in the morning, and how all the men would stand in the bushes at break time because there was no sun on the lawn. In our newspaper one morning there was a picture of snow and icicles in the northern part of our state. January usually treats India better than that.

But even though I start shivering at the thought of those unexpected temperatures, I get a warm glow in my heart when I recall the images in my mind of our hosts, hotel staff, and incredible friends made. I still laugh out loud at some of the crazy things we did (that long argument about real v. fake palm trees in LAX) and the jokes we're still reviving to this day (just order the coffee in the big cup, you'll get what you want). I don't think a culture can be steriotyped as welcoming or non-welcoming, because of the variety of people in it. Sure, we got some angry glares from anti-Americans, but we also got hugs and gifts from total strangers, who just wanted us to remember them kindly. They will be, forever.

Today I see a picture of the hotel I was in, or an Indian person I knew well, and I could almost start crying. I want to be there so much, sometimes it hurts. It's like you have your home, but then there's another place you call home, because you feel totally in place there, completely comfortable. When I think back on asking the restaurant waiter to order my dinner for me, and the beam which accompanied the dish he set in front of me, tears come up again. Maybe today, more than ever, because I turned 16 in India, I remember a certain day - the best day of my life. A year ago today, I visited a Dalit Education Center for the first time, learned the Hindi word for chipmunk from some little kids, taught them some English, was given a candy that I never ate, joked about a camel farm with our driver, took the best picture I've ever taken in my life, learned about a Sikh temple, breakfasted early on hard boiled eggs and jam on toast, watched my mom's proud face as she told me about crossing an Indian street for the first time, ate the cake she procured on the other side of that street, gave chocolate to all the team members and the hotel staff, went to bed ruminating on one of John's impromtu sermons, and slept one of the best night's sleep I've ever had on probably the worst bed I've ever slept on.

Maybe today seems a little, anti-climactic? maybe. getting up early and going to school, coming home and procrastinating on homework, it's not the best time I've ever had. but I look at some of the relationships I've made in the last year....people who e-mailed me "happy birthday" a year ago are still saying it today. when it comes down to the marrow of life, it's the people you put in, way more than the experiences you have or the places you go. and I'm blessed to have the people in my life who are there now, whether they live here, or in India, or anywhere else in the world. They are heart friends, and that's the most important kind.