my situation has been dismissed

So here is my situation. I’m eating another delicious south Indian meal. It includes cucumbers, chutneys, this naan-ish thing filled with cheese, and a soup. As I’m scarfing down this tasty treat in front of my face I feel a grumble and/or a tumble in my belly. And maybe I should back up a bit. The group I’m with consists of 11 other girls who aren’t aware of the fact that I am a proud burper and farter. Therefore, me being the fragile and delicate lady that I am I have to hold them in. (for now at least) I rush to the bathroom knowing what my punishment for holding secrets in will be.

I guess that story was really irrelevant being that all I wanted to do was explain the toilet situation to you guys but I thought it would be nice.

Now here’s the important part. The bathroom is four brick walls with no ceiling. You turn a corner and there lies an Indian toilet. Flush with the floor and pretty much a porcelain hole. It’s not like a HOLE, hole. Well it is but it has room for error. Next to the porcelain hole is two porcelain rectangles. They are the perfect size for your feet to be placed. You carefully place your feet on the nicely put rectangles, pull down your pants to your knees and squat a nice comfortable squat. You have to make sure to aim correctly or several things can go wrong.
1. You pee all over the floor in front of you
2. You pee on your pants
3. You pee in the toilet but with a perfect angle to splash back on your usually bare feet.
I will admit that the splash back is my specialty but I am getting quite good at aiming. Peeing is the easy part. Pooing is a craft. You must make sure to not aim right at the hole because if your poop lands right in the water, splash back is inevitable since you are so close to the ground. You MUST and I repeat MUST land your droppings in front of the hole to avoid it. Then after wiping, whether it’s with your left hand or by luck there is toilet paper, you get a bucket of water and wash your droppings away. Ah... dismissed.


The end.

I will post pictures. I can't right now because our internet is complicated. It will start back up in October.

vanakkam

So It's real. I wasn't just saying words or making it up in my head. I'm really in India. Honestly, I keep having to blink my eyes over and over again to realize that I am half way around the world from everything that is comfortable. And when I say everything, I pretty much mean everything. 

I'm surrounded by people I don't know, a language that I don't speak and in a place that is SO foreign.... But I know that will all change in a matter of days. =] I've already made a local Aurovillian (I live in the village called Auroville) sit down and I had him teach me some simple phrases in Tamil. Tamil is known to be one of the oldest languages that is out there. The language is beautiful-except not when I speak it. It sounds like a really twisted up Spanish. 

I can't wait to video chat with you guys so I could show you my room. The mattress is thin and the roof is made out of palm leaves. It's quickly becoming home for me though and I actually really love it... though at first glance it was a different story. 

I'm going to keep this short because I slept like 4 hours last night and I am pooped but I will be sure to keep you guys posted every step of the way. 

I'm really excited to be here. I already know that this is going to be a unique and life changing journey.. India! 

"this is indeed India...

...the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra a

nd the jungle, the country of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations-" -Mark Twain

So this is it, I'm finally off to India for the semester. I admit that I am a bit nervous but I think it's because I just want to be there already. Get it started, ya know? 

A lot of people have been asking about my program so I'm going to give a little overview of what I'm going to be doing there. 

My classes:

1. Group Dynamics: This class is on learning to recognize and analyze the physical, social, economic, political, ethical, and spiritual elements that make up sustainable communities. 
2. Global and Local Sustainable Living: We're going to study the role of human history, language, education, physical landscape, society, and world view on shaping human-place relations. We're going to find connections through use of ecological footprint analysis and other things. 
3. Applications and Practices of Sustainable Living: This class is field based and I get to do an internship project in sustainable development throughout my stay in Auroville
4. Body, Mind, and Spirit: Cultivating Personal Sustainability: Here I'll be studying the importance of world views and how they affect human behavior and the earth, and gain an understanding for the historical roleof religions and spirituality in creating culture. 

Some highlights of the semester are:

• Visiting cultural and ecological sites like Periyar Ecological Sanctuary
• Engage in a 40 hour wilderness solo
• Travel to Karnataka and spend 3 weeks at the Ecodaya Santuary, and island in the Tungabhadra River-jungle ruins of ancient Hindu empires and some of the rarest ecology and geology on the planet
• Overnight at the Sri Ramanamarashi's ashram and climb Arunchala Mountain, locally believed to be the body of the Hindu god Shiva

AUROVILLE, TAMIL NADU, INDIA

Auroville is an ecovillage in the state of Tamil Nadu. The largest city that is nearby is Chenna

i. 

Here is a visual reference to where I will be:

This is a model picture of what Auroville looks like from a birds eye view.  

Contact Information:

Love from the states will be much appreciated and will be returned graciously from India... please send by Global Priority Mail NOT economy (surface) post. The latter has been known to take four months to get to us. 

College Guest House

Crystal Lim

Auroville 605 101

Tamil Nadu India

If you need to contact me ASAP and I mean ASAP call...

413-259-0025 This is the number to the U of Amherst Living Routes Office.

I will have opportunities to do webcam/skype/ichat from time to time so get ready to set some phone dates with me.. 

I will update this blog as often as possible so stay tuned. 

mas costa rica

So I'm long over due for this one. I've been back from Costa Rica for a while but the place is still heavily resonating in my heart. Since Costa Rica I lead another trip to Moab/Zion, Utah and have been to Baja Mexico and back but Costa Rica constantly replays its beauty in my mind. 

The following pictures are of the places that I went during my Adventures Cross Country trip.. meaning lugging 15 kids around to these amazing, hidden secrets of Costa. 

I want to keep this short because I have nothing more to say except the fact that I had a really hard time leaving this place. I was so lucky to be able to go to these EXTREMELY remote places... FAR away from tourists and SO CLOSE to locals. I got to stay up late nights talking to my new family Tia sara, Adriana, and Hector about life and love by candle light. I got to wake up early mornings to the booming sound of howler monkeys (congos)... It was just incredible. Costa Rica has definitely stolen a little piece of my heart and I am counting down the days until I get to return and unlock more secrets about this amazing place. 

 

no where to be and all day to get there

I'm back from Costa Rica. I'm going to do two posts on it because I feel like I had two very different experiences there. 

Before the kiddos got to Costa Rica, I got the opportunity to travel around for two weeks. This was really the first time I hopped on a plane with no plans and really no clue what Costa was going to be like. The whole plane ride over I was internally panicked about how the heck my broken spanish was going to take me to a hostel let alone get around for a whole month and a half.

A lot of my travel in Costa Rica consisted of asking "hola senor, donde esta el estacion de autobus?" and "soy koreana pero nacio en california". I carried only a backpack on my back and planned as i went. If I wanted to leave that day I could or if I wanted to stay three more nights I could also. I really had zero limits (well maybe how much money I had to spend... which wasn't a lot) But traveling on a shoestring was incredible. I was blown away by the numbers of world travelers from all over. It definitely gave me the travel bug aka wanderlust.. so if you want to come on una aventura with me.. let me know because I am always in.    

Jaco, CR- My friends and I were walking down the street with our packs on and suddenly a man just pulls over and asks if we're looking for a hostel.. we answer 'yes' and he basically just loads us up in his car and takes us to an amazing hostel called The Kangaroo Hotel. It consisted of very cute surfer Ticos and us. I love Costa Rican kindness. =]

I'm pretty proud to say that Cristal along with one other company is the main water company. To tell people my name would be a breeze

These three pictures are from Montezuma, CR. One of my favorite spots that I got to see during my travels alone. It was pretty free from tourists and had a 'getaway' feel. 

Ah- Volcan Arenal. The tourist hub. Yes, it is one of the most active volcanos in the world... but man I didn't like most of my experience here. Too expensive, too touristy, and not easy to get to. Luckily my friend Gordo and I found a guy driving to this place from Monteverde and hitched a ride from this North Carolina, tattoo covered, ear stretched man. 

Yes. Puerto Viejo, Limon, CR. Here is where I acquainted myself with the Caribbean side. This place was where I ended my travels and stayed the most time in. I just loved it. It was a hostel called Rockin J's and you rent a hammock for $4 or a tent for $5. I went the hammock route and no it's not uncomfortable. I actually slept like a little baby being cradled against my mommas bosom. okay well not that well but only because this place is bumpin' pretty much all night long. Live music, a bar, and eclectic travelers from all around. Pretty amazing. If you ever go to Costa Rica and are looking for a fun time twisted with the most chillest vibe... this is it. 

my next post will about costa rica with the kiddos. watch out for it. 

pura vida mae

This is going to be short and sweet due to the slow internet and limited time i have on here.

Currently I'm in a hostel in MonteVerde Costa rica called Pension Santa elena i think... So far this is my fourth hostel in just about 4 days. There are two dogs with no collar near by and a cat curled up next to me. I've found that hostels around costa rica are a safe haven for travels from around the world that speak mostly english. My legs are getting bitten by the pesky mosquitos and I have seen so many crazy animals that costa rica inhabits... just simply beautiful.

Monteverde is known as the cloud forest because we are so high up... its truly amazing.

Okay well that's all I could do for now because of the time limit but I hope everyone is well-even throughout the my traveling I still miss home every single day.

mucho gusto

this is my job...

Details: 
So between the time of my Southern Utah trip with Phil and now, I have been mainly in San Francisco. I drove with Emily from Salt Lake to good 'ol Mill Valley, CA where I had staff training for my second year at Adventures Cross Country (ARCC). Staff training ended this past sunday and then I had two days of prepping for my trip with  my co-leader Dan Grossman. After that I headed out to Santa Cruz with a few of my friends from ARCC and have been relaxing for the last four days. 

This is Salt Lake... Emily, Phil and I took a nice hike up to the "living room". This picture alone should relay why I love Salt Lake so much...It's so beautiful!!

These are the not so natural "seats" in the living room. You can see all the way out to the Great Salt Lake from here. 

Here is the Golden Gate Bridge.. We did trail work here for our community service during training..

Here are a few of my friends from work. My co-leader is the one in the orange shirt! 

That's Chris and Adam doing manly trail work.. there was a lot of poison oak but most of us were okay. 

We call ourselves the blues hounds.. my buddy travis is a talented musician that can play many-a-instrument He's been teaching me haaaaaarmonica!

That's Adam, Juilian and Brett at Muir beach. They're in my group. Our campground where staff traning was held was near Muir Beach so we spent a lot of time there..

that's meeee at Muir beach!

Staff training has been exhausting, exhilarating, stressful, fun, wonderful and... a lot of other things. I love the people here and it is not too shabby to be able to travel on the dime of a company. I definitely  miss home but I'm ready to head out to Costa Rica and do some solid exploring of a new place. I have two weeks to play and then the kiddos come in for three weeks. We're doing three service projects (Working with Sea Turtles, teaching English, and building a library), We also get to raft the Pacuare River, surf along the Pacific coast among other things.

 

Here is my address while I'm in Costa Rica:

Crystal Lim

Adventures Cross Country (CRS 2C)

Interlin#124

P.O. Box 526770

Miami, FL 33152k

It usually takes about a week and a half to get to me and I will be there until August 1st so don't send anything later than a week and a half from august 1st.. got it?! but send things otherwiseeeee!!! weeeeEE!

That will be my main source of correspondence and I will be able to email once in a while. 

Ah I truly miss everyone-I will be home soon. I will update in Costa Rica as soon as I can.. 

Momma, Daddy, Andrew, Alex... i miss you guys the most. I think about you guys every day!