Holi hai!

I went to my uncle and aunt's house for holi, which was nice. there are 6 kids in the house, 3 sister-in-laws, 3 cousins, in addition to my aunt and uncle, so there was lots of noise and chaos at all times! on sunday, i played rang with my cousins, which is a tradition in india where people throw colored powder and colored water on each other. what i didn't realize was that the color stains your skin and finger nails, so though i enjoyed the holiday, i'm currently taking 3 showers a day trying to get the pinkish glow off of my skin! my cousins went a little crazy attacking me, so i had many many layers of colors to wash off! i actually just painted my nails, because i couldn't bear to look at the pinkish color on my nails any longer! my digi is in the shop, but i managed to reinstall my webcam, so here's a pic of my lovely nails!

other stuff... my project is getting interesting. i'm learning a lot just by putting the pieces of my research work together. to explain... i've redeveloped my thesis so i can focus on understanding the sexual attitudes and behavioural practices among adolescents. to do so, i've developing a questionnaire and focus group discussion questions. i put together an english version, but i also need a hindi version since some of my target population will be more fluent in hindi than english. since i brought my work with me to raebareilly over holi break, i decided to ask my relatives to help me with the translations. my cousins are pretty young, so i had them translate the more PG stuff- things about name, age, gender, religion, etc. but then, i obviously have lots of questions about sexual behavior, use of protection, etc. so i asked my bhabhis (sister in laws) which was so unbelievably embarrassing and uncomfortable. but, after a few questions passed, we (me, my 3 bhabhis, and my aunt) ended up having a really good discussion about the importance of educating adolescents in a way that they can use the information and apply it to their lives. we also talked about how schools are a great medium for this education because the likelihood of having these discussions in a typical indian household are pretty slim. i was really impressed by how open minded my relatives were especially considering their conservative upbringing. once they got over their initial embarrassment and once i explained why i was asking such explicit questions and my ultimate goals for developing an appropriate way to educate adolescents that is both useful and conducive to the community norms, we were able to move past the initial tension that emerged when i first began asking all my sex questions! it gives me hope that other people i will be meeting, will also be as open-minded. perhaps it will take some time, but i hope that at the end of the day, people will think in the best interests of their families and children. fingers crossed as always...