chandni chowk

Hello all!! Again I write you from Delhi! where i have a wifi connection! alright! Today i bring good tidings and images. First. These photos are from Old Delhi in a neighborhood called Chandni Chowk. Chowk means market. The day i took these photos Honora and i desired a new adventure. Old Delhi is always an adventure so we headed down there by metro and walked until we found the spice market.Spices, nuts and dried fruits of all kinds are displayed and tickle your nose and burn your eyes. The streets are packed full of people and bicycle rickshaws and wagons. On the side of the streets most people just rest or drink chai or perhaps get a shave. Old Delhi. so cool. The last photo is from a play we saw about Kali, the goddess of time and change.

Other news is: Honora left (sob!!) and i've decided to spend the remainder of my trip volunteering and learning. Today i met with the Art Director of Down to Earth magazine, a magazine that focuses on environmental and science related issues in India put out by the Centre for Science and Environment (http://www.cseindia.org/). I've been given a photo assignment! So i'll be sticking around Delhi for the next few days working with them. I also met today with the Regional Director of the Ashoka Trust for Research of Ecology and Environment (www.atree.org). She was fascinating and so down to earth. A really lovely and smart person. and we have a common contact! She studied in Costa Rica and knows a woman, a forest ecologist, that i know there! such a crazy small world! She told me all about the current research they've been doing and how they're starting to tackle invasive species and fire supression here in India. there is very little information about India's invasive plant species and even among scientists in the country little is known. Ankila, the Reg. Dir., is trying to make information more readily available to the average non-scientist. So, I volunteered to write an easy to read paper on invasive species and why they're a problem in general and in India. So i'll be working on that as well. Alao, I asked her if there is anyway i could see first hand what they are doing and she said she'd connect me with the right guy in Bangalore and i could go spend some time at a research station near by if it all works out! i'm really excited to learn more about this!!! so exciting. so yes. i'll probably stay in Delhi till June 3rd and then head to Bangalore till the 9th when i fly back to Jackson! i've changed my flight. I will now arrive home on June 10th. The Bachelorettes have a show at Hal and Mal's red room on June 12 so please come and check it out! 9pm $5 cover.

and so many more photos to come!

photo by Honora