thank you, at&t.

when i arrived in india it was a pleasant (and unpleasant) surprise that my phone got service while my team mates had none.
"When it comes to staying in touch, you can trust AT&T for fast, easy, and reliable connections worldwide."
^ it's the truth. and you can also trust that when you buy calling cards, that they AREN'T going to work, and you will come home with a $700 phone bill.
so i get on the phone with at&t, and i told the lady that i had bought calling cards and everything, and she puts me on hold. then she comes back and says "well, those charges are for roaming, so they are legitimate.and you still get charged for the minutes. but i can take off $26!"
well whoop de doo! thank you so much! now that you have taken off that $26, i can pay. psh. if i had to pay for roaming when using a calling card no matter what, then WHY would i pay for a calling card? wouldn't i just make a call? it makes no sense. so then my mom comes home and i beg her to call and be mean because i can't, and she makes me do it. but they still tell me they will only take off the $26. so i'm on the verge of tears and i just hand my mom the phone. of course, after about 5 minutes, mom got it "down" to $350. bleck.
ok, another batch of photos!

the cows and i just waiting in line for some ice cream

this is in khopoli:



the market!






this is prapaula, the head of the school in the slums.

some sort of joke.


auntie louisa john isaac! haha. she is so sweet!

we took a ferry ride to elephante islands. this is the gateway to india and the taj mahal hotel

saris! yeah they are pretty..but imagine wearing one in a crowded church for four hours with no air conditioning. i felt like a baby swaddled in a blanket.


here are pictures from the red light district i wrote about. the street going horizontal is where the centre is, and if you take a right by where the lady and the big trash heap are, that's one of the four "lanes" where the prostitutes are living..

you can see it better here..

the centre where the kids (and some of their moms) go during the day since they can't go to school.

these women are practicing and their children are at the centre.

the kids! they stay here all day and sometimes well into the night.

these girls got into a real school!

one night during our stay in mumbai, all of us in the house heard music coming from outside, and it continued to get louder and louder as if it were coming towards us. being in mumbai for a few weeks now at this time, we were used to loud commotion outside the windows, but nothing like this. it was well after 10 or 11pm, and we had kind of been scared into staying inside after dark. but of course, i was curious and i needed to see what was going on. allie was brave enough to come with me out onto the streets with what seemed to be a thousand other people as well. we saw a large circle with music playing and people crowding around everywhere. we were intrigued and wanted to discreetly slip into the circle and video this, because it was awesome. we should have known by now that white girls in india cannot discreetly do anything. as we were walking towards the circle we were practically bombarded by all these men/boys (not many women come out at night) wanting us to take their picture. it was madness. i was trying to be nice so i took a couple and then couldn't handle the large circle that began to crowd around US. so, allie and i ran back inside and decided to watch the indian wedding from the terrace... and here is the video we took:


now, i will continue to do post some heart- warming video of the sweet kids at the orphanage. get your tissues out.