The second floor is coming along -- will there be a third?

2nd Floor

The beginnings of the 2nd floor! Behind the photographer is the street. To the right is where the stairs come up to this floor. This will be the master bedroom with a bathroom in the back right and a closet in the back left. The room that we are standing in will be a little study-type area. Behind us will be a balcony overlooking the street.

Bathroom tile choices!

Watering the roof

Now the roof needs to soak for a period of days. The sides of the walls have been built up so that the water doesn't fall off. These sides will be removed when the soaking process is finished.

The roof process

It's getting there

Top: a view from the street. Below: they've started building the roof already!

Note: that's a bald Pramod in this picture. He went to temple and shaved his head as a religious symbol. Hopefully his hair grows really fast or he's going to be cold when he comes home!!

Growing a house

Still coming along.

Stairs!

It's a little dark, but this picture is taken from what will be the inside of the house towards the front entrance. You can also see the stairs going up to the next floor on the left.

Demolished

The layout had created unnecessary unusable space. We decided that instead of having to walk around the bedroom to get to the bathroom, we would make the bathroom, kitchen, and livingroom bigger by getting rid of the bedroom on the ground floor.

Now the only bedroom will be upstairs.

Rooms in the making

Right bottom: bathroom, right top: kitchen, left: bedroom. To the left of this will be the entrance and living room.

Puja

The doorway is up! In Pramod's culture they have to do a prayer ceremony (puja) first thing.

Wow foundation!

Lots to be done for such a small area

The plot of land with nothing --digging comes next.

Pramod's nephew, Mithun.

Sump finished

The place for the sump only took a couple of days. It looks pretty nice though.

The hardest thing Pramod has had to face so far has been the angry neighbors

due to all of his supplies blocking the road. Not much room.

Pramod is building his house in India!

January 10th: the moving out and demolition of his house had occured before Pramod arrived in Mysore. Their first step in the building process was to build a place for the sump tank under the front entrance.

Carbondale, CO

We had a lovely time spent with Rose (Dad's mom's sister). It was very low key which was exactly what we needed -- some TV, pizza and hanging out. Pramod and I are really enjoying spending this time with family (and unrelated friends) and getting to know them all better. It makes me realize how important and easy it is to do so. I'm going to have to remember this lesson as we head into our busy lives. Visiting doesn't need to be extravagant, just a connection.

Driving and Las Vegas

I guess we were a little ambitious in our plans. This was our plan: leave San Francisco in the morning and drive 8 hours to Las Vegas (we at least made it that far!). Then spend a couple of hours there before driving the 10 hours straight to Carbondale, CO starting at almost 1 am. There weren't enough hours for me to sleep before Pramod needed to stop driving so I had a very hard time and we ended up sleeping for a few hours in the car at a gas station. We're only about 2 hours later than we had planned though, not too bad.

We've caught up with the winter though. Utah had some snow on the ground at the rest stop but now we're driving through what looks like the badlands again and there's no trace of snow.

Las Vegas! As Pramod says: "It's like being on a different planet". In India, that's what they think America is. I liked the music playing on speakers on the street so that even in walking from place to place it is like a big party. However, I wouldn't want to live in a city with that.

We had allowed $20 eac for gambling. Slot machines aren't too interesting and we don't know how to play anything else so we quit without spending that much.

We saw lots of Elvis, showgirls, a superman, batman, and Kiss. All very showy stuff. Anyway, it was fun and impressing. I'm glad we made our way down there to check it all out.

On our way

Our return journey began Thursday. We had a pretty uneventful flight home and we were met by Jon (grandma's brother) who was holding a sign that said "Becca" on it. We had a nice relaxing and welcoming day and night with Jon and Kathy. Aunt Nancy also came to visit early today and it was great to see her again. We all spent the day chatting, hanging out and preparing for the upcoming dinner.

Strange things about coming back to the mainland:

- It felt weird to be driving on a real highway where people go fast!

- The temperature wasn't cold--certainly not any colder than the chilly Hawaiian nights we were having up on the coffee farm, but the air felt crisp. I'm glad we're going to have a coupld of days of fall before heading off to winter.

A problem with Hawaii is that it never freezes and it is often very wet. Without freezing, even just for a couple of hours in the night, there's no period of hibernation and killing of bacteria and it feels like things never get really clean. Maybe that was due to the accommodations that we had but I'm realizing that I really do like winter.

- It was really weird getting into our car and it felt like a distant but familiar memory.

Dinner last night was great. I spent a while talking to Devon (mom's cousin), playing with her kids, and playing music with Mark. I'm glad my violin was still with me! What a great night it was. We have both really enjoyed all the time we've spent with the Searles clan. Very fun and loving people. Good to finally meet them.

This morning we left really early in order to get breakfast with Katherine in San Francisco. We met Katherine on the first farm when we were in Hawaii. We don't know when we'll meet again b ut it's good to know we have another friend waiting for us in California.

Now we're off to Las Vegas for the night. GPS says we'll be there in 8 hours!

Realization

I realized something great today. I want to go back to school to get my masters in accounting. I just need to do it. Here's how I found out:

I had an awesome weekend with Monica and her friend Shane who moved here int the last couple of months. He has this idea to get a grant from the government to start an avocado farm and visitors center. He says that there are over 100 different varieties of avocado on this island and he would like to have taste testings, raw food and vegetarian cooking classes, etc. He said he has all he needs except for someone to deal with the money. My initial thought was: "what a cool idea, I want that to happen and I would love to deal with the money for that!". And I would!

While this avocado thing may never happen or it may but I may have no part in it, I think my true colors showed themselves. I like math, money and organizing things. I just needed a cause that I'm interested in to call me to it (unlike my accounting teacher at the tech who used to work in food sales... boring!). My next move: Boston to get my masters in accounting!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was unlike any I've ever had before. Pramod and I, along with the other WWOOFers here, were invited to a party hosted by Albert's friend. However, come Thursday morning, we had no idea where it was, what time dinner was at, or how we were going to get there. We did have Albert's phone number, but instead of calling him right away we had a relaxing morning where I read for hours (I finished The Road by Cormack McCarthy).

We then decided that it wasn't important for us to go to the party--so we had the day to ourselves. We went in to town to see the new Harry Potter movie (so good!) then came home to the ham and pecan pie that the farm owner had left for us for Thanksgiving. One of the neighbors had also left us a fish that he'd caught.

Pramod grilled the ham and boiled the fish and I warmed up some leftover mashed potatoes and made a pasta dish which turned out pretty good. While we were cooking, Abby and Jesse (another WWOOFing couple from Oregon) came home from the beach. They had also decided to skip out on ths party. We, plus one more, shared in on the good food and drink. It ended up being a pretty good Thanksgiving.

I realized something too. We didn't actually talk about what we were grateful for, but I did think about it. I'm grateful for Pramod. The thought of being without family for this holiday was saddening to me. However, Pramod got me through that and I enjoyed my day with him. I'm grateful that I have him here with me through everything. He's shared the amazing-ness of this trip with me. He's also been there through my crankiness, sadness, and stress. He's been an amazing travel partner and I'm glad I've had him to share the load with -- both literally and figuratively.