diwali.

this tuesday was diwali here in india. it's a huge celebration with tonnes and tonnes of fireworks everywhere. we went to a friends house and ate lots of food, watched the light display across the mountain, and avoided our share of flaming rockets. no one was hurt so i guess it was a good night

here's a view of banderpunch from the top of the hill. chris and i are taking a group of students on a week long trek on sunday.... we're so excited to get away and be in the big hills again. it's been a busy week of planning and trying to prepare the kids for the walking, cold and snow.

we've got quite the huge pile of food in our place now. the kids were just over making hot chocolate, pancake mix, trail mix and other goodies... and of course our child anu had to be in the picture.

sports day.

so the last few weeks have been a bit of a blur. not only were my parents here but it was sports season here in the hills. our after schools usually involved practicing and trials all leading up to the big day. everyone here at woodstock is divided into 3 teams, the eagles, condors and the merlins. we compete against each other in all sorts of events throughout the year, it's a good way to try to get some school spirit going and finding other schools to play against is sometimes hard. our "field" is located about a 1000ft down from the school, so convincing students to come practice is a little difficult, not to mention the tight corners on the oblong field, atleast most of the donkey poo gets cleaned up for the big day....







very serious business as usual.



one of the highlights is the end of the day staff relays. as you can see, someone is a little excited... but some staff get pretty into it, going through elaborate warm up rituals in an attempt to not look so old and slow. the students love seeing us all run, and there were no injuries this year so i guess that means it was a success.



i was surprised chris got this photo of me, i guess our camera has a pretty fast shutter speed... just call me flash.

visitors.

so my parents have been here for a week now, we spent some days getting overwhelmed in the crowded-dirty-heat of delhi before retreating back to mussoorie. this is the main bazaar near where we stayed...






this is one of the first views of mussoorie on the ride up from dehradun. i think one of the most entertaining things here is the driving... avoiding the cows, monkeys and oncoming vegetable trucks.




this is the indian version of "blockbuster". i don't think we've found a non-pirated video yet...

vegetable shopping in the bazaar.

we had a holiday due to gandhi's birthday yesterday so we went out for a walk to some local farms... lots of vegetables and curious kids. this girl was busy cleaning rice...

we also went down to dehradun today to a leprosy mission. christina and mom were on a mission to spend their rupees for a good cause.