hot, yoga

It’s hot here. The only reprieve seems to be in the middle of the night, but living on the third floor where the air is stagnant, we don’t get that. I know, I know…I will get no sympathy from anyone in Detroit, New York, Montreal, or anywhere else where you are jumping for joy at the signs of spring. Our Indian friends tell us this is unseasonably warm, just as they told it was colder than usual in January. I am sure they are as warm and uncomfortable as us, but they don't look it. No sweat, no clothes sticking to every part of their body. They even wear their hair down! I stuck mine up in a bun-ponytail thing last week and have no plans to take it down until we hit the pavement in Newark. Even with the 100 degree temps, we still love it here.

Unrelated to the heat, though it would be related if I was doing bikram yoga, I naively thought that everyone in India would be doing yoga all the time everywhere. Not the case. Finding a yoga studio near our house proved to be impossible. So we made up our own thing. The Satsang Bhavan Ashram (commonly called Papaji) is just a short ten minute walk from our house. We knew they had a really nice space and yoga mats because Trudi would meditate there in the morning. And we knew they had delicious food because we had my birthday lunch their. So we asked if they had anyone who could teach us yoga...long story short, they did but she is away until summer and she is the only one who can teach there...except me. They were fine with the idea of someone with no teaching experience teaching. So our group of me, Molly, Trudi, and Dan voted me in as the instructor. I have been doing yoga for 10 years but I have never taught before. Turns out the internet has lots of great lesson plans and the best thing about being the instructor is that you get to do the poses you want to do! Thus yoga and yummy organic dinner became part of our routine. We were doing it two or three times a week, though since Trudi went back to New York, we have only done it once. After Passover we will pick it up again. Also I am very much looking forward to a week long yoga course in Rishikesh at the end of our trip!

We are off to Delhi this afternoon to reunite with other AJWS volunteers for Passover. Lots of stories and pictures when we return...