Day 10: Mosquito Bites and Memorization

In the last 24 hours 90% of the people in this household have started colds. Our sniffling is almost synchronized. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling stuffed up... but that isn't the worst... the worst is having over 30 mosquito bites on my ankles and feet. So itchy! Thankfully, I remembered that I brought aloe vera with me and that helped me fall back asleep. Let's just say I'm really grateful for mosquito nets (because at least they can't get me during the night) and for malaria pills that keep me from worrying too much. Anyways, when we woke up sick in the morning we all knew it was going to be a chill day of rest to help us get better fast. I went to class and then slept the rest of the morning (to make up for the many times I woke up during the night-- and the super strange nightmares that I had). Thankfully that nap helped A LOT. I'm only a little stuffed up. I still didn't want to push my luck so I still wanted to stay home. Instead of going out, I decided that TODAY I was going to learn how to read and write in Telugu. I had already memorized most of the vowels and consonants prior to coming to India... I just didn't know how to combine them yet. And guess what?? I learned almost all of it!! I can read the newspaper VERY slowly now. haha But then again... I don't know what any of the words mean. Still, it felt great to do something productive! One of our translators --Rajya-Lakshmi-- helped me for over an hour to read through some words and to write out some important phrases. I don't know how much Telugu i'll be able to speak by the time I leave here but I hope I can know enough to get around by myself a little bit better than I can right now. 

That's all for today!

శ్తెఫని

(That's Stéfanie in Telugu... I think the script kinda looks like a bunch of caterpillars and apples!)