July 2, 2007 - New Delhi, India

"Sleep is the best meditation"
~Dalai Lama

India has created this intense feeling of guilt within my soul. I am very lucky to have been born an America, into a family that has helped provided me with many opportunities.

I have a hard time going to the markets or making purchases due to the embarrassment of having wads of money. Fulbright has been very generous by supplying each participant with a substantial stipend for purchasing supplies while in India. I have never before weighed my cash money in pounds, but right now I have pounds of Indian Rupee hidden in my hotel room.

As a blond hair, blue eyed woman walking the streets in New Delhi I already draw the attention of hundreds. However, today I made even more of a spectacal of myself. I encountered on the sidewalk a large monkey, with a smaller female monkey, and a baby attached to her belly. I started to jump up and down, clapping my hands, saying "monkey, monkey."

Apparently this is the neighborhood monkey, because the AK-47 holding guard for the gated apartment building responded with, "Baby today... born today... baby born today"!!! I then continued to clap and jump up & down even more!!! Within a city of 14 million people, thousands of cars, and starving animals everywhere, there resides within an apartment building garden, a perfect little monkey family.