Skills i've acquired:

Good morning intrepid seekers and readers! yes, yes, i know, it has been a veritable eternity since i have written. i wrote a long entry yesterday and saved it on the desktop of a computer at a place when their server went down, so it is still saved there on the desktop, unsent.
i will pass by there today and lift it off the desktop and onto the internet, hopefully, if their systems are up and running.
Much I am learning here. I am learning how to step off the street when I hear a large truck approaching from behind me BEFORE he has a chance to honk, scaring the socks off me. Even though he has plenty of room to go past, they honk just to make sure you know they are there, as a courtesy to you so you don't step into their path unknowingly. Moving over without even looking back at the m is a clear unspoken indication to them that you are aware of their presence, thus nullifying their need to honk. Aha!! see, there IS a system. I'm just happy to have one less blaring horn in my ear.
I am learning other valuable skills as well (besides standing on my head): how to eat a hot breakfast (safely) for 75 cents, how to send a parcel by sea mail (not as easy as it sounds), how to use an indian style public toilet without touching anything OR (and this is so key) without trailing my pantleg or anything else on the perpetually wet and smelly floor. (Now I understand why they always remove footwear when going indoors).
I am learning how to joke and play and make friends with the people here because once they decide they like you, there is nothing they won't do to help you out. And having many friends is how you get things done around here, greases the wheels, so to speak. I have never seen a people so bonded in friendship before. It is beautiful. I am learning how to ask for a takeout bag for my leftovers in restaurants so I can feed it to the next lucky cow I meet in the street. Its the only place in the world where simply feeding the cattle is a religious act. Life is poetic here.
Everything is used and reused, very little is wasted. Unlike our culture where we throw something away at the slightest blemish or imperfection and just buy a new one. Here something is used and used and repaired and fixed and patched and used some more until it simply cannot be used anymore and even then, it often finds another life, reincarnated for some other purpose entirely.
I don't see the garbage and the dirt anymore. I only see the kindness people show, the determination with which they perform their daily activities and the mischievious smiles upon their faces.
Every culture, every country's people have something to teach the world, something to contribute to humanity. Each has their weaknesses and their strengths and when you travel, you search to learn from the positive attributes of a culture. Basically, if you look for the good in people, you'll never go wrong. And this can, and should, be applied to relations at home too. It just seems easier when you are travelling because you are so outside your normal routine and comfort zone and in an unfamiliar environment which automatically makes you more open, more receptive, less engrained in your ways and willing to try new things, new ideas.
So I don't see the poverty and the filth so much anymore, as when I first arrived. I mean... its there, it doesn't go away, but the eye gets used to such sights and begins to perceive them as normal. Also, i have access to nature, rivers and hills, so that is a nice tonic to balance out the business of the street and market.
When i go home, what won't seem normal to me at first will be how clean the streets are, and also how cold and lifeless and empty of people it will seem by comparison to the liveliness and warmth and noise and activity, heart and soul lived out full-on in the street here that i, at first, found so impossible and offensive when i arrived. It is amazing to me how much this has changed in my perspective in only one month and a half. I look forward to the next 8 months and what more changes lay in store.