Jetlag has me awake again tonight when I should be sleeping so with all this free time I might as well be busy updating the blog.

The kids and I, by all accounts, had a wonderful three months in India. We were able to spend a lot of time with my husband’s side of the family and develop a closeness which had not been there previously. I feel a great satisfaction with the trip especially knowing we were able to do that.

We spent nearly half our time while in India in the small villages of Hindupur and Anantapur. The villages of India are truly the “real” India and are still where approximately 70% of the Indian population work and live. Five years ago while in India adopting our twin daughters my travel was limited to Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad — all large cities. I left the country without having ever once stepped foot into a small town — something I had regretted ever since. It thrills me to have now been able to do what I failed to do then.

My husband’s younger sister and her family live in Hindupur. My husband’s older sister as well as his mom and dad now live in Anantapur. Both of these small towns within three hours drive from each other are situated in far southern Andhra Pradesh state.

Hindupur is considerably smaller than Anantapur. The people are neighborly and my kids ran back and forth all day long between my sister-in-laws house and the neighbors, whose doors were always wide open. Having spent my own childhood in a small town in America (Goltry, Oklahoma. Population 311) I am especially fond of this lifestyle.

I don’t know the last time, if ever, a foreigner has visited Hindupur. My children and I were certainly seen as an oddity. If you ask what is best about Indian villages and what is worst I will give the same answer — the people.

The friendliness and hospitality of the Indian people, I am convinced cannot be compared to any other place on this planet. If you ever have the opportunity to visit India I encourage you to contact the Indian government and take advantage of their “Paying Guest House Scheme”. Through this program the government matches visitors with a suitable family with whom you will live. Take my word for it, you will be treated like royalty.

As much as I love the Indian people and the friendliness and hospitality which I have just described, this friendliness did often cross the line into invasion of privacy and became somewhat of a burden of which I became eager to relieve myself.

At my sister-in-law’s house in Hindupur my favorite seat in the house was the large stone slab out front on the “porch” area of the home. Nearly every house seems to have one and they have a name for it which I am not able to remember at the moment. Not only was it made of stone and something which I could sit on without fear of it collapsing, but it also allowed me to sit outside and watch the busy Indian street scene. I could sit and watch the coming and goings of the Indian people (along with their goats, oxen, carts, etc.) all day long — if only they were not also watching ME.

The Indian sense of appropriate personal space is not the same as ours. It was not at all unusual to have someone (children as well as adults) stand directly in front of me, looking me up and down, and to continue this for a full minute or two despite my attempts to make them equally uncomfortable by staring back at them or my attempts to shoo them away. Occasionally a crowd would begin to gather, all to stare at this strange being before them, and I would have little choice except to go inside.