SHIA LAAGA!!!

Shia laaga means 'it's cold' in the local language. Our first real snow came this week...better late than never! Shia laaga sort of became our battle cry. It's pretty fun to yell at the top of your lungs. Emily, Brian, and I spent the week helping our local friends write cultural songs. If you know me at all then you know I'm not the most musical person in the world so it was a learning experience for me. What I realized is that it doesn't matter how gifted you are. Music has the power to touch anyone's soul, and even more so if it's in their heart language. That's the main thing we tried to teach our friends. They can learn songs in English, Hindi, Urdu, whatever...but why not write them in the language they grew up speaking? The local language is oral so it was a bit of a challenge at first--especially since our friends are not experienced musicians. BUT they did so great! They recorded eight tracks and it was the first time for these kinds of songs to be recorded in this language.

We also had a quite a bit of fun. I taught the guys how to rap (thanks to DC Talk and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). We tried some local dancing and the electric slide and one night Kewal and I performed a great duet to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The best day, however, was our field trip day. We went skiing up in the mountain. It was my first time and I had a blast! There are no lifts here so you have to talk up the mountain and ski down, which is a lot of work for a high maintenance American but it was still really fun. We also had a huge snowball fight and slid down icy hills in inner tubes. Man, India is a great place. Where else can you do all this while dodging yaks and men in fur coats and colored snowsuits? Anyway, pictures are below!