WHAT?!! You mean I'm not Indian???

Yup, that's right. The countdown is on - less than 4 weeks in Indore, 4 weeks and a day before I leave India altogether. In the meantime I'm sitting here in a sari and bangles looking almost as Indian as a westerner can get. Except for the fact that my bangles are FAR too big by Indian standards and my sari isn't nearly tight enough. Oh - and my sandals are way to clunky. Whatever. I can't be perfect! However, last weekend Elisa and I DID cook an entire Indian meal and served it for a picnic. Everyone was very impressed!
Things are going well at the Institute. For those of you who didn't recieve my group email, I apologize. Here's a quick recap of what it said (the rest of you can skip to the next paragraph) : The first weekend in October was a trip to Bhopal with a downsized version of the Barli Family - Jimmy, Janak, me, Elisa, Tom (a new volunteer from England), Sushma (one of the year-long trainees and a good friend, she's from the northern state of Sikkim), and Sunita (a graduate of the Institute from Bhopal, who I'll tell you more about in a bit). The purpose of our trip was threefold: firstly, to celebrate Tom's birthday; secondly, to celebrate Elisa's birthday; thirdly and most importantly, to open the first ever centre of the Barli Institute, non-residential, for women who can't take 6 months off to attend our sessions here in Indore. In short, the inauguration ceremony went FABULOUSLY, and the classes are going really well from what we hear. Also, Bhopal is beautiful with a nice big fat lake, complete with three little boats floating around spouting fountains into the air.
So anyway. In the short time since then many things have happened. Firstly and most excitingly - we have recieved approval to open a second centre outside Bhopal, close to an SOS village (a village specifically for orphans where each "mother" has about 6 to 7 children and they live together like a family). This centre will be run by Arpitha, another graduate of the Institute who was here when I arrived in June. That centre will open almost definitely before I leave. Hooray! I get to go back to Bhopal!!
Two weeks ago Ishraq arrived, an older woman who is on the National Spiritual Assembly of Sweden. The NSA works with a Swedish project (SIDA) to help fund our Institute, so she was coming to check things out and discuss the funding and whatnot. Last Tuesday we had a board meeting and the next day she left. She was really nice.
This coming weekend Elisa and I will arrange a display with some of the girls about the Institute, for an International Photography Conference/Competition. On Sunday, as part of the conference, we'll get a free trip to Mandu - a really beautiful old temple city. And who knows what after that??
I'm starting to wonder if I'll have time to finish all the work I was planning on doing!