Greetings from Jaipur Everyone!

Today, April 10th, means I have less than a week before I leave this incredible country. So I write with a somewhat heavy heart.

Again, I apologize for not having written earlier, but there's not too much to say, really. The main reason I'm in Jaipur is because my friend Farrah is here doing research for her Masters and it seemed like a friendlier place to stay instead of Delhi. And for the most part that's been true. It's been great hanging out with Farrah in the evenings after our work for the day is done. We've eaten together almost every night, done a lot of shopping – Jaipur is GREAT shopping! – and have been good supports for each other in work and life.

After a week of searching I found a terrific Hindi teacher. He and his wife have an institute – Hindi Bhavan – about a kilometre down the road from our hotel, and I have enjoyed learning from him. We still have 4 classes left, and I'm looking forward to learning yet more in that time. At his institute most students come to learn English, French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese, and the two of them teach all these languages! Occasionally they get someone like me, a lone foreigner wanting to learn Hindi, and it seems like it’s fun for them to do this.

One negative note – on Thursday, 30 March I came home after a wonderful 'Concluding Ceremonies' event for Rajasthan Days (Charles and Camilla in attendance), to find that my blue backpack, which was locked and hanging on a hook in my locked hotel room, was not in its place. After a search, which in that simple room didn’t take long, I realized it was indeed gone. With Farrah by my side, I filed an FIR (police report) that night. The hotel owners weren’t terribly helpful; their attitude was that it couldn't have happened, and that I would find the bag somewhere else. But because I had reorganized only the day before to keep things 'safe' – my digital camera and camcorder were in that bag – I knew that wasn’t possible. The upshot is that the cameras are gone. At first I had a 5% hope that the police might recover them. But as the days have gone by, that hope has dwindled to .01%. Very unfortunately my digital camera bag also housed my pen drive and 2 memory cards with all my photos. The good news is that I had my passport and cards.

One interesting sideline of this is that the theft was written up in the Hindi newspapers here. For a while I was famous in our little area, Chameli Market (where many wholesale jewellers have their shops), but as the investigation went nowhere, my fame evaporated, thankfully. In addition to my name, age, country, and hotel name, one of the papers even printed my room number! Needless to say I didn't sleep too well for a few nights.

Unsurprisingly, the 'investigation' hasn't been much, and there's really nothing I can do to egg them on. I've been to the SP's office (Superintendent of Police), but they just don't move quickly like they might in the movies or on TV.

So, I focus on Hindi and writing the website for Share and Care. And enjoying the other things Jaipur has to offer, like good walking places (really!), some terrific restaurants, and beautiful architecture.

Take care everyone,

Ellen