Kat's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Hello! As a Christmas gift to a very artistic friend of mine, I scanned all of the sketches I have done of various henna designs. If interested, click this link to view

Thank you! My parents have both lived abroad and I grew up in Cairo, Egypt, so they had full trust in the program in terms of my safety and didn't need any convincing. They actually worked more to persuade ME to go, not the other way around! I think it is important that they understand how much support you are provided--you will have contacts in both your host country and your home country to help you with any issue you may have. I had a wonderful AFS local chapter in Rajkot, India, and I knew that they would take care of me. If I ever felt unhappy/uncomfortable, I could talk to my AFS counselor in India or I could email the AFS-USA and YES representatives in the US. AFS also has lots of numbers for you parents to contact, including a 24/hr emergency hotline. I hope this helps!! 💛

My exchange year will always be defined by these small moments spent between people. I have so many stories, like the time a maid in my boarding school taught me Hindi by speaking in Gujarati, or when I taught the English alphabet to a group of children living in a slum and they were not shy to approach me to ask for help. I am so grateful for those who have facilitated this program, and those who lended me their support when I needed it. People tell you to live everyday to the fullest, and I believe that in your home country it is easy to take that for granted. Though I had a limited amount of days, I have an unlimited amount of memories to cherish, and this attitude has changed how I view my life whether I'm somewhere foreign to me or in a country that I call home.

That is AWESOME! You will have the best adventure--what you will experience is so different than anything else you could ever imagine. An exchange is all completely yours. This quote is a cliche but it's relatable--an exchange isn't a year in your life, it's a life in a year. Make the most of it!

I love India, and I love the feeling of being back “home”. They just contradict each other a lot.

Here is a much higher quality scan of my capstone project (a requirement of my scholarship program, the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program funded by the U.S. Department of State). I would recommend viewing it via the google chrome app Lumin if you are using google chrome, otherwise you can open the lower quality scan I shared earlier :)

This is a little late (okay about two months late) but here it is, a low-quality PDF file of my capstone project for YES Abroad!

Hello everyone! This is a video my friend from Canada made to document our AFS trip to Kerala in April :) She also made an AWESOME video for a local trip to the Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu & Kashmir, check out her channel on youtube!

Visit to the Taj Mahal 🙃

The Last Week: a marriage, mangos, and the market

Farewell party with the AFS Rajkot chapter

1) You get really comfortable with your various body functions after figuring out how to use squat toilets and why it is so common in India to take natural remedies that “help with digestion.” 2) You have a mini identity crisis, because after reading back over your notes you realize that you’ve half-adopted the British style of English, but occasionally still write in the more familiar American English style–example: “globalisation” vs. “gobalization” 3) Gradually you drop less food all over your clothes as the year goes on, and by the end you are a total master of eating with your hands. 4) You forget how to properly cut food with a knife and fork. 5) Burping, anytime. At first, you would suppress a giggle whenever you heard your host grandma let out a big belch, but now it’s just common background noise. You’ve even let out a few burps here and there after a heavy meal. 6) While the idea of oiling your hair like a pro wrestler disgusted you at first, you now appreciate what one tablespoon of coconut oil can do to keep your split ends at bay. 7) You can relate to BuzzFeed India’s Facebook posts on a hilarious yet seriously emotional level. All those auntie jokes become so relatable. 8) You have to nap between 2-4pm, how else will you survive the midday heat and balance staying up late watching Bollywood movies with the fam and waking up at sunrise? 9) Once upon a time, you showered once every other day, or at least until the B.O. got noticeable. Now, you can’t go a full day without bathing AT LEAST once, but commonly 2-3 times per day. 10) It used to bother your host parents like anything when you forgot to turn off the lights and fan when you left your room (even for just a 2-minute period of time) but now you are more conscious about conserving energy and you find yourself routinely worrying about if you had switched them off or not. It was also difficult at the beginning because you constantly forgot to flip the switch for the outlet, so when you thought you were charging your phone, it was really just losing more and more battery. 11) It's the arrival orientation, you're jet lagged, and all you want is a refreshing plate of watermelon. Nothing too complicated about that, right? So you get some...but it has chaat masala on it. Masala everywhere. This masala makes you cringe and wonder "is this how an arm pit tastes??" Fast forward a few months and you find yourself putting that same masala everywhere, on everything. Lay's Magic Masala chips truly are magic, and you gotta sprinkle some extra salt n pepper masala in your russ (sugar cane juice). You remember how you were at the beginning, when vada pav made you feel like your lips would fall off from the spice and you were convinced this year would result in you hospitalized for the World's Worst Ulcer. You scoff at your weakness and see how powerful you have become. 💪 12) Unless it was at school, you have lost all sense of punctuality. While you once showed up 5 minutes early or exactly on time, you now silently tell yourself "it's India" anytime you are late. Because here, twenty minutes "late" is on time and as a lazy exchange student you love adopting this habit. 13) You forget how to speak English as a native speaker, and have adopted the slang and speech habits of your classmates. This means a whole lotta "only"-s, "basically"-s, and saying "na" at the end of every sentence. It's basically fun to speak this way only, na? 14) Talking about your future marriage is a daily occurrence. At first it was kind of a joke, saying that your host parents can find you a good Indian boy to be married to and then you can have a big Hindu marriage and live here forever. It started without much thought, but now you find that you are serious about it--perhaps not the whole shebang like the arranged marriage bit, or staying in India forever, but you have left a piece of your heart here (and you can't let those aunties down, they REALLY want you to be married here or at LEAST visit with your fiancé). 15) The dance parties here are so much fun, and you only wish that you could persuade the DJ at your prom in the US to play your favorite banghra beats (except you would probably be the only one to have memorized the music video choreography).

I am leaving Rajkot, Gujarat on the morning of May 3rd, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back. The AFS hosted students will have a 4-day end of stay orientation in Delhi, which I am really excited for! We have decided to have an exchange student prom, and the dress code is strictly Indian traditional :) We are going to play songs in every language that the students speak, plus Hindi songs to dance to. It is too weird to imagine leaving Rajkot. In these past few weeks, I have felt every emotion times ten. I’ve kind of gone into panic mode--I realized that all of a sudden I have totally fallen in love with the way my city’s streets look, and how it feels to drive through the city in the late afternoon to see the leaves on the trees catch the sunlight as the wind blows your hair in every direction. I’ve tried to memorize things like the shape of the crack on the wall, the taste of the first mangos of the season, the sound of my host mother’s voice, and the color of the faded and peeling paint on a fence. Of course I can see how ridiculous this all is, but I can’t control how my brain is trying to come to terms with leaving! The finality of it seems like an anvil weighing down on me, but I only feel this way when I have too much free time to think. People always say that when you’re going, you should not worry about missing your home because you will always come back to it. I totally took that for granted--to me, an entire year seemed like a gargantuan amount of time and screw anyone that tells me that I’ll go back home soon anyway because I was missing my dad’s pancakes at that moment right THEN. Now I see the difference, because I always had a countdown in my head for the months ahead until the vague return date, “early-ish May,” but now my countdown for coming back to Rajkot is indefinite. I know that I’ll be back, I just have no clue when! I really love the people here. My AFS counselor has been so supportive throughout it all, and I will miss Shunsuke and Ahji being mere rickshaw rides away. I cannot describe how glum it was to figure out the time differences between Ahji, Shunsuke, and me, for when we would be available to skype with each other. One month ago, I felt about ready to go. A few of the exchange students and I shared what we were most excited about upon our return--whether it was chowing down on a glorious Chipotle burrito, or the smell of the laundry detergent their mom uses, we could all understand each other’s urges to be back home. Now, a lot of people are saying “wow, where has the time flown? If only we just have one month more!” But let’s be honest. One month ago we were ready, it’s just that now we feel the reality of returning more acutely. I am not EXTREMELY sad or depressed, and I haven’t cried about leaving yet. I have distracted myself well, with various projects to do and a slight obsession with social media. I feel like a scientist could do a case study on the ratio of how many hours I spend staring at a phone screen to the amount of useless mush my brain has turned into and would conclude that I am overly attached to chatting with other exchange students on WhatsApp. But that’s beside the point. There are certain things that I am really looking forward to, such as spending time with my grandparents (I am calling their secluded lake house the Reverse Culture Shock Rehab Center and Gran Jan Boot Camp, as a place where I can figure out what it means to live in the U.S. and attempt to get back in shape before school starts in the fall). Another great thing that I was recently reminded of was what it feels like to walk to my best friend’s house. It just hit me randomly one day as I was working on my capstone project that I am really going to enjoy the feeling of strolling through my suburban neighborhood, to see the sidewalks and the dandelions, on my way to see her. I will also go to prom with one of my friends, and I totally plan on reppin’ for India by wearing one of my three sarees. I hope to continue my involvement with AFS by volunteering with my local chapter, because I believe that your exchange never ends once you return. You go through reverse culture shock and gain more perspective, you get to meet other exchange alumni through various events and meet-ups, and you can apply the knowledge and skills you have acquired from your exchange year in many situations in the future. Part of me feels like my life will be over once I return, but to quote myself on speaking to school children on road safety: “You are so young, you have so many opportunities ahead of you, and many things left to experience. Don’t give all of that up by making one stupid mistake by not wearing a helmet.” Okay, so the helmet bit isn’t really applicable to this scenario, but you can see what I mean. I should probably take my own advice and realize that no, the end of my exchange year isn’t really the END. It’s the beginning of a new chapter in my life, and the next chapters to come will hopefully be just as awesome as the one that is coming to a close.

Kennedy-Lugar YES Abroad is the scholarship funded by the U.S. Department of State, with its own mission statement, expectations, rules, and requirements. They have some orientations of their own that they conduct for us, but they are not an actual organization that finds host families, schools, etc. After you are accepted for YES Abroad, you are given your country placement. Depending on the country placement, you have an implementing organization (for me, in India, it is AFS, but for a country like Macedonia the implementing organization is American Councils) and that is who finds you your host family, school, local support, etc. :) for more information, you can read about the YES Abroad scholarship on their website: http://www.yes-abroad.org/