Descriptions

Matt said to me a couple of days ago - you should describe where you are because we have no idea what the place is like. So here goes...
Neyyer Dam is a tiny little town (and by tiny little town, I mean row of shacks side by side selling bananas, chai, and soda) at the bottom of a hill. Then you wind your way up the hill to the top where you find the ashram. There's a guard at the gate and you can't come in and out without getting an exit pass from reception and signing out in his book (one more way they make sure you don't skip anything). So you walk up a stairway, and through the gate into the ashram.
It's basically like a tiny tiny college campus - a collection of little brick buildings built into the hill and clustered around one really large hall where the lectures take place. The hall is open to the outdoors on the sides - instead of walls there are tall arches. The dorms are smaller brick buildings, either long halls with rows of beds, or little apartments like mine, with a small balcony looking out into the woods. The dorms aren't clustered together but spread around the grounds. There's also the reception hall (brick, open to the outdoors with smaller arches), a dining hall on top of the hill with a great view, some smaller temples I haven't explored yet, and a little thatched shack called the health hut where we get our snacks and fresh fruit from (couldn't live without that place!). I am taking pictures but don't have any way to upload them at the moment, although I may try to bring my camera down here and pull up a few in the next couple of days.

This morning I taught my first yoga class to three of my peers - it went pretty well, I think. I have the benefit of having english as my native toungue so I am better prepared to verbally describe the postures, and also I can hear Jo and Sara and Susan teaching their classes in my head and try to remember their pacing and phrasing. My students were cooperative, if a bit sluggish. But we are all pretty exhausted at this point so I can't really blame them. I think I teach one more time before I leave, and then I am not sure... but anyone who hasn't done yoga before and wants to let me practice with them, I'll be looking for you in January.

It's warm so I am going to head back up the hill in time to splash water on my face before noon. Have a great day,