riding in rickshaws

it's incredibly hard to believe that our adventure living overseas is over, starting tomorrow.

yesterday was our last day on contract.

tomorrow is our last day with our students.

as a goodbye gift, one of our dear students arranged for me to drive an autorickshaw, which is something i've been wanting to do since i first came to india 7 years ago (and have been obsessed with ever since. blog title, anyone?) it was a lot harder than i imagined it would be, but it was also awesome.

after several tries (left hand clutch, right hand gas, right foot brake pedal), i managed to get it moving, but not without our (former. weird.) bossman and (past and current) friend running alongside to the right of me, helping me not stall or destroy it. the autowalla, the poor soul who operates the rickshaw i was behind the wheel of, ran to the left (shouting, 'madam! slower! slower!' though i never managed to get it out of first gear and into second). our students ran behind. and hubs sat in the back, probably contemplating the meaning of life and why in the h he'd ever agreed to get in an auto with me driving it. 

i motored around the parking lot of our apartment building and felt sort of like rocky (i think. i haven't actually seen rocky, but someone told me i should feel like him so i did. i think.)

it was awesome. our students are/ were awesome. having someone to my right, to my back and to my left coaching me in what to do was awesome.

tomorrow, after sending our students on the train back to coimbatore, we're headed to andhra pradesh and northward. we'll be traveling on a LOT of trains, and i hope to update on those/ from those in the next few weeks!