Life in Amdavad

I have been in Ahmedabad (aka Amdavad, lots of cities here have two names, which can be confusing) for an entire week now. Staying in the same location has given me the chance to form some routines andgetto knowsomeof thelocal people. There is the banana vendor (I buy 10 rupees of bananas every day, but after some serios deliberation on his part I always receive a different number of fruits, 6, 8, 9, 12, Ihaven't been able to figure out hismethod yet, size, quality, color, time of day, random?), the PlanetCyber staff (they see me a lot since I have been trying to finish some of my dissertation proposal work and to stay in contact with all of you), the husband and wife breakfast team who serve me the Indian version of french toast (with jalapeno sauce), the hotel crew (who all find it amusing that I take a shower at the end of the day instead of the beginning), and the samosa vendor next door who always tries to convince me to eat two pieces instead of one, to name a few of the people in my daily life here. I have also seen a lot of the streets and neigboorhoods of this city. This morning I was in the far side of town checking out some very elaborate and old wells (which are now completely abandoned like so many historic relics in India). A priest living nearby invited me into his home (the local temple) for tea and tomatoes with rice puffs. Wetalked for about an hour. his family's situation was obviously very humble, but he was so happy to shae with a foreigner. I feel privilidged to have experienced many special moments like this while in India.
I continue working on my research here, but have hadsome mixed results. The last couple of days I conducted two really nice interviews with some people doing some interesting development work (unfortunately I'm not sure if the material is totally relevant to my research questions, but I think I can make it work). Itsa challenge though working around peoples schedules, especially with summer starting here and minimal access to means of communication.