I don’t have much to write about today. This morning was really great. I was able to sleep in until 8:30. I had the most amazing breakfast of an omelet, 2 pancakes, some watermelon cubes, almonds, and a whole banana (which is ironically very tiny and stubby compared to bananas in the US).Today has been very relaxing so far. I am taking part in the afternoon safari again today and I am hopeful that we’ll see a leopard or a tiger or the front of an elephant. Any of those things would be great to see. I was able to watch some movies on the TV in the room. This was a challenge because of the frequent power outages.
I did notice a unique difference between the movies shown in India on TV and those in the US. This wasn’t mentioned in the prep class. I watched the movie 50 First Dates and any time a character would have alcohol in a scene, huge white letters would scroll across the screen saying “alcohol is injurious to your health”. A similar thing would happen when characters would smoke a cigarette – there would be an ad warning that “smoking kills”. This is because drinking and smoking, especially smoking, has been a huge problem in India. This is the government’s way of informing people of the dangers of both and a method to discourage it. They choose movies because movies stars and actors are seen as role models and if people see actors doing it, even if it is in a movie, they will try to emulate it. This type of copying happens in the US too. We have commercials warning of the dangers of smoking, but our movies aren’t interrupted to warn us of the dangers of drinking or smoking.
any swearing has been cut out of the movie. Movies shown on TV in the US do this as well so this wasn’t a surprise. The difference with this movie is that anytime a character would kiss another character that scene would be cut out of the movie and it would jump to the next scene.
The second afternoon safari was absolutely everything that I hoped it would be. We saw a leopard!!! I was in complete awe of its natural beauty. There is something so special about being able to see such a majestic creature in its natural habitat. We were also fortunate enough to see a mother elephant and her calf. All of this happened within the last few minutes of the safari after we had seen almost the same animals I had seen at yesterday’s safari.
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