Arrived

I'm sitting in my office at my desk, with my laptop all set up, the air conditioning blasting away, with my headphones on listening to WWOZ (my New Orleans radio station) and feeling very happy indeed. The room has 10 desks (and ten people) but I've just been told I'll be moved upstairs to a more prestigious group, all women. Don't know what that means, but ok, fine, I'm very tractable.
Last night I went to the famous temple which is quite amazingly fabulous and which I will post photos of later today when I have my camera with me. One thing I saw which I couldn't take a picture of was a group of people prostrated in front of an altar covered in flaming butter. Sellers offer pots of butter for this purpose, but my home-stay hosts couldn't explain it to me because they are Christians and know very little about Hindu practice, generally scorning it as "idol worship". Their home is full of Jesus pictures, including having provided my room with a rosary, though they are not Catholic. They are an older woman (67) with whom I live and her daughter (45) next door, who has another home-stayer, a nice young man (20) Ari, from Portland who goes to Whittier College and is here on an exchange program and has been a great help in orienting me immediately. He has dreads, wears a man-skirt most of the time and generally feels very familiar. More later.