Bringing it home

Besides bringing home all the jewelry and souvenirs, I brought home a small part of my trip to India. On Thursday Jim and Pam told us there would be a change in the normal dinner time pattern. Instead of everyone sharing their highs and lows for the day we would share what we learned on the trip. I sometimes get nervous standing up and sharing things like that so I tried to think about it before hand rather than on the spot. In thinking about it all of Friday I realized I had learned a lot. I was the last person to share. A lot of what people talked about was love: that they learned there is always room to give themselves in some other way, always more room to love; or that if the children and colony people can love so freely, it must be possible so it should be done at home. I decided to share something that hopefully would mean something to others as well as to me. My first is that no matter where in the world you are, how far away from home and anything familiar you are you can always find a friend and someone to rely on. Also, that there is less out in the world to fear than you think. It is good to take chances with making a close friend with someone you don't know if you will ever see again. Or, of course, in trying something new. It is good to challenge ourselves and grow from our successes and failures. Last, I found the best way to find happiness in releasing the joy in others. Release the Joy was our summer theme at Rising Star. It was well chosen.

Saturday we endured a sad bus ride back to Chennai. We ended up writing in each others journals like yearbooks and remembering everyone's individual little sayings. It was tons of fun. We hung out in a group until slowly a few at a time left to catch their flight. My mom and I were the last ones left. We left on Sunday afternoon. I was honestly a little excited to be home.

When I got home I was able to spend time with Natalie, who wasn't going back to Cali for a few days, and Courtney who lives way close. It was a blast! Then last night Courtney and I drove out to Provo to hang out with Nelson who got time off from his BYU volleyball camp. We all talked about India. We decided that of course you are excited to go home. But once you're home and you shower..you just want to go back. We talked for way too long and we were all way late for curfew! What I'm getting at is we all took a chance to become friends with someone we didn't know if you we would see again. But it's a small world. I believe the people you share your heart with will always come back at some point. Even if they live in other states. Don't be afraid to share your whole self. Leave a part of you everywhere you go and with everyone you meet. That is what I learned in India.

I'm finally getting to it

I'm home now but I feel like I need to finish! I'll just recap everything as if I didn't get behind and blogged every day like I should have. :)

Tuesday July 19:
Woke up this morning anxious for construction. Everyone was raving about how hard it was. I was nervous! We drove out to the colony in anticipation to building septic tanks. Each tank is made of a huge dug out pit, a number of cement cylindrical rings weighing 600 lbs. each and spending a whole lot of time filling each one back up! We built three and filled one and a half. We had some huge laughs in the car ride back and then in our room with just the girls after construction! I love everyone here at rising star it is so much fun! During play time today Courtney tripped and missed the game winning goal and I scored on my own team. It was a bad day for us haha. We had fun singing Justin Beiber to the girls when we put them to bed and Stayed up playing cards and joking around. We are all becoming better friends and unfortunately realizing we have practically no time left.

Wednesday July 20:
Courtney Nelson, David, Mandy, Tyler and I woke up early to play volleyball this morning! Mornings in India are absolutely beautiful! Today was Medical day!!! We had the opportunity to go to a different colony today with many more people and help them out. We washed feet of course and I was able to take blood pressure and record it in their files. I felt so official!

One cute old man was toting around his beautiful baby granddaughter! He was so sweet to her it was cute. The same man, Abraham, said a blessing on JJ and kissed his forehead. I am so impressed with how grateful the people of India are. They have nothing and yet everything to give! One poor lady had an infection in an ulcer on her foot. The medical procedure is to cut it out. She was in excruciating pain while Doctor Susan Cut deep into her foot. Her loving husband consoled her the whole time and helped her get through it. Another example of the kindness of these people is in another patient. I thought he was randomly there to help get the patients get through but then when I thought I was finished taking their blood pressure he sat down ready to go. He was one of the first ones there and last to leave. He stayed to help clean up. I love these humble people!

We stopped at the Junction for ice cream on the way home! Such a beautiful occurrence haha! The kind of people at rising star can make an long journey so much fun! Even if it is for two hours on a bumpy road in cramped quarters. We all decided it was time to watch the new Harry Potter, so we did. Watched it on my laptop in the Mango Room. It was bad quality but it was so worth it. We popped the pop corn I brought and had a great time. My house mother hennad my hand during family time and we played card games after and stayed up late again. My mom is coming to the campus tomorrow I am looking forward to it.

Thursday July 21:
Today we went out of order and did construction again. We were instructed to move six cement cylinders from one end of the colony to the other. Why couldn't they have been dropped off at the other end? Well, India isn't the most efficient country in the world. Each cylinder requires six people to carry it without all our arms falling off. We carried one all the way over and we came back the Indians had been innovative! They had ropes and poles to carry the cylinders easier. We struggled finding the best positioning: Tyler was far too tall to keep the poles on our shoulders.

So finally we carried it like this:

Kim discovered it was easiest if everyone was in step. So we chanted left left left right left. The Indians laughed so hard they thought it was funny and we laughed with them when they tried imitating us. Good times. So then we took a victory photo!:

Our work was not over, however. We then had to move them into the hole and fill it in. Kim was impressed with how fast we did it! We have such awesome teamwork.

After that we had the opportunity to go the the art school and buy paintings from the leprosy inflicted.

And I took pictures with the artists.
My mom greeted my off the bus when we got home. It was nice to have her there. Thursdays are talent days with the kids. I brought tin foil to make anything they wanted. I ended up with a huge line waiting for me to make it for them haha it was cute. The kids have great imaginations though they made some really cool things on their own, too.

Friday July 22. The last day. Time to say goodbye.
Today my mom came with team scorpion to education. It was the best education day ever! The principal said the kids had improved so much in the last three weeks so today was made a game day! Every period we took a different group of kids out to play games like heads up seven up, duck duck goose, red rover, and racing around the track.
Team Scorpion and our students

 Three beautiful girls

 Cute kids

 It only took three of the feisty ones to bring Nathan down

 Duck duck goose

 Typical Lunch time


After lunch Natalie and I went to go get dressed up in saris for the last day. We played charades with the older kids. It was a tie between the girls and the boys. A girl got up to act out the last animal and made some weird movement. My hand shot up. I guessed scorpion. I was right! We Won! Girls rule! We went back to the hostile to pack during break. It was so incredibly sad! I was also struggling with deciding who to sponsor. This last playtime was when I needed to figure it out so I could tell whoever it was. I was going around from group to group and I was pushing some girls on the swing when I felt little fingers tickling me. It was Michael. That is when I decided I would sponsor him. His face lit up when I told him! He ran me up to his house and made me some origami box thing. I added it to my collection of things from Michael. He gave me another bracelet too. I'm never taking it off.
 
Ruthish, me and Michael. Little studs!

Saying goodbye to my girls was so hard! At least no one in my house cried haha Ellie and Courtney were balling. I gave every single one of my girls a hug and a kiss and promised to see them again. Mahalahkshmi, Amsa, Angel, and Ravathi told me I had to go to the airport..then!...fly the plane back to RSO haha it was so cute! Michael was sad for me to go too. After I said goodbye and left I was almost back at the girls hostel when I hear "AUNTY!" I knew it was Michael. He waved and said "bye, miss you". It's so sad to say
goodbye. A part of me will always be in India.
With these girls:

That night, all the volunteers I had become such good friends with and I stayed up forever together having our last good times together! It was very bitter sweet.

Family finally reunites

Note: This blog is for Monday July 18

Unfortunately, I had to wake up this morning. But I was excited because I knew I was on education duty and I was so excited to see the kids again. Education is so much fun because it is awesome to see the kids progress and the beautiful smiles on their faces when they get it right. On the flip side, it is also very frustrating when the kids don't understand what they are monotonously reading the words. Or when they can't figure out their math. As a tutor, it is frustrating knowing they could do better if their story problems were about rice fields instead of golfers or rupees instead of dollars. It would be great if the workbooks could be altered to fit their life style...because really, these kids have never seen snow so they have no idea what to picture when they read books about the snowy mountain in gingerbread man. I got mostly the same kids for education so I remembered their names and I could see how they progressed in just a week. I saw my favorite little boys Michael and Smiley (I found out his name is Ruthish) and they were so excited to see me! Ah I love them so much they are adorable! I ate lunch with my family again, yes with my hands, and I got the super hot chilli in my curry so I put it on Theethe's plate, she passed it to Megala, she passed it to Mr. Brenan who passed it to Ravathi and it got back to me somehow. It is so funny the little games these cute kids play. Soccer during play time was the best! I had Michael tickling me as much as he could and he's not one of those kids you laugh when they tickle you because you're supposed to even if it doesn't tickle, he is good at it and I collapse on the field. Ruthish get's jealous and climbs on me for attention. So cute.
For family time I decided to bring along some Uno cards and teach them how to play!

They did great and we had so much fun even though the power kept going out. None of us wanted to quit playing and go to bed but we knew we would have no energy for the next day if we didn't and I knew I would need all the energy I could get for construction. Goodnight and wish me luck!

Missed Photos from my last posts

One of the cute special needs kids feeling snuggled on my lap

Washing the feet of the leprosy afflicted

Lex with a patient

The streets of Delhi

Power lines strung overhead

 very typical India

 yeah, everyone uses the roads

Natalie and I in a rickshaw

The spice market

Chilli peppers with Natalie and Courtney

The beautiful Taj Mahal...in the fog

The Taj Mahal

Met some cool Indian folk there

Mounds of wool at the rug factory

The most expensive piece of the marble factory...$100,000!

Making friends with the elephant we just rode

The lotus temple

A Weekend Away

Note: this blog is written for the weekend of July 15

So, we woke up at 2:30 AM and drove two hours to the airport. I sat in the front seat and it was so entertaining to watch everyone drive. When you want to pass someone you flash your brights a ton at them so they know you are coming. So we safely arrived at the airport and then had a three hour flight to Delhi. Lots of traveling. In Delhi we rode in bicycle rickshaws to the spice market which was way sketchy and dirty but way super awesome! The town of Old Delhi was so old!  the alleys were so compact and there were so many people in the millions of tiny traditional shops. We ate at this kinda expensive Indian place and it was delicious!! I love Indian food! And there was this snake charmer outside the restaurant so we took pictures of us with snakes! He brought the snake out and slung it across our necks. Then, I held a king cobra!!! It was kinda terrifying! There are tons of street sellers with little trinkets like bracelets, key chains, post cards, shirts, etc. It was so much fun at first to try and get the prices as low as possible but by the end of the day it was annoying how many would swarm us as soon as we stepped off the bus. Then we took an 8 hour bus ride to Agra. I slept a lot of the way. So in Agra we stayed in a wayyy nice hotel it was so cool! We all went straight to bed we were so tired. We woke up early again to go see the Taj Mahal!!!!! Wow it was incredible! We took tons of pictures! Then we went to the Red Fort which was like the ancient palace built and added onto by many kings of India it was incredible! Kyle and I took a picture to take to Mr Bracken, our World History teacher who showed us a movie with the fort in it! We went to a rug factory where the rugs are all hand made and the weavers sing the tune pattern to each other. It takes weeks and weeks for rugs to be completed. Next stop was the marble factory, home of the descendants who made the marble inlaid designs in the Taj Mahal. Everything there was incredibly expensive! Then went shopping! The first town we went to wasn't actually very fun haha until the end when I bought two pairs of Indian shoes for way cheap! Then we went swimming at the hotel which was freakin awesome! It felt so good because it's so hot here. Next morning we got to sleep in a little. Til like 7 haha. We started on our bus ride back to Delhi. We stopped on our way back to ride elephants and I had a monkey climb on my shoulders. Pretty cool. We stopped once more to shop and I went to town! Shopping in India is awesome! Anyways we got back at midnight after more airplane and bus rides and went straight to bed. It was so much fun to see more of India, do cool things, and become so much closer to my fellow volunteers here at Rising Star but by now I was looking forward to another week with the kids I missed so much!

P.S. Still no pictures I'm awfully sorry!

Washing Their Feet

Note: I didn't have internet access all weekend so this blog is for Thursday July 14

Today we rode an hour bus ride to a special needs school to play with them for two hours. In India it is considered really bad if you have a disability so many of the poor disabled kids are orphaned. We sang primary and nursery songs, colored, played little games and danced. It was so fun to see how excited they got at such little things. One boy was really talented at drawing, another was miraculously good at playing toss with a ball. He also could slap his foot on the ground and make a really loud noise like a fire cracker. He got a kick out of seeing us all try to do it. One girl was so proud that she knew her numbers 1-100 so she wrote them down as fast as possible like three times. It was really neat to interact with the kids. They made necklaces to sell so I bought two they are super cute. They didn’t want to leave and two boys snuck away to walk us to the gate. After that my favorite part of the day was next!
We went to the colony to meet with a couple of leprosy patients to clean their ulcers, redress their wounds and document their progress. So leprosy itself does not particularly inflict wounds on patients. Leprosy degenerates nerve tissue in appendages so a patient can step on something sharp or hot and not feel it or injure themselves in any other way. Then, they can’t feel it when the bugs and rats infest their bandages and eat the wound away further. To cure leprosy we start with healing the wounds. All in an assembly line we removed bandages, photographed the wounds, cleaned their feet and legs, trimmed their nails if needed, applied neem leaf oil to the area and rebandaged. I was in charge of washing an old lady’s feet that only had three of ten digits. It was very sad. Neem leaves are a natural insect and rodent repellent as well as a moisturizer so it is perfect. It also is really good for the stomach so when we found some in the yard we ate them…completely disgusting! I totally understand why insects don’t come nippin when neem leaves are involved. The patients thanked us and we headed back to campus.

Dinner today was fish. I normally really don’t like fish but this was delicious…even when you get bones in your mouth and the fish heads are floating in the curry ;) Even with rice for every meal I really enjoy Indian food.

Putting the kids to bed was sad because I knew I wouldn’t see them until Monday. They all were saying they were more fun than Delhi and the Taj Mahal. I wanted to learn their names perfectly so bad so one of the older girls grabbed my hand and we literally went through everyone like twelve times before I finally only stutter on a couple of the twenty girls. Next week I’ll have them all down. One girl, Rosemary had a loose tooth. Every day it progressively got wigglier. I knew it would come out during the weekend and I did not want to miss it so I helped her pull it out. She was so excited! She ran around showing all her friends in the other houses and told them the story talking fast in Tamil using cute big hand motions. Then they said some short chant and threw the tooth off the balcony into the night. It translates directly into: two to the sky, one to me. It means to give of yourself freely to the Earth. They also taught me how to say it in Tamil but I can’t write it. We left sad that we wouldn’t see them for three whole days!

For Delhi the next morning we had to be awake by 2:30 AM…so what was the point in sleeping, right? A few of us stayed up talking and had an awesome time getting to know each other better til we decided to go to sleep around 12:30. Ready for a fabulous weekend trip!

P.S. I haven't had time to upload any photos. Tomorrow I will do that and tell all about my weekend excursions!

Anxious for play time

Every night I seem to sleep longer. I can't decide if this awesome fact is because I'm getting used to the sound of the air conditioning going on and off all night and now I just tune it out or if because we are worked so hard I sleep heavier. Either way it's awesome! I put my camera back together to see if it would work...it kinda did!!! But it won't recognize my memory card so I can't take pictures :( Very sad. But a girl in my team is sharing hers with me, so I got lucky! Also, I went into the kitchen to find that pretty much all my cereal had been eaten. And then there was this HUGE spider in our room. Pretty sure I've never seen one in person so big in my entire life!!! But we decided to close our bags and leave it to the family of geckos that live behind the air conditioner. Not sure how I feel about it...who knows what happened while we were gone.. So i started my day a little bit down. Team Scorpion left for construction work at 830 AM and arrived in the Bhatharapuram (Batrapuram) colony around 9. Victor, the guy who tells us what exactly needs to be done wasn't there so we had the rare opportunity to go explore the village before we set to work. Natalie and I meandered over to the art school. It is incredible! The leprosy patients have completely unveiled their talents! Some of them complete their beautiful work all with the use of hands with no fingers or even their feet or mouths. The Paintings can be bought for $45 so I'm planning on taking home two! I almost want to make an open offer to get a painting to anyone who somehow gets the money to my mother for her to put into my account...I'll think about it and you think about if you'd be interested. I know it would be really beneficial to the colony.

The paintings cheered me up so much...then we found out what we would be doing for the next however long it took us. A pile of roofing sat waiting to be moved. Imagine the thin metal roofing that is wavy like Lays ruffles chips. You know the kind. But they were thick and made out of cement. We had to move those from the community center to all over the colony. The roofing shingles were large and awkward to carry. That was a definite downer. It was grueling work. Luckily we finished early so we had time to stop at the carpenter's to hold the snake he caught earlier!

 Then we stopped at the ATM and to exchange money for Delhi and a trip to the more. store!!! YAY! I nourished myself with chocolate and coke ;) yummy! We came home to even more critters. Three baby Indian squirrels were found living in the electric box. Kylie, who is already taking care or a baby mouse that the boys found last week jumped at the opportunity for more. They are super cute but I'm kinda sketched to touch them because of diseases even though everyone says they are too young to have any. All I could think about all day was play time! I felt awful for sleeping through it yesterday and I hoped the super cute little boys would still want to play soccer with me. I found Michael right when I arrived at the playground. He said he had something for me. He had drawn an awesome picture of a dragon for me. And also made me a little paper box and a cool little flying paper boat. Then it was soccer time! We played the whole time and more boys kept joining. I met a few new friends. Ahjay, Sebastian, Shantabdhi, Rabhakshim, and a few others I can't remember their names as you can imagine why. A couple older boys joined later on saying "Aunty, Aunty we are better, try to score!" My team of little ones kept the score pretty even until the older ones picked it up a little. "Las' goal wins!" Then I scored. "No Aunty, no goal, you cheat. Now las' goal wins." Well the older boys ended up winning but we scheduled a rematch for tomorrow. Every time I don't do perfectly well I hear "ahhw Aunty no! Do better." It is the cutest thing ever. After the game I piggy backed Michael to go get a drink and he laughed so hard when I spilled water all over myself. But, TII (this is India) what do ou do? embrace and cherish the cool water while you can haha it's great.
After talking at dinner getting me all excited for medical tomorrow we went over to the children's hostel for family time. Today we took pictures as usual and played cards. I know most of the girls names now which is totally awesome! They are all so cute and have so much love! I love them all back! I love India!

School's cool

I slept great last night! When I woke up I decided to make scrambled eggs for my dad and I. Today we were sorted into teams. My team, Team Scorpion was assigned to education. We each grabbed some books that were generously donated and walked over to the school. In the library we cycled through different classes all day helping them with reading and math. The kids are so cute! They are pretty much at the same reading levels as kids in the US but with English as a second language their accents make it hard. My favorite part was when my cute little girls from my assigned family came in. It was hard to focus on homework but they are smart and we got it done. Here is my new friend Nathan from Washington D.C. as an example of hard work!

During interval (recess) the kids dragged us out to go take pictures. My two favorite boys found me!!! Smiley and Michael!

Then a girl from my family, Theete, found me, too!

She is such a goof ball! She made me promise her I would meet her at the field for play time and had an argument with the boys who wanted me to play soccer with them. After taking these awesome pictures my water bottle leaked all over my camera! I ran over to the kitchen to ask for a bag of rice to put it in. One of the coordinators was there, luckily, or they wouldn't have understood what it was for. I sure hope it will be okay! I would be so sad if I couldn't take more pictures! All the kids thought it was so funny I had my camera in a bag of rice. They asked if it was safe and wondered if my camera was hungry. Speaking of hungry, it was lunch time. In India no one is left handed. They use their left hand to...well, that's bathroom stuff..So, when I picked up my FORK with my LEFT hand, I got a few glares. Theete whispered, "why are you eating with your left hand? That's bad. And eat with your fingers." So they all had a good time making fun of me teaching me the right way to eat my food with my right hand, no fork required. It's not easy, actually, there is a special technique.
During break time the  power went out! That means no air conditioning! I fell asleep in the heat and woke up sweaty just in time for dinner...wait...dinner? I slept through play time!!!!! Worst part of my day :( After dinner we went to our families to help them finish homework and play with them before bed. The girls are all separated into families and they each have two Indian house mothers. There are about 25 girls in each family ranging from the ages 4-17. They are all so much fun! I ended up spending the whole time sitting on the floor with four girls piled around me begging me to draw them pictures of pictures. They loved it enough they skipped out on painting fingernails. I wish I had pictures. They hate saying goodnight. They want you to stay up with them all night! I wish I never had to leave.
But of course we have to. I wanted to get back and shower. The showers, might I add, consist of Unclean water you would regret to drink, a small tap, a bucket and a scooper. The first night it was difficult figuring out what to do but I'll be an expert by the end of these short two weeks. The power went out again tonight while some poor girls were in the showers so I lent them my flashlight.
Another fabulous day gone. Tomorrow I will be doing construction work in the colonies, I can't wait! Anyway, thanks for following!  Night!