The California Adventure

So basically I'm the luckiest girl ever! In the past two weeks I have hit up all the major Southern California theme parks! I didn't really plan it that way. It just happened!

Last week our family friends that we have known for forever, the Mechams, came to stay with us. We basically have a party every day and all night when they come! I love it! We went to Sea World, where I fell in love with sea turtles.

We even got a behind the scenes tour of the sea otters! A really nice lady who worked there asked our group if we would like to meet the sea otters. We were like, "ummm...of course we do!!" It was really cool! She showed us what they feed them and then brought three of them out so they could roll around in the ice! They love the ice cause it cools them off. I'm sure they get pretty hot with all that fur! They were so stinkin' cute! One was named Abby, the other was named Kayla, and then I can't seem to remember the third one's name.

A couple days later we went to Disneyland and California Adventure!

Then I went to the Orange County fair with some friends!! Now I know that really isn't considered a theme park, but it was still pretty fun. I tried a deep-fried oreo and deep-fried twinkie! It was pretty nasty (but secretly kind of good).

Then today I got to go to Knott's Berry Farm! I haven't been there in forever! I went with Carley and Makayla Wells and a foreign exchange student from Germany named Carina! She is such a sweetheart...absolutely adorable! She tried to teach me some German while we waited in line...hah! It didn't work out too well! She probably thought I was some crazy American, but was too nice to say anything!!

It has been crazy...crazy fun, that is! I seriously feel like a little kid on Christmas morning! I am so lucky!! Who knows what's next? Anyone up for Six Flags Magic Mountain?

I left my heart in India...

I just landed in London! It was beautiful and clear and I could see the London eye, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben. Amazing!!! But the weirdest thing was that I was hit with major culture shock walking through the Heathrow airport. It was like everything had order and was clean and honestly, I felt a little awkward. Even when I was in the bathroom I had to remind myself it was okay to put the toilet paper down the toilet. As I look around the terminal, there are more white people than Indians. I am no longer a minority. It’s really unfortunate because I was just getting used to the life of a celebrity! (Everywhere you go in India, the people want to take pictures of and wave to the fairer skinned people) And people are wearing jeans, you know…BLUE JEANS! I had forgotten about those things. I don’t even remember the last time I wore a pair of those. I’m not going to lie, I kind of secretly miss the saris and chudidars and salwars. They’re so comfortable and modest!

But as much as I miss some of these simple everyday aspects of Indian culture, I’m doing a lot better than yesterday when I first left.

Leaving Rising Star was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do these past few weeks. Harder than carrying bricks in the sweltering heat, harder than cleaning the wrotting ulcers of the leprosy-affected, harder than being covered in mosquito bites and not having air conditioning. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to leave that magical place. As I said my goodbyes to all the little children who had made such an impact on my life, an overwhelming sense of love came over me. Some of them began to cry, and as I wiped their tears away, I found I could no longer hold back my emotions either! As much as I didn’t want our last night together to be a crying fest, somehow it did. It’s amazing how close you become with someone in such a short amount of time, especially when that someone is so open and trusting. I’m telling you, these little kids are the most open and loving children I have ever met. I’m sure it is very difficult for them to have to make all new connections and relationships with new volunteers every two to three weeks. But instead of shutting down and just giving up, these kids always have hope! It has been incredible to see their eyes light up every time they see you and to feel their love. I’m truly going to miss laughing and playing with them, and I will forever always associate staring contests, thumb wars, and hand games with my special days at rising star with the most beautiful, sweet, humble, happy children I’ve ever met.

As I make my way back to the U.S. I’ve been thinking about of all the things I’ve learned these past three weeks. Honestly the list keeps getting longer and longer. But I think the biggest thing I’ve gained from this experience is perspective! I think I have gained a whole new perspective on life and gained a better understanding of what my priorities are. I’ve come to value simplicity and humility. I’ve realized that there are people in the world that don’t live in the best of circumstances, but they do have one thing and that is love! I truly have come to understand what it means to love and be loved. It has made me appreciate the people in my life, especially my family, who I love and who love me. I’m so grateful to my parents that they have provided a life for me that I am able to travel to the other side of the world and have this life-changing experience. I’ve realized that many of the people of India have never, and probably will never, have the opportunity to travel outside of India. The hardest thing for me to understand has been why? Why me? Why was I born into a privileged life in the U.S.? And why are others born into the life they have? What am I supposed to do with the privileges I’ve been given? I’ve really been struggling with this, but for one thing, I’ve really come to believe that “Knowledge is power,” but at the same time, “Ignorance is bliss,” when it comes to this. The people of India don’t know any other life than the one they have, and quite honestly, they are happy! In fact they are one of the happiest peoples I’ve ever met. The biggest thing to help me understand this, though, has been learning to not judge and to be filled with gratitude for what I do have.

I am so excited to get home and see my family!! We are going to sponsor the cutest little girl named Theerthi (pronounced teer-tee). I posted a picture below…I know she looks all shy and innocent, but she is really a mischievous little ball of fire!! I love her soo much!!

There is no “goodbye” in tamil, which is just the way I like it!! Rather they say “poyitu varen,” which is “to go and come back.” Poyitu varen India! I know I will be back one day, there’s no doubt about it!

Holy Cow

I know cows are holy here in India, but seriously! HOLY COW! Time here is flying by!! I want it to slow down. As much as I want to come home and see my family and friends, I know I'm going to miss all of the people I have come to love so much here in India! Yesterday I was tutoring one of my favorite little girls and when I told her I was leaving this Saturday she said, "You come back next year?" I then had to explain that I really want to but that it takes a lot of time and money, so I wasn't sure. She then said, "I pray everyday that you come back." It broke my heart just thinking about leaving her and all the other Rising Star children!

Each night we have family time where we go to our family (consisting of about 20 children and one house mother) and help them finish homework and get ready for bed. I love the kids in my house. Last night we had some fun, a little too much fun, and we danced. The video below shows "American Dancing" followed by "Indian Dancing." See for yourself their interpretation of the two!



Today we had a water balloon fight! Well it started as a water balloon fight but ended up being more like a water fight. All of a sudden I had buckets of water, and I mean huge buckets, of water being dumped on my head. It felt so good and the kids loved it! The water fight then turned into a dance party and I got to dance with the cutest little girl name Ravithi! I would spin her and twirl her and she seriously just kept giggling. It was adorable!

But my high for the day was when this little 5-year-old girl named Reeshma came running up to me, yelling my name, and then kissed my entire face, starting with my cheeks, then my forehead, then my chin, lips, nose, and finally my eyes. It was so tender! I love her!

I seriously don't want to leave this magical place! It really is going to be a bitter sweet goodbye!

The Seven Wonders of the World

I saw it!! I finally got to see it!! It was amazing!! I honestly thought it was fake when I caught my first glimpse of it. But then I came around the corner and sure enough, there it was! The Taj Mahal and all of its glimmering white marble! It was seriously unreal! I felt like I was in a dream or something! We got up early (as in 5 a.m.) to see it before it got too crowded and hot, and also to see it in the morning sunrise lighting! They say it changes color with the time of day! More bright white in the early morning and pink around sunset! I loved how everything about the Taj Mahal is symmetrical...even the buildings around it are based upon a line of symmetry! Our tour guide was great and told us a ton about it's history and the stones/marble used in the making of it! It was very neat!


This weekend was a whirlwind adventure! We flew to Dehli at 7 in the morning (this means we had to leave Rising Star at 3 a.m.). Then we took a rickshaw ride through the narrow back alley ways of the city! That was probably the freakiest experience of my life! There we were on this little rickshaw swerving every which way to avoid hitting any cars or buses or motorcycles that surrounded us! I honestly thought we were going to die, but we made it! At one point a fight broke out between another rickshaw driver and a man pushing a cart of rice! Apparently they had a little fender bender and were not too happy about it! They were screaming in Hindi and throwing punches at each other and before I knew it, my rickshaw driver had jumped off his bike and was running over to break it up! Finally a policeman came over and calmed things down, but man, I was a little worried!

Our rickshaw driver and the streets of old Dehli

Picture of a slum in Dehli

We went to the spice market and got to purchase some Indian curry spices and tea! It was way cool, but I started having a sneezing fit in the middle of our shopping! My eyes and nose started running, I think because of all the different smells in the air, and I couldn't get it to stop...Not a good situation!




From there we got to eat some yummy Northern Indian food (this would be the typical Indian food you would think of: tikka masala, butter chicken, naan...oh my gosh the naan was soooo good!) And then we were off on our 5 hour bus ride to Agra!


Agra was sooo hot!! I think something like 39 degrees Celsius (which is like over a 100 degrees fahrenheit) But no fear! We stayed in a super nice five star hotel called the Jaypee Palace with air conditioning, a real shower and western toilet, oh and when we arrived they gave us Jasmine lei's and this green poppy seed drink! I felt like a princess!

The next day was our Taj Mahal and Agra fort experience!! We got to swim in the pool and go shopping! And for dinner...drum roll please... The fancy and oh so wonderful Pizza Hut! I got the special Indian pizza which is made with a curry sauce instead of red marinara sauce! Finally we finished our day with some dancing at the Disco (this cute little one room night club in the hotel) and don't worry we got the "Macarena" and "We will Rock You" songs covered! Throw in a little Indian Bollywood music and some Rihanna and that about sums up my 20 hour day! I think I fell asleep mid sentence that night! Sooo fun!!

On our way back, we got to stop and ride an elephant! It was so cool, kind of scary (I felt like I was going to fall off) but so awesome! The best part was when I got off, he took a huge bathroom break...I mean huge!!! Pretty nasty! I also got to hold and play with this cute little monkey! There are monkey's everywhere here, in the city and in the surrounding villages! This monkeywas some guy's pet (so I guess you could say it was somewhat domesticated) It kept playing with my fingers almost like a little child would. It's freaky how human-like they are!


Finally we had to travel all the way home. It took us probably 12 hours all together! We didn't arrive home until a little after midnight Sunday night! But the best part is that as we were driving into the village, fireworks started going off!! They were apparently part of a temple celebration with lights and music, but what perfect timing!! It was like they knew it was the 4th of July or something! It was a perfect way to celebrate! I was pretty happy! And today we sang the national anthem and made french toast/brownies! It's been a good weekend!

I finally bought a painting from the Bindu School of Art!! I took a picture with the artist below! He was pretty funny!!


And I got to see the kids finally! I haven't seen them since last Thursday and I was kind of starting to miss them, so that was fun getting to play with them! My Aunt Michelle gave me some of these funny mustaches that they could play with! Oh my gosh! They loved them!! I posted some pictures below so you could see their cute faces with their new found facial hair!!

All I want is to be dry!!

I didn't sleep at all last night! AC is broken so now its hotter inside our rooms than outside! Plus the fans don't work very well cause our power goes out every 15 minutes! I'm also running out of peanut butter...MAJOR PROBLEM!! And to top it off, because the power is so terrible, the fridge cant get cold, so warm drinks it is! I am so hot and sticky, I can't even remember the last time my body was dry. I took a bucket shower last night before I went to bed, or rather before I tossed and turned for 8 hours, but as soon as I stepped outside, I was instantly a sweaty beast again! Soooo annoying!! Good thing today is our last day of work for the week! Three day weekend in Dehli couldn't come faster!!

Cobra on the Loose

Medical team yesterday!! Construction today!! Woo hoo!! I love working in the colonies!

I did blood pressures and blood sugars with Ally and Steven!

One of the ladies didn't like the feeling of the blood pressure cuff blowing up and squeezing her arm. She started to panic, and I couldn't communicate with her or say anything to her to calm her down (it's not like I speak tamil here people!) but I reached out and held her hand during it and she seemed to be fine after that!


I met a cute family in the colony who invited me into their house and showed me around! The older women took me to her room and showed me a picture of what I think was her son (again, I don't speak tamil so we struggled with the whole communication thing) but then she pointed to heaven and began to cry. I realized that, whoever the man in the picture may be, he was definitely one of her close family members who had passed away, and she missed him and loved him very much! We just stood their in the doorway of her room, hugging each other as she weeped. It was a very touching experience for me...


After we visited the colony and provided some medical assistance, Dr. Susan was given a tip off about another leprosy colony nearby that was in need of help. Once she heard that, there was no turning back! She was determined to find it! The two RSO 12-passenger vans began their off-roading adventure to find the lost lepers! About an hour and a car sick stomach later, we stumbled upon a very small colony! Everyone came out of their houses as the colony's leader and Dr. Susan were talking. Apparently they want us to come back when we have more supplies and help them out...there's some more politics to it, but that was the jist of the conversation! It was a very happy time for everyone!

Today after we finished our work at construction, we were invited to come see an snake charmer milk a cobra!! OH MY GOSH!!! Scariest thing of my life!! I had never been that close to a poisonous snake before. I posted some videos below so you can see what happened! But what I missed on video was the fact that after all was said and done, the snake charmer put the cobra back in the bag and it escaped! All of the women freaked out! I made a run for it! When the natives start screaming, that's when you should be worried!




All and all, it was a very fun and exciting past two days! Oh one more thing: I tried dying a streak in my hair with henna...don't recommend it! It didn't turn out as expected...just made my hair super red-orange! But it was fun!

Swimming in the Bay of Bengal

Mamallapuram=

• quaint beach town near Chennai
• crazy traffic (I seriously almost got hit by a bus)
• a little smelly
• Awesome shopping...I got a custom made chudidar and salwar for 1400 rupees (about 30 U.S. dollars)
• Good food (a.k.a. pizza and popsicles which I have been craving like nobody's business)
• Krishna's Butterball- a stone that is so heavy, elephants can't even move it
  

• Temple ruins and stone carvings

I did some meditating while I was there! Don't forget to take off your shoes before you enter the temple!!

• Beach...PLAY TIME!!

On the way home from Mamallapuram, we got purotas (spelling??) which are like croissant/naan hybrids!! They are soooo yummy!!

Today we went to church about 2 hours away in Chennai!! I got to wear my new outfit I purchased yesterday so that was pretty fun!! All of the women looked so beautiful in their sarees (I wish I knew how to tie one).



We had a ton of fun this weekend but tomorrow it's back to work!! I'm excited!! I love India!!!

Heyyyy Macarena!!!

Wow!! I finally got to work on the medical team and it was absolutely amazing!!! I don't even know how to express in words the impact it had on me. To be able to see and clean the wounds of the leprosy-affected people was amazing!! We went to a very small colony called Moot. Here, one of the ladies, Saroja, had one leg amputated at the knee, the other leg amputated at the mid-thigh, one eye, and two little nubs for hands! I believe she had contracted leprosy at the age of 14, so she basically has lived almost her entire life in the colony. The colony is literally out in the middle of no where, there is about 10 of them which is extremely small, and there only main source of food staple is a huge bag of rice which they get every couple of weeks.
Although their living circumstances are rough, they are the happiest people I have met. You can just see it in their eyes and face! You should have seen how happy they were when we arrived! They all came running out of their homes to say hi, and this one older man, Jaya Raj, started laughing and dancing and shouting things in Tamil! He reminded me of Rafiki from Lion King. He was so cute! Then all of a sudden he started doing the macarena!! No joke!! There we were, out in the middle of rural India, dancing the macarena with people we could barely communicate with. Yet, that was the happiest I had been all week! It didn't matter that we were speaking two different languages or that we came from two completely different ways of living, we found common ground in a simple dance!

Jaya Raj's wife, Jaya Mary, came to me at the very end of our visit and asked me to clip her toenails for her. I know this may sound like an easy task, but let me tell you, it wasn't!! Her toenails and toe had so much dirt caked on them and were so thick that it was near impossible for me to cut them. I couldn't tell where her nail ended and her toe began! I was so nervous I was going to cut her skin instead of her nail and I was sweating, and shaking, but she was so kind! After I cut (well more like filed) each one, I looked up at her and she shouted, "Super!!" It made me laugh! What a wonderfully sweet women! I think both her and her husband kept that colony laughing!!

As we drove away from Moot, each one of the colony members stood and waved goodbye! They gave us bananas as a token of their gratitude, we thanked them, and then we were off! It was so precious to see them wave and wave and wave until we were out of sight!

I've been thinking about their small colony all day today! They are seriously the hardest working people I have every met! Everyone in India seems to know how to work hard, even the kids!

We took a walk this morning through Thottanaval village (the village right outside RSO campus) and to see each of the families carrying water from the pump to their homes, hanging laundry, milking the cow, cooking breakfast over an open fire, it made me realize that the people of India are an incredible people! They are hard-workers (I mean most of the time I see women and children doing the manual labor...that tells you a ton right there), they live in very simple and humble homes, they have a beautiful and rich culture full of many traditions, and they are seriously one of the happiest people I know!!

Below are pictures I took of some people in the village! I kind of had an obsession with the women carrying pots of water on their head! But my favorite was of this little boy wearing nothing but a cloth diaper helping get water at the pump....absolutely adorable! Can I have him??

Brick by Brick

Yesterday we went out into the colonies and moved bricks!! It was hard manual labor! I was dripping with sweat, covered in dirt, and my muscles had never ached so much in my life! But it was seriously the sweetest experience of my life. The last house we brought bricks to was the family of an elderly man with leprosy. He had just lost his wife on Wednesday and was very very poor, but he was so grateful for our help he went and bought all of us bottles of coke! I couldn't believe what an optimistic kind man he was considering the circumstances he was in.

In one of the colonies, Bharatapuram, we had a chance to stop by the Bindu School of Art! Here they sell the artwork of those with leprosy and their families!! It was so cool to see all the colorful paintings! They had pictures of everything from tigers to flowers to penguins to fish! Every single one of them was unique in their own way! I didn't have any cash on me so I couldn't purchase one, but I hope I have an opportunity to go back cause I definitely don't want to miss out on these one-of-a-kind treasures!!


Today after tutoring, I ate lunch with the kids at the school cafeteria! It's nothing like you would expect...no tables, no chairs, no cups, no napkins, no forks....They all sit in a circle on the floor with their bowls of food, scraping the sides with their hands to get all the rice! When they want a drink, they help each other pour the water from a communal pitcher directly into their mouth. It's the cutest thing to watch them try to aim to get the water in their mouth and not all over their uniforms! Surprisingly they are really good at it!!





Are they not the cutest??


This is one of the boys sweeping up the cafeteria with an Indian broom!!


The girls are obsessed with playing Concentration. You know the game where there's a category and you have to clap your hands in time while naming something in that category without messing up!! It's so fun!! Everyday at break and playtime they run up to you and will say, "Auntie, Auntie do you know how to play this?" putting their hands in the air, ready to play the hand game! It's hilarious!!

One of my favorite girls is Thrisha (see picture below). She is a fourth standard student from the Bharatapuram colony I mentioned above. She is such a sweetheart and so smart! I tutor her sometimes in math and she just blows me away with her skills. Her mother has one leg and I believe only one eye. Last night she showed me a picture of her sister who died as a baby. She loves loves loves that picture. She keeps it on her at all times: at school, at home, on the playground. Its precious. In fact, as she got up to leave from her tutoring session today, she said, "Wait! Where's my picture?" She wanted to make sure she had it before she left. She really will not go anywhere without it!!


I'm excited to say I am slowly but surely adjusting to the heat!! Today it thunder-stormed which was absolutely wonderful!! And very beautiful!! And apparently this weekend we are traveling to a beach city to go swim in the ocean so that will be a nice way to cool off!! I'm excited!!

Vanakkam

India…I can’t believe I made it!! After 2 ten hour flights, a 3 hour layover, and 4 airplane meals, I made it to Chennai, India. It seriously is incredible here!! I’ve never in my entire life ever experienced anything like this before. There really are no words to describe it. Mary Katherine put it like this: “It’s like real life slum-dog millionaire out there” as she looked out the hotel window. No movie could be more accurate!

The streets are crazy. I mean people told me they would be really crowded, but it is seriously out of control! There are traffic lights, traffic signs, and dotted lines to indicate where the lanes are, but they really are just suggestions. The Indian drivers could care less. Most of the time they are driving in the middle of two lanes, honking their horns at the bicyclists, trying to avoid the cows that are walking in the middle of the road, and flashing their lights at the buses to make sure they are seen (otherwise they would be smashed to smitherines!)

The Rising Star campus is located on seriously the most beautiful land I have ever seen. It’s about an hour and a half outside of Chennai. We eat dinner on banana leaves on the roof of the hostel and eat mangoes every day, all day, cause well it’s located on a mango plantation. We also have been eating a lot of the traditional Indian food, and well, it’s surprisingly extremely delicious!! (No food poisoning yet…thank heavens)

Some of us do yoga in the mornings on the roof…nothing too intense, just a little something to start out the day. This morning, while we were in the midst of our stretches, I hear this rustling in the palm tree next to us. I glance over only to find a man climbing up a rope to the top of the tree to cut down coconuts (which by the way are dirt cheap here…something like 20 rupees, which is like 25 American cents)!

Today I was on the education team! I tutored the second and fourth standards (or grades) in math and english. They are all so smart! I am so impressed with all of them. They seriously are the most loving kids I have ever met. As soon as you walk on to the playground or into their classes, they run up to you and grab your hand and say, “Auntie, Auntie…come here! Come play with me!” They just want you to hold them and take their picture and play games with them. The older ones, especially the girls, just want to talk and braid your hair! I love it! I still need to work on my pronunciation of their names! I got the easy Sonya, Anitha, Asha names down but there are quite a lot that are seriously impossible…like Poongvanhanagam?? Yeah right…Help!!!

The Heat: I seriously don’t know how people live in this climate!!! I have never sweated so much in my entire life! I mean I’m sweating in places I didn’t even know existed. And my ankles are huge and swollen, not to mention I have a heat rash on my arms and legs…Lovely! It can be kind of draining being in the hot sun, so we try to stay cool in the shade and the fans! Let me tell you…bucket showers are the best thing ever! I was a little scared of how I would be able to handle the whole showering with a bucket thing, but I am here to say that there is nothing like a cold bucket shower in the middle of the day to cool you off! I love them!!

The picture above was taken as we were traveling from the hotel to RSO! They were all dancing and going crazy as we took their picture! Sooo much fun!!

My new motto (found on the side of my lululemon water bottle I might add): "Do one thing a day that scares you."Sometimes I find myself doing the same thing day after day. I become so comfortable with my daily routine, it's like I'm on automatic or something. BORING!!! Why live this way when you could be putting yourself out there, doing something that scares you, conquering your fears? I feel like this new motto will add a little excitement in my life. We'll see....