Thursday, Day 10

Today my group was on construction duty. While we were there we saw a snake! Apparently the man below catches snakes all the time. And he milks the venomous ones and then dilutes it and drinks it! The snake he had today was apparently a rat snake. It was a yellowish/orange color and at least 4 1/2 feet long.

"The Snake charmer"

Today we moved some more bricks and cinderblocks. And for the first time got to see them being put to use! Each bathroom will have a raised wooden floor and split into 2 halves. One half will be used for about a year and then they will switch to the other half and let the first half compost. The bathrooms will also have a place to shower. These bathrooms are really helpful because it means that the leprosy-afflicted don't have to walk far away or use their backyard as a toilet.

The inside of a partially completed bathroom.

A completed bathroom (in the center)! We are helping to make a difference!

We stopped at the Bindu Art School again and I bought 2 paintings. This is me with the artists. They are both leprosy-afflicted. The man on the left has no fingers but he still created that beautiful painting! It was so hard to choose, they were all so beautiful! But I made a decision, all by myself, you should be proud family :)

This afternoon we had little classes with the kids in our houses. I brought a bunch of beads for them to make necklaces and bracelets. They all loved it. Who would have thought?

All of our boys :)

Yummy dinner! Especially the Indian version of french fries (top right).

We are leaving for Delhi tomorrow morning at 3 am and we will not be back until Sunday night. So I will not be posting for a while. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and post them when I return! Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, Day 9

Today for our medical rotation my group 3 of the students and 2 leprosy patients to the hospital in chennai. It took about 2 hours to get to the hospital. It is a hospital and a school about 10 minutes off the main road surround by beautiful grounds and a temple. Each child/patient was escorted by a few volunteers. Ivy, Vanillamary (a house mother) and I took Vijay to the dentist. Vijay is about 9 years old and a great kid. But he was very quiet today. I don't blame him, going to a dentist in the big city with unfamiliar people would be scary. We took him to the first dentist. They were all in a big room full of lots of dentist chairs and you have to take your shoes off before coming in. They told us to go to the pediatric dentist so we walked down the hall and went to him. He looked at his teeth and ordered an x-ray. We went and payed for it then went down the hall some more and waited for his x-ray. Then back to the dentist who looked at it and said that the pain he has been having is from an abscessed tooth. So he did a cleaning and a filling today. But Vijay has another tooth with a really big abscess and will need to come back again next week. Poor kid!

This is Vijay waiting for the dentist.

Me, Ivy, Vanillamary. (She is the sweetest lady. She knows Tamil, Hindi, and English but cannot read or write in any of them. Vijay had been working on one of the tile games where you move the tiles to arrange the numbers in order when Vanillamary took a turn. She finished in 10 minutes! I was so impressed and she was so excited!)

It was a very long day for everyone and we didn't get back to Rising Star until 5 pm. But we stopped at the grocery store and I got some cookies and a big bag of chips for 24 rupees. Yummy! On the van ride home I let the boys use my camera. They took some cool video of the streets that I will upload. But not right now because our ac is broken and it is so hot and sweaty :( But look for it in a future post. Hopefully I don't melt tonight :)

(I just checked, it has been about 100 F everyday I have been here! But it seems not as bad as the first day. Last night was almost cool, it got done to 82 ! I decided early on that I was just going to sweat all day everyday and since then I haven't minded it much.)

Tuesday, Day 8

I was at the school again today tutoring students in reading and math. The kids are so fun to be around. During one session I was helping two girls, Mahalakshmi and Prya. They read out loud at the same time. When one of them struggled with a word the other would stop and help her out. It was very cute.

I at lunch in the cafeteria with some of the girls and had them teach me how to eat with their hands. Everyone in India eats their food with their right hand. It seemed pretty tricky to me at first but I think I am getting the hang of it. I might keep doing it back in the States, one less thing to wash right :)

At family time the house mom Gandhimathi let me borrow one of her saris and taught me how to fold it! There is a lot more folding and tucking that goes into than I had thought. It was so fun! Here I am:

Gandhimathi and I (when I stand up straight she only comes to my shoulder)

courtney and I

And this is Sakish getting ready for bed. Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Monday, Day 7

construction again! It is hard work and today was especially long but so great. I have really liked working as a team with a great group of people toward a common goal.

Today we moved cinderblocks and gravel behind several houses. They are also being used to build the bathrooms. (This is me before I got super sweaty and dirty).

A view from the village.

We also moved a ton of bricks. We filled that little truck up twice with bricks and then unloaded it. I was super sweaty and dirty by the end but we finished the job and that was very satisfying.

On the way back to Rising Star we stopped at More Store, an Indian grocery store. It had a lot of American food but also some great Indian stuff. My new favorite thing is Maaza. It is a mango juice drink, soo delicious! I bought a one liter bottle for 55 rupees which is approximately $1 and a few cents! I also bought tomato flavored cheese balls minus the cheese that taste like tomato soup, yum!

Tonight at family time I told some of the boys stories. The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, cinderella, etc. One of the boys knew all the stories and helped me tell them. It was the cutest thing. I already know that it is going to be so hard to leave them.

Sunday, Day 6

Today was a lovely Sunday.

A group of the volunteers drove about two hours to chennai (we didn't actually drive, that would be terrifying, we had a driver) to go to church. We went to the chennai branch of The church of Jesus christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Sorry my capital c still doesn't work). It was so neat. There were about 30 members there, mostly Indian and a few American families. church was conducted in English, but in some of the classes the teachers would also speak in Tamil so that the non-English speaking members could also understand. After church we stayed for Jerrin's baptism. He is an engineering student "at university" and was introduced to the church by his aunt. It was so wonderful! I loved seeing that no matter where you go throughout the world, the church is still the same and the Spirit is there.

Natasha and I going to church in India! (I am wearing the chudidar that I bought the day before, I love it!)

Our group with Jerrin. I don't think he spoke very much English, but he had the biggest grin on his face the entire time :)

The chennai branch is getting a new meeting house. We were able to see what the final building will look like, as you can see from what they have built so far it is going to be beautiful! (currently the branch meets on the bottom floor of a dilapidated office building.) I am pretty sure the new building is going to be the newest, nicest, cleanest building around.

This evening the children performed their dance for us again. It truly is beautiful. Here is a link to a video of them during dance class. They are so cute!

P.S. There are still spots available for you to volunteer in July or August. Sign up! It is such an amazing experience!

Saturday, Day 5

Today was so fun!

We went to Mamallapuram for the day to shop and go to the beach. There were some amazing ancient Hindu stone temple ruins with beautiful carvings. See pictures below! We went to some shops and a lot of the girls had salwars/chudidars tailored made. I picked the most beautiful fabric for mine. I will post a picture of me tomorrow wearing it. We also went to the beach. The water was so warm and the waves would have been perfect for boogie boarding.

Elephants carved into a hug stone wall. So beautiful.

This huge rock is called Krishna's butter ball. It looks like it is defying gravity the way it sits without tumbling down.

Look I'm holding it up by myself!

Awesome stone temple!

Admiring the view below.

I wish these pictures could better show how beautiful India is. It is breathtaking.

I love this sign. The yellow writing is exactly how they talk here :)

At Ideal Beach Resort, so beautiful and peaceful.

At the Bay of Bengal.

I saw so many beautiful things today, I wish I had a photographic memory. I have been trying to burn some images into my memory, I hope it works :) Although pictures are good substitutes, nothing is better than India, the real thing!

Friday, Day 4

Today was a magical India day!

We walked through the village outside of the Rising Star campus at 6:30 am. We saw the villagers going about their daily routines. They love to smile, wave, and say "vanakkam" and waggle their heads which is how they say "hello" in Tamil.

This post has a lot of pictures but I couldn't help it. India is a remarkable place and many things are better expressed through pictures.

(You can't see very well, but there is a hut hiding in all those trees.)

Many of the house are painted bright, crazy colors :)

If you look closely there are two birds on the right tree.

Many of the oxen had painted horns. This one had blue.

Lily pond.

Women working in the rice fields.

cute kids!

It started to rain this afternoon. So lovely (and cool) but you can't really tell from the photo.

Life dance. One of the most amazing things I have seen in my entire life. One of the long term volunteers is teaching a dance class every afternoon for any of the kids that want to go. It was so fun to watch. At the end they performed a dance they created to "Somebody Out There" by David Archuleta. The song is about how we all have somebody out there watching out for us. They interpreted the song beautifully. These beautiful children are the angels that are touching their parents lives. Slowly they are helping to remove their families for the negative stigma associated with leprosy. They are angels who are already doing great things.

Today my group went with the medical clinic to Moot. It is a colony with only 7 elderly people left living there. It was a really wonderful experience. We had several stations, checking blood sugar, blood pressure (that was me, above), trimming toe and finger nails, washing and oiling feet, and dressing wounds. (Since there were so few patients the volunteers did not get to rotate jobs, but I will get a chance to wash feet next week.)

Dr. Susan with a patient.

Most of these beautiful people are severely disfigured because of leprosy. For example the woman above moves around on her hands and one good foot because her other leg is gone about mid thigh. Despite their poverty and physical ailments they were all so happy and especially excited to see us. Jayraj would dance around and sing, he even did the macarena for us! I have learned first hand from spending time with them that joy is not dependent on your circumstance. They have what most would call "nothing" but they are still full of joy and happiness. Why? I think in part because they are grateful for what they have. Instead of dwelling on the negative or wishing for more they are able to appreciate what they have and find joy in their simple lives. They inspire me to be more grateful, to find joy in the little things, and simply to love life.