A Jain Temple

Hi.
I know my blog is more popular when I have pictures to add but it is hard to get my thumb drive to work on the computers. I guess I will just have to try to write well enough so I can paint a picture with my words.
I have been away from my village for about four days. We decided to take a mid-research retreat. Research is taxing and living the life of a local is difficult. We took a train into the tourist town of Fort Cochin in Kerala. First of all, trains in India are so fascinating. I will have to do an entry on just train rides. We stayed at this wicked nice hotel. There were actual beds. And in comparison it wasn't actually very nice but compared to sleeping on a cement floor it was amazing. Fort Cochin is a city that rest on the coast on the Arabian sea. There are huge Chinese finishing nets that rest on the beach catching delicious fish and making for beautiful photos.
I had read about a Jain temple in my handy guide book. With Heidi, I took off for the Jain Temple. It should have been a twenty minute walk but it turned out to be an hour walk. We got there and there a couple of Indian families and some devotees. We took of our shoes and walked around. After five minutes of being there we see a man holding a bucket walk into the courtyard. He sets down his bucket and yells something. Thousands of pigeons fly off of the tops of the temples into the courtyard. I am taken back. I was scared but I was also amazed. This man takes a scoop full of rice from his buckets and starts to pray. At the end of his prayer we are invited to feed the pigeons. I gather a handful and lower myself to the pigeon's eye level. Eventually I have a few pigeons eating from my palm. It was a sweet experience. All the while I had pigeons flying around my head. It was one of those raw experiences that caught me off guard. I can't wait until I can show pictures of my adventures.
Until next time...

Two Coins

Hello Friends,
Ok. I feel I need to clarify. Lately, I have been getting alot of comment consoling me or giving their sympathy. Listen, I don't need your sympathy. I am in freaking India. I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. I don't mean to use any force. India is a hard country to live in but I don't regret coming, not once. Sometimes, I even love it. How do you like them apples?
The other day Heidi and I were at the bus stop waiting for our bus to arrive. We had been seated. Earlier a little boy had been tugging at my leg asking for money. I gave him a rupee. The little boy returned while I was sitting. He was leaning against my legs waiving his cup in front of my eyes. I began to talk to him in english. Asking him questions, like why is he doing this and why are parents making you do this, don't you have a childhood to live, ya know, just questions. Within less than a minute he had run away. He was screaming 'english,english.' He had gotten his older sister to come and talk to me. Before she reached me some other people told her to leave. Not less than twenty seconds later a man in a blue button up shirt and slacks is presenting a coin in front of my eyes. He says ' for you, ma'am, a rupee.'
I was dumbfounded. 'Why'
'It is a gift.' He then drops the one rupee into my open hand. He turned to Heidi and said the same thing. She refused. He dropped the other rupee in my open hand making two coins in my open hand. I asked again, 'why!'
'A gift.' He walked away.
We were so shocked. I came up with several reasons for this strange happening.
A. He stole the coin from the little boy and the other one was for the interest.
B. He had been starring at me so he thought it would be fit to pay for the time that I sat there as a model for his starring pleasure (not a good option and a gross one)
C. I had dropped two rupees and he didn't know how to say 'you dropped these' so instead he said 'a gift.'
D. I AM AMERICA
E. I had been in the city all day standing for hours on crowded buses, I truly looked homeless.
I know, I know. all options are not very good. Sorry I am not more creative. It seemed like a crazy juxtaposition to give me two rupees when I have clothes on my back and food to eat and there are starving children at my feet. I don't feel justified in receiving such a gift. I still have the two coins to give to someone who needs more than me.
Speaking of interesting juxtapositions... the other night Liann and I were walking home from dinner. We heard drumming so we followed it. We stumbled upon a Hindu funeral. Eventually we were invited to come in and join the family that was attending. At the time there were several men constructing a piar made bamboo and flowers. Once they finished this construction they were take the body out to be burned. We made friends with a girl that spoke english and for the rest of the night she acted as our cultural informants. Inside the compound many woman and men were sitting in plastic lawn chairs. Inside a room were woman in saris gathered around the dead body. The body was exposed to the air. She said with her head exposed and the rest of her body covered in cloth. When we walked into the room three women came to us crying and sharing with us their great sorrow. All I could do was take their hand and rub their arm. The woman dead was 85 years old and had had nine children. The woman crying on me were her daughters. Soon men came into the room and lifted the body outside and put her on a table. While the body was on the table they performed several rituals. I kept asking my friend for the meaning in these actions, sometimes she knew other times she did not. At one point she told me 'as of these are formalities but I do not believe in them.' I asked if she went to temple and other religious functions. 'I go but I do not believe.' I have run into that several times when talking to young girls that they keep their parents traditions but they have no faith in it. On the other side a man was saying to me that these ceremonies were of the most importance to his family. His nieces words versus his own words. Eventually the youth will be the parents and what will happen to these cultural traditions?
Today I went to a Hindu wedding. I will shared picture of these events soon.

My Village I Call Home

Chavadi Pudur, just a small village one hour outside of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. It has a thousand people, maybe. I am constantly surprised at the new faces I continue to see and the wide age variety. There is a little girl that lives at the top of the road leading to Matthew and Jeeva's house, my host family. Everytime I pass (I must pass at least five or six times a day) she comes running out of her compound onto the street with her hand in the air and not wearing any pants or underwear. I think she trying to wave but all she has master is to stick her hand in the air. After two weeks here it has not gotten old.
I wake up at six thirty every morning. Around this time it starts to get warmer, the rooster is testing his vocal strength and the next door neighbor can't stand a waking moment without his radio. All these elements combine to my natural wake up call. It take about an hour and a half to get ready because bucket showers are not as easy as turning the faucet on. I do an assortment of things until about 12:30 in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and I talk the twenty minutes walk to lunch. On the right is a picture of the lane I walk down in order to get to the main street. I am usually wearing a sawarl camis, a long tunic with pants and a scarf. T he jerks who thought it was ok to wear a scarf when it is a hundred degrees outside will pay in the afterlife, I am certain. It was probably a man. Most woman here wear sarees. I can't do it. It is to much fabric and it is to complicated.
The landscape here is beautiful. Like this lake you see. One morning I went on the bus and found this lake. I got off the bus to see if I could eat a little breakfast and read a little. I was quickly disappointed. This was the ultimate public bathroom. As I walked down the hill towards the lake I saw it was a field of poo. I saw three people squatting to take a dump. Must be nice, poo with a view. So beautiful yet so disgusting.

Birthday in India

Hello Friends! Today is my birthday. I thought I would share with an excerpt from my journal,
'I am sitting in a temple of the top of a mountain in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Heidi, next to me, is frantically writing notes. Besides her, I am the only white person on the mountain. The woman are me are seated on the floor 'indian style.' All are wearing bright fabric with gold on their ears, neck, and nose. Their hairs are pulled into a tight buns or braid wearing a string of jasmine. I sit with short, curly, red, frizzy hair, a stark contrast to the oily smooth black braid that often reaches their waist. I am learning that my own belief that differences are beautiful is not the case. Ina culture where tradition is a rule not a guideline, my differences are not easily accepted. A woman told me last night when talking about my hair, 'it's ok to be different in some things but not all.'
My hair is turning out to be a constant struggle. The humidity is making it curlier than ever and I love it. But woman do not hesitate to ask me why I didn't come my hair this morning. I struggle for words to explain to them that I like my hair. When I tell them that I often get a laughing response. Sometimes I will say I forgot and sometimes I won't answer. But it is my birthday today and I will wear my hair however I want. Even if it is culturally inappropriate.

On sunday night Heidi, Natalie and Caithlin and I decide to find a mosque. We felt this would be sunday appropriate. Women are not allowed into many mosques so we wanted to find one with a ladies' section but struggled to find even one. The mosque we found was very big. It is actually called the Big Mosque, so there you go. Upon entering the grounds we covered our head. To the est of the mosque there was a shrine to a saint. A man on a motorcycle stopped us and said that we could enter the grounds but we could not go in the mosque or the shrine. It seems as if Indians love to tell us what we can and cannot do, we have gotten that alot. Although in most cases it saved us from an embarrassing situation, in other cases, such as this one, it was a guideline and not a rule. When we approached the shrine they invited us to take our shoes and come worship. Eat that motorcycle man. I was very hesitant at first to walk inside because there were these huge ants crawling around, I am talking HUGE. I swallowed by hesitancy and put on my brave face and did it. i flinched, noticeably, a couple of times and was made fun of it for it but oh well.
Along with ants I am learning to get used to a lot of new elements. Yesterday was my first usage of squatter toilet. I have used one before but it was seven years ago. I have relearn somethings. Today I took my first bucket shower. I getting used to sleeping on the cement floor. Surprisingly it is not that bad. I am grateful I brought a pillow. I am also getting used to the aroma produced by the substance on the side of the road on the street Liann calls 'poo lane.' But people are nice. The women always tell me hello as I make a stroll through the village.
I have a wide range of emotions while staying here, and they differ at each time of day. When I am sitting on the veranda with a girl from my group and talking to the little village kids while feeling the wind blow I feel grateful to have the opportunity to experience this side of life.
I using my blog as a forum to tell the people I love what is going on in my life, but I would like to hear about yours. I may not have the time to start and email and send it to everybody but if you send me an email I will reply. I hope to have pictures up next week. Stay tuned.

Go Touch the Calendar

My blog title is from one of my favorite lines these past two days. I cant believe I am only on my third day here. I am not implying that it goes by fast but rather I have had so many experiences and most have turned out positive or can be seen as a learning expereince. We are in India, not everything is peachy keen, despite what you guys have maybe previously thought about it. My flight to here left on tuesday night at 10pm and I arrived in Chennai on Friday morning at one am. I was so happy to see Liann and Heidi there to get my bags. It is so freaking hot here... so hot, so hot. The internet in this cafe is pricey but it has air con and I can't say the same for my hotel room. After getting a full wiff of the Indian air we took a taxi to the hotel. I tried to sleep but I could not so I chatted with Heidi and Liann about life and love and our new lives here. There have been times when I have said why the h did I come here. Why why why. It is hot and you can even cool down. You guys know I am from Arizona and I like the heat but not like this. It stinks because we are right next to the bay of Bengal but the community pumps waiste into the ocean so there will be no swimming.
But there are good parts and eventually the good will out way the bad and I won't be jet lagged and I will get used to the heat. There is this man with no legs that sit on a pillow and wears a cap. We pass him every day on the way to the train station and he always says good day madam and smiles. He doesnt even have a tin can in front of him. I have learned to appreciate his smile. At the end of the street there is a lady who sells jasmine flowers on a string. Women put flowers in their hair everyday. They usually attach the sting to their pony tail. Heidi buys Jasmine from this lady. My hair is short and cannot handle a pony tail but I really wanted to support this lady so i bought some. Later that day I returned and showed her how I jimmy rigged the thing in there. She said I looked beautiful. We hardly speak the same language!!
Today is sunday and we went to church. It was a crazy and beautiful. The getting was crazy but the being there was beautiful. They had AC! A whole three hours of AC!!
We will be in Chennai until wednesday afternoon and then we will take a train into Coimbatore, spend the night and then head over to our village, Chavadi Pudur, where it won't be as hot.
The quote in the subject line has to do with the crazy man who was checking the rest of the people in. He wanted them to pay for four nights and I said we would only pay for two nights. I dont think I can relate the story in text, you kind of have to know crazy man. Anyway, I'm actual.

Springtime in Chennai

Ok people. you can stop worrying because I made it safely to India. Unfortunately, at this time I am oh so tired and will not be able to tell you about my travels and adventures until I recieve some sleep...
So stay tuned.