India!!

By far, this is my favorite port so far. I’ll try to explain things a little more clear than I did for Mauritius. I guess a few of you were disappointed with my last blog. This one will be good for sure because I liked India much more than I liked Mauritius. (o: Okay, it started with us not being allowed to debark until about 10. Customs in India is apparently more thorough than any of the other ports we have been in so far. We had to get immigration papers and whatnot so it too much longer than normal. It was alright for me because I had a trip leaving at 11 so I didn’t plan on getting off the boat until then anyways. Where our boat docked was a couple minute drive from anything really so since I didn’t want to pay for a rickshaw ride, I just stayed on the boat. The service project that I did was in an ‘untouchables’ village. India lived with the caste system for many hundreds of years. Today, it has been outlawed, but you still see it in full swing as you ride down the streets. The ‘untouchables’ are the people who do worst and hardest jobs. I felt something I’ve never felt being in that village because all the people there seemed like normal people to me, but to India’s society, they are damned to live a life of poverty and filth because of where and to who they were born. My religions teacher said it fits into their religion because of karma. If you are a bad Hindu in one life, you are reincarnated into a terrible life. Many people believe that is why the untouchables aren’t worth anyone’s time. They were very nice and hospitable to us. In fact, they were oddly hospitable to us. There were about 35 of us on the trip. After driving past people sleeping on the street with barely any clothes on, right next to rich people with beautiful outfits we thought we were slightly prepared to see anything in the village we were driving towards. Actually, we weren’t even close to ready. As we got off the bus, we were greeted by people putting flowers in our hands. In every other port, when you first arrive, people put things in your hands then ask for money. I said no thank you to everything they tried to give me until I realized it was a welcome reception for us. They gave us bouquets and flower necklaces until we couldn’t carry them anymore. About 50 yards ahead of us, there was a band ready to lead us to our destination. As we tried to get through the crowd of people, many women gave us bracelets (bangles) then put a red dot between our eyebrows with a power they had in little tins. Other women put yellow paste on both of our cheeks. I still have no idea what this meant, but all of us had tons of stuff on our face when we were done. I have never felt so welcomed as I did as we were paraded through the town by the band. Can you imagine walking into Munhall and being greeted by steel valley’s marching band and women giving you bracelets, flowers, then blessing you? No, you can’t because it would never happen. That’s exactly what it was like. Amazing. We probably walked around their village 4 times before they took us to the actual building that we were going to work on. The village itself was not what I expected. In Brazil and South Africa, the poor villages were filled with little shacks made of any type of material. Sometimes they were made of metal sheets, but also cardboard or plants. Here, the buildings were old and dirty but they were made of blocks and stone like all the other places in India. Some were two or three stories and they looked much better than the huts we were used to seeing in poor places. As usual, they loved to get their picture taken. Not just kids, people of all ages wanted to pose with us and have their photos taken. I took a couple videos to try to capture the feeling of the whole event but I doubt it will encompass the feeling of the whole day. After we walked the streets, we ended in front of a community center. They thanked us for coming then put us to work for a couple of hours. They gave us very watery paint (we said it was died water) and paint brushes and pointed until we understood what to do. We painted the community building a pale yellow color. We began to paint up and down with long strokes of our brushes (like you typically do in America) then the guys in charge of the event would stop us and make us paint left to right instead. Then a couple minutes later, someone else would take our brush and make us do it up and down again. We just nodded and smiled and continued in that pattern until someone else yelled at us. From the time we got off the bus until we got back onto the bus, we were similar to celebrities because there were 4 or 5 guys with cameras from the newspaper. These guys were snapping photos like they were Randi at a wedding. We would be shaking someone’s hand and they would push kids around us move us so they could get the picture form the right angle then snap away for a couple minutes. Now, I know how Britney Spears feels and I know why she’s crazy. Every time I heard that shutter open, I thought about the fact that I wasn’t smiling or wondered if I looked dumb. Whatever though. We painted their building then they had a reception for us where they gave us wooden keychains (as if they hadn’t given us enough) (as if they weren’t the poorest village in India) and a couple little girls danced for us. They were wearing pretty saris and were very good at what ever kind of dance they were doing. *wow, I just realized how long this is and I’m not even done with day 1* After the ceremony, we walked back a similar root to the bus. Some women on the second floor of buildings would throw flower petals off the balcony. We were like royalty. It’s almost impossible to explain. On the way in and out, the women performed a little ceremony for us every once and a while. They had a dish of what looked like some type of oil. A leaf floated in the middle. Someone else would light a little piece of something white on fire then put it on the leaf. The women would move the dish around our faces, then put the dish on the ground. The leaf was pulled off of the dish and put on the ground. Then the oil was dumped out. The white thing was stomped out and then the women put another smudge of that red powder on our foreheads. This was done many many times so you can only imagine what our faces looked like when we got back on the bus. We looked at ourselves in a picture and were almost embarrassed. But at the same time, it was amazing and I don’t care that we looked like a hot mess. (o: We went to dinner after we got home and tried to figure out what to do the rest of the night. I found my friends (davis and jasmine) and they convinced me to go out and look for some coffee and internet somewhere. We walked from our boat to the area that you can get off the loading dock. Outside, there were 15 motorized rickshaw drivers waiting for our business. I’m not sure if anyone reading this has been to India, but if you haven’t you are not going to understand how they drive here. There is sorta a hierarchy in driving. There are line on the roads, but every one is ignored unless its an actual barrier in which case, they get as close as they possibly can without ruining their paintjob. From what I understand, there aren’t really rules, but whichever size vehicle you are in gets the right of way. Now you would imagine that pedestrians (since they aren’t surrounded in metal) would be given the right of way when the green man lights up to allow you to cross… but you would be wrong in that thought. Because of the hierarchy of size, pedestrians are LAST on the totem pole. Trucks and busses drive however and wherever they want. Then cars, then motorized rickshaws, then bike rickshaws, then motorcycles, then bikes, then people. In addition to the crazy driving rules, or suggestions, Indians love their horns. If I could make a soundtrack of the country, it would include many car horns. Even the embarrassing horn of our impala would be socially accepted as long as you beep it as much as possible. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP means “hey, I’m here, try not to hit me if that’s at all possible. BBEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEP means “Um, hello, you just cut me off- but I’m not mad because it’s India. beep beep beep beep beep beep beep… means the light turned green a millisecond ago and I don’t understand why we’re not all moving yet eventhough you can’t go anywhere because the other traffic hasn’t even cleared the road yet but I’m impatient so I’ll honk anyways. Anyways, so we went in the motorized rickshaw and looked for the internet and didn’t find it so we wanted to get a drink instead. A majority of people in India are Hindu. Because you can’t drink if you strictly follow the religion there aren’t many bars. The majority of them are in hotels and they close by 11:30. We told our driver what we were looking for and he took us to a wine shop. We said “No, we want to sit down… like at a bar.” He drove like 20 feet and pointed ahead to a sign that said “BAR” in neon letters. He found one for us. We had a drink and on our way out, we saw some other SAS friends so we hung out for a little then went back to the boat. The next day was my homestay. I was soooo excited to go. I met my roommate (sarah) before I left the bus and soon met Atul (my host dad.) He took us to his apartment where we met Kshiti, his wife. They have 2 kids around 22ish, but they are both at school now. Their family lives in a nice sized apartment somewhere in Chennai. It was pretty large considering like 90% of India is in poverty. (it’s not that high, it was just an over exaggeration.) When we first got there, we hung out and met each other and got to know each other a little bit better. A little later, Sarah and I went to a museum where we saw 300 little schoolgirls walking around the museums in single file line. Everytime we saw them, we would wait for them to pass by us. Every third girl would say “hi, how are you” shake our hands then keep walking. It was super cute. They all had the same uniform on, and pigtails that were in braids with little white bows. Super cute. We went to some restaurants, we ate some home cooked food, and of course we had delicious deserts. The home stay was amazing overall. My host family was very open to our questions. They explained all the things that semester at sea wouldn’t explain to us. Things about the caste system and poverty rates were subjects that we didn’t learn in class for whatever reason… but they were happy to help explain. They had the most amazing coffee and tea I’ve ever had. The tea always had milk in it and I’m convinced that I can make it myself on the boat. I’ll try over and over again till I get it right. The first day on my home stay, we went to get coffee at this little place and I had a cappuccino. A little later in the evening we went to a Rotary meeting (the home stay was through Chennai’s Rotary club) and I had two more cups of coffee there. I have never had 3 cups of coffee in one day. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night. The next day we went to Mamallapuram (ma-ma-la-pour-em) to see some of the oldest stone temples ever. At that time, wood was the preferred building material so the temples were started and never finished or consecrated. One set of 5 temples were carved from the same rock. Could you imagine the pressure those rock carvers must have been under. If they messed up, how could they fix it? You can’t just quit and start on another rock. You basically just can’t mess up. The people that sell things on the street here are unlike anyone else. In America, we have price tags and number on that tag is the actual price of the object. Here, like most other places in the world, there are no price tags. You can only guess and bargain for whatever price you are willing to pay. Sometimes you get hustled, and other times, you feel like you did a pretty good job for yourself. Here specifically, compared to the rest of our stops, I have done less bargaining. Because the things here are so inexpensive, I find myself just saying ‘ok’ when the price of 6 yards of hand made and woven silk fabric is under 10 dollars. I could probably get the price to $5, but I just don’t. I’m not sure what it is but maybe I think the person who made it deserves more than $5 or maybe it’s something else. Seeing how this is page four of my blog and I’m only on the third day of my India trip, I’ll just sum a couple of things up and call it quits. 1.) the awesome food here. Not only is it all delicious and a little spicy, you get to eat it with your hand. Don’t get it twisted, you can only use your right hand so it gets sorta complicated, but it makes eating so much more fun. I think we should bring that tradition to the states. A typical Chennai meal is rice in one part of the separated dish, then some yellowish food in another part of the dish, then something that looks kinda green and some little area saved for the desert. Then you proceed to use your right hand and smash some of the colored food into the rice till it’s mixed together. Then scoop it using your thumb, pointer, and middle finger- into your mouth. A quarter of it lands on your plate before it gets to your mouth but the rest of it is delicious. Sometimes, you get bread with your meal instead of rice (this is what I prefer.) The only problem with this is tearing a piece of bread with only your right hand. At first it was tricky, but I have defiantly mastered the art of right hand bread ripping. The bread isn’t like a loaf like we have in America, it’s more like a tortilla or a pita. Delicious in any form though. 2.) the head bobble. Until I talked to my first Indian, I didn’t know this head bobble existed. It is a left to right movement that occurs frequently during conversations. During an explanation, if what you’re saying is understood, Indians will bobble their head to show comprehension. It’s a subtle movement but it was constantly hilarious. The whole time, it never gets old once. I don’t even have any videos to show you to fully explain this movement but trust that its hilarious. That’s all for India. I’ll tell everyone tons of stories of this port when I get home because it was clearly one of the best places I’ll ever be. Good and bad news: my trip is half way over. I will be home in 54 days. During the upcoming month, I will be uber busy in port. In the next 36 days, we are in port 25 of them. That’s so ridiculous to me. I have a laundry day tomorrow and I don’t get another one till we’re in Hawaii because of the way our schedule is. That is like 5 and a half weeks away. I guess I’ll be doing a lot of laundry in my sink in the upcoming weeks. Wish me luck in the next couple ports. I will try to post after everyone but I can’t guarantee anything. Two nights before we reach any port, we have a pre-port lecture. It’s an hour long talk full of information (as if we don’t get enough info through other channels) Today, our first day back on the boat they made an announcement “cultural preport will take place tomorrow at 2000 hours.” Matea and I almost couldn’t believe that it was so soon. Very very exciting. Love you all more than I can explain! See you soon.

Just a couple of things:

Mumma: I haven’t gotten my additional malaria medicine. I don’t know if you forgot or it didn’t get to my port, but I don’t have it. I hope it will be in Malaysia because I need it for one more port. I also haven’t gotten any point books. I still love you anyways.

Rannie: Thanks for keeping up with my email. It really makes my life so much better that I don’t have to open every email myself.

Mark: thanks for being the only person that has written to me in each port. I appreciate it.

Kristofer: thank you for sending me letters to every port except one. And being the best ever. (o:

Juli: eventhough you haven’t sent me any mail… I still love your gutz.

Mumma: thanks for that little Valentine from Keagan.

And finally…

A special thanks to Poppa Bear. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say your posts make most peoples day just a little bit better. (o:

Love you all! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!