Shore Temple

We have alternating destinations for our Saturdays off, but the last couple of Saturdays we have gone to Mamallpurum. It is more of a tourist town but it still has a lot of cool things to see and do. I will do a post on just Mamallpurum next, but this one is just for the Shore Temple. Below is a link to Wikipedia--so obviously all the facts are most likely correct right?--but I figured it is probably about as accurate as my understanding of Indian English is too so what do you do. I am getting better with the understanding/communication too, but the journey of that is another post as well.

I do know for sure that it was really cool and that it was only recently exposed-as in the last 10 years when the 2004 Tsunami hit Thailand. I didn't realize that that Tsunami affected India as well, but I guess it makes sense. The other thing I know for sure was that it was only 10 rupees for Indians to go see the temple, and 250 Rupees for foreigners such as myself. And it was a non-negotiable 250 Rupees. That still isn't tons of money but regardless of the amount of money I still find it annoying. Oh and of course we had random Indian's request we take their pictures--Im not trying to socially profile anyone I promise.

  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shore_Temple 

Hhh-School

Monday started mass hysteria. The kids have come back to campus—but not all of them. We wanted all of them but school started for the entire state of Tamil Nandu so the trains were most likely packed and unfortunately, the children coming from leprosy colonies usually get pushed to the back of the line. Which sometimes means pushed days back. And no one has phones so we just have to wait until they show up.

           

While some of the nurses went out to colonies myself and two other girls stayed back to “help” with the first day. We spent most of our time with the UKG kids—which are the newest and smallest and most adorable ones. They also happened to be the ones that “speak next to no English” and who  spontaneously start crying. I can’t blame them though. They are anywhere from 4-6 years old, and some of them were dropped off by their family for the school year because their colonies are to far away to go home to each night. We have family days once I month but still,  that's hard when you're a kid. Despite the tears, these kids are resilient to say the least. It has been fun helping with education this week—I helped some kids operate a computer for the first time ever and even tutored math for some. Ill be honest I got a few questions wrong but mostly I always gave them the right answer. Oops. What do you do.

           

Besides getting the kids back into school mode, we have had numerous health classes with the older kids and medical testing/procedures with all the kids. Not all are finished but mandatory delousing and deworming of all the children are on the list-along with what I am sure will be the highlight of their entire week-the birds and the bees talk. That should be interesting in a culture where boys and girls have to sit on separate sides of the room and basically aren’t really allowed to talk to one another but then eventually enter into an arranged marriage.  And I thought Mormon dating was a mess. One of the funniest things I’ve noticed this week has happened during eye exams and reading tutoring with the kids. They say all their letters with a H sound in front of them so it ends up sounding like Hhh-A, Hhh-M, Hhh-E, Hhh-L, etc. Ill see if I can get a video of it, but it makes me laugh every time. It is adorable.

Each night we go to the children’s hostels and read the older ones books. The younger ones have usually fallen asleep—so we just step over them. It is funny to see how they sleep—all on the floor and sprawled across one another. There are bunk beds but there are not enough for each kid so they all just grab a pillow and hit the cement floor. They defiantly become one another’s family.  It is fun to see the older kids “take care” of the younger ones. 

Triumphant

Our first volunteer group has been BYU Nursing Study Abroad. There is a lot of estrogen all over the place but it honestly has been really fun—and I sincerely mean that. I guess there are still a few more weeks left with them so maybe I shouldn't speak so soon, but I am sure if anything changes I will have to emotionally vomit it here anyway so maybe to be continued? Hopefully not though……..

One of the BYU students had a birthday last week so we bought a cake for her. I wrote down her name for the bakery—Jessie—but the cake came back JesHi. We had a good laugh over that one. She is now permanently JesHi to us.

The only bummer with the nurses being here is that they went out on a few overnight trips to some of the colonies that are farther away, and I didn’t get to go with because I have had work to do on campus. The work on campus has been good though. One of the biggest jobs I had this past week was getting the dental clinic inventory together and organized. I love all the new stuff I am learning, but it was nice to have a project that I was familiar with.

Oh and the rickshaw driver dropped us off a couple of streets over from the church this afternoon, so I had to cross two major roads in Chennai-the big city-on foot today. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared at all. It was kind of intense not knowing what will be coming at you next; cow, bus, car, rickshaw, motorcycle, other people, etc. But I survived. I never thought I would feel so triumphant over crossing the street but man do I ever feel triumphant.