VIP

There have been several times where we host VIPs on campus. Usually, these people are board members, partners, or supporters of Rising Star Outreach. This past Saturday we had a VIP visit from the new general manager of the Marriott Hotel in Chennai. He brought his wife and their daughter, and although I didn’t personally get to interact with him much (or really at all) but you could tell they were very genuine and down to earth people. We put on a small program for them, which included lots of dancing from the kids. Rising star also partners with a program called Promethean Spark, which is a non-profit dance program that teaches life skills to students. Dance Master (her name is Emily but we have two Emily’s on campus so one is Yemily and then naturally, the other, who also happens to be the Promethean Spark representative is Dance Master) has spent so much time with the kids, teaching them, earning their respect, etc. so today was a huge payoff day for her. The kids did so awesome! A traditional dance was thrown into the mix as well, and I was dying over the costumes. I was sad I couldn’t get a better pic of all the traditional dancers in their garb, but they were changing for other numbers so there wasn’t really time. Still though, look how beautiful they are!

 Alright, confession time: I never really considered India part of Asia. In my mind, Asia is China and Japan and Thailand, but India was kind of its own deal, kind of Middle Eastern, kind of African like, but mostly just its own unique, turban wearing, crowded streets, constant honking, curry eating India. It has been kind of hard for me to break that thought process, but seeing the traditional dancing and costumes really helped break that. There was a lot of Asia-ness going on there. And I loved it.