Trichy

Rising Star is expanding its area of services, starting in a place called Trichy. This project officially started in June, but we haven’t had volunteers go down there until just recently. Brooklyn went down last week to help get things set up for volunteers and some of the other coordinators are schedule to go down next week while Jake and I are in Delhi. I just assumed I would miss out on the opportunity to visit Trichy which I was sad about but just figured that’s just the way things go sometimes.

BUT THEN---Jake and I got word we were being sent down for a few days this week so I figured wrong. I love it when I figure things wrongly! This also means that Jake will be the first ever regular session volunteer to work in Trichy-so he was pretty stoked about that. 

Trichy is about three and a half hours away. We got to take the REAL movie star car (the new car that we just got around December-ish—if I remember right) and Velu was our driver. This was the first time I’ve ever had the privilege of sitting in the new car let alone driving in it! I could already tell this was going to be a good little road trip. Velu plugged his Ipod shuffle in so I asked him what we would be rocking out to. His reply: “Jesus music. I LOVE Jesus music!” Okay, that’s not at all what I was expecting but whatever. Jesus music it was.

Well I fell asleep—Jesus music tends to do that to me—and before I knew it we were in Trichy. We settled into the office/volunteer quarters. It is all one house and different areas are used for different purposes. It is a nice little set up though-and each room has a bathroom connected to it so that was nice. There is more Islamic influence in Trichy then there is around the main campus. That meant hearing the call to prayer, and the call to prayer coupled with the housing set up made me feel like I was back in Africa. After looking around some, I broke out the UNO cards. Initially, Abarna and Navumani were a little apprehensive about playing—Velu was all in right from the get go. I don’t know how to explain how many laughs can come out of playing UNO with Indians but I assure you that it’s a lot. It is such a universal game—just numbers and colors. It’s fantastic.

After several rounds, Velu, Navumani, Abarna, Jake and I sent out to do some exploring. Well Jake and I were more exploring, the other three had been there for a few days/before and were simply walking to the grocery store-but make no mistake at least two of us were exploring. Someone threw a chicken foot at us as we were walking down the street. I am not sure if I was meant to come at us or if someone just threw it off their railing and it happened to land where we were walking. I want to say it was an accident but I know that seems very unlikely. Maybe we are going to have to work our way into this community a little more? I guess we will see.

After exploring we stopped to eat at The Trichy Restaurant. Original name eh? The food was yummy but the company was even better. After dinner we went back to the Peacock Palace (that is was I’ve dubbed the Trichy volunteer living quarters due to the fact that you can hear and see peacocks around the property) and resumed our UNO tourney. One of my favorite things about being in India is getting to spend time with the Indian staff. I seriously love them.

The next morning we went out to a colony. I’m not going to pretend I remember the name of the colony but I absolutely loved it. All of our patients are grateful for our services but there seemed to be a little something more at this colony. It was a little bit of a walk from the road to the building where we set up the clinic, but the colony residents were lined up and ready to help as soon as we started unloading the van. Even the children jumped right in.

I had the opportunity to wash feet while Jake sat next to me removing bandages.

Being able to experience him being the first regular volunteer in Trichy was pretty neat. We have gotten to do some really cool things together while he has been her. I am really going to miss that. I am also going to miss watching Jake and Velu’s bromance. Its been going strong down here in Trichy—in an adorable way.  And I mean that, even though adorable doesn’t seem to match the word bromance. Or does it?  

Anyway, I was amazed at how smooth everything ran. I was prepared for it to be a little crazy with this being the first time the Trichy staff has had more then just Brooklyn out on a rotation but it was pretty flawless. The doctor was so personable to both the patients and the volunteers. He knows that Brooklyn sings so he asked me to sing him a song too. I told him I don’t sing and his response was something to the affect of “Well Brooklyn sings like an angel!” to which I said, “Yes, I know but when I sing I sound like the devil”. He thought that was the funniest thing ever and I was referred to as the devil for the next little while. Ironically, we did end up singing for some patient’s before we left the colony—and by we I mean Brooklyn sang and I kind of followed/moved my mouth along. The doctor was impressed but that was only because Brooklyn was basically the only one singing. I totally played off her talents but I don’t feel bad because she was fully aware.

One of my favorite things about colony is the hang out time we get with the residence. Sometimes we dance, sometimes we talk and sometimes we sing--hence what happened today. Even though most of the patients aren't beautiful according to worldly standards, but I find them absolutely stunning. Their physical appearance hints at so many stories and life experiences. I'm sure a lot of those are completely heartbreaking but I'm still perpetually curious of each of their histories.

After the colony we went supply shopping. Indian market places make me laugh. They are so intense and everyone is so helpful--sometimes too helpful. It is always an experience. We were able to see some cool things on the way to and from supply shopping, although we weren’t able to actually stop anywhere.

I was already excited that we were expanding to Tritchy and coming here only confirmed how awesome this will be. This truly is an amazing and inspired work. Call it God, Buddha, Mohammad, Allah, Shiva, Lashkmi or whatever you want but it definitely is inspired. Too many things just "work out" for it not to be inspired. It really is incredible.