Recent Happenings

1. Dr. Susan turned 50!! And no, it is not rude to discuss a lady's age in India. I made her a present of vegan friendly balsamic potato salad. I tried my best with what ingredients I had, which wasn't all of them but what do you do. The school also had a celebration in her honor. The celebration/party theme was Grow Trees, in honor of Dr. Susan's love for nature. She was showered with gifts ranging from actual tangible presents to people reciting poems to her. Mr. Satharaj played her a hymn on his harmonica. I love the way Indian's celebrate. People make offerings of what they can and everyone is cool with it. I wish America was more like that. I don't think many people would dare play a song on the harmonica as a present to someone for their birthday (especially not for your boss) because generally, we are all about things/materialism, but here, it really is all about the sincere offering of something to someone else and the most awesome part is that the receiver welcomes the offering with open arms.

2. I have a new roomie. Everyone, meet Dr. Nivetha/Navetha--Im pretty sure she switches the spelling every few days. :) Sometimes I call her Dr. sometimes I just call her Nivie. RSO is trying something new where we will have an Indian VPO and an American VPO (my current position). The hope is that having a representative of both cultures, and having an Indian that can live in the elephant house and keep things steady as the American VPO's rotates in and out, since American's come on volunteer basis and most of them aren't able to stay for as long as I have. Another benefit of having an American & Indian VPO is that the communication between both cultures will hopefully be more clear. It isn't horrible now, but different cultures and different cultures and there can always be more TLC when working so closely together. Just like life within the Peafowl (our) room right now.

It honestly has been pure entertainment--for me anyway. I'm pretty sure she feels the same. There are so many little things that come up when you are rooming with a girl who is from Tamil Nadu and went to medical school in Ukraine. Take drying your hair for example. In India I get out of the shower and thats that, it eventually dries. Nivie gets out of the shower, flips her wet hair over her head and starts beating it with a metal stick. It helps to get the water  out. Who knew. She also has an arranged marriage, which is still in the process of happening. He is in Scotland working right now but I've meet him because she talks to him via skype every single day. All day long. So its kind of like we have three roommates. She is constantly calling him By-Jew (I know that isn't how you spell that but that is how it sounds) and for a bit I thought it was his name. Come to find out it isn't his name but a Tamil pet name that means "darling" or "honey" or something of that short. So sometimes I call him that too because I hear it about 25 times a day at least. Its all in good fun though and only when Nivie is around. We constantly have to explain things to one another and laugh over all our misunderstandings. Like when she thinks I am giving people the opportunity to offer me thanks (when really it is to offer prayer to whatever power they worship) and when I ask her why she is laughing and she tells me its because she is watching a show where "three people decided to commit suicide and it is so hilarious!". True story.      

3. Caroline did some sick henna on my foot. See the scab on my toe? That is from an ant bite. The ants are brutal here. They mean business. And they drive me insane.

4. Spring Break Session #1 officially left. They were such fun girls. A lot of them live in Utah
and we say we are going to get together when we get back so I really hope we do. I really identified with some of these girls.  

5. There is currently an epidemic of swine flu in India. It started in North India but has moved down to Chennai as of late. Because of that, we are not allowed to go certain places, mostly crowded places. One of those places is Chennai, which means I don't know if I will be able to go to the branch again before I leave. My experience there may be donezo. And I didn't even get to say goodbye. :( We have been ordered to move up the end of the year testing just in case it gets worse, which would mean the kids may have to go home early. This whole swine flu thing is not making me very happy.

(Photo cred goes to google--hence the graininess)   

Coming to Terms

Today is my one month left mark. I leave India April 15th. How did that happen?! Where has the time gone?! This isn't reality is it?! I have officially reached the point where I am starting to clean through stuff (physically and emotionally), pack things for the trip home and visit places for the last time. I am down to 30 days or less from this point on. So it's official, I'm leaving for home soon.

I am ridiculously happy about the fact that I get to see my family and friends, visit Target and eat Coast Vida/Cafe Rio again soon. Now that it is close I am remembering all sorts of little things about home--like that I have a car and can drive myself places. And that Ill have a dishwasher AND dryer. And that I'll be able to go to the temple. Heck I can even drive myself there! And afterwords I can drive myself to another temple if I want. But lets be real, I will most likely drive myself to the nearest Target. And yes I do realize that I have now mentioned Target two (three) times in one paragraph and no I am not the least bit ashamed of that. I can go out after dark, even by myself if I want---although Im not going to make a habit of wandering around alone in the dark. That would be plain stupid. I can go to the movies with my friends, call and text people without having to compute the time and make sure I have WIFI because my phone will be fully functional again! I can go to Wendy's and/or Carls Jr, Red Robin, Zupas, Thai Drift, Kneaders and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for the "Worms Dig It" caramel apple.

Yet despite all this excitement, the tears have started falling. They even fell twice in one day last week. Once because of a smoothie of different feelings which was topped off with the fact that I will be leaving India soon and the other because I was leaving reading time and was thinking about how much I am going to miss tucking the kids in bed. And watching movies with them. And their personalities----I LOVE their little but BIG personalities. And hearing them talk about their lives. I cry because I'm going to miss the look of pure gratitude and genuine happiness on the faces of those we visit in the colonies. I'll miss their singing, their laughing and their carrying on a full conversation with me in Tamil, where all I can do is smile, nod and attempt to mimic some of the tones of their voices when it seems appropriate to do so.

As excited as I am to come home, I am also a little nervous too. It felt weird to go home after two and a half months in Africa so I can only imagine a year in India will be more intense. I have talked to friends and family who have told me about this thing being built and that thing being torn down back at home. Some say I won't recognize certain landscapes anymore-such as Geneva which is apparently all houses now?!?! I am honestly a little afraid that I am going to experience major culture shock in my own country. I fear I may be one of those people who goes into a normal grocery store at home and starts to cry. And I know for sure that I will be that weirdo who sometimes wears Sari's and bindis around the house for no other reason then I'll just want to. I wonder if I will feel a twinge of guilt every time I take a warm standing shower and climb into my incredibly comfy queen sized bed. My awesome bed that is in my room along with my closet of all my clothes and shoes and "stuff". Which is just a wall away from my jewelry making/crafting area. I have a feeling I will be doing some major cleaning through my closet/things/life.

I guess in short I'm just feeling really nostalgic for both my home home and my Indian home. So I'll just end this with a picture of a calming sunset. I just need to Keep Calm and Take Pictures of Sunsets (insert little crown and "Keep Calm" poster format here).

Sucking Spit and Synching Lips

Yep--that title more or less sums up the Dental/Spring Break 1 Session. :) It was fun and silly and productive and frustrating and miraculous and I loved it! It felt really good to come back to what I did for ten years of my life. While I wasn't a fan of feeling stagnant and the suffocating level of estrogen found in most offices, I have nothing but love for actual dentistry. And it felt so good to help "my" kids in such a specific way. I see so many people come to RSO and share their vocal, dancing, artistic, teaching and athletic talents and while I absolutely LOVE that they do that, I always kind of wish I had more tangible talents to share with the kids. BUT-having the dental clinic up and running over the last couple of weeks has given me an opportunity to do that. Not that going to the dentist is remotely in the same league as playing football or cricket with the kids, but I know what I mean. 

Plus I loved the people I got to work with. The Collin's family is AMAZING! Aaron (Dr. Collins) is a pediatric dentist and his wife Tara has dental assisting background. The first week of the Dental Clinic consisted of Tara and I cleaning teeth/triaging all the kids. 

So I may have "pulled" one of his teeth. But not really, it was so lose that I just tipped it with my fingers (with his permission of course) and out it came. The look on his face was awesome though. I don't know if he didn't quiet understand what I asked him or what but it was pretty funny. He had a big smile on his face afterwords though so I have a feeling he was proud of himself for losing his tooth.

And I had to include a pic of her because she is beautiful and was sporting a GORGEOUS flower hair piece: 

Unfortunately, the cleaning quickly turned into only triaging and introducing the kids to the clinic since both our machines broke. We were able to do some toothbrush prophys and flouride on the smaller children but we eventually ran out of kids we could get away with that on. Actually, we had a TON of things break and go wrong that first week. It still ended up being a productive week but not being able to clean all the kids during the first week (like we had hoped and planned to do) was a bit frustrating. One time Tara and I were talking about our frustrations and making yet another game plan in my room when she looked out my window and started laughing saying "You have men in skirts working right outside your window!!" And it was completely true. Apparently it was exactly what both of us need because we both started laughing and of course we had to take some pictures. I am ashamed to say that I've seen them out there for a few days now and didn't think anything of it. I guess that just goes to show how use I am to seeing men wear skirts, even when working and even when it is right outside my window. :) 

This one (Berlyn) tuned the old age of 19 during the Dental/Spring Break #1 Session. We attacked her with a faulty confetti sprayer and balloons in the morning,

and held a lip synch battle (per her request) that night. I didn't personally participate but I LOVED watching it! Turns out we have some pretty good lip synch-ers in our group. Jaxon and Ethan did a song about sideburns and even included a sideburn rockin' baby,

Bryan did "Come Sail Away" if for no other reason then the music called for some serious kicking and dancing,

Berlyn and Caroline chose "Dancing Queen"

Saychelle worked it (as per usual) by performing "Hold On" by Wilson and Phillips. She even threw in wicked head banging moves, 

And then this happened:

Yes you are seeing that right, we were graced with the presence of Aladdin and Jasmine as they performed A Whole New World, on a magic carpet, that was flying in the wind (courtesy of Saychelle).

I think Aladdin and Jasmine stole the show. It was so funny because they got so into their characters--so much so that Jasmine ended up copping a feel of Aladdin when she put her hand on his chest to gaze into his dreamy eyes. 

The second week brought us some more volunteers, Dr. Collins being one of them. Tara had told me that they call Aaron the "Child Whisperer", and it took me all of 2 minutes to understand why. He was SOOO good with the kids. I have never seen anything like it. I have to admit I was a little nervous that the kids would hate me after I worked on/or helped to work on them in the dental clinic, but it wasn't that way at all. It was more or less a dental party (professionally run party that is) with lots of laughter, pictures and work happening simultaneously.  There was such a fun energy of curiosity and learning.      

We had some children that were a little nervous but that was about it. No actual screamers. Its a miracle right?  Varalakshmi was one of the nervous ones but we worked with her to where she let me clean her teeth and give her "tooth vitamins" after all. She did great. 

Kaviya, was really good at acting like she was super scared but if you looked at her for a second you could see her grinning behind the fists she had trembling up around her mouth. She and Sangeetha had this whole act planned out. It was pretty impressive. Those two are the most sassy and cunning little girls. Its a good thing they are so freaking cute. 

And speaking of cute, well we know that Charles is the epitome of cute, 

but the other cute thing I was referring to was watching Jaxon (Tara and Aaron's son) interact with the kids. It is always fun watching the kids with the volunteers but Jaxon seemed to have a special connection with the kids. Besides his fun personality and loving nature, one of Jaxon's biggest draw was his hat--that he was so kind to share with the kids. 

Ethan interactions with the kids were a little more entertaining--as all the children were all in love with him. Hahahah oh Frodo.....errr I mean Ethan. 

Anyway, back to dentistry, Guna did so good! It made me one proud sponsor mama.

And we can't forget Mishba. She was the last student we saw. Dr. Collins fixed her broken front tooth and it looked so good! 

Here's a picture of our meager dental clinic staff:

and all our charts--the top shelf is all the files we fully completed. The amount of work we were able to get done in a few week--but really only 4 days when we had fully working machines and our dentist--was nothing short of miraculous. And that was only one of the many different miracles that we witnessed through out the last couple of weeks. Seeing how everything just kept working out was quiet the humbling experience and resulted in me reflecting on a lot of different things.

But of course to be fair we didn't do it without the helping hands of all the volunteers. Technically, the Dental Session and Spring Break Session #1 were separate events but really it all just became one big group. Most of the Spring Break Session #1 volunteers had some medical background and even those who didn't picked things up quickly and just jumped right in. It really was a golden group. Despite all our obstacles, the whole thing ended up being a pretty flawless operation.