Journal 9-1-2010

Journal 9-1-10

Last night was the first night that I have slept really soundly in India. I think that I am getting used to the heat, the mosquito nets and the constant rattle of the two fans in our room. I have also started to enjoy the extremely hard beds.

In the morning we got up and had a spicy breakfast made up of some type of pancake (containing some strange herbs and spices) and a red-yellow curry dish. At breakfast we are also served a tiny cup of hot chai tea. Everyone LOVES the tea and we can’t seem to get enough. We are only given one thermos of hot milk and tiny (about ¼ cup) paper cups. So we have to savor our tea.

Today Matt was wearing his dhoti when we went to meet with Irene. As it turns out, we have been tying them very wrong. Eventually one of the desk workers taught us to tie them correctly, and now all the boys are wearing them in our room because they are much more breezy than pants.

Our big outing for the day was a trip to the only Buddhist temple in Chennai (Madras).  During a period of Hindu rule all the Buddhist temples were converted into Hindu temples. This was done by altering the statues of Buddha to make him look like some of the different Hindu gods. There are many Buddhists in Chennai but there is now only one temple and it is run by the Sri Lankan government. Mr Salvarag, a talkative and eccentric man, took us to the temple where we sat in front of a huge statue of Buddha.

(we all decided to wear Indian clothes this morning. I borrowed this vibrant blue shirt from matt; I didn’t realize that it was this vibrant or small until I looked at this picture). A monk who was sitting with us chanted and preyed with us in another language. At his request we attempted to chant along with him but we were unable to do so because the language he used was so different from English. After about 10 minutes we got up and he said a short prayer to each of us as he tied bracelets of string around our right arms.

After the monk had finished, we sat back down and talked for what seemed like forever about Buddhism. Mr Salvarag made sure that matt and the girls wrote down every date and name that he said. He even pointed to the places on the page where he wanted them to write each thing. He then boasted about his own personal degrees, claiming that he was an expert in every subject. He had 4 degrees in total, he also made sure that Matt wrote these down. When we were Finally allowed to stand up, my legs took minutes to recover. We eventually went upstairs into a dorm like room that was housing many men from Sri Lanka who had were on some type of pilgrimage to Buddhist temples in the north of India. In their room there was a giant statue of sleeping Buddha.

We returned to ICSA and said goodbye to Irene, I thought we were done so I went and checked my email. When I was done I came back downstairs where everyone else was waiting for Mr Salvarage. When we found him, he wanted us to come with him to the museum across the street, and also said that he would come back to ICSA to have lunch with us.

The museum was an interesting enough place, In many ways it was like a museum in the US. For example it had precious ancient carvings kept in glass cases. But the museum did not seem to have any lights with to illuminate these artifacts. When it did have lights they were poorly placed so that they illuminated the fingerprints all over the glass instead of the artifacts themselves. Despite the lighting we were still able to see some pretty cool stuff.

While we walked to another building Mr. Salvarage took Matt’s hand and explained something of historical importance to him in partially understandable English.

We all thought this was hilarious. But from what we have observed men in India do tend touch each other a lot.

When we returned from the museum we had lunch at ICSA with Mr. Salvarage (who at the point reminded me a lot of Dr. Mata). At lunch Mr. Salvarage talked for the entire time, but none of us can remember anything significant that he said. This is because even with our best efforts, we could only understand half of the words he said, and because he talked mostly about himself. At the end of lunch we parted ways with Mr. Salvarage and he said that he was going to go “read and sleep at the library”.

Later in the day I took a nap, talked to some activists who were advocates for dalet children, then went out again. This time we walked around trying to find chai. We eventually found a place in a mall and had chai and a brownie. On the way back we found an awesome store called Brut. We went in and found some outrageous shirts that you wouldn’t find anywhere outside of India. I bought a shirt that is half sweater and half collared shirt, it is sweeeeeet.

We had a great dinner at ICSA that was some type of chicken dish with a fried rice dish. They were very good but we had to dodge bones in the chicken. During dinner we talked with Prabhu and Pownraj they both speak pretty understandable English (some of the best at ICSA). They helped us find a paper with movie times. We think that we are going to try to go tomorrow to see Avatar (the extended version) in 3D. It should be pretty epic. Apparently the theatre just opened several weeks ago.

My opinion of India has changed drastically since we went out on our own on the first day. I have gotten used to everyone looking as we walk by. I am also much more willing to striking up a conversation with whoever we meet. The environment of the streets have become much less shocking and much more comfortable. The mild anxiety over walking on the streets and being hit by honking vehicles has completely gone. People are excited to see us, they enjoy talking to us, and are almost always very friendly. I find that I no longer focus on the trash on the ground or the smell of sewage. I instead tend to focus on the people who in are for the most part very clean and well dressed. Women wear beautiful sparkling and colorful saris, while the men all wear collared shirts and dhotis or trousers.