Journal 9-25-2010

Journal 9-25-2010

Today was yet another day spent sitting on a bus listening to Indian music that is UNBELIEVEABLY LOUD (when we couldn’t stand it anymore we finally asked the driver to not play music. Aside from being trapped in the tour bus all day we had a pretty good time. We made two major stops on our tour. The first was a Schedule Tribe  (I am told this is how it is spelled. It is pronounced more like shadow. Which is why I spelled it as shadow in a previous journal entry.) Anyway, we visited a Schedule Tribe village. At the village we were able to talk to a group of women and also see the inside of both new government cement row houses, and old thatched mud huts.

We talked to the women about the improvements that the various government schemes have had on their lives. It is obvious that these schemes especially the government ration shops have had an enormous positive impact on these people. 10 years ago they were eating rats and roots that they foraged from the forest. Now they are able to buy rice, wheat, lentals, and other staples of the Indian diet. They still eat rats, snakes, turtles, fish and other non-veg items that they can catch in and around a nearby lake. These dietary choices are not based on need but based on taste. This community likes to eat meat and the meat that they can catch is free.

            Our next stop was supposed to be a temple on top of a hill. But the only road was washed out so we had to change plans and head to a mango garden instead.

It was very pretty, and had a great view of the surrounding hills.

            The trip back to CCOORR from the garden took 1 hour and 21 minutes. I know this because we placed bets on the amount of time it would take, and john guessed exactly 1 hour 21 minutes. On the way back we stopped at a dam / reservoir that supplies Chennai with water.

When we got back to CCOORR we ate lunch and about an hour later at 4:20 we  drove into the village to play a volleyball match against some of the older boys. This was a really fun game of volleyball! We got pretty into it and so did they. They were pretty good, and beat us 4 games to 2. It was a really fun match. After the game we went to a cultural program put on by some local kids at a community center. They sang songs, danced and did skits. At the end of the program they asked us to come up and sing. We sang circle of life from the lion king and then UM YA YA! Circle of Life definitely needs work… we hadn’t practiced it. It seems like we are going to keep being asked to sing so we should probably work on a good song… (yes I know we were warned). The volleyball game and the cultural program were both really fun. This was a great night! We came back late and ate dinner. Now it is 9:49 and I am going to go to bed.