Journal 9-9-10
Today I was feeling a little bit better and with help from some anti diarrhea pills, courtesy of John, was able to go out on the scheduled outing… without incident. In the morning we took a long bus ride to an organic farm. This was a really refreshing change of scenery for everyone in the group. The city of Chennai is starting to get to all of us. So we were relieved to see a part of India that has some green life to it. This 10 acre organic farm is really unique. One of their main crops is Spirulina, a blue green algae. 
A cool refreshing glass of Spirulina was offered to us almost immediately after we arrived. 
Don’t mind Leah’s facial expression. It was actually really good. The only odd thing about it is the dark green color. Spirulina is also supposed to be quite good for you. The organic farm also had turkeys, guinea hens, and chickens. It also had a solar powered well, advanced composting system, and produced biogas used for cooking. The farm was remarkable because it was very self-sufficient. They also use a cutting edge rice growing technique that involves a dry, out of field, planting stage. It is also interesting to note that the farm was managed by a group of people (possibly a company) from Sri Lanka.
The farm was really the first field trip that we have taken that has any direct connection to biology. I found that it was nice to start thinking about science again instead of religion. It is striking that in India religion is such a central focus for attention and money, while so many other basic needs like clean water, and sanitation need to be addressed.
Next we went to the Periyar science and technology centre.
It was the biggest waste of time I have ever been a part of… The museum is a joke. The planetarium was cool but was ruined by 30 little kids, terrible seats, and a program that taught absolutely nothing of value. After the Planetarium we went to the a 3D movie which was like watching a trailer for a shoot-em-up alien space ship game designed for play station 1. We then went to some sort of “Urban development” exhibit that consisted of probably 40 broken dioramas and looked a lot like this…
We were all shocked as we left the museum. This was interesting to see because we now have a lot of questions about the education system and why there is no funding for places that were obviously once well equipped. 
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