A Day in The Pink City

My entire life I've had the travel bug.  I blame this solely on my parents.  They loved travel and raised me to love it.  Whether we were flying to Canada or just driving the coast to Half Moon Bay, we loved to explore new places.  Before I came to India, I was told that the kids at Rising Star would have a few weeks off in September where they would go home and spend time with their families.  I took this as an opportunity to see part of the world I never imagined I would be in.  Callie and I decided to plan our trip so we would be in Northern India for a week, and then Sri Lanka relaxing on a beach for the rest of our vacation.  This was the PERFECT plan.   With the help of our awesome travel agent, Benson at Abish Travels (http://abishtravels.com/), we flew into Jaipur and began our adventures in Northern India! 

Benson knew Callie and I were on a "volunteers budget", but he somehow managed to set us up in the coolest hotels.

Here are some photos of the first hotel we were in, in Jaipur.  This used to be an old palace and is packed with history...none of which I can remember at the moment (which is how it usually goes for me... I love hearing about anything historical, and then I promptly forget everything I was told) 

 

 

 

If I could go back in time, I would have spent more time in Jaipur. This place was breathtaking!  We spent about a day and a half here, and this is what we did:

 

My first taste of Jaipur was having a nasty cobra put on my neck. From the pictures you can tell I was THRILLED about this.  Thank you Jaipur and gross snakes for some of the most unflattering photos of myself.  Thank you. 

 

 

 

Here we are at the City Palace in Jaipur. I am now going to tell you about it by copy and pasting from Wikipedia cause that's how I roll.  "City Palace, Jaipur, which includes the Chandra Mahal and Mubarak Mahal palaces and other buildings, is a palace complex in Jaipur, the capital of the Rajasthan state, India. It was the seat of the Maharaja of Jaipur, the head of the Kachwaha Rajput clan. The Chandra Mahal palace now houses a museum but the greatest part of it is still a royal residence. The palace complex, which is located northeast of the centre of the grid patterned Jaipur city, incorporates an impressive and vast array of courtyards, gardens and buildings. The palace was built between 1729 and 1732, initially by Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber. He planned and built the outer walls, and later additions were made by successive rulers right up to the 20th century."

 

 

 

Next we went across the street to Jantar Mantar.  This place was SUPER COOL.  It was built in 1727 by Maharaja Jai Singh II and is filled with astronomical architecture.  This Maharaja was a genius. 

 

 

I don't remember what this next place is, but it looked pretty amazing from far away.

 

And now, drum roll please, MY FAVORITE PART!!  It was nearing the end of the day and we had already seen so much of Jaipur already, I had no idea what was in store for us later in the day.  The next million pictures are of the Amber (also known as Amer) Fort/Palace.  If you want to know all the history on this, just look it up, but just know this, it will take your breath away. 

 

We got to ride an elephant to the top!

 

 

Yeayyyyy!! "I'm so freakin excited!"

 

 

Shesh Mahal (Hall of Mirrors)

 

Weirdos.

 

I am pretty impressed with my photography skills on this one

 

 

Dinner is served. 

 

 

Lastly, because our tour guide knew I liked textiles, took us to a place where they make traditional Indian block printed fabrics.  They let us make one, which looked like crap but was a lot of fun.

 If you are considering traveling India even just a little bit, JUST DO IT!  I don't know why it took me so long to get out here, but I am so glad I did.  I heart Jaipurrrrr!



The Departure of my Common Law Buddy

I have been blessed in my life with the most wonderful friends anyone could ask for.  Each one of them is special to me and I could not have gotten through the hardest and the happiest times without them.  One of those friends I have to give a shout out to is miss Callie Reagan.  Many moons ago, in the Highland Singles Ward in Hayward California I met Callie.  We were fast friends and bonded quickly over our sarcastic and sometimes inappropriate sense of humor.  That seems to be the way I bond with most of my close friends :).   After we met, Callie and I then ended up working together for around 7 years in San Ramon.  We became roommates soon after we started working at the same place.  You would think being friends, going to church together, working together, and living together for so long would have killed our friendship fast.  But that was definitely not the case.  We have had so many fun times, and have supported eachother in all the small and big things that have happened in our lives during the past 7 years. 

Last year I mentioned to Callie that I felt like I needed to be doing something different with my life.  I wasn't sure what it was at that moment, but I just knew in my heart that what I had been doing was no longer where I needed to be.  In order to sort out in my mind what I should be doing, I started applying to jobs, praying a lot, and got a blessing from my father.  I am a firm believer that some things in life don't work out, in order to open up doors of more importance.  There was a job I applied for that I figured was right for me.  I mean, it was exactly what I was doing for work except in a  different city.  I wasn't thrilled about the job, but was convinced that if I got it, that that is what I needed to be doing.  When I found out I didn't get the job I was relieved.  Relief isn't a feeling you should have when something doesn't work out...if that something was "right".  When I found out I didn't get it, I went to talk to Callie.  I told her that deep down I really wanted quit my job and go volunteer for a while...but in the normal career world that is a crazy notion.  Why would someone up and quit their good job to go somewhere and not get paid?!  Callie gave me some great advice that day.  She told me that it wouldn't hurt to just email Rising Star Outreach and see what kind of volunteer opportunities they had available. What would it hurt? So that is exactly what I did.  Within one day I was skyping with the Program Director at Rising Star where she told me about two positions that they were looking to fill in India, both with a 6 month commitment.   One of the positions was the Volunteer Director that would come to India and run their volunteer program.  When I was told about this position I didn't have one doubt in my mind as to whether I should take it if they wanted me.  That doesn't happen to me very often to me, because I normally question everything and try to make calculated decisions.  A day after I skyped with them, they offered me the position and not one day goes by where I am not 100% grateful that I had this opportunity to be here.  The other position they wanted to fill was for a Sponsorship Director.  When they told me about the position, my thoughts went straight for Callie.  I knew she would be great at it, and I also knew she would LOVE it.  So, within a month, I moved out to India and Callie joined me a month later.  We apparently were not done being roommates! 

Which brings me to now.  Callie's last day in India was today.  Everyone that leaves Rising Star, whether they have been here 2 weeks or 5 months feels like they are leaving part of them behind.  Callie and I both say that we can turn our emotions off when we need to get through something hard.  I wouldn't say this is a good quality, but I do this all the time or else I would be a blubbering baby crying all of the time.  Although, sometimes it is impossible to do that here!  Just watching Callie say goodbye to the kids was hard enough for me.  A stream of emotions went through me today.  First, having to say goodbye to Callie sucks!  We have been roommies forever, and our roommate-dom has come to an end which feels really weird.  Luckily we are both going to be living withing 40 minutes from eachother when I get back to the states, but it will still be an adjustment to not be roommates!  Still, I know I will see her in a month, so it's more of a "see ya later" than a goodbye.  Secondly, watching Callie say goodbye to everyone here just made my departure in a month even more real.  I have moments when I am so excited to go home and see my family and friends, and then 2 seconds later I will be gut wrenchingly sad that I will have to leave India and all the friends and little buddies I have made here.   Even with the thought of leaving here being unbearable, I am glad I had my Common Law Buddy here with me for most of the time to experience this place together.  And I know we will both be back to visit as soon as we can.  

Have fun in America "Callie Ballie"! See you soon buddy. 

 

Ramblings in India

This week has been different for me.  Definitely not like the past 4 months.  Our last volunteer session left Friday, so my "duties" as the Volunteer Director have shifted.  The summer was crazy, busy, chaotic, and oh so amazingly fun!  And honestly, part of me was looking forward to the end of the summer in some ways, because it was so busy, and I never felt like I had my crap together.  But having the summer at Rising Star, with volunteers filtering in and out of here every 2 weeks is actually something I miss.  I miss the wonderful, and "soooo comedy" long term coordinators and volunteers that helped everything function this summer, and that helped me stay sane when things got crazy busy.  The best thing about the summer was knowing that all of the people that came out to Rising Star Outreach were touched and moved by their experience here.  It's cliche to say this, but I know that everyone who has been out here for any period of time feels like the people in the colonies, the staff, the volunteers, and ESPECIALLY the beautiful children have given us more then we could ever imagine giving them in return.  Being here has some sort of healing effect on people.  At least, it has with me.  I've never felt "damaged", but the last few years have no doubt been the hardest of my life and I've had to find my path without my mom by my side.  Losing my mom changed my outlook on a lot of things, but in the process I have learned more about myself than ever before.  I've learned that sometimes the most crazy decisions, when made with prayer and taking action, can be just what the Lord has in store for me.  You've seen me post photo upon photo of my experience here, and those small snippets don't even compare to the happy feeling I have all of the time here.  Even on days where I get frustrated at one thing or another, the next minute, I am forced to smile again because of something cute or sweet one of the kids has done.   Today in choir, I was teaching the kids "What a Wonderful World".  I let them sing along with Louis Armstrong (whom the call Grandpa... 'we want to hear grandpa sing!').  I had a small class today because a lot of the kids are studying for exams.  So, we sat outside the classroom in the open area, on the floor, and sang.  The kids try so hard, and a lot of the time are really off key, but they love to sing and are just ridiculously adorable. 
Oh, and next Tuesday Callie and I go to the Taj Mahal, Jaipur, Delhi, Varanasi, and Sri Lanka!  Wahoo!  I'm so freakin excited!  I will miss the little buggers though while we are gone.  We told the boys that we are going to the Cricket World Cup in Sri Lanka, and they flipped out. 

And there you have it. My ramblings for the day. You are literally reading my journal.

Yeah, so I kind of love these kids.

Today has been a great day.  Our good friend and co worker Andrea (Birdy) is here for 2 weeks!! It's so fun having her here and I can't wait for her to fall in love with this place like I have.  Also, I am in love with the kids here and anyone that has read my blog before already knows this fact, but today was just one of those days that reminded me of what I already knew...that I love them!

Last Tuesday I took over teaching the choir class for one of our teachers, Berlyn, that left last week to go back to the US.  We actually lost a lot of people because college started back up for them again.  We had the best group of long termers here this summer and I miss them so much!!  I wish they could have all stayed until I left.  Anyway, back to choir.  So, teaching choir last week was a freaking DISASTER, TRAIN WRECK, whatever you want to call it.  I just call it hell.  The kids were loud, obnoxious, annoying, rude, little punks.  They played with my laptop, and took my iphone and got me locked out of my phone by trying the wrong password too many times.  And it wasn't all their fault.  My itunes was acting funky so I couldn't get some of the accompaniment to play, and I also didn't know how to lead some of their songs.  It was all around a bad time and was my "low" for the week.  But today I asked Celina to come to choir with me and play piano for us, and lay the smack down if she needed to.  Celina is the Education Director and the kids respect her like none other.  I am tempted to ask Celina to come to every choir class because today's choir class was the way it should be! The kids listened (for the most part), and we were able to get through a ton of songs.  I even let them listen to 4 songs on my computer and let them pick what song they wanted to work on next.  It was between "Heal the World", "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", "Can you Feel the Love Tonight", or "What a Wonderful World".  Let me rewind real quick.  Last weekend the kids watched "Journey to the center of the earth 2". staring The Rock.  In the movie, The Rock plays "What a Wonderful World" on a ukulele.  The kids LOVE anyone that is ripped, especially WWE guys.  Want to guess what song was the lucky winner?  You guessed it..."What a Wonderful World". I am excited to teach it to them!  It was nice to have a day like today when I thought the choir kids were adorable. I hope it stays like this, but I won't hold my breath for every class to be this good :) 

Another thing that made me grin from ear to ear today was seeing Hari's HUGE smile when he came to tell me he finally bought the cricket bat I bought for him that he had to earn with good behavior stars.  It's taken him weeks to earn enough stars for it.  I wish I had a video camera in my mind sometimes, because when he saw me he was so excited to tell me he had bought the bat, that he literally ran up to me and jumped into my arms as I swung him around in a giant hug. The cricket bat I bought him is almost bigger than he is, but he  LOVES it!  It has yellow and orange on it, and yellow is his favorite color (my favorite color too). This kid is so special to me.  He is funny, happy, smart, and all around just a great kid!  And best of all, I am pretty sure he likes me too and is happy I am his sponsor which is always a great feeling to be liked by a cute kid :).  The bat is almost as big as him, but he loves it and says he'll grow into it and get "big" like his WWE idols.  Sure. 

Callie told me she was talking to Hari the other day and he was asking her when my birthday is.  She told him September 30th, and then he started talking in Tamil to his friend Arun.  Callie found out later that they were talking about where Hari could buy chocolates for me for my birthday and that he was going to write me a birthday letter.  I can't handle the cuteness. I may explode. 

 

Humble Pie

Today I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  I got plenty of sleep (which has been rare for me the past few days), but for some reason I woke up in a tiny funk.  Part of my bad attitude was that I had planned to get up early and run the track this morning, but when I woke up it was pouring outside, and I didn't want to run in the rain (which thinking back, I should have just gone running anyway).  I've been feeling so unhealthy here.  I take for granted the abundance of anything and everything that is accessible and HEALTHY to eat in America, especially Trader Joes!  I want their black beans and salsa so badly!!  I crave protien like none other!  There is plenty of food here, just not healthy options unless I just want to eat cucumbers, oranges, and apples all day long.  Anyway, that being said, I had committed myself to start working out and doing my best to eat healthy while I am here, so I was majorly bummed out that my day started off the way it did.  After I got ready for the day, 9 of us hopped in the van and drove to the Polambaakam Leprosy Colony.  On the drive there, I was still not feeling happy.  I was sitting there feeling kind of out of it, and sorry for myself (and maybe a little homesick).  When we drove up to the colony, I was happy that it was a colony I had been to before, and I remembered a few of the people.  We started setting up the different stations (bandage removal, foot washing, oiling, bandaging, eye drops, blood pressure, and glucose stations).  I followed Amy, our Medical Coordinator around so I could get a refresher on where everything goes.  In a few weeks all of my coordinators leave, and a new volunteer session begins...and I am on my own for that one, so wanted to make sure I know what I am doing.  Amy is a rock star.  She is very compassionate, and the people in the colonies love her.  After just a few moments of being in the colony and interacting with the people, my attitude changed completely, and I was immediately humbled.  The people in this colony have daily struggles worse than I could ever imagine living with.  Some have absolutely no fingers, and somehow the women manage to dress themselves every day in a sari (I still have all of my fingers and cannot dress myself in one).  Some have lost most of their feet and toes, some have lost an eye or both eyes.  I was at the eye drop station this time, and had a man come up to me for his eye drops.  He only had one eye.  As he sat there I dropped 2 eye drops in his eye.  He can't speak English but tried to tell me by pointing that he wanted more eye drops in his eye, and also in the socket where his other eye used to be.  So I kept dropping eye drops in his eye and the absence of his other eye for a good 5 minutes.  This broke my heart because I knew he just wanted to be soothed and I wanted to do whatever I could to make him feel more comfortable, even if it was for that 5 minutes.  I am amazed at how every time I go out to the colonies I feel more blessed by the presence of these magnificent people that I feel like I am blessing them.  Also, helping the leprosy afflicted in the colonies just reminds me of how far Rising Star has come since 7 years ago when it began, and how many BEAUTIFUL children now have a future because they are able to get out of the colonies, get away from the stigma of leprosy, and get a great education.  Anyway, this was just a great day.  We ended our day with going to a temple that was up a hill.  It kind of reminded me of the Leonardo DiCaprio "Romeo and Juliet" movie from the nineties.  Here are some pictures from my day out in Polambaakam.

Me putting eye drops in a patients eyes

This lady (I don't remember her name) is so hillarious! She loves to laugh and is always smiling.  None of us understand a word she says, but she is so funny a sweet that we just communicate by laughter. 



Amy washing the lady from the previous photo's feet.  Amy has gone into the colonies almost every day this summer, and bonded with this woman on her visits.  

This is the hill we had to walk up for the temple.  It was a doozy, but at least I got my workout in for the day.  We all were sweaty messes afterwards.

These bible scenes were on the path on the way up to the top of the hill. There were a ton of them and they reminded me a little of  the "It's a Small World After All" ride at Disneyland, except that we definitely were not being transported in a boat, and there was no singing.

Mother Teresa

The Gang!

It's Fancy Time!

A few weeks ago a bunch of us volunteers were invited to attend a wedding in Walajabad, India.  Sharmilla, a nurse at the school, was getting married and was nice enough to invite us all to her wedding festivities!  This was exciting for us not only because we love Sharmilla, but it was a chance for us to get all dolled up in traditional Indian clothing!  The weekend before the wedding, I went shopping and bought my first Sari (also spelled "Saree").  I wasn't sure if the sari I bought was too fancy, or not fancy enough for a wedding, but when I arrived at the wedding one of the Indian ladies I work with here said I looked dressed up almost like a bride would be.  Um, that's kind of embarrassing.  Way to over do it Julie!  But what the heck, I LOVE my sari, and it was a blast.  I had no idea how to wrap myself in a Sari, so I asked one of the housemother's named Poongodi, to help me get dressed.  She and Abarna (another housemother), wrapped me up, did my hair, lent me jewelry, and henna'd my hand all within 30 minutes. 

Getting Sari'd!

 Amy getting dressed in a Sari by Poongodi and Abarna too!

Poongodi is awesome!

Poongodi and Abarna did my hair like a traditional Indian woman does her hair.  I love the way it looks in pictures, but I am not a fan of my hair being pulled back all the way.  But I decided to go all Indian!

Berlyn and I lookin fierce!

Sharmilla, so beautiful at her wedding!  I loved her yellow sari!

We threw jasmine at the bride and groom after the ceremony.  It smelled so amazing!

I've noticed that most Indians don't smile in pictures, even if it's their wedding day.  Any time the camera was not on them, they were smiling :)

We ate Biryani for dinner... which consists of, wait for it... RICE!  The kids love Biryani.  It's pretty good... has chicken in it and a lot of flavor.  There was also some stuff that tasted like thick, sweet cream of wheat with raisins in it. It was tasty so I ate all of it.  Here's Sarah and Miranda enjoying their meal!

Berlyn tries to creep her way into every photo. Just a classic example :)

There were tons of cute kids at the wedding too. This kid was not liking the photos though, or all of us pointing at him as you can see by all of the hands in this picture.

Too cool for school

Lastly, some guys got their dance on at the reception.   

It was so special to be invited to a wedding in India, and I had such a great time.   I love India.