Back in the Bay!

Man oh man the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of one fun thing after the next!  I was in Thailand for the past 2 weeks, and it only took me a few days there to completely fall in love with it.  My original plan and intention was to spend the first 2 weeks traveling with friends out there, and then the last 3 1/2 weeks exploring Thailand on my own.  Well... I accomplished the first part of my plan!  To be honest, after having 1 month to get my stuff together and move to India, then spending 2 weeks in India, and another 2 weeks traveling Thailand, I was ready for some down time...in America...with cool weather...where I could lay on a couch and watch tv, eat Mexican food, and see friends and family.  Thailand is a tropical paradise, but it is HOT, and I am one of the rare people that doesn't like to sit on a beach for days on end.  That is fun for a little while, but I couldn't see doing that by myself for almost a month.  I need my peoples with me!   SO, I am back in the Bay for the next 3 weeks!  I absolutely love India and Thailand, and will definitely be vacationing in Thailand again hopefully sooner rather than later.  My plan for the next few weeks is to get organized and rested up for the busy summer ahead!  Also, I plan to be better at posting on this blog with everything from the last 2 weeks in Thailand.  If you haven't been there, GO!!  You will see from the pictures that it is incredible. 

It's late and I should probably attempt to sleep.  Jet Lag is kicking my trash.  I hate being so tired during the day and hyper all night. 

Here are some pictures from my mini trip to Santa Cruz with Kim a few nights ago.  It feels so nice to be back in the bay area, even just for a short time.  I love visiting other places and meeting new people, but sometimes nothing beats home.  I will always be a Nor Cal girl!

And now for some planking photos.  I missed the planking boat when it was "cool" and new...so now I am making up for it, and proud of it! We are sooo last year.

Me                                                                 Kim

Me                                                               Kim

Parents Day!

Last Saturday was Parents Day and the kids put on a bunch of performances for their families.  It was so cute to see all of these talented kids show their parents what they learned.  Every fourth Saturday the kids parents come visit for the day.  They each bring lunch for their own families and go picnic in the Mango tree grove. 

 This is Eswari and Sagayam Mary.  They are sweet girls and always ask me "whats my name?!"...and because the quiz me I am able to remember!

 

 Trina and Ebenezer.  He is such a cute kid!

 Me, Trina, and Daneen.  These girls were THE BEST!!  Seriously I couldn't have asked for better people to spend my time with here.  I am sad they went home :(

 Family Pictures in the Mango Grove

 This is a sweet girl named Pria, and her father.  He was helping her do her hair.  Such love there.

 My buddy Hari and his Grandma.  His parent didn't come that day.  It was a bummer, he was pretty sad about it. 

 Ebenezer and his family! This kid has one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen.

Here are some of the kids performances.  They practiced SOOO much and were really darling. 

And now I am off to Thailand for the next month! 



snuggles

Hello friends!  I am tired and don't have much to write today so I'll keep it short.  Yesterday and today I've spent packing and organizing all of my crap.  I am leaving for Thailand in 2 days so had to get packed for that and also clean up my room from all of the hand-me-downs I got from the short term volunteers that just left.  They were awesome and left me with a bunch of food and stuff for the kids.  Blaaah i am so tired right now, sorry this blog post will be boring.  A cute thing did happen yesterday though.  Hari had a fever yesterday poor little guy.  But am I horrible that I loved how snugly he was because he was sick?!  I love getting hugs and loves from all the kids!  Anyway, it was so cute, he just layed with his head on my lap.  On that note, I will leave you with a cute video of some boys wrestling.  I love them!

I can't think of a title for this post

Tonight is the last night of my first volunteer session and I am so sad it's over! Even though I will be here for another 7 months I feel like this group is "my" group.  This is the group of people that all experienced this for the first time together, and I feel so blessed to have gone through it all with them!

The joys of India... every few hours we hear a "chirp" coming out of our air conditioner.  We've narrowed it down to it being a lizard.  It's a cute high pitched chirp and it totally creeps me out.  That lizard is chillin out in the AC!  I would too if I were him but really he needs to get out of our room.

Back to blogging.  Today instead of tutoring at the school I went to another leprosy colony.  I need to get better at remembering the names of the colonies, but it started with a P.  This was a nicer looking colony then some.  It seemed very clean.  The people there were again really sweet like the last colony.  I wanted to learn something new this time so I helped the nurse that was cutting the dead skin and cleaning the ulcers.  I was like a little medical assistant for the day! I got the gauze ready and helped her wrap bandages on the patients.  Can I just tell you that I love that I am left handed, but I am finding it difficult to be a lefty here in India.  We aren't supposed to eat with our left hand...the potty hand apparently, so I've had to eat with my right hand and try not to look awkward.  Then today while I was bandaging at the colony, the nurse kept telling me I was wrapping it backwards.  Little does she know that not only am I a backwards lefty, but I spelled my name backwards for a good chunk of my childhood.  Anyway, we had a lot of patients to treat today and I was sweating up a storm, but it felt so good to be helping the people.  Lots of them had bad sores and it was pretty unpleasant to look at.  I am glad we were able to clean them up and get to talk to them today.

Every day at around 1:00pm I start to get a headache.  I have for the past 4 days.  Probably a combination of the heat, travel time between colonies, and not eating till later.  So today I took a nap in the middle of the day and it was just what I needed! We ate with the kids for dinner and I just really love them.  I am so happy that I've been getting better at remembering their names.  They love when I remember their name and it makes me feel so good that I am making them happy.  These kids are wonderful.  If anyone wants to volunteer for a few weeks or sponsor a child let me know! 

Well it's been a great day but I am tuckered out.  Below are some photos that make me laugh uncontrollably.



Lovin it

My heart is full today.  I am by nature a pretty positive and happy person in my day to day life, but something about the past week and especially today has made my heart want to just pop out of my chest.  Maybe it was the events of the day or the people I am with, but it's just been altogether awesome. 
This morning I went to another leprosy colony about an hour from here.  I don't remember the name, but it started with a "Ch".  The village was just one street of small hut type houses, but luckily this place had a lot of trees so it was cooler than other places sitting in the sun.  The people coming in to get treated were so sweet, even with all of their ailments. There is one patient name Maria, and older woman with Leprosy that has lost all of her fingers and now has ulcers on the palms of her hands.  She came in very happy to be treated and have her wounds washed, but she also realized with the ulcers on her hand that she might end up losing her whole hand.  It was so tough to watch her crying, trying to wipe her eyes with her ulcered hands.  Every one of the volunteers felt for her, and would have liked to take away her pain if we could.
 

This guy was so cool! His English was great too. 

On a brighter note, when we got back to the school we had a huge water fight with the kids!  They had buckets, Tupperware, cups, water bottles, you name it.  No one was safe! I got 3 buckets thrown on me right when I walked over there.  This lasted for a good hour or so and was a blast.  It was funny to see some kids shivering because it's so dang hot here I can't imagine ever feeling cold, even with being drenched in water. 

We had dinner with the kids tonight in the dining hall which was fun.  These kids only eat with their right hands, and they only eat with their hands....so dinner for them is just different then us westerners.
  
Later in the evening me, Trina, and Daneen (my new friends who I swear I knew before I came to this earth...we are kindred spirits and I have literally been laughing allll day long!!), went over to where the kids sleep (the hostile), and went to see one of the house mothers name Vino.  There is one house mother to about 20 kids.  The house mother watches over so many kids, I don't see how they do it.  Anyway, back to Vino.  She is just an amazing person! Her spirit is so strong and she is so kind and generous even though she barely knows us.  Last night we went over there and she did henna for us. Tonight we went to repay the favor and we painted her and another house mother's nails.  Vino I think is about 30 years old and is beautiful all around!  She even offered to take me to her house in Chennai sometime during the break. 

So now do you see why I am so happy today?  The icing on the cake is that I have literally been laughing 90% of the day.  My new friends in this volunteer session are a crack up.  I even broke a bottle of nail polish outside our door and they helped me clean it up while cracking jokes the whole time. 

Good times, good people.

Sunday Funday

So much has happened in the past week and even though I've posted a lot, believe it or not I am way behind! Today was Sunday, and we drove 2 hours to Chennai to go to church.  It was a long drive but I passed out for most of it.  It's amazing going to a foreign land and finding something familiar like the church building and the lessons being taught.  The LDS church (www.mormon.org ) in Chennai is held at a brand new building...it almost looks like a temple.  I met some really nice members of the congregation and really enjoyed the lessons.  One teenager introduced himself as Winston Churchill.  I've yet to figure out if he was kidding or serious.  I am way too gullible sometimes so who knows.  I kept asking him if that really was his name and he kept saying yes so I guess it's his name?!  Also, during the lessons you really have to listen, because most of the teachers will break in to speaking Tamil instead of english, and go back and forth.  It's also fun looking around to see beautiful women wearing Sari's.  I can't wait to buy one!  After church we were a little naughty and broke the Sabath and ordered 8 pizzas to be delivered to the church building parking lot.  We were starving, and also a little sick of the standard curry/rice combo.  One was a veggie pizza and the other had some sausage stuff on it. I ate both and really don't know what meat was on the pizza.  I told my new friends on the bus that it was probably Cocker Spaniel.

After a long ride back to Rising Star, we rested up and then went to play with the kids for a little while.  We got there during their prayer time, and I noticed little Hari was at the back of the room with his arms folded like one of the volunteers next to him.  First I just thought this was cute, and then I realized that Hari was back there standing like that because he got in trouble for talking.  Looks like I've started sponsoring the little trouble maker of the group!
 

 I love the pink shorts

Don't you just love this face?!  He would never do anything naughty, right??





After prayer time we play games while we are getting ready to eat.  The boys are so fast with the hand slapping game, and I am horrible so I get slapped on the hands a ton.  I look happy but I hate this game :) .  jk

I am loving it here.  I would love to have some of you volunteer with me this summer for a few weeks!  We really need the help, so if you have any desire to come, please look into it and I can work with you on making it happen.  Everyone that I've met in the past week that is only here for a 2 week block has expressed how much they have loved this experience.  We've all talked about how hard it is to put in to words how wonderful it is. If you are interested in volunteering, take a look at www.risingstaroutreach.org and let me know if you have any questions.

It's kind of magical here :).  Like a hot sweaty Disneyland.