Greetings from India! Sensory overload times ten thousand…horn honks, jingling nose rings, whiffs of spices, gusts of sewage, trotting mutts, muddy puddles reflecting the bulbous monsoon clouds, bicycles whirring, its hard to keep your focus on one thing. My first day I visited a school and the kids went bonkers over some bubbles I brought, screaming and jumping and lining up out the door just to get one little puff at the bubble wand. At the end of our visit, a girl performed a traditional Indian dance all decked out in purple and gold and little bells. She was fourteen years old and had been trained since she was three, dancing at least three hours a day, and she will do it for the rest of her life. The dance was really beautiful, and every gesture and facial expression corresponded to a word in ancient Hindu scriptures, making the entire dance a long and complex story—so cool!! Later that day I set off for my homestay. The overnight train was definitely not Darjeeling Limited status, but not filthy or over-crowded at all. The beds were small blue plastic rectangles set up against the walls by twos and in other compartments by fours. I was on the top bunk and slept either in the fetal position or with my feet on top of my backpack and camera bag, because there was nowhere to put my stuff! I woke up completely disoriented to the word “ERODE”coming from a moustachioed Indian man’s face about 5 inches from mine. We left around 10:30 the night before and arrived in the town, Erode at 6 am. Then we drove to our homestay place about 35 minutes away. Our hosts were a doctor (who had a surgery that morning and didn’t come until much later that night), and his daughter and her aunt and husband. They had a very nice, spacious, clean house and beds for all of us. They served us a breakfast that my mouth starts watering just reflecting on, with the most divine coffee ever served, doughy little sponges that we used to soak up the yummy turmeric-spiced sauces, pomegranate nodules, cashew meringue, tiny bananas, mmmmmmmm…then we went to a school next door and listened to them do a morning prayer which lasted about 20 minutes and took place in a building the size of an airplane hangar, and when they said the final ‘OM’, the whole place reverberated, I felt like the air was electric. Then we drove out to a farm on the outskirts of the town, where the owner made all of his own pesticides with herbs and other plants. We did see people climb coconut trees, and they made it look SO easy because I tried and failed miserably!! But they gave us fresh cut guava and gooseberries (nasty!) and we got to drink from the coconuts and play with little puppies so it was ok. Lunch goes without description---captivatingly flavorful, and even though I was still full from breakfast I stuffed myself like a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s not every day you get a home cooked Indian meal! After a sweaty (the humidity in India is like nothing I have ever felt…close to suffocating!) but much needed nap, we had some more coffee and tea, and a few boys from the school came over to talk to us. They mostly just asked for our ‘autographs’and we asked them what they wanted to be, the answers invariably ‘doctor’, ‘computer technician’, ‘teacher’and ‘engineer’. School is really taken seriously here, Thomas Friedman would be leaping with self congratulation! I bought a sari at a local market that night too, for only 190 rupees (at 49 rupees to the dollar). The next day we woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:30, had some more coffee, then went to a school a bit farther away and had breakfast at a huge school for about 5000 kids. We talked to some of the kids and then visited a carpet weaving factory, where I bought a really beautiful shawl for my grandma and a sweet multicolored bedspread to replace the Motel 7-esque one in my cabin. It looks spectacular, Margo will be seething with envy when she gets back from her Taj Mahal trip. We visited a school for handicapped kids and they performed this crazy dance with face paint and a kid in a big metal bucket and then we had to perform and all we knew was “I’m a Little Teapot”and “The Star Spangled Banner”, both of which we butchered while demonstrating the U.S’s utter lack of culture. We gave them a check and then (which seemed pretty rude because we weren’t there for very long) went back to the other school for lunch. I was still full but managed to enjoy it just as much. I really like eating with my hands. They say your hands emit positive energy and your feet negative, so eating with your hands eliminates any wasted energy that would go into a fork, and puts it right in your body. After lunch, the school funnily enough provided beds for us, and I took another sweltering but lovely curry-induced nap. Then the kids at that school performed for us and we did an excruciating medley of the “Chacha Slide”and the Macarena. Then it was back to the over night train to Chennai, and we all piled onto the boat, clamoring for the showers, around 5 in the morning. I went and bought souvenirs for everyone that day, rode rickshaws all over and probably brushed elbows with death more times than I can imagine---it was GREAT! We got an apple and mocha hookah and ate dinner out underneath the Indian sky and now I am in my room, quite exhausted and listening to “Wishing”by the Electric Light Orchestra. We leave tomorrow, and I am feeling displeased with the idea. Malaysia is next, and I don’t have any idea what to expect! An addendum to my observations of India may soon come, but until then I send cardamom-infused love from the MV Explorer to everyone reading this!
