It keeps going uphill

Okay okay I'm going to try to catch up a little bit. I've been having a really good time here in India but it got really good on Thursday. Thursday was our medical rotation and we stopped first at a special needs school. From the very second the kids saw us they were so happy and kind and ran to give us all hugs. We sang with them and played games with them for awhile. There was one girl who kept repeating what I said so I would say "I love you" and she'd repeat it back and we'd just go back and forth again and again it was so cute. The translator told me that the girl kept saying that I was her older sister. It was very sweet. It was kind of random that we stopped there, it wasn't on our agenda and our coordinator hadn't ever been to the school but I'm glad it happened because it was an amazing experience.
After that we went to small preschool in one of the colonies. The kids were so scared of us. I was determined to get the girl in the yellow to like me because she was so adorable but she was the most scared. She barley let me hold her long enough for this picture but at least I got it haha. I know I look realllly good here, don't even worry.

The next stop was in a colony for the actual leprosy treatment. Not going to lie I was a little bit nervous. I'm really not good with anything medical, I just get grossed out easily. But it was very rewarding to be able to wash their wounds/feet. I could tell how much they appreciated it. I can't even imagine having leprosy, these people are amazing.

Anon is our driver and he's hilarious. He made the day so much more fun. He always has somewhere he wants to stop and little places to show us. So we stopped on the side of the road and he took us up a little hill to a Shiva temple. It was so cool. The view from the top was beautiful, the lake on one side and Chengulput on the other. Then he took us to a little restaurant and had us try Parotta, which is like a very light and flakey tortilla and you put fried egg in it. It was really good. Also Anon had those coconut cookies Brooke bloggged about. They really are good, I need to find out where to get some.

As soon as we got home we saw that the Life Dance kids were about to load their bus for their Chennai  recital so we asked if we could go and surprisingly they had room so we were off! It was seriously so much fun. The bus was blasting Michael Jackson and Tamil music and all the kids were singing and dancing. Vimil is one of my favorite kids here, he's older so he understands a lot and he's fun to talk to. He's obsessed with the song Call me Maybe and he's always singing it and the way he does it is so funny. I had no idea was this recital was going to be and it definitely wasn't what I expected. There were about 300 people in the crowd and we were for sure the only white girls. Dressed up in Chudidars and bindi. The rising star kids dancing was so cute. Seriously I felt so proud of them and I had this overwhelming feeling of love for these kids and this country. I just love it all. We ate dinner and got ice cream on the bus ride back and it was just a party. I'm so glad I got that experience.

Education with the kids really is great. The books we have to read with them are so funny. The first day  the book was all about bike safety, wearing a helmet and only riding on the right side of the road. First of all they drive on the left side of the road and second of all they drive wherever the heck they want here haha. I like reading with the kids, especially when they like it. It's neat to see them learning. The best part of the day is the very end. The young kids come in to read and I always get a little worried because by then I'm a little tired and always kind of dread trying to keep the little ones working. But to my surprise the little kids are the best at reading, they're so good at spelling things out because they've just gone through phonics so it's so fun to see them speed read through they're books.

I think I've taught pretty much every kid here how to do the parent trap handshake, they laugh so hard when we bump our hips together. The other night the house mother just finished doing henna to one of the volunteers and a little boy brought the henna to me and asked me to do it to him. The house mother smiled and laughed as she watched me attempt at doing some cool Indian design. I actually really like doing henna I'm bring some back and hopefully I'll get better at it. I brought my little notebook to family time and all of the little boys took turns drawing me pictures, they're super cute. I just love the little boys. I find myself with them more than with the girls. I played cricket with them the other day and I actually wasn't that bad. They're so cute. Yesterday they all got haircuts and I'm worried cause they're hair makes it way easier to recognize them. I wish I was better with names but honestly they're names are really hard.

Yesterday was really great, we went into Pondicherry which is kind of a little beach town. It was ruled by the French for awhile so some of it is nice and some of it is crazy India. There's a huge statue of Gandhi on the beach. Honestly Gandhi is just the cutest man. I was kind of dissapointed that Lakshmi the elephant wasn't feeling well and couldn't give us a blessing but we still did some exciting things in Pondicherry. We went into a temple and they put the chalk on our foreheads, still not quite sure what it means. Then we spent the day walking around, shopping, eating, and trying not get run over but the billions of rickshaws and motorcycles. We went to the bazaar which was really cool, just fruit and fruit and fruit. We walked past the most disgusting pile of trash at one point, it was literally so gross. So India haha. There are such interesting people here. I just wish I could talk to some of them and here they're life stories. The Indians love us white folk and are always asking to take pictures with us. It's pretty funny.

Life is good. The pictures take forever to upload so I'm going to have to ask you to check my facebook for those.