midnight village hindu festival: [check]

The blogpost for this video can be found HERE...

(don't have video options on my India blog. Wah, waaahhh)

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everybody's working for the weekend

So... you may or may not know that I am spending the summer in India. And by that, I mean the ENTIRE summer. Not summer as in July 21-Sept 22, but summer as in Summer Vacation-- because I think in School Years, not Gregorian. And by "entire", I mean that I left for India on the evening of the last day of school, and get back home the night (late night) before school starts again. (About 8 1/2 hours before, to be almost-exact).  Not a day at home this entire summer. NOT - ONE. 

But, of course, it's soooooo worth it. It's a lot of work over here, and I have a new admiration for the standard working-class folk (You all! Working all year without a 10-week summer break! What?!), and at SOME point I will actually explain what work I'm doing over here, but....

This post is all about what makes it all worth it. WEEKENDS. 

Okay, no, really that's not true at all. What makes it all "worth it" is everything that happens during the week, the service and the kids and the people of the leprosy colonies, but... well yes a girl needs a break too. And since it doesn't feel quite right to talk about the frivolities of weekend play on my India blog, here we are! (Not that I've really done much blogging on that other one anyway, yet-- too busy WORKING.) (Yes I am making a point of that. As this is obviously a new concept for me, full-time summer work.)

But I think the weekends are noteworthy in themselves, so let's take a photo journey through the two I've had so far...  both times it's been a trip to.... 

MAMALLAPURAM!!!

(Or you can also call it Mahabalipuram. Both count.) (It's India.)

About a 1.5-2 hour drive from Rising Star in Uthiramerur Taluk, Mamallapuram is a World Heritage Site of temples, caves, bas-reliefs and shrines situated by the beach (!) on the Bay of Bengal. It's pretty cool. And, it has good shopping :).

On my first Saturday there, after getting ourselves fitted for some tailored kurtas/chudidar tops, we went to the ever-popular Moonrakers restaurant for lunch-- because it's ever-popular, and because the sign outside advertised grilled lobster.

Dani checking to see that it's fresh/live. Yep.

It's a pretty cool-lookin' restaurant (as long as you're not looking at the flies on everything)...

Katie had a "lime soda"-- lemon or lime squeezed into a glass, and accompanied by a bottle of plain soda

(looks pretty cool as it fizzes up)

I chose a lime lassi-- because I love lassi and it was only 20 rupees! (less than 50 cents) but it was pretty tart. Had to add honey. And the next week, when I got the lime soda... same thing. TART

I didn't actually get the lobster because I was too cheap to pay the equivalent of 8 bucks for a live fresh lobster (India makes you cheap), but I had some DELISH prawns in a tomato-onion-garlic sauce. Dani appears pretty jealous.

Dani inspecting some skirts/Ali Baba pants at a store

-An example of one of the places where we get stuff custom-tailored. It's pretty fun to pick out some cloth, get your measurements taken, describe what you want, and (hopefully) have a beautiful top sewn in the outdoors and ready to go in a few hours, all for the price of about 8 1/2 dollars! (And we are probably getting a bit ripped-off, even with that price-- try to bargain more, and they keep insisting "hand-made cotton! hand-made cotton!" Whatever, I want to see the loom that made it, and then we'll see.) 

The second Saturday, we went to the temples BEFORE lunch/shopping, because a new group of volunteers  are here and it's always good times to see them. I already have a bunch of pictures of the temples from my last trip, last summer, but it was still good times :)

Inside the Panch Pandava  Cave Temple. I think. It was pretty Indiana-Jonesy.

Rosalyn posing by an etching in the floor. It looks like a five-year-old did it. I'll bet the four older Panch brothers were soooooo mad that their youngest brother got ahold of a carving stone that night.

I don't think the Ganesha Ratha was meant for hard-core parkour. But this dude definitely has the legs for it.

Also was probably not meant for ancient human sacrifices, but Katie strikes an awesome pose.

To get to the Olakannatha Temple, you have to do a little stair climbing, a little bouldering, a little scrambling, and a little walking along high scary ridge ascents that are only 2 meters wide or so. Hey that's scary for me.

Going down from the Olakannatha etc, with the Ganesha Ratha at the upper right. It's a beautiful boulder-y landscape. Replete with wildlife, though no monkeys this time (got slightly attacked last time, because my water bottle just looked so delish or something)

The area is also replete with goats. And, sometimes, a lovely young Indian couple having a picnic, with a cute little goat.

And THEN, we get to...

KRISHNA'S BUTTER BALL

(I didn't name it)

It's a "natural boulder perched precariously on a slope", according to Eyewitness Travel: India. I've also read in a different travel guide that no one really know how (or why...) it came to be there, and even though it looks like it should tip over and roll, it sure doesn't-- they've even had ox teams try to move it. (Ox teams? try steam locomotive power, THAT'll do it.)

But it makes for great photos/poses, and since I'd already done the lie-underneath-it-like-it's-rolling-over-you pose (kinda creepy, what if TODAY is the day it suddenly decides to roll) as well as the Atlas Holding Up The World pose last year, I tried a few new ones.

In this one I am clearly trying to push the boulder onto the group of lively young men. They are clearly not worried.

Neither was this woman. 

So instead I did a Christy-dance (this one's for you, Stanks!) across the front of it before scrambling back down the slope, and I think that turned out to be a treat. Just trying to spread the joy.

After all that templeing, we were pretty hot and sweaty (in India? weird) but fortunately, like at every good World Heritage site, you finish your tour on a street lined with souvenir carts selling Indian Jones-style hats and frozen treats of deliciousness. I opted for the pistachio ice cream, but there were also mini frozen-pizzas available. Odd. And tauntingly cruel.

Then it was on to... the shops!! Got myself fitted for two new chudidar tops (hey it's not that extravagant; they're $8.50 each and we are pretty hard on our clothes here),

and also bought... leather sandals! At a little cobbler's shop. Mine don't look like much, since I'm holding up my foot at an awkward forced angle, but I assure you they're AWESOME. And cost about six dollars. Kacy picked out some that didn't have soles yet, so he was making them right there for her. Pretty cool.

After another lunch at Moonrakers (I mean per the second Saturday, stop calling us fat), it was time to move from this kind of street and view...

to THIS--

Ahhh, the Ideal Beach Resort. Aptly named. For a 300-rupee entrance fee (highway robbery, it was 200, or 4 dollars, last year), you can submerge your body in this:

get a Naked Massage, and/or enjoy THIS:

a beautiful windswept beach on the Bay of Bengal. 

The first week we didn't go in, because there was a red-flag warning (and I'd already body-surfed it anway), so Dani just contemplated the view...

(and I'm not sure what I'm doing here, maybe checking out my stomach after that lassi-and-prawn lunch?)

...but this dude had the right idea. At least for getting a tan or for posing for photos (which he was doing! :)  Except he's facing the wrong way, if you want to stare at the ocean and watch the fishermen take their boats through the pounding surf of the incoming tide

then you should face the other way. Which I sure did. I can stare at the ocean for HOURS. Or, in this case, the 43 minutes until it was time to go.

(The next week, we did indeed do some playing in the surf... red-flag warning?? Whatevs.)

After an awesome day, it was time to head the 1.5-2 hours back to Rising Star. I love driving here (or being driven, I should say! -we don't drive, too dangerous!) because there are always great views,

like fields and bright green rice paddies

and monkeys hanging out and fireman-sliding down poles (check out the big one about to go down-- that is a newborn clinging to her chest!)

and Christian churches (I took this photo because of the two, HUGE, hornets' nests under that top eave-- GROSS)

and a Hindu temples high up on a hill in Thirukazhukundram (This is the Vedagiriswarar, or Eagle Temple, so named because of a legend etc. that is too long to write here)

(... and this is the entrance, down on the road level... there are a gazillion steps going up to it, reaching seven levels total, and Hindus can only go up to the highest level pertaining to their caste, FYI).

Then, as it got dark, it started raining. No, POURING.

I hadn't seen that much rain here yet, at least not when out in the streets, and it was CRAZY-- there's no drainage system, so it's pretty much immediate flooding on those cement roads. (And, I learned the next day, not something you want to be WALKING through-- because the cobras come out when it rains, and are caught in the floods... so you never know what's swirling around your legs, there...!)

The above picture does no justice to the sheets of rain that were swamping the windshield, and also not to the scariness of driving through it-- driving in India is heart-stopping anyway, but when it's pitch-black outside and pouring rain and your driver is passing a gigantic bus and you see the huge bright lights of a truck barreling straight towards you... well I turned my head and curled up in my seat and covered my eyes with my hand. Yeah, like that was going to help.

..and the fun was not over yet! We went to the town of Uthiramerur to hit the nightlife 

or, really, to get some paratha for dinner, but every paratha place was "out" of it (random), so we stuck with this restaurant and had dosas instead

Biggest dosa I've ever seen (or even imagined), and YUM

They thought we were cuckoo because we didn't know how to eat them. Really we knew, it was just more fun to pose this way.

Or, to actually eat it like that, like Sarah did. Awesome. I don't think the owner/waiter was very happy.

It came with three sauces to dip in-- a coconut chutney (yum), a vegetable kurma (mmm yum) and some kind of sauce that was reminiscent of a chicken soup flavor (ohhhh yum). And you wouldn't think that one huge thin crispy crepe thing would fill you up, but wow it did. SOOO good!

Oh and the price for the meal? 15 rupees. No joke. Guess how much that is. No don't, your currency calculator might show a different rate today than it was then. So I'll tell you. 32 cents. 

Afterwards we did a little alleyway shopping with our driver Vel to guide us and keep us safe. We'd been wanting to check out the mini-doughnut-looking things at the various Sweet Shops (Indians loooove sweet things. Spicy things, and sweet things) and yep-- they were pretty good. Made of a little daal (lentils) and a whole lot of oil, they were tasty and cheap (5 rupees) and just small enough that you wouldn't feel sick from eating so much oil. (Just a little sick). We also bought sparkly bindis (5 rupees per pack) and fresh jasmine strings for our Sunday hair (10 rupees per length-- break the bank!)

It was a great ending to the day, full of experience and adventure because the already-bustling streets of Indian towns come even more alive when it gets dark (glad Vel was with us-- I mean, we don't stick out at ALL, but still) and THEN,  the rain abated and we arrived home to a full moon...

-I'm sorry, but isn't this shot AWESOME?? I am just going to brag for a sec. Because it took me a few mighty tries to get the craters of the moon to show, and I had it on self-timer because I wasn't using a tripod so I had to time the openings in the clouds just right... and if you zoom in (if you can), you will also see STARS.  Frosting on the cake for a great day. (ohhh... cake sounds good. In spite of the prevalence of Sweet Shops here, we don't actually eat many sweets...)

THE END.

Or, not. Epilogue: SUNDAY. (Weekend's not over yet!)

This is a quick recap, but here's what my Sunday consists of:

1. Be ready to leave at 7:30am. 2-hour drive to church in Chennai.

(on this day, I took a laptop with me to pass the time... transcribing the LOST series finale for my little bro. Hard to not get distracted by everything going by on the road...)

2. Church is held in the basement of a business complex (so to speak). It's pretty great. They are also building an actual Church building/chapel etc. in Chennai, it's going to be huge and gorgeous and even more great!

A really wonderful branch. It was actually recently split, that's how good the membership growth is here! (there are 3 branches in Chennai now) And look at this-- church starts at 9:30am, many people travel from far away, and yet they are ON TIME (this is before the meeting started, and showing only 1/4 of the room). Take a lesson, you. I'm being a hypocrite by saying that because I'm usually pushing it for time, even at 1pm, but right now I can be all self-righteous :). 

This is Kala, one of the Rising Star housemothers AND a teacher at the school. She is AWESOME. And she looked just like at angel in her beautiful sari that day. The over-exposure of the camera because the flash was off helped, too. Looks all heavenly. And I, as usual, look like a giant compared to these tiny Indian women. (Oh and yes, I am wearing PANTS. It's totally appropriate dress in India, to wear a kurta/chudidar top with pants. That or a sari, or of course Western church clothes. I'm going for authenticity here, just trying to fit in.... (it's awesome! Not going to lie! :)

There were two baptisms after church this last Sunday--

This regal and dignified gentleman with the SWEET 'stache and beard wings (seriously-- SO COOL) was baptizing his grandson...

and this father of a family was being baptized as well. What beautiful people, all of them.

Oh and this is the font. In the hallway, water's green, leaking from the bottom-- AWESOME. Seriously.

3. After that, it's a two-hour ride (nap) back to Rising Star, getting home between 2:30 and 3. A little lunch, a little rest, then dinner and a devotional.  And then the week starts all over again.

Good thing. :)