Peace of Mind

I feel as though I have so many amazing details to share but little time. Since I last wrote, Erin and I have seen and done some wonderful things. We finally received our outfits we had made for us. Baaisy was our tailor and I assured him we would be coming back for more. He has been wonderful. I also bought a beautiful backpack from him for 70 rupees (just over $1). On Friday after having a wonderful morning browsing the temple markets we headed back to our hotel. Originally, we only made a reservation for 3 nights at our hotel and when we asked to stay longer it was an automatic 'no'. Without questioning, we set out in the blazing hot city to find another. After going in over 10 different hotels, we got a consist ant answer of "no rooms available" when we knew that was not true. Were we really being discriminated upon? It was definitely so. We were so mentally and physically exhausted after walking around for so long we decided to give our hotel one more shot. By the time we were back, there was a different man at the desk. We asked him if we could stay longer and that we would even be able to switch rooms. His first answer was no. We pleaded. Then all of a sudden, it was "yes, you can stay as long as you need". Sad. We tried to brush it off by enjoying another rooftop dinner at the veg. restaurant.

Yesterday I woke up with the light and watched the sun come up off our balcony. I am loving the early morning rise and early night in. I love getting up early every morning and observing and taking in all that the India city streets have to offer the eyes. Across the street is a "dump" yet it does not have dumpsters-- it is merely a place to dump what trash is actually picked up. I watched as a man dug through what seems to be freshly dropped off trash. The sights, sounds, and smells are all distinctly different in India. Erin and I have used the phrase many times "this just tastes like India" or "this smells like India". It is something I can't describe, it just is.

It was a full day though. Gandhi Museum was our first task. We took a rickshaw and upon arriving our driver asked to take pictures with each of us (with our cameras) and then he asked us to write his address down so we could mail him a copy. We have found that the people here are fascinated by cameras! The museum was amazing though. Very touching and I learned a lot I had not known before about his life and activism. They have a yoga center there where classes are held daily at 6:30 am. I am definitely going to try to come back into town a couple weekends to try the class. We are going to try to find a center or home in which we can attend regularly in our village. On the way back our driver stopped to let us out to look over the bridge that hovered over the Vaigai River. We saw women washing brightly colored clothes and sheets that were layed out all over the fields on the side. So beautiful India is. After resting back at the hotel we trekked to the Thirumalai Maicker Mahal (Palace) for the sound and light show! It was pretty cool but I couldn't enjoy it thoroughly because I was worried about mosquitoes the whole time. The place was infested but Erin and I had luckily hosed ourselves down with bug spray before.

As of today, India food has officially kicked in to both mine and Erin's systems. My morning was spent in the bathroom. It is not so fun but I read that it is pretty inevitable in the first 2 weeks you are in India. Being careful today to not spread too far away from a bathroom, we are taking it easy today. We woke up early (once again) and went down to have a pot of hot tea before venturing out. Black tea is all that I have found in restaurants so I asked where to get some tea to buy. He pointed us to a store (Shoppers Shop) where we found treasure! Not really-- ha but we found some familiar things from back home. I broke down and bought deodorant-- I was so tried of ruining shirts after only a couple hours. I also found my favorite: green tea! I plan to carry those around to restaurants. I also bought some chips to help soothe my stomach for the day. Today is our last day in the city and at 9am tomorrow (Monday) we are meeting Chandra from CIRHEP in the lobby to ride to our internship site! We are ready to leave the city, noice and traffic behind. I have loved seeing all of Madurai that we did, but off to the next spot! I am hoping we have Internet there but I am still not entirely sure yet. Hope everyone is enjoying the cold weather, because we are surely enjoying our sunny and 80 degree weather here :)