I wish my life was a Bollywood movie

India is a study in contrasts. My homestay family was upper middle class, with a driver, 2 story apartment, 3 cars, cleaning lady, and laundry woman. A block away, there were people sitting out on the street begging for dinner. It’s hard to hold it all together in your head.

For starters, we were in Chennai India, which is not really north or south India, so there’s a lot of both in the culture and customs of the area. It’s hot though, over 90 degrees every day that we’ve been here. And it’s dirty. Much more polluted than Beijing, and a lot dirtier. My lungs have been hurting from walking around in the city all day. There are rickshaws everywhere, which will take you to anywhere you want to go, you have to make sure you bargain down to a reasonable price. We had to watch though, because the drivers would make these unexpected stops at little shops of their friends in the hope that we would patron there, in exchange for a shirt or something from the owner. We had to be very vocal in our opposition to these stops.

I decided for India, I’d go on a homestay with SAS, because it was highly recommended by all. We stayed with Rotary Club members in the Chennai area; I stayed with the Bhatts, a wonderful family. The parents work in PR, and their 2 daughters are my age, both were SAS interport students. Their apartment is beautiful! Mary and I had so much fun there, eating really spicy Indian food, teaching Beatrice and Pooja to French braid, and trying to stay cool in the evening.

We had to attend several Rotarian functions, including a luncheon and a Rotary meeting. They were interesting; I learned a lot about what the Rotarians do, which is all centered on service. In the Chennai area, they have assisted in tsunami relief by building new homes and community buildings, as well as running a boys town center for poor local boys to get a leg up.

The first night, our family took Mary and I shopping, and then out to the Nine Days Festival. Its this big festival celebrating a victory way back in the day. Every night of the festival, this big hall is opened up for dancing until 3 in the morning. We got all dressed up and went dancing! Dancing with Indians is a lot of fun; dances are circle dances, where everyone does the same move. It took us a while to catch on, but once we did, it was fantastic! The 10 of so or us who were there even got recognized by the judges for coming, one girl got a special prize!

Our second day was spent site seeing around Chennai with all the SAS kids. We went out to Mallapuman, which is this area of 8^th century temples, which were carved from a single stone. They are huge! I don’t know how people that early were able to make carvings so magnificent. While we were at the sites, we were surrounded by street urchins trying to sell us souvenirs. It was so hard to turn away from them, especially the little kids. They told us that most of the kids worked for someone else, and don’t get most of the money. I did buy a few postcards though.

Our next stop was one of the Rotarians beach houses for lunch. We could see the ocean! And the cows on the beach! That was weird. The food was delicious, although EXTREMELY spicy. Our last stop was a rural village that had been rehabilitated by the Rotarians after the tsunamis. We talked a lot to our family about the tsunami and its effects on the people here. They said many people now avoid the beach since the tsunami. They'd never had one before in India, at least not in recent memory. The tide went out first near Chennai, and the phenomenon drew a ton of people to see what was going on, which was one of the reasons why the wave was so devastating to the area. Everyone was just standing at the waters edge when the wave came.

This morning was much more low key than the day before. We got to sleep in and then head to the office with Mrs. Bhatt. Then she sent us with the driver to the Chennai Museum of Art. It was pretty cool. Afterwards, Mary and I went over to Spencers Plaza for lunch a PIZZA HUT! It was amazing! Pepperoni Pizza! We were so happy, we could have cried. Then we did a little shopping for the folks back home before heading back to the office and then the ship.

India has been amazing. I want to come back and see so much more of it. Hopefully I’ll get to do that in the near future. I can’t wait to breathe easily though; this coughing thing is getting annoying.