The past 3 days have been filled with a variety of experiences, all of which have been both memorable and life changing. We have done everything from visit a leprosy hospital in Chennai to seeing a snake charmer in a leprosy colony milk the snake for his venom. All of it has really been quite quite incredible. I don't have a lot of time right now because it is 2 40 am and we are about to leave for the airport to go to Delhi. But I will add more when we get back on Sunday. I guess the most memorable part of this week has been getting to know a little girl in our house named Suda. She is only 4 or 5 I would say and probably the cutest thing I have ever seen. It has taken me a while to get Suda to feel totally comfortable with me but she finally does and we have become really close I think. Sadly, I just found out a few days ago that Suda has contracted leprosy. So she is currently be treated for it. From what I understand they have discovered it early enough that she can be cured but it is still a difficult process. Yesterday Suda had to go to the hospital to get a skin graft (I think that's what it's called?) so they could take some samples of her skin. She had to get stitches after and was very sad, which made me very sad. I am thinking about sponsoring her. So keep Suda in your prayers. I'll get a picture of her soon so you can see just how beautiful she is. That's all I have time for... off to Delhi!!!!

Contruction and snake charmers....?

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
-Siddhartha Gautama

As our trip is about halfway over already, it is becoming more and more apparent that it is going to be so hard to leave this place and all the people here. Almost every night after family time in the boys dorms, one of the boys asks me, "When you go back America?" And as the number is getting smaller and smaller, it is harder for me to explain why I have to go back. I really do wish I could stay here longer, but unfortunately we will be leaving in 10 days.

Seeing the kids here is the best part of every day. Every night we have family time, and I sit around with the boys telling them stories, and reading them "Will you always love me?" as they fall asleep. Our entire mission this trip was to spread happiness to the people in India, but the kids and all the people here have made me happier than ever.

However, not all the kids are as sweet as they might seem. Tonight i made the mistake of joining a water fight with a couple of the older boys. When I thought it was over, I started heading back to our hostel from the boys dorms. I was enjoying the peaceful walk over, when out of the trees in the pitch dark ran three kids with buckets full of water, and drenched me. I ran down the path, only to get hit again from a kid hiding inside the school. These kids really don't mess around with this kind of stuff, but I fully plan on getting revenge tomorrow night.

So know i am soaking wet, and about to fall asleep. It has been a long day of moving hundreds of cinder blocks, playing soccer and cricket, and even seeing a snake charmer milk and drink venom from a viper! It was an awesome day and we will post more pictures and hopefully a video of the snake charmer later! Thank you to anyone who is actually reading this, we can't wait to see you all when we get home, although I think we are all dreading the day we have to leave to "go back America."

Leprosy Hospital in Chennai

If George Clooney was Indian, this is what he would look like....

So I have many more pictures to post... but that will come another day. I just feel like I should a couple things since I haven't in a few days and then I am going to sleep because we are leaving at 6 30 am tomorrow to drive to Chennai! woot woot. But as you saw we went shopping and to the beach on Saturday and it was absolutely incredible. Saturday was our first day off from any sort of volunteering since we've been here and it was an absolutely wonderful break. Drew and I bought quite a bit of stuff on Saturday and neither of us spent very much money at all. It's crazy how cheap everything is here. I bought a purse that in the States easily could have been 30 maybe even 50 dollars and it was 4 dollars here!!! But probably the purchases that Drew and I were the happiest about were the paintings that we bought from a man named Masi (who does these gorgeous canvas paintings) and our tailor-made traditional Indian pants.

After shopping we all went to the beach. And I am not going to lie, I don't think any of us got what we were expecting. I think that we were all expecting the beach to be kind of dirty and have a ton of trash (they legitimately don't have trash cans here... when you don't want something anymore you just throw it in the street. No joke!) But as it turns out, it was one of the prettiest, cleanest beaches I have ever been to. (And keep in mind I've been to Kauai, HI many a time so that's saying something.) The beach really was incredible and being in the water felt so amazing after spending an entire week being covered in humid, sticky sweat that even after a shower somehow reappears in about 2 seconds. We spent a few hours at the beach, swimming in the sparkling ocean with hundreds of dragonflies over head... they were so cool. We also swam in the hotel pool there, which was pristine. It was so nice. It was also nice to be in a tourist area for a while and be able to wear tank tops and bikinis without offending anyone. Saturday ended with one of the best experiences I've had here so far. Saturday nights are movie nights for the kiddos so we watched Tron on the projector with them. I got to sit next to Saketa (I don't think I spelled that right) who is 4 or 5. The entire time she wanted to me to tickle her back and arms and it reminded me of my needy, touchy-feely self haha. She is so absolutely beautiful though and I love every minute of rubbing that cute little back as she feel asleep on my lap. (then of course I fell asleep too....)

Eventually our wonderful day in heaven came to an end and we all went to sleep absolutely exhausted. Yesterday we went to church and it took us almost three hours to get there. But it was absolutely worth it to get to go to church in India. Yesterday was just a really nice relaxing day of church, reading, and, of course, mother monkey-- the best game you've ever played. Yesterday was especially fun, just getting to know Kylee, Abbi, Meredith and everyone else better. It's soo fun spending time with all of the other volunteers.

Today was also a really great day. I was tutoring at the school today and had a lot of fun seeing and tutoring the girls in my house (Raja Kumari is our house mother). I was able to read with Priya and Navia, who are both girls in my house and it was so fun to see how excited they are about reading and learning... although I think Priya gave Drew a little bit of trouble when he was trying to help her with her math homework. I also got to play with all the girls from my house at play time, which was so so so fun. Today was their day to use the bikes, which they only get to do every 2 weeks so it's a treat for them. It breaks my heart though, because they absolutely love cycling (as they call it) but have their bikes don't have pedals or if they do they have popped tire or only semi-working chains. But they still make it work and they still have the biggest smiles on their faces the entire time. It's very humbling to see the types of simple things that bring these kids happiness and joy. It really was amazing helping Rosemary and Suda and Priya ride their bikes around the campus!

To finish a delightful day off right, Raja Kumari gave me a new beautiful henna tattoo on the back of my left hand going up that arm. I absolutely love it. And I got to skype with Lili for a few minutes before it stopped working. That was fun to see her home! I can't wait to be home too and see her in person. But I am not quite ready to leave India yet.... Anyways I am off to bed. Sorry for the long post tonight. It's more for me than anyone else. I am kind of using my blog as a journal and I just want to make sure that I don't forget the experiences I have had on this trip. Peace and love

Mamalapuram (spelling?!?!) and the BEACH!!!

Just a few more pictures from the colonies today......

Today has been absolutely AMAZING so far. My group was assigned to do medical work, so after about a 2 hour drive in a (somewhat) air conditioned van we found ourselves in the smallest colony that RSO works with, called Moot. Once a colony with forty leprosy patients, it is now down to about seven or eight, loosing the rest to this horrible disease. One of the women who lived there did not have leprosy herself but had committed herself to life in a leprosy colony anyways, because her husband has it and she did not want to leave in. Learning this helped us see what a truly wonderful person she is because staying with a leprosy infected spouse is not common in India, in fact it is almost unheard of. There are so many negative stigmas associated with having leprosy that most people are completely abandoned by all friends, loved ones, and family upon contracting the disease. To see that this woman (whose name I cannot remember at the moment) stay with her husband, despite everything that society in India told her to do, speaks to what an amazing woman she is.

Going to Moot and seeing how these people live their lives and yet how happy they are was a very humbling experience. Each couple lives in a two bedroom house that is no bigger than my bedroom. They survive off of rice, that RSO brings them every two weeks and water that has not been purified. Most of them are missing limbs, whether it be legs or arms or both, and all of them have at least begun to loose their fingers. And yet through all of that they are still some of the happiest people I have ever met. They were so excited to see that the volunteers were coming today, each of them greeting us as we stepped off the van, hugging us and kissing our hands. One man, whose name is JayRaj, did not stop singing, dancing, and laughing the entire time we were there. He probably knows a total of eight English words and yet he still had us busting up laughing with his jokes. It literally brought me to tears to see a man with absolutely nothing and no one still be in such high spirits and so happy. It was obvious that he is the one in the colony who keeps all of them alive, all of them happy, and all of them proud of who they are.

Here is just a quick idea of what we were doing on the medical team today: we set up stations outside their homes where each patient could get their monthly (? i think they are visited about once or twice a month) check ups. Each station did something different for them. I took their blood sugar, which meant pricking their fingers (if they had one) which was a little bit difficult to do. The other stations took blood pressure, washed their wounds and oiled them, trimmed their fingers and toe nails, and bandaged them.

I felt so much love and gratitude today when I was in Moot, both from the other volunteers and the leprosy patients. Having a woman, who weighs no more than forty lbs and moves by lifting herself with her hands because she no longer has any feet, kiss my hands and thank me for helping her get a drink of water is probably the strongest love I have ever felt from someone. I never want to forget this day or the people that I met. I am so grateful for them and for what they taught me because in many ways I think that they have done more for me than I could ever do for them.