India continued

Ok so here is my journal for the first week we have been here. Sorry if you are not interested in reading this much, but I promise pictures are comming soon. I am new at blogger and it has been so hard to get pictures and words in the right place. So here is the written part, and then I will do a few posts with just pictures. Sorry this week's entry is so long, the culture shock will probably make this the longest post you will ever get on here.

Saturday August 31st - Evening

The rest of the day we waited for the others to arrive and had our first local meal. For those of you who don’t know us well, Adam is awesome and will eat anything (I guess that’s what a mission does to you), and my taste buds are not as well rounded when it comes to food. I have been trying ever since we knew we were coming to India to like curry, but I haven’t been so lucky. So let’s just say this trip is going to be an awesome weight loss program.

Saturday night we ran to a market to look for a few things some people needed, set up our internet air cards, and then tried to sleep. It is a total adjustment getting used to sleeping with out air conditioning. In the states Adam and I don’t sleep with it on, but have it during the day, which makes it cool at night. Here zero air conditioning equals hot sleeping. We do have 1 ceiling fan, but the first night I got about 3 hours of sleep.

Sunday August 1 –

Got up at 5:30 (after lying awake for 3 hours), and after breakfast (American toast w/ peanut butter and jelly, and bananas!!! Let’s just say breakfast in my favorite meal here), we decided to take a walk around to better acquaint ourselves with the area. We headed to the main street in our residential area with the local shops, and then proceeded to walk to the beach. The beach is about a 20 minute walk along the main coastal road in Vizag called Beach Road.

Things here are so different. There are about 7 million different smells. Every time you turn your head, it is something new (and most of the time not pleasant). Walking down the sidewalk we see feral dogs everywhere, cows and water buffalo roam the streets because they are sacred. They can just park-it in the middle of the main road, and everyone just swerves around them. There are nice high rise apartment buildings, and across the street there are beggars who live in lean-tos. The whole situation blows my mind. It is hard for me to understand why someone here can work a regular job (store merchant, teacher, ect) in India, and still live the way they do, while I work a regular full time job (CNA - $10.50 an hour) and I live in a nice apartment with a/c and carpet, and screens, and a real bed. God bless America!

Well we walked to the beach, and stuck our toes in (you can’t swim in the ocean where we are, there are huge rocks, and a very strong undertow), and discovered an awesome store on the way back (that is clean and you can walk inside).

That afternoon we went to church. They have two small branches in the city with about 50 members each. The church is air conditioned (so nice!!!!) and it is really clean. I can say I honestly think I can better understand a sacrament meeting in Spanish than one spoken in English with Indian accents. I pretty much had no idea what anyone was saying. It was fun to meet fellow Mormons from a place where no one really believes in Christ. They all have such strong testimonies.

Monday August 2 –

We bought local clothing Monday, to wear on the duration of our trip. The local girls working for our program took us to the mall. It was such a chaotic experience trying to choose what you want with 3 men standing there handing you a million choices and speaking to you in a different language. It was an interesting experience.

Earlier that day we went to a major tourist spot in Vizag up on a hill. There were children’s playgrounds, and meditation spots. It was really pretty (and cool cause it was on top of a hill), and had a beautiful view of the ocean.

Tuesday August 3 –

We visited a very famous temple called Simhatchala. Because our instructor has special connections here we were able to visit the inner shrine. I have mixed feelings about our experience here, because our professor did not really prepare us for the rituals we performed here, and I felt like an obnoxious American tourist in a sacred holy place. Most Indians save money for years to be able to take their families to this place. It costs over 250 American dollars per person for Hindus to visit this sacred place. It was really cool to see the architecture from 12^th century that has been preserved.

Wednesday August 4^th – Rain

We officially started our telugu classes this morning. Our teacher is a lady named Maluivasuni. She is a retired professor from Andhra University, and she is a Brahman. They still have the caste system here in India, and Brahman is the highest. You are born into your caste (so there is nothing you can do about it). Telugu is so hard!!! I cannot even understand what she is saying in English, so you can see why it’s going to be rough mastering the language. That afternoon

Thursday August 5^th – Rain

Today we had telugu class, and then went to hear professor Nuckolls speak at Andhra University. It was interesting to see what school is like outside of the United States. After his speech a man working for our program named K.P. took us to the wal-mart of India called “The Big Bazaar”!! Being Americans we all loved it. You can get pretty much anything you could ever need there, and they have a food court. I am sure we will be frequenting the big bazaar often.

Friday August 6th-

Telugu class, and then we had a free afternoon. We were all pretty excited to do whatever we wanted. At breakfast that morning we found out we were having fish for lunch and dinner. We were not exactly thrilled. We were talking to my parents on Skype, and my dad had been looking on the internet, and said he saw that Vizag had a pizza hut. That definitely sounded better than fish, so we hopped in a rickshaw and headed down town. A golden discovery that we must thank my dad for. Pizza hut in India tastes exactly like it does in the states, and we have decided it will be at the least a weekly trip. After devouring our delicious pizza, we decided to walk around and explore the city without anyone telling us where to go or what to do. We visited several shops, and Ally, Heidi, and I purchased some sweet pants (pictures will be posted later). Later that evening Adam went to a meeting with the Belgium Consulate for the chamber of commerce with K.P. at a five star hotel. He said the food was great, and the air conditioning was wonderful. The rest of us went to a handicraft bazaar by the beach and bought some awesome stuff. Today was by far the best day in India thus far!

Saturday August 7^th –

Today we woke up early to head up the mountain to visit the Borra Caves. It was about a 2.5 hour drive, which in India equals car sickness and way too many hours of fearing for your life. The last hour was winding up these one lane roads with a crazy man in control of our car going about 60 mph around hair pin turns. A memory none of us will ever forget. The caves were cool. They went back pretty far and there were little shrines to the Hindu gods at the top of some really steep stair cases. After the caves we drove another 40 minutes into a valley called the Aruku Valley. There we visited a school where this organization called NATURE promotes education within tribal villages. They do summer camps, and family camps. It was interesting to see how nonprofit organizations function in other parts of the world.

The men from that school wanted to take us to a local village, so we hopped back in the car and drove another 20 minutes up some farm roads. We got out of the car and hiked through some rice patty fields about .5 miles to this small village. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. About 400 people lived in this village and had been there for about 20 years. This “community” migrates around the farm land. They just got running water 2 years ago, and have 8 water spickets. There is one every 4 houses. The people were so welcoming. Some of the children had never seen a white person before, and when I smiled at one of the babies, he started bawling. This was a really neat experience, to share in a culture that is so different from mine.

Some crazy things I have noticed about India in the first week I have been here –

-driving!!! You put your life in danger every time you get in a rickshaw or car.

- poop! There is poop everywhere. Human poop, dog poop, cow poop, and bird poop, and it is on the sidewalks, the roads, and everywhere else!

- trash. I have been to other countries where trash is everywhere, but here it just smells different.

- cows! – they roam free, sit in the middle of major roads, and hang out in your front yard and eat your plants.

- horn honking – every time you turn a corner or pass someone on the road you honk. This made church really interesting, and I fall asleep every night to a chorus of horns. Some play songs, and there are a million different sounds.

-busses- the busses here are like U.S. busses on steroids. They are gigantic, which doesn’t make any sense because the cars are all small (like the compact cars in Europe) and the road is filled with rickshaws (which are scooters with carriages on the back). This observation has me baffled. There is no logical reason for the busses to be so big. They are jacked up so tall people have to jump to get in them. Totally ridiculous!!

After a week of being here, the culture shock has definitely wotn down, and I really am enjoying myself. Adam has been the best companion ever, putting up with all of my complaining and adjusting. But now we really do like it here, and we are really excited to spend the next 4 months learning as much as we can about this crazy cool culture!!

just a few pictures of the house

our toilet (yes, it is a hole in the ground!)