Fun Fact: I'm a Hypochondriac

June 4, 2012 started with an awful revelation: one of our team members was sick. This was my worst nightmare. [I'm not even exaggerating. Not one little bit.]

In case you didn't catch it from the title of the post, I'm kind of headcase when it comes to illness. I hear that someone somewhere has head lice? My scalp is suddenly itchy. Someone somewhere has a fever? I've got the chills. The guy down the hall has been up all night puking his brains out? I'm nauseous...

I do not like being sick. And if there was one thing I was praying about during that trip, it was that my body be shielded from sickness.

To make a long story short and to save two unnamed team members from certain embarrassment, I will spare you the gory details. Let's just say, those two spent the afternoon of June 4 in the VIP section of an Indian hospital. Their time at the hospital included: few vaccines in the Derrière, some good ol' IV treatments, and a pair of shorts in the trashcan. For more [hilarious] details, ask Dr. Starr sometime. I'm sure he will gladly share.

I'm happy to report that within the next few days everyone was healthy again and no one [including me!] got sick for the rest of the trip.

This particular Monday happened to be the first day of school at Chandra Bose. Nearly 100 Pre-K to 5th graders were signed up to attend. It was a little hectic and their first day was only a half day so we spent the morning practicing fun songs to sing with the kids later in the week. While we were practicing songs, we met Abraham, a graduate of the Bible School that used to be on the grounds of Miracle Garden/Chandra Bose. He was with a friend who was signing her kids up for school.

Taking a quick break from practicing songs to make a SIFE rainbow. 

One of the many "snaps" we took with Abraham. 

After the local kids went home, we stuffed ourselves, the 20-30 something Miracle Garden kids and their teachers into the bus and headed to the Great Bombay Circus!

On the bus with two of my favorite cuties in my lap.

I wrote in my journal that the circus was "so....local," meaning that it was definitely not a tourist attraction. While there were parts of it that were certainly weird and creepy, I loved it because it was such a unique experience. Not many people can say that they've gone to an Indian circus. The circus lasted for over two and a half hours! During that time, we saw a lot of acrobatics, a guy who could spit colored water, some sad looking an elephants and mangy dogs, and a camel.

The kids were absolutely mesmerized by the show! One of their favorite parts were the [male] clowns that kept wacking each other in the butt. Those guys were creepy.

My little man, Manik alternated between sitting on my lap and sitting in the chair next to me.

Suganthi, Josep, Carrie, and Becky all captivated by the show.

Since the show was so long, there was a constant stream of vendors walking around with everything from cold soda to ice cream to cotton candy. Every time one of them walked by, the kids would would beg us to get them whatever snack the vendor was peddling. And every time, I would guiltily say "no" and offer them Jolly Ranchers instead [side note: the kids called ALL candy "chocolate." I couldn't believe it]. Then, a man sitting in front of us purchased every single child ice cream! After the show was over, another man bought 10+ giant bags of chips for them too. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised by their generosity. After spending a semester studying Indian culture, I fully expected to encounter the effects of the caste system. I expected the Miracle Garden kids to be ignored and looked down upon because they are orphans [orphans are part of the lowest caste]. 

This poor lady's act was to bounce that ball up all those steps into a basket at the top. She had to start over like three times!

Manik loving his ice cream!

While we waited for the bus to pick us up, our group was like its own circus act. I don't think any of those people had seen such a big bunch of white people in their entire lives! Let alone a bunch of white people with an even larger bunch of orphans. We were quite the sight and as usual, attracted quite a bit of attention.

When we "got home" Dr. Starr and our sick friends were still at the hospital and we were locked out of our house! So we went and got ice cream [definitely one of my favorite "dinners!"] and did some shopping. I was so excited to get so much stuff for so little money. Twenty dollars later, I had 10 new scarves and a new purse. 

At the end of the day, we were happy to see our once sick friends eating toast [and keeping it down!], sitting upright, and laughing about their experiences at the hospital. 

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Painting, Praying, and Playing: A Sunday in India

I was so caught up with my spaghetti dinner in my last post that I forgot to mention that after we left the orphanage, we went to a local paint shop to purchase a few gallons of paint. We had learned from John that the girls' dorms hadn't been painted in over 5 years. They were in serious need of a new coat of paint! We ordered three [very bright] colors: pink, teal, and green. Time, we were beginning to learn, is very relative in India. Though the paint shop workers said mixing the paint would take half an hour, they actually meant that it would take an hour and a half. So we waited and walked around and ate some ice cream [Side note: I realized that while most Indian food is mushy and spicy, they can still do ice cream right. Thank goodness.]. Eventually we got all of our paint, momentarily panicked that we did not have enough, and then headed home.

One of the dorms pre-paint. 

It was nap time on the porch while we painted. 

Sunday morning rolled around and after our usual breakfast and devotions routine, we headed to the orphanage for a full day of painting. I wore my camoflauge pants because in my mind, that's what a painter would wear [though come to think of it, painters traditionally wear white, don't they? Whatever.]. We began by tackeling the biggest of the three rooms first. This would be the Pepto-Bismol pink room. Pepto Bismol, by the way, is a wonderful drug. Definitely right up there with Advil for me. Anyways, when they asked some people to volunteer to go play with the kids for a while, I jumped on the opportunity. Though I was happy to paint, in my opinion, playing with little Indian cuties is just about ten million times more fun.

Suganthi & Megalyn

Playing in the tree[less] house with Suganthi.

Debok on the swing. 

Later in the day, I took my turn to paint.

There's me in my camo pants! And the very pink walls.

One of my favorite parts of my entire trip to India took place after we had finished painting for the day [mostly because we ran out of paint...gallon to liter conversions are tricky!]. Every Sunday, two pastors come to the orphanage to have a church service with the kids. The service was mostly in Tamil (the dialect spoken in Coimbatore) but the pastors could also speak some English, so it was in a mix of the two languages. It struck me that afternoon that though these people I was worshipping alongside of have so little, they are so filled with joy. They thanked the Lord for every little blessing that He had given them. When is that last time I did that? Encountering this joy time after time in India impacted me powerfully. I have so much stuff and I am so ungrateful for it. Most of the stuff I have is stuff I expect to have. I don't even think to be thankful for it because it's just always been there. But hearing some of them audibly thank the Lord for every little thing He had given them, convicted me to be more thankful for the many, many things He has blessed me with.

Some of the boys singing one of their songs. 

Kneeling to pray. Little Praveen in the middle is so precious. 

The service was very hands-on. We sang a song [Father Abraham, of course]. The kids sang us a few songs too. The pastors read verses in Tamil. We read verses in English. We sang some "hymns." The kids kneeled on the floor and prayed. And we took communion. There are few times in my life when I have so strongly felt God's presence in a place. He is there at the orphanage. He is there watching over those kids, and guiding their caretakers. He created each of them and He loves them unconditionally. Though people may leave them, He is always there. That realizaton was a comfort to me then and continues to comfort me every day.

Church was in the afternoon, so after it was over, it was almost dinner time and it was already beginning to get dark out. We had two more things we wanted to do before the end of the day: manicures and the big room reveal. Since there were only a few girls at the orphanage and we were painting their room, we wanted to make them feel extra special. It was Heather's idea to paint their teeny tiny nails before suprirsing them with their new bright pink room! We showed them the room and they seemed to like it but they were still pretty shy, so none of them had particularly strong reactions. Don't worry, though, we later found out that they LOVED the colors. They were just a little too shy to express it.

Manicure time with Nandini, Megolyn, and Suganthi. 

The big reveal!

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Hanging On For Dear Life

When driving through the streets of Coimbatore, it can be very tempting to hang your hands out the window. Doing so, however, puts you at risk for ending the day with one less hand than you started with. As I mentioned briefly in yesterday's post, traffic in India is crazy. I have never seen anything like it. It makes Times Square seem like a peaceful country road. Saturday June 2 began with a ride in an auto rickshaw across town to our house!

Becky, Kaitlyn and I getting ready to go in our auto.

Indian people are short and Taylor is tall. Therefore, we quickly discovered that most things in India are too small for him--including the auto.

Riding in one of these three-wheeled open air vehicles was definitely on my India bucket list, so I was really excited that we got to ride in one! Riding in an auto gives you a completely different view of the city. Since there are no sides, I not only got to experience my first "hang on for dear life" situation, I also got to see the sights, feel the traffic whiz by, and hear all the crazy honking horns [they literally never stop honking]. Oh, and smell the...interesting...smells.

Anyways, the house we stayed in wasn't really a house. It kind of reminded me of the housing at a summer camp. There was a common area, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and a kitchen. And one air conditioner. I had honestly prepared myself for really horrible living conditions in India so I was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the house. Sure, it wasn't a 5-star hotel, but we only saw a handful of cockroaches and it was relatively clean-ish.

Our house was across the street from an underwear factory! Nothing says "welcome home" like a creepy guy in his undies. 

After moving in, we headed over to Miracle Garden to pick the kids up. We had plans to take all 20-something of them to a water park for the day! Somehow, we stuffed all 12 of us, all the kids, and a few of their teachers into the bus and we were off to the waterpark.

First off, I should tell you that bathing suits are a big no-no in India. So I was rocking Jill's hot pink knee length basketball shorts and an old blue t-shirt. I looked GREAT. Everyone just swims in their clothes there though! Women go on slides in their sequined saris; men wear jeans and button down shirts. It's quite the sight. The park had a few non-water rides, so we started the day with those.

And OH MY GOODNESS, those rides would be the subject of so many lawsuits in the United States. There are no seatbelts or safety bars. Those suckers just whip you around and you hang on the edges for dear life. [In case you haven't caught on to the trend yet, you do a lot of hanging on for dear life in this country.] I actually only experienced two of these rides: the bumper cars and the ferris wheel. The bumper cars were your typical bumper cars. Nothing too extreme other than the lack of seat belts. The ferris wheel was absolutely crazy though. The baskets have no doors and no sides; it's just a hanging, rocking, safety constraint-less bench. Once you're on [and hanging on to dear life], the thing whips you around and around and around at an impressive and nauseating speed. I LOVE ferris wheels, but even I didn't like this one. It was intense. In my car were three adults and one little boy. Our poor little boy was shaking, crying, screaming, and wetting his pants. Oh dear. Even though the ride attendant didn't speak English, we eventually got his attention and got him to stop the ride so the little boy could get off. I felt so bad for him but was kind of thankful that he was so scared so I could get off too! The last ride before lunch was the "pirate ship." I decided to sit that one out and was glad I did. I don't think there were any brakes on it, so it rocked back and forth for a good 20 minutes.

Here's me driving a bumper car in my oh-so-classy outfit. There's two little girls in the car too, but they're so tiny and dark you can't even see them! This is the only picture of me that I've seen from the waterpark because most of us left our cameras at Miracle Garden so they wouldn't get wet.

After a quick lunch break [my first of many meals consisting of vegetable fried rice], we brought the kids into the water. Some of them jumped right in and loved paddling around; others sat on the side and dipped their feet in. Unlike American water parks, there was not a life guard in sight--just a few militant looking police officers with whistles. I'm not much of swimmer and I was a little scared of what exactly was in that water [do they clean it?] but it smelled kind of chlorine-y so I took the plunge [heh heh, I'm so punny...].

I played with a bunch of the kids, but of course, the one I distinctly remember playing with was Manik. After going down some slides and splashing around, the mean looking police guards blew their whistles and literally commanded us to head to the wave pool. It wasn't like "hey the wave pool's on if you want to swim in it." It was more like "GO TO THE WAVE POOL NOW!!!"

Naturally, we went to the wave pool. And that thing was crazy! Like most everything else, I had never experienced anything like it. Those weren't your normal run-of-the-mill wave pool waves. They were more like intense, tsunami, tidal waves that slammed you into the wall. Also the bottom of the pool was a tile floor. It was really slippery...

The water park was the first place that Indian people came up to us to hello or ask for pictures. White people are extremely uncommon in that part of India, so a group of 12 doesn't blend in. At all. From that point on, pretty much everywhere we went, we had people staring, not-so-discretely taking pictures, grabbing our hands, and asking for photos with us. I loved it because it made me feel like a celebrity. Some people could have done without it though. Remember that outfit I was wearing? Let's be honest. It was hideous. Despite that, some woman came up to me, grabbed my hand and said "You are so beautiful." I couldn't believe it since I clearly was not looking my best. But that gives you an idea of the reaction that people had towards us everywhere we went.

After the wave pool experience, we called it a day and brought the kids back to Miracle Garden. They gave us "spaghetti" and chicken for dinner, which I was SO excited about. I wrote a whole paragraph in my journal about it, but it was just spaghetti, so I'll spare you the details.

"The kids wear clothes with broken zippers, no underwear, and rope as a belt. It broke my heart to see that."

When I realized that the kids' clothing was so worn and tattered, I began to truly grasp how little they have. This realization only became clearer as the our time in India went on. I have SO much and they have SO little. My desire to help them began with that realization and only grew as the week went on. And it's grown even more since I got home! I'm so thankful that RWC SIFE will be continuing our work with Miracle Garden and Chandra Bose in the coming years. It gives us a great opportunity to continue supporting them financially while also raising awareness of their needs to other people in our community. It'll be exciting to see what we can do for them in the coming year.

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Traveling to the Other Side of the World

I remember the day I decided to go India.

I remember the day I attended the interest meeting.

I remember the day I paid the deposit to go. 

And the day I got my passport. 

I remember the day that I found out my trip was completely paid for.

I remember the day that my countdown reached 100 days. 

Then 50 days. 

30 days. 

7 days. 

And finally, 24 hours. 

For most of the time leading up to my departure I was 100% excited and 0% nervous. It didn't really hit me that I was hopping on a plane and flying to the other side of the world until those final 24 hours of my countdown. While I was still excited, I was suddenly a nervous wreck. As much as I knew about my trip and about India, fear of the unknown crept into my mind.

If you're thinking of going to India, be forewarned. Traveling there takes FOREVER [Note: FOREVER = 2 days]. We started our trek across the globe on Wednesday, May 30 and didn't actually arrive at our destination in India until Friday, June 1. Our first flight was a quick one from Rochester to LaGuardia. After that, though, was our super long flight from NYC to Chennai, India [with a quick-ish stop in Brussels, Belguim]. I was really excited that our airline was Indian because we got to experience a part of the culture almost immediately. Of course, that meant all the food they served was Indian.  I was excited to try new food at first. When they served a meal every 2 hours or so, though, that excitement definitely wore off. Indian plane food is not good. I need to stop writing about it because just thinking of it is making me nauseous....haha.

Waiting in LaGuardia for our flight to India with Jacqui, Kaitlyn, and Becky. We look so awake and clean!

There's our plane! It was HUGE.

Anyways, several movies and TV shows later [THANK GOODNESS FOR THOSE LITTLE TVS!], we landed in Chennai. INDIA! My first "Indian experience" was a public bathroom. I had mentally prepared myself for Indian style toilets [holes in the ground] and was pleasantly surprised that they had some "European style" toilets there too [not holes in the ground, not cushy porcelain thrones either]. At the time, I was really grossed out by it. There was water all over the floor [they use hoses instead of toilet paper...] and it smelled pretty bad. I used lots of Purell and held my breath.

Next on the agenda was going through customs. As I had never been out of the country, I had never had to go through customs. It wasn't really that exciting. You fill out a form, they look at your passport, they do not return your friendly smile, you continue along.

We landed in Chennai at midnight-ish and our final flight to Coimbatore wasn't until 6 AM-ish so we had some time to kill after we claimed all of our luggage. After wandering around the airport for a little bit, we camped out on the floor of the domestic terminal.

This is actually when I got a solid chunk of journaling done. I couldn't really sleep (a) because I was super excited to be in India (b) because we were on the floor and (c) because my body had absolutely NO IDEA what time it was.

"Now we're camped out on the floor of this rustic airport. I'm surrounded by workers sleeping on newspaper/cardboard. They are literally covered in flies. It's strange to think that they are probably thankful for this place to sleep while I am fighting back the urge to complain." 

This night in the airport was completely out of my comfort zone. At the time I wanted nothing more than to take a shower and get into a bed. In hindsight, though, God prepared my heart so much during those uncomfortable hours. I was reminded that lots of things in India were going to put me out of my comfort zone. It was during those hours that I decided to approach everything with an open heart. I didn't go to India to be comfortable. I didn't want to be comfortable. How do you experience anything new and exciting if you're always sticking to the comfortable things?

Eventually, it was time to pick up the tickets for our domestic flight and go through security one more time [Actually it's called the "frisking" line. Indians have such a knack for naming things]. They separate the men and women. Women get one line; men get five. I don't get it but that's how it's done. Anyways, once we were done getting frisked, we boarded a very tiny airplane for our final flight to Coimbatore!

We landed at around 8 AM and once we were in Coimbatore I truly realized that we were in India.

"I felt like I was in a Bollywood movie. Everywhere I turn there are people in colorful clothes, crazy traffic, and honking horns. There are weird smells, unfamiliar food, and strange noises. It's overwhelming (in a good way) to say the least."

We somehow stuffed all our luggage, 9 people, and our trusty bus driver, Bala, into a 12-passenger van. The remaining 3 people in our group rode in a mini-van with John Pandian, the owner of Miracle Garden. Once we were on the road, I literally could not take my eyes off the sights. I wouldn't be surprised if my mouth was hanging open. I also wouldn't be surprised if I smelled like stale airplane.

The view outside my window.

Traffic was so crazy. Notice there are no lanes...

We had a house rented out for most of the time we were in Coimbatore but for the first night we stayed at a hotel instead. It was pretty nice compared to the airplane floor. I shared a room with Kaitlyn and Becky. We had two twin beds and three people, so Becky and I shared. When we finally went to bed, we were so exhausted we didn't even care. And I finally got to take a shower. Hallelujah!

"What an adjustment it is from showering in a shower to showering under a cold spicket right next to the toilet."

The bathroom experiences in India were so strange. Showers are not separate entities within the bathroom. Rather, there is a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor and the shower (if there is a shower head) sprays water all over the room. There is often a bucket and pitcher that you can fill up and then take a "bucket shower." I was very against bucket showers at first but I got over it pretty quickly because the water pressure in India is pretty much non-existant and it takes more than a little trickle of water to get this lion mane clean. The best part [in hindsight] about my first shower in India was that the power went off while I was in there and then the drain clogged and our hotel room flooded. I kept telling myself it would be funny in a few weeks...it is.

Once we were all clean and showered, I was all ready to get in bed and sleep for two days. Instead, we piled back into the bus and headed over to the Miracle Garden to meet the kids! On that first day, I remember feeling bad because I was SO out of it. I wasn't feeling very energetic and subsequently didn't do much playing. The kids were all really shy. To be honest, the rest of that day is kind of a blur. I was really tired and fell asleep sitting up multiple times. All I remember is that when I finally got in bed I passed out pretty much immediately. :)

This is the Miracle Garden Orphanage/Chandra Bose School! 

Playing with the kids on our first day. 

 Our first "day" was a long one mostly because it spanned from Wednesday to Friday. If you liked reading this stop by again soon to hear about the rest of my trip. I'm going to try and post a day-by-day account of my experiences.

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