Village Homestay Erode ? Day 3

        After waking up to the gorgeous sunrise, we packed our things, had one or two more cups of the delicious coffee and tea and jumped back into the busses to head to the next village, a much larger one, Erode. First we went to a local boarding school called BRV. Here we were able to put our things in a room for the day and then were escorted outside to have breakfast in the courtyard. After breakfast, we went to play with the kids for a bit. At that time it was the little boys time to spend outside and play. They were all involved in different sports games so we all just jumped into different games. We weren’t out there long before we were called to get back into the vans.
        We saw the Erode village’s temple like the one we had seen for Jayaramapuram and then we went to one of the large Hindu temples. The temple was packed of people. Before entering the temple we had to take off our shoes. As we walked around, I noticed a few of the locals pointing at our feet and laughing – we all had socks on because we had been wearing sneakers, which must have looked funny to them. As we walked around, we got to see their rituals, hear more about the temple and why so many people were there. We found that many of the people there were there to honor their dead loved ones. They come back every year on the anniversary of a death to feast with their family, etc. Next we got to enter the temple and do the prayer and ritual Hindi people do when they enter. As we were touring the temple, I was beginning to feel bad about our presence there. It seemed rude to me for us to be there staring at them and taking pictures. One of the other members of our group must have felt the same because she inquired about it and the tour guide answered that this was not the case at all. He said that the Hindi people enjoyed and welcomed our presence; they wanted us to be there, we were not intruding at all. The reason they felt this way was because they wanted us to learn more about their culture and spread our knowledge to people around the world. It was interesting to hear this remark because I would not have imagined this to be the answer to our question.
        We ended our tour of the temple with what everyone was most excited about – seeing the elephant. In part of the temple there was a trained elephant there that if you gave it money would “bless you”. Of course all of us wanted to do this! We handed the elephant our money – it took it in its trunk – and then you bowed your head and the elephant curled its trunk and donked you on the head. Now I chose this word ‘donked’ carefully. It was neither a light tap nor a smash, but it definitely had some power behind it. After all of us had done this, we got back in our vans and headed to a local market to spend just a few minutes there before heading back to the BVC school to have lunch. After lunch, we were able to play with the kids for a bit before heading up to their auditorium for a performance. The kids had prepared a traditional dance for us, dressed in three sets of costumes: two different eras of traditional clothing and one set of clothing that was mocking western attire. After doing the dance for us, they asked us to do a performance. We didn’t know that we were going to have to perform and therefore had nothing planned. After a few minutes we decided to go up there and sing our national anthem – which was not in key at all and sounded terrible. Then we did the hokey pokey. It was nothing compared to their performance but they got a kick out of it, so that is all that matters. After we completed our “performance” the kids came back up on stage and taught us how to do their dance. This was quite comical since none of us could do it. This whole time was pretty entertaining; we cracked up for most of the time.
        Before we left to visit the disabled children’s center and training school, I ran up to the bathroom real quick. The bathroom was upstairs in one of the unoccupied room. When I came out I noticed a larger room next door with the door open and kids’ voices coming out. I popped my head in to see what it was and found myself looking at the younger boys’ room. They spotted me immediately and started yelling, “hi, come in, come in!” so I did. The room was large, with tons of bunk beds and kids. Half the boys were in towels, which I found out quickly was because the others were in their bathroom in the back of the room showering. I hung out in the room for awhile, more SAS students came in too and we talked with the kids. The boys were so excited for us to be there, they wanted to know everything about us, where we were from, what we wanted to do (“what are your ambitions” they would ask) and many other questions. The more of us that came in, the sillier they got. They began trying to rip off each others towels and were giggling constantly. Eventually we were told we had to leave because we needed to leave to see the disabled kids, but I couldn’t help but think that was the best bathroom trip I’ve ever taken.
        When we arrived at the disabled children’s school they did a ceremony for us before we entered and then we came inside and watched a few different dances by different groups of kids. After we were welcomed with a speech and told a bit about the school – all of the kids there were in some way affected by polio and were receiving therapy for it. Then we were given some time to play with the kids. This was my favorite part. We each sat down with a group of kids. I sat down with a group of younger ones. Only one could speak English, but it wasn’t a problem because he translated for all the others. I sat there for the hour and a half that we had with them and taught them games and gave them stickers and let them take pictures with my camera. They were all so excited about the camera, stealing it out of each others hands to get a turn and becoming so excited when I would say yes they could use it to take pictures. We had given each of them a pencil and one of the kids had even gotten a notebook. Using the pencil we’d given him and the notebook I taught them how to play tic-tac-toe which they all loved. When that got boring, I tried to thumb-wrestle with the boy who could speak English, only to find that he couldn’t use his thumb. Before he could get discouraged, I made up finger wrestling which he could do and cracked up as we played for awhile. When we got sick of that and the others sick of tic-tac-toe, I played Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum with them which is a hand game. Everyone puts in both their hands and then you sing, “bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?” Whomever you land on when you say wish picks a number and then whomever you land on for that number has to take their hand out. It was such a simple game but they kids loved it! The time flew by and before I knew it the kids had to leave.
        Once they left, the director the school led us in a meditation – which of course I fell asleep in, oops. After meditation we headed back to the boarding school for dinner. The kids were eating inside so we ate outside. After a quick dinner, (and ice cream!) we had to get back on the bus and head towards the train station. That night we took another overnight train that would take us to Kochin (where the ship had moved to). This time our train was earlier, so we all hung out on each other’s bunks for a few hours before getting to sleep. We slept for about four hours before reaching Kochin where we transferred to a bus that took us to a hotel to sleep for a few more hours (it was 3 a.m.). The hotel was great, two people to a room with extremely comfortable beds. We got a wake up call at 8 a.m. and headed down for a surprise breakfast. I had the best cereal there, it was like their version of coco puffs (I actually just bought a box in South Africa to eat on the ship!). Then we checked out of the hotel, got back on the bus, and headed to customs before returning back to the ship. On the bus I found out that the section of the train where Deirdre stayed had cockroaches and at one point she woke up with 3 on her blanket. Yuck! I was happy I didn’t have that section!! This just made it clearer that first class in India was nothing like the standards of first class in America!