Play time 2

Play time

Teaching the girls how to ride a broom horse!

The goodnight song!

This is home

Today I got to work with the leprosy patients!! WOOHOO!!!! We took them to the hospital today. The hospital was two hours away from where we stay and our bus driver for some odd reason was drive 20 mph!!!! This is unreal for him or any Indian because they are insane and we almost die practically 5,000 times every time we get in a car with them. I got assigned with a man who had no toes. It was so painful for him to walk and I felt so bad for him because we did so much moving around. We took them to the hospital because if we were not with them then they would not have been seen. This hospital was outside and had a million gazillion trillion people in it. In India there is only ONE Dr. for every 10,000 people. Just so everyone knows I only know about 4 or 5 words in Tamil and that is it. So when the Dr. Rising Star works with said okay here is the patients medical folder and 500 rupees go figure everything out, I was a little worried! The man I was with spoke ZERO English as well so at times the language barrier was a little difficult! We first went to optometry to get his cataracs (Sorry totally spelled that wrong) checked. The man I was with tried to hand the nurses his folder on his own but because he had leprosy she wouldn't even look at him or take his folder. So I handed the folder to her and he sat down in the waiting room and I stood next to him. Because he had leprosy they kicked us out of the waiting room so people wouldn't have to look at him and just basically be in his presence. We sat outside for about two hours waiting for his name to be called. I felt so protective over him the whole time I didn't want to leave him alone because I wanted to make sure people were treating him like the human being he is and that they weren't being mean to him. Every time I caught someone giving him a mean look I'd shoot a nasty look back...maybe a little immature of me haha but I can't help it! People are insane to think they are better then anyone. Because he didn't have any toes he needed to use this railing to walk with down this pathway and people were so rude (of course) and would randomly just lean on the railing or sit on it so that he couldn't use it. I would stand in front of them and stare at them till they would move but that little game did not work because Indians are PRO at staring. I got to help him walk back and forth though which is even better for me because it's a way of communicating with him, in my opinion, since we were unable to talk the whole time we were there. He had to have many tests run on him and we had to figure out where all these rooms were and on which levels and no one would help us when we asked because he has leprosy they would hold their hands up to our faces or swat us away. This made me SOOOO angry because he was probably so embarrassed and just sad and I would never ever want him to feel an ounce of either of those. I wish people could see that the worth of every single soul is great!!! At the hospital a boy probably 19 years old and his little sister came and sat by me. I said a few words to them in Tamil and then he automatically started spitting out tons of Tamil to me, which everyone does when I do that so I probably should stop doing that haha. Then he surprised me and started speaking to me in English and his English was awesome!!! He was very talkative and had his 9 year old sister with him who didn't speak any English and she would whisper things to her brother and he'd translate to me and ask me all the questions she had. She was ADORABLE!! Something I love about India is when you come out here you realize how unhappy some Americans are because we are so focused on THINGS and then you come to a place like India and these people have literally nothing and they couldn't be any happier. It amazes me. We have so much and yet we find a million reasons to complain about things, where as they have nothing here and they find so many reasons to be happy every single day. Being happy is definitely a choice no matter the circumstances. It's SO important to make the best of every situation that is put in front of us weather it be a pleasant situation or a bad one! Remember someone always has it worst than you and if God put you to it, he'll get you through it! My favorite part of the day was seeing the mans smile on his face I was with all day. I did basically nothing for him except caused more frustration since I speak practically no Tamil and yet he was so grateful just to have me there supporting him and showing him that I love and care about him. At least I think.. hahah maybe he was just trying to make me feel better about myself! Tonight I went to the girls house and laid with them on their floor mats and tried to help them fall asleep but that just turned into stomach aches from laughing so hard and major tickle fights. Some of them keep calling me mom hahaha. And they made me sing Jingle Bells with my HORRIBLE voice!!! I love those girls. Why can't I just adopt all of them?!

PS The girl in the photo with me her name is Jennifer. Her parents put her in a Dust Bin and told her they didn't want her because she has leprosy. It's cured now but she still doesn't have her parents so she calls me her mom and I LOVE it!!

"TII"

TII means, this is India. Which basically means because this is India.... NOTHING goes according to plan. A group of volunteers I was with last year made it up and I think it's perfect!! It was an interesting journey back to India. First of all I had a ginormous backpacking backpack on if you know me you know I'm only 5 ft tall so I looked pretty ridiculous. Walking on to different planes and just around airports I got many laughs and stares. I was supposed to travel all the way from Orange County to Chennai with my friend Savannah. Well TII baby, because our second flight from Chicago to Germany was delayed and we had ten minutes to get off our flight in Germany, take a metro and sprint across the airport and go through security all in this amount of time. My short little legs just could not handle it! And the 500,000 lbs on my back. So we missed our flight to Chennai by like two minutes. Then we had to go down to the ticket counter and get new flights for some reason we couldn't fly together so we ended up going seperate. I flew from Frankfurt to Mumbai to Chennai and Savannah flew from Frankfurt to Dubai to Chennai. Let me start off saying that two ten hour flights with NO TV's, a dead ipod and dead laptop= misery for a girl with ADD. Thank heaven I sat by one kind of English speaker who probably wanted to kill me by the end of the ten hours but I was painfully bored! Anways so, in India for every couple airlines there is a seperate airport basically. So I had to take at 2 in the morning, a 30 minute bus ride from where I landed in Mumbai just to get to the ticket counter for my ticket to Chennai. I've done this bus ride before in Dehli and was pretty much terrified! Doing it again you think I'd be totally cool with it but heck no. I was the only American on this bus ride and the only female on the bus ride with about 40 men. People stare like CRAZY in India!! The whole bus ride they were staring at me and laughing and whistling at me trying to get me to look over at them and I thought my life was just about over haha. Then this guy sits next to me and he is full on rocking out to love songs by Chris Brown. Seriously?? I didn't even know Indians knew who that disgusting women beater was. He was staring at me all up in my business!!! Sometimes I just wanna ask what the freak are you looking at mister? So then I land in Mumbai and I am SO thirsty so I go up to this place to buy a water and I'm already waiting in a long line then it's my turn and this random dude comes out of no where and cuts me and buys his food and drink. FOR REAL?!?! Obviously his mama never taught him any manners.. So then a bunch of guys start cutting me but then I couldn't take it anymore and gave them nasty looks and shoved my way threw. Girl power. After a 6 hour lay over and a 2 hour flight, I finally was HOME!!! As I went to the baggage claim I noticed Hey my bags aren't coming in, then I remembered I forgot to give the ticket lady my baggage stickers to transfer my luggage from Germany to Chennai so as I am typing this my luggage is stranded in Germany. But that is okay with me because I am HERE with these beautiful, grateful faces!!! I never thought I'd say this but I really did miss the smells of India. Burning rubber, throw up, EXCESSIVE body odor and pee and poo. Who would have thought?!I love India.

When I got to the volunteer hostel/ school I darted to see my Indian babies!! They are soooo big I am soooo sad!!! Why can't they stay small forever?! They are crazy blunt and I absolutely love it. More of us should be like them! Some of the ten year old girls said to me, Auntie Ash what are those dots on your face? and I said they are freckles and they made a disgusted face hahaha, I said you don't like them? And they said no no those dots are very ugly on you, you are pretty very white. She pointed to my forehead and chin and said pretty, pretty then pointed to my cheeks and nose and said ugly!! Hahahahah gotta love them!! Today I got to teach Sagiyamary how to ride a bike. Oh my goodness thank heaven for training wheels in the states!! I think she almost fell like 200 times and I almost fell on top of her holding on to the front and the back seat! In India women don't wear wedding rings they wear two toe rings on each of your second toes. All the volunteers and I got them last summer and now when I came today all of them were freaking out saying "YOU GOT MARRIED AUNTIE ASH?!?!?" Hahahah they are so funny. One of the house mothers, Saraswati, is a widow. She is getting married in September and has to leave RSO. Because she is a widow it means she gets a not so great husband. Her parents have arranged her (at 35 years old) to marry her 55 year old uncle. I feel so horrible for her and she is so sad about this. Please pray for her!! Sorry there isn't much to say but today I'm going into the Leprosy colonies to wash hands and feet so I'll have lots of pictures and tons to say later today!! If my posts are really delayed I'm sorry!! Last session the power went out for 5 days straight!

Silly girls

Play time!