"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!