more, More, MORE!

Wow, so this last weekend was amazing in many ways. We celebrated the festival Onam on Friday: Legend has it that there was a great and wealthy king, named Mahabelli, who took good care of all the people in his kingdom. The god's grew jealous and one of them came down in the form of a small man. When Mahabelli noticed the little man he offered to help him and so the little man asked for 3 literal paces of land, which the king obliged him. Just then, the little man grew into a large giant, covering the whole earth with one step, the sky with another, and with the third he was going to step on Mahabelli's head, but just before he could, he granted Mahabelli a chance to come back to the earth once every year. The festival of Onam is to commemorate the return of Mahabelli, around harvest time, and to celebrate his return as a sign of prosperity.

We had a procession, ate a 26 course meal on banana leaves, and played traditional games. All the SJPD students got to serve the Bandhavi girls first before eating, which was really neat. A girl I feel especially close to, Shri Devi, fed me a banana chip as I served her, which is a sign of affection and it almost made me cry because it was such a beautiful gesture.

Then, it was time to go to the home stays for that weekend. I st

ayed with a Muslim family with the hopes of being able to fast with them during this month of Rhamadan. It was frustrating for me though because of rule #4: when Indians host you, you must eat and eat some more, even if you feel sick. I felt so yucky and tired due to jet lag...but I literally choked down some rice and dal and "skipped" off to bed. That whole weekend I felt yucky, being forced to eat and not being allowed to fast...which probably would have been very good for me. The family was very kind and hospitable, but not incredibly engaging...I also was unsure of what I could ask them about personally, and more importantly, what I couldn't ask them about. I did have a marvelous time playing with the 3 1/2 year old girl, Nashita,

and holding the beautiful little 3 moth old boy named Zahim. I was brought to a few American-looking places(Indian Target and Murices), but bought a couple Kurtahs(longer tunics you wear with pants) at a smaller shop- they are beautiful! Coming home to Visthar was amazing, and reflecting back on my home stay, it wasn't that bad, I just was too sick and culture stressed to enjoy it how I could have.

Today we all were charged with the task of hopping different buses in small groups and meeting at a large Basilica in the heart of Bangalore...Scary! The women and men enter different sides of the bus to avoid hassling

that usually takes place and they sit in their respective sides. I ended up sitting by a wonderful woman who was on the bus with her husband and twin daughters. What a blessing she was to us!

She was going to the same place as us and spoke great English so we got to know each other pretty well. When we got to our stop there were so many shops on the way to the basilica and she bought me and the other two girls in

our group our first set of bangles! I praise God for her and know that He helped me by sending her because I was super nervous about this trip and asked some friends to pray for me...He answers prayer!

At the basilica there were people lined up for 3 km and we would have had to wait a really long time to get up to the shrine, so our fearless leader told the officials were from Rome(the basilica is Roman Catholic) and they let us right up to the front. I felt devious but also kinda sad to play on the extreme prejudices of Indians. All around were little children, big children, adults who often had maimed themselves for sympathy, and many others who were begging us for money. We could not give them anything because it would encourage their begging and we should invest in good organizations that help them instead of supporting possible ring leaders in charge of the children or the adults who might use the money for drugs or who knows what else. :( It made me think of the movie "Slumdog Millionaire"

P.S.- I ate lamb brain today!!! Now that is a REALLY gross textured food MIKE!

This is what it looked like