First Day at School

Namaste,

Today was the first real day of our trip. After the fourteen hour plane ride and the twelve hour train ride to Lucknow, we were finally able to catch up on sleep and actually finction in the morning. In the morning, Jane, Ella, Taylor, and I had tea and learned about the prayer rituals in India. We learned about the 80,000 gods that are worshipped in India. They are all different reincarnations of the Trinity of gods (almost like in Christianity) they are Vishnu(The Sustainer), Shiv(the Destroyer), Brahma(The Father). Many different people may worship these different gods or their reincarnations. Some of the reincarnations are Krishna, who deals with music and art, their is also the Monkey God, who was a protector of a reincarnation of Vishnu. There is a section in the house where shoes are not allowed and it is used for prayer to the gods. The gods are bathed in milk in the morning and dressed in different clothing everyday and they have their own individual beds and sleeping areas. You must shower before you enter the prayer room and pray with the gods. When you are finished, you lay them back in their respective areas to go back to sleep. We also learned about another reincarnation of a god in the form of a plant. It is asacred basil plant that is used for medicinal purposes and also for prayer. Each god also has a female counterpart. They believe that sex, fanily, and women's roles are very important. Their are goddesses that are reincarnations of the Trinity of gods. There is the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, who is the wife of Vishnu. After leaning about the different gods, we had brekfast and discussed our plans for the school. We decided to paint a mural on the outside of the school. Ewach student will get their own square to paint their own masterpiece. In the center will be a circle with know-the-ledge and handprints bordering that symbol.We discussed bead making and other atcivities at the school. We traveled to the school using rikshas which were small carts connected to bicycles. Driving in India is very different from America and slightly scary. There are not many traffic lights and they are no traffic signs or rules of the roads. There is no speeding limit and courtesy space between cars. Most of the soudns you hear in INdia are populated with the horns of the cars. When we arrived at the school we were welcomed with many songs and dances from the students at the school. Some of the songs said they were proud to welcome us to the schools and the skies and heavens were joyous because we were vistors. They girls were dressed in vibrant beautiful sarees of all different colors. They also had on beautiful jewelry and vibrant personalities to match. Some of the girls were even the same age as Taylor,14, and were shocked to find out they were the same age. They boys played soccer with Zubin and Grant and Kevin and they loved kicking around the ball. It was one of the highlights of the day to see how excited they were to play with the soccer ball. At the end of the day, one of the kids hids the ball to hold for himself for later. We spoke to the in English and surprisngly the language barrier was not very difficult to overcome some of the older students spoke some English and it became easier to communitcate with them. They were all very sophisticated. Today we learned to say hello-namaste, my name is-mira nam hey, what is your name-apake nam kya hey, and the numbers from 1-12. The girls along with their sarees had gorgeous names to match their faces, Kiran, Lakshmi, Priyanka, and Rubina just to name a few. After working in the school, we went shopping for sarees and other traditional India clothing. The prices for the clothing was very inexpeniseve in American dollars. Most of the girls bought sarees and scarfs to bring back and wear at school. After shopping, we went back to the house and everyone was so exhausted that ms=ost of us just went to sleep. Some stayed up to play UNO and hearts. We are all really excited to really get to know the kids in the few days we have left.


Sincerely,

Imani