Mehandi and Shopping

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Yesterday, Sunday, was our free day. I slept in and went to get henna done at noon. Four of us went to the Ghandi museum after that, then I spent the rest of the day bargaining for your gifts! That evening we went to Madurai Residency Hotel to have dinner.

We got henna done in the morning at a salon. The salon was the nicest place I have been in so far on this trip. It cost 300 rupees for one arm ($6) and this is what it looks like. Uma said that is expensive. It is done with a cone shaped squeezer type thing, (like cake frosting), and just flakes off. It stains your skin and stays for about three weeks. Here, women and their wedding parties get it done for weddings ceremonies. My friend told me the application takes all day and the wedding party feeds the bride because her arms and legs are covered in henna (mehandi) and she can't move. It costs much more than mine did, and is more intricate. Also, I just talked to our doctor, Uma, and he said that we can enter a mehandi (henna) competition later this week where someone competes to do the best henna on our arms. I told him I would enter.

After the henna we started to walk to the Ghandi museum and caught a rickshaw on the way there. Four of us fit in there, with me on the sidebar. What a ride:) The Ghandi museum was fun and they had the cloth with bloodstains on it that Ghandi had died in. You had to pay to take pictures, so I didn't. When we were in there we entertained all the little kids by the color of our skin. They would follow us around and giggle. Every now and then they would get the courage to ask questions. On the way out we signed a guest book and people gathered around to see our writing. Emily and I waited outside on the steps and a group of college girls gathered around and stared at us. They walked off with their professor and one came barreling back and snapped a picture of us and ran off giggling. The classic sequence of questions/statements from little kids, mostly girls (when you are in public) is: What is your name?/How are you?, You are beautiful!, and then Coins?.... :) I have gotten told I am beautiful more times here than I have in my life. Probably just for coins! :)....

After the museum we got on a rickshaw to get back into a shopping area by the temple. We never get in without asking how much first. Then we saw no, too expensive and walk away. By the time we are walking away they drive up and offer a lower price. :) Thats just about how I bought everything yesterday. A rickshaw for a few kilometers for four people was 50 rupees, or a dollar.

We were dropped off at Jayarum Bakery, a good bakery in town. I know it because we were served food from there one day at the hospital and it was safe. It would be like a candy shop to us. There was beautiful cakes and all sorts of desserts and other things I wasn't familiar with. In the back there was cases of candy. Here, cadbury is really popular. I got a loaf of wheat bread for 20 rupees (less than 50 cents) and it is the best sliced bread I have ever eaten. The food seems to be hit or miss here. Either you puke from it or love it. Speaking of which, a lot of people in our group are sick again. They are puking/diarrhea/fevers. If they have fevers again they are going to be admitted into the hospital. Somehow, I am still feeling great. I think it might make a difference that I have been taking a multivitamin/fiber and making sure to eat plenty of cooked vegetables/ washed and peeled fruit. Who knows though. I might have just been lucky enough to have avoided a dirty plate.

These trees are everywhere. They look like a bunch of trees wrapped into one. Aren't they amazing? It is my background now, and if it is bigger you can see the goats (my friend argues that they are sheep) eating on the tree.

I have yet to see any animal fed here. They just eat whatever they come across. Not many animals are tied up and most just roam. There are cows eating from dumpsters in the city. On the way to dinner last night, there was a cow walking down the street next to a rickshaw. You can get an idea of how much is squeezed on a street by how close they are.

We went into this little basement place behind the temple where there were a lot of sewing machines. There were also a lot of fabric shops and places with very nice scarfs. They can get very expensive ($80) VERY expensive here and can be as little as $1. All of them are beautiful. I hope I picked out good ones for you all!

We normally eat on top of hotels. Here is the view of the city from it. You can see the entrances of the Meenakshi temple sticking up. Each big one sticking up is one of the entrances to the temple! Can you tell how huge it is?

Today we finished cutting out translated self breast exam cards. We showed them to Uma, the doctor, and he said to bring some to the final presentation. I said "Why, it's only going to be men there" and he said just to bring them in case they want to practice on their wives. He didn't mean for it to be funny, but we were so bored that Em and I both thought it was really funny.

We are going to go inside of the temple and we are leaving in about 1/2 hour.

Chao,

Jackie