Fishy Water

Because we're still working on getting enough outfits and supplies, we've come to the city more often than will be the norm later in the semester. That means more frequent internet access!I've moved from the big city down to the village where I'll be staying for the next few months. We're staying with an LDS Indian family.

When we arrived in the village, on bus, from the nearby city, school had just let out, and all the children ran toward us, yelling "Hello, what's your name?' Interestingly, the next question was always "What's your father's name" followed immediately by "And your mother's name?" I still don't know why.

The children are all adorable! many of the girls in the village wear anklets around both feet, with little bells that jingle at every step. We've been told this is a symbol of being conservative. I've decided that my little girls will wear bells around their ankles.

When we got to Matthew and Jeeva's (our host and hostess), a few of the children tagged along with us. One of the little girls was actually the daughter (named Priya). The girls stayed and sang and danced some Tamil songs for us (Tamil is actually the language spoken in this state). They were so cute! And already so graceful! It must be a genetic thing...

The host family has three rooms and a small ktichen, all in a line, with a veranda down one length. outside the veranda is a small courtyard, and the outhouse/shower is on the other side. the room on the far end is reserved for field study students, so we crashed there for the night...on the concrete floor, with our little (very thin) mats. sleeping here will take some gettng used to. however, today I did go buy a pillow (which will helpa LOT) and a blanket. At night, the fan blows very hard, and it gets chilly, but without the fan it's too stuffy...so we all bought blankets.

Not much else has happened that's so new. The city here ismuch cleaner than the last big city (I was in chennai, now I'm inCoimbatore). It's still VERY hot and VERY humid, but in chennai, there was MUCH more smog, and every day, at the end of the day, we would have to clean off a rather thick layer of scum from our skin. Here, we don't get quite so dirty by just walking around. the majority of what we wash off is just our own sweat.

Washing! Washing is an experience. Oh...yeah...they use squatty potties here. I think of EVERYTHING in Japan, that was the one thing more than all else that I was not sad to say goodbye to. ...they're back. For a full three months.I'm also showering with a bucket. Oh! And we get the water for our showers from a large tank/bathtub thing that we fill whenever we can. and fish live in the tank. It's quite interesting to be scooping out water to use for cleansing purposes, while watching the fish swim around in there. they're really pretty fish! They keep the water clean by eating anything that would grow in it.