Beauty

September 21, 2008

When I woke up this morning my back was so sore from sleeping on the hard floor all night.  I was tired but happy to get up off of the floor.  It was 8:00am and it was already so hot.  It was going to be another long day.  After breakfast Manjula brought us out into their field to show us what her family does to make a living.  They rely on agriculture to get by.  All of the women were out working in the fields and I didn’t see any men around.  It seemed really strange to me.  Where were they?  The women welcomed us.  We looked at all of the plants and smelled the flowers.  It was really beautiful out there.  We stood under coconut trees and watched the women work.  Manjula gave each of us a coconut with the top cut off and told us to drink it.  It was awful but I didn’t want to be rude so I started to drink.  She must have thought that I really liked it so she poured some more into my coconut.  Holy crap!  Once I was done with my second coconut we left to have some lunch.  The food is absolutely gross at this home stay. 

Manjula wanted us to see more of the area so we got onto motorbikes and rode down to her parent’s house.  I was so scared to be on the back of one of those things.  I was so nervous that I was going to fall off.  Thankfully, I did not have that problem.  We arrived at a grass roof house.  I knew that we were definitely in a poor area.  We walked around their land.  Two small boys followed us around the property.  Manjula told us that we had “fans.”  They were so excited to have us.  We were served tea.  Of course boiling hot tea is the first thing that I want to drink in 100-degree heat.  We always get tea no matter how hot it is outside.  Its kind of like being boiled from the inside out.  We had one more stop to make before dinner so we headed out.  We drove to a nearby temple.  The small temple was on top of a big pile of rocks so we had to climb to the top.  It was so amazing.  From the top we could see for miles around and get a really good look at the area.  Manjula was so nervous that we were going to fall or something.  There was really only one way to get to the top because the sides were pretty much straight down the rock wall.  This was a religious experience for me even though I was at a Hindu temple.  From this temple, I looked out at God’s creation and thought that it was beautiful.  For the first time in Talmin Nadu I felt really happy.  I sat down to pray.  I thanked God for giving the opportunity to see this remote part of the world that most Americans will never lay their eyes on.  I thought about how lucky I am to experience so many new things, and thanked God for bringing me here safely.  I put 10 rupees (about 20 cents) in the offering plate and was happy to do it.  After an hour, we walked back down the hill and went back to Manjula’s house.