another on India

hello, its 9:15pm here and i'm sitting in bed. i got back on the ship around 5 because i just didnt feel like dealing with the indian rickshaw drivers anymore. they are everywhere and want to take you anywhere, even 100 feet away. today i went to the post office to buy stamps and then i went to the internet cafe where i went on for 2.5 hours and it only cost me 50rupees ~ slightly more than a $1. both of these places were within walking distance so i didnt have to deal w/ the crazy rickshaw drivers as much.

this has nothing to do w/ today's events but anna was flipping through the tv station because when we are in port we get a few of the local stations. apparently abc is the popular station in india and for some reason the superbowl from last year that the steeler's played and won was being aired. i'm not sure what's up with that. another thing, prime time india announched that semester at sea would be arriving in india, so everyone in chennai was expecting us and new who we were.


my homestay was great. we arrived at the train station around 10pm and were split into 2 groups ~ a group of 14 and a group of 18 ~ i was in the smaller group in a much smaller train car than then other group had, which was nice because it was more private. ours only had 20 beds, so there were only 6 indians on our train car compared to the other group that was surrounded. we didnt sleep too much on the train just because once we finally got on we suddenly werent tired. the train arrived in erode around 7am and the 2 groups were rejoined and split into 2 more groups. this time i went with the bigger group. we were taken to our host family which was pretty wealthy. the daughter inlaw ~ Purdi ~ said that the house itself was roughly 3/4 acres big, though it used to be 1 acre. after having the best tea i've ever drank, we went on a tour of the farm and then to the local elementary school. we also went on a tour of where sugar is produced from the sugar cane and where they make rope out of coconut shells. after that we went back to the house for lunch and a rest. then we went to a village market but i didnt buy anything because it was all of very poor quality. then we had dinner around 8 and sat around talking for a few hours. me and lindsay lucked out an go a bed that we shared while everyone else slept on mats on the floors.

we woke up at 6:30 and had tea again. we left around 8 to go to a school in Erode where we had breakfast. After breakfast we went to 2 temples, a weaver where i bought a few things for about $10. then we went to a school for the handicap where most of the children suffered from polio though a few others had other deformities. the polio vaccine only arrived in india 6 years ago. lunch was at 2:30 back at the school where we had breakfast. then some of the girls danced a traditional indian dance for us. then we went to a medicine factory which was kinda long and boring and then we 'meditated'. dinner was at 8 back at the school and then we back to the train station to head back to chennai. i slept pretty good on the way back though we were woken at 5am to get off the train.

everday in india has been a long one, so i have a feeling i will be sleeping in tomorrow because we have the day off from classes.