Cows and Parades

Hey Y'all,
  We were driving down the street the other day, and we saw a cow. Yes, this is a very common occurrence, however, this cow had blue horns! I'm really not sure why they are blue, but my guess would be that it was part of a religious (most likely Hindu) ceremony. As most of you probably know, Hindu's do, in fact, worship cows, which means that it is not uncommon to see a cow that is painted or has a flower necklace around it's neck. We have even seen a cow that has a small extra appendage growing out of it's back! If one were to pay a certain amount of Indian Rupees, then one could touch it.
   Last week, we were just sitting in out flat, minding our own business, when we suddenly heard loud music down on the street. When we heard the commotion, we all went outside to see what was going on. Even our house-helper, Kamakshi, joined us on the balcony. It was an all-girl parade in celebration of National Youth Day.  The parade consisted of hundreds of school girls, all in bright, white, freshly cleaned and pressed uniforms. This picture (look left) is of one of the schools' marching bands.

Thanks for reading!
-Birdie

Going to the Willage

Hey Y'all,
    Yes, I know, it's been forever, but I was on vacation. Thus, I didn't write anything. Anyways, the two most exciting things that has happened in the past few weeks was The Hobbit coming out (which, the majority of you could careless about), and going out the "The Willage" or Village as most of you would call it.
     Now, about the Village. Our language teacher, Kavitha (Ka-vee-ta), invited us and another American family out to a village for a church's Christmas Celebration. Now, I say "a church" because Kavitha's husband is the pastor of 5 churches, and one of the five was in this particular village that we went to.
     The drive was about an hour and a half long, which is a rather short time for getting somewhere in India. Ok, so, I'm going to attempt to describe to you what driving in India is like. Driving, or even riding, in a vehicle in India can only be described as a battle scene in Lord of the Rings. Nobody know what's going on, or who's doing what. All anybody know is that there's 5 million other people all trying to go different ways at the same time. On top of that, there's always someone going the opposite way of what they're supposed to be going.
     As soon as we got there, we, of course, asked Kavitha's husband where the bathroom was. When we asked him he just kind of looked around as if he was thinking,"What are these cray-cray white people talking about? The bathroom is all around them!!" I think that now would be a opportune time to note that Indian people will use the bathroom pretty much anywhere, one of their favorite places being the side of the road. (btw, not big potty, only little potty.) Turned out that the nearest bathroom was a 10 minute stroll away, which would have been a different willage.
      When the celebration started, us white people were instructed to go sit at the front of the tent, where chairs and tables were set up, and face the church, who were all squatting on the ground. Needless to say, it was a slightly awkward feeling. Close to the front, were all of the children. There were probably about 30 of them. Every time I would see one of the staring at me (staring is not considered rude here) I would smile, but only one of them would ever smile back. 'Twas quite strange to be perfectly honest.
      I have learned that with any Indian celebration, there must be music. The music at this celebration was all in Kannada, so I didn't understand a word of it. On the other hand, some of the musical instruments were quite interesting. There was a Tambourine, a Djimba looking thing, and a brass pot. The man playing the brass pot had these metal rings on his fingers that he was hitting against it. I'm going to note that when we arrived, I was hoping the the God I worshipped would be there. I was thrilled when I felt his presence in that tent, even though I couldn't understand anything that anyone was saying.
     After the celebration was over, we all ate lunch. They put us white people in a small building where the church services are usually held. The lunch consisted of Chicken Biryiani (Sort of like spicy chicken Jambalaya), Vegetable something or other (which was closest to a veggie Jambalaya), and Chicken Kabab (Drumettes done rotisserie style). By leaving food on out plates, we indicated that we were then full. We were then served dessert, which consisted of fresh fruit, showing us that they had spared no expense in serving us. After the meal, the celebration was officially over, so good-byes were spoken, which exhausted our knowledge of Kannada.
     As we pulled away, trying to avoid getting lost in pot-holes, we successfully located a restaurant where we exchanged the price of a few sodas for use of the Squaty-Potty. Afterwards, I drifted into a food coma while my Father-Dearest wrestled with the ridiculous roads of India.
  -Birdie

P.S. I thought that when we left the states, I escape all the annoying music. However, while we were sitting in a restaurant a few weeks ago, the nauseating, high-pitched, auto-tuned voice of J.B. (I'm sure even you homeschoolers are smart enough to figure this one out) attacked my ears.