Bharatanatyam

When I think of dance I think of being loose and relaxed, moving in natural ways which make me feel one with the music. Bharathanatyam is a special kind of Indian classical dance which I decided early on was "just not dance". The most important thing in this dance is being able to half-sit the entire time, pointing your knees as far out as possible and stamping around. You have to hold your body as stiff as possible and keep a perfect posture. Not exactly dancing to Reggae. However, after a month of trying it out and thinking of it as more of a workout than a dance, I have decided that it is really pretty cool. Although a completely different form of dancing than I have ever even considered, I have really warmed up to it (which is the job of being an exchange student). After watching some of the graduated girls do it, it looks much more like dancing than I ever thought, and makes me want to keep going. Unfortunately, I only have another week in the South before my big month and a half in the North of India, and it takes at least seven years to learn the entire dance.

Mosquito Madness

Yesterday I was out in the colony with my friends and we hear this roaring coming from the "mosquito killer" truck which rolls through my neighborhood every few weeks blowing out thick clouds of some repellant. Last night it was so thick we couldn't even see our hands in front of us. The mosquitoes successfully pass out for a while, but I'm sure that breathing in that stuff can NOT be good for us. Remembering our sweet, clean air in mosquto-free Aspen makes me remember what a crazy, new experience I am having. 

Sickness

All the time I have recently spent under the hot sun and around sick babies has finally caught up with my immune system. Although it is no more serious than a waterfall cascading from my nose, everyone who sees me either has some remedy or some cause that they must tell me. The remedies are generally one of five or six types of pills. Indians set- in my opinion- far too much store in hospitals and doctor-prescribed medication. Where we would just wait out a common cold and drink 10 gallons of tea every day, they find the need to go to the hospital and get some medicine at the first sign of anything even slightly wrong. For high blood pressure it is essential to go on some pill or another, but there is apparently no need to increase the exercise. I have been brought up to believe that going to the doctor is like last-case-scenario, but here it's the first thing anyone does.

The cause of my cold has been diagnosed as dozens of things by dozens of people. They range from taking a shower at night to not wearing a hat in the morning (or in the sun) to not wearing shoes in the house. It's interesting to hear everyone's opinions, though. 

Education Movie

I am newly inspired to make a short film about the Indian education system. The exchange student from New York and I will begin to work on it shortly, and we are both pretty much in the dark. As complete amateurs, I'm sure we will have our share of difficulties and confusions, but we want to be able to come back to the US and show the schools we have been studying in and the education system here because it is SO different from America's. We also want to become most highly respected film makers. :)
Are there any questions in particular anyone wants answered about education in India?

My New Nursing Project

My classmates have started studying for their yearly exams which means no classes, only studying. I am not taking them, so I feel there is no point in me going to school to watch them study or draw their faces, which is what I have done the last few days I went. To counter the boredom that is sure to come with an empty day, I have been set up with the nursing school at my new fantastic host Auntie's hospital. Every day I go with the nursing students to nearby villages. I was kind of told, "here is something for you to do, make a project out of it".

I had no idea at all where to start, so I figured why not start with what vaccines babies have taken in the village, with an emphasis on Polio. However, it quickly occurred to me that all of them had had most of the necessary vaccinations. I asked the doctor of the village's primary health care center, and she said the main problems in the village were: malnutrition, diabetes, common cold, respiratory diseases, and blood pressure. I chose to focus on malnutrition of children under 5 years of age mainly because right across the street was a preschool. The doctor miss told me the very basics of malnutrition and how to test for it. She told me about the difference between protein and vitamin deficiencies, and what to look for for a deficiency of each vitamin.

I expected my little study to be me watching the nursing students see if the babies were malnourished and write down their data, but to my surprise the teacher in charge walked me over to the balvardee (preschool), explained to the teacher there what I was doing as best she could, and walked away. I was left with a measuring tape, scale (weighing machine is what they call it), and notebook. Height and weight were easy to test, provided the child was not terrified of the scale- many of the littler ones are. I also learned how to look for anemia, skin diseases, and measure a child's midarm circumference. After realizing many of them had common colds and tooth decay, I began looking for those in every child as well.

I have not really analyzed my information yet, because to be honest I don't know how. However, only one girl I noticed was severely malnourished in the whole 50-student balvardee. Many of them were only one or two kgs underweight, which is pretty normal for that age I think. I am surprised because I  assumed the percentage of malnourished kids to be way more.

I finally feel like a real doctor (my ultimate goal in academic life) and it's really amazing to be able to begin some work in India to help satiate my thirst for helping people through medicine. Ahh love it!

Pongalo Pongal!

Pongal was the most recent festival here in Coimbatore. Being a harvest festival, it is mostly popular among the villages of south India, the inhabitants of whom own or work on large rice fields or coconut plantations.

The first day of this festival is called Bhogi Pongal, and this is the time when many people clean out their homes and burn their unneeded or unwanted belongings. The reason for cleaning their homes is because it is the New Year for many Tamilians and Keralites. Most people do this every day, but during festivals every household gets out the tumeric-cow dung mixture to spread across their gateway area. After laying the base, women will then make a design using rice flower and sometimes flower petals. I am not exactly sure what it is for, but some welcoming thing for Gods.

The second day of Pongal is dedicated to the sun god for bringing light to their crops. In the morning of this day, people boil rice milk which is water that has been mixed in rice then separated, leaving it milky in color. They then add rice to make a dish called Pongal, which is a lot like oatmeal. When the Pongal boils over, the people are supposed to yell, "Pongalo Pongal!" and watch which side it spills over. If it goes to the North it will be a very prosperous year. South- not at all prosperous. East or west means the harvest will neither be great nor terrible. After it boils over, we offer the Pongal to Surya, the sun god, and then either feed cows and elephants the food or eat it ourselves. After our Pongal cooking in the morning, bullacarts came to give rides to kids around the neighborhood.

The third and last day is called Mattu Pongal, and celebrates the cattle and other animals who help farmers be successful. The cow's horns are painted and they get a day off from work, which is a rare thing on an Indian farm. On this particular day I was brought to a nearby elephant camp to feed them sugarcane and put a certain paint on their trunks. It was also an honor to stir the pongal which they were mass producing for the elephants. Our group finished the day at a Rotarian's farm house where we watched and danced with a troop of drummers and dancers all dressed up for the event. Once darkness fell, the entire group went on a long procession around the farm with drums, pots, candles, and other various pooja items.

And so concludes the three day Pongal festival. Most of the people who live in cities don't celebrate it much, but it is still a meaningful time for the farm owners and villagers. 

History Lesson (kind of)

The trinity of Gods- Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva- are the three main Gods in Hinduism. They originate from a feminine form of pure energy called Shakti. 

Lord Brahma is the creator.  Has four heads so he can see all 4 directions. He is usually depicted meditating on a lotus with his wife, Saraswathi, the Goddess of knowledge, sitting at his feet. In one of his hands he holds water to signify it's necessity in life. There are only two temples in the world for him, because he was cursed by Shiva for falling in love with his own creation- a beautiful woman. 

Lord Vishnu is the protector. His weapon is the discus. He has had nine forms, or avatars, on Earth. All of them have been born and died, explaining that all forms on Earth which are born must die. When he takes his tenth avatar, the world will end. His wife is Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Lord Vishnu lives in an ocean of milk, and his bed is a five-headed snake. 

Lord Shiva is the destroyer. He is covered in ash of the dead whose spirits he is protecting. He lives at one of the tallest areas in the Himalayas, Mt. Kailash. The Ganges flows from his head. Goddess Parvathi is his wife. Lord Shiva has a third eye which he opens only when he is angry, because it can kill anything which it touches. (Like the basalisk in Harry Potter).  The trident is his weapon. 

When women are married, their first and foremost responsibility is taking care of  their children and husbands. But they cannot do that when their third eye is open because they will be in a state of bliss and look beyond their responsibilities, hence the bindi. Bindis activate and at the same time close the third eye for women. Similarly, men wear a stripe of ash across their foreheads. Once their children are gone however, they are supposed to enter into a state of meditativeness and bliss for the rest of their lives. Of course, hardly anyone does this these days, but that is how the ancient stories go.