Molly and I BASICALLY own this town now!...WHAT NOW KIRSHNA??!

So our program really wanted to take us to the main temple of their god krishna, therefore we went to go see it on Saturday with Rekaji (our homestay coordinator) and Cathy (a women from the US that has done a lot of work here in the US). It was quite the experience and I am sure that there is more to come because they are crazy about all their gods here and there are temples EVERYWHERE!!...and they look like anything from a shack to a HUGE WHITE building. As we entered the temple we of course had to take our shoes off…the majority of the women had their heads covered (we did not) and everyone was crowded up against the fence that was in front of the god. We went at a specific time to see the “unveiling” of the god, which happens 7 times a day, and it provides an opportunity to see krishna and for krishna to see you. I was thinking of Christianity in comparison to this and it made me realize how amazingly great it is that we have 24/7 access to God Almighty and that we do not have to travel to a temple and complete rituals in order to see our God. So when we walked in there was LOUD Hindu music being played (some specific song) and then gongs were continually hit for the 15 minutes of the revealing of the god. There are two curtains and so they SLOWLY open each and the audience gets REALLY excited and everyone pushes you towards the god and you are up against the body in front of you and in back of you. They start chanting and when the priest puts the torch thing towards the audience then everyone lifts their hands up into the air and swoop the presence of krishna on them. After we stood there for like 8 minutes (TOO long in my opinion) and I had a headache from the continuous gongs we walked around the god and left. Let me just say that it was quite the experience.

From there Molly and I took a rickshaw by ourselves to go to lunch…we wanted to go out to lunch so that we did not have to have yellow vegetables and chapatti again. We found the restaurant easily… the food was exceptional. I was able to get my FAVORITE dish (paneer butter masala) and cheese nan with a sprite. We also walked around this part of the city to try and find a DHL place that we had read about in one of our guide books…SUPRISINGLY we were able to find it AND an ATM that actually works with our cards. Then we headed back to our home in which we had to describe to the rickshaw driver where to go and he went the wrong way at first but I was able to correct him…so we ACTUALLY made it home. Overall our Saturday was a success!! Hence why I say that we now own this city!

On Sunday Molly and I visited another temple that is like a 3 minute walk from our house with our maid’s daughter Shefali. It is huge and white!!...so it is commonly known as the white temple. This experience was a little less intense as the last one. The building itself was VERY impressive, A LOT more impressive then the other one that we visited. We did the same thing as last time…walked to the idol and walked around it and then left. The other visit took about 20 minutes this one was only like 5 minutes. Before we went into the temple we had to take our shoes off (like we had done the previous time)..BUT this time when we went back to get our shoes they asked us for 2 rupees!!...and we brought NO money...NONE!...not even an American penny…so we were stuck...we could not just grab our shoes and run because there were guards EVERYWHERE and its pretty easy to spot two white girls in a crowd here. Then a kind man who barely spoke English (I guess he could tell by our facial expression that we did not have money) kindly paid for us!!...he was our SHOE HERO!( just so you know 2 rupees is .8 of a penny…so a penny would have been convenient!)

Later in the day, Shefali brought her friend over, Agana, to do Henna on our hands. It was very fun. All four of us hung out for a few hours and played cards and took pictures and laughed. They know a decent amount of English so we can talk to them. I LOVED hanging out with them and I hope that it made them feel more comfortable with us. O MAN…funny story!...We had told Shefali that we wanted her to teach us how to dance, so she started talking about dancing and her and Agana showed us one of their dances and then asked Molly and I to show us one of OUR dances? THERE IS NOT A SINGLE DANCE THAT COULD MATCH THEIR DANCE!...Molly and I sat there trying to figure out what dance we could possibly do…ANY IDEAS? Yeah well we busted out the good ol’ electric slide!...haha. It was boring and they were not nearly as impressed as we were with their dance…but WHY should they be? HAHA.

For dinner on Sunday we went to some religious dinner with our parents. I guess there was tons of food but I did not see it and we were told that there was going to be tons of people but there were probably like 40. Basically I had the wrong idea in my mind when I thought of this dinner…but it was good food. They said that it was traditional Rajasthan food, so that was the first time that we had experienced that type of food…AND we ate exactly what the Indians were eating. They did NOT make any special type that was less spicy for the AMERICANS. I liked that.

Sunday night I slept the WHOLE night without waking up!!! (that’s a first!) With all that said, I am adjusting and learning. I will be Indian in no time! (minus the hindu).

love you guys!