On Friday we left bright and early at 7 to travel to the Tiruvallure area. Being "city slickers" in Chennai ;) it was fun to see more rural areas of the country. Cows, goats, chickens, and dogs abounded and roamed around just as people back home have been asking me about. I saw a monkey for the first time time since we got here - it was climbing up a wire and on to the top of a gas station. (Little did I know I would be seeing many more monkeys the next day...but that's another story!)
After dropping Matt off to go to his pastor meeting, our driver stopped to get Andrew an Indian breakfast food called poori. (Vanessa and I weren't hungry). Andrew really enjoyed it and afterwards our driver stopped the car, rolled down the window, and told Andrew to toss the newspaper wrapper out the window. Andrew threw it to the side of the road to be joined with the rest of the litter there and our driver said, "Simple, right?" To which we Americans could only smile and glance at each other. Throwing trash on the ground is something I don't think we'll get used to. Several times we have had people put our trash from the car on the ground, and we keep scooping it up to take home with us to throw it in a dumpster. Definitely a cultural difference that I think provides amusement on both sides. :)
We got to the church we would be painting and learned we would be painting the outside yellow. Thankfully our driver stayed for awhile to translate the instructions, though the pastor and a few others spoke some English too. We only had a few paint brushes so while we painted, the men and teenage boys stood around and watched us. Since they were talking in Tamil, we didn't know what they were saying. So it was an interesting experience to be stared at while you work. But they were also very eager to be helpful and kept wanting to hold the paint buckets for us and they kept advising me of how to avoid getting my foot caught in some debris that was on the ground. While painting a window that's designed with holes in it to let the sun through (I can't think of the words to describe it...lattice comes to mind, but that's not quite it),
a couple of the younger guys were inside the church holding their cell phones to the window and trying to sneak some snapshots of me. The older men behind me would yell "Hey!" and scold them playfully. I just smiled and tried to keep working despite my mischievous paparazzi. :)
The sun got very hot and bright at one point and so I went to get my sun glasses, which caused a bit of a stir as I heard the men/boys laughing and saying "Sun glasses." The "Wet Ones" wipes that I took out for us to wipe the paint off our skin also intrigued some of them and I heard the word "washing" mixed in with their language. I offered some wipes to them but they all smiled and refused. Andrew, Vanessa, and I took a break to eat Subway sandwiches we had packed for lunch. They rolled out a mat for us to sit on and then asked if we would like to see "pictures." We said sure, expecting to be handed some photos or drawings to look at. But instead, they turned on a Tom and Jerry cartoon on the computer in the church. So we munched our subs while watching Tom and Jerry. Then they showed Andrew a list of Jesus movies and when he said that he has seen Passion of the Christ, they had us watch some of that too. After awhile, we decided we wanted to go back out and finish painting but told them it had been a very nice break. :)
But when we got out we discovered someone had finished the rest of the wall. So we asked if we could walk around the village. Vanessa was asking about the different plants and trees. They had us taste a leaf that they said was medicine for your stomach. It is funny though because as our "tour guide" tasted it, he made all these faces like it tasted bad, and then he urged us to try it. V and I thought it just tasted like a typical leaf, until a few minutes later when an intense aftertaste showed up. There were palm trees that looked like they had coconuts on them, but we learned it as actually a fruit called nungu. They told us it is very cooling for the body,and one of them went to a tree and chopped a bunch down, sliced them open and shared them with us and some boys that had gathered. The fruit is clear with a jelly-like texture and sort of very mild watery, melon taste. We were so thirsty we sucked and slurped and picked that fruit out of its shell eagerly. When Matt returned from teaching he didn't find the fruit quite as appealing as we had after painting in the sun all day. :) We put a second coat of paint on with Matt's help after that.
Before we left, a woman came over and pinned some orange flowers in my hair. Many Indian women pin flowers in their braids and I had been admiring them all week, so I was so excited to receive such a precious gift of kindness. I wore them with gladness and was sad to have to take them out before bed.
Eventually the time came around for us to travel to a different church to teach VBS. This church was quite big and we taught from a stage while the kids sat on the floor below, girls on one side and boys on the other. There was a particular little girl there in a bright green skirt similar to the shade I had been wearing that night. She caught my attention as she kept playing with her red and gold scarf that was supposed to be used to cover her head when praying. It is so neat to watch the children pray,as they all sit up on their knees with hands folded in front and heads bowed in unison.
We met the church's Sunday School teacher who is a gorgeous young woman who seems to have a very kind and gentle spirit. The kids were getting fidgety before we started so she led them in some very active songs and dances that looked like so much fun. I am sad I didn't know the words and forgot to ask someone to translate afterwards.
Andrew and Vanessa discovered that they both forgot their teaching posters, but the Holy Spirit worked through them and gave them just the right words to say and they improvised wonderfully! And Matt decided to recreate the toothbrush special effect, only this time he threw a handful of brushes into the "crowd" which caused such a chaotic frenzy and stampede of children that I don't know if we'll be repeating it again. ;)
It rained again and traffic was even worse that night...We were all so relieved when we finally made it back to the apartment and could sleep!
We learned that Saturday would be another morning of painting and teaching, but it also turned out to be a chance for some fun sight seeing which I will write about soon!
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