Living and loving

Sorry for the long delay without a blog post. I have been happily busy over the last 7 days. I will give you a quick recap of my stay at Mandiram with Nicole and the goings on of this past week.

We enjoyed an amazing dinner on Friday with a fellow foreigner who befriended Nicole in Kanjakuzhy, Jameela. She was raised in London and recently lived in Barcelona for a year. It was such a joy to sit around, have girl talk and make a new friend. She is sadly leaving Kerala this week after living here for two months because of a bad living and working situation. She and her boyfriend are traveling around India for the next month and we may be able to meet up with them before we say goodbye for good. On Saturday we had, what Nicole appropriately called in her blog post, a marathon shopping day. We also went to go see the circus!!! It included some really amazing acts and one or two really bizarre ones. One included a man spitting out three LIVE fish after drinking a pitcher of water.  If any of you don't know….I am afraid of clowns. Luckily the clowns at this circus were only included in a few acts…and they were very far away from me.  Here are some of the photos!

they were incredible!

There is a lady up there!

After a lazy day on Sunday full of napping reading and toenail painting (GREAT self-care), I headed back to Buchanan. During the first part of the school week we had Exhibitions for Science, Math (which is actually called Maths here) and Social Sciences. This mainly included presentations, still models and working models. They were all very impressive. One group built a working drawbridge! Impressive.  Wednesday kicked off the start of the Youth Festival, a three day event showcasing the arts! On Wednesday the students showed off their singing abilities. On Thursday they danced a huge array of traditional dances, most of them traditional dances of Kerala specifically. The dances also represented a wide array of religious backgrounds including one traditional Hindu dance called Thiruvadira, one Muslim bridal dance called Oppana, and a few simply cultural ones. Here is an awesome photo I got during a performance of Mohiniyatam.

Today the students will do some more dancing and perform one act plays and recitation. The enthusiasm across the campus is overwhelming. With all of the special events we have had since I came, I have gotten the opportunity to learn and remember many names and even more faces.  I am feeling so loved and taken care of this week it is crazy. This environment is helping me get more in touch with myself, my gifts, and my values. It is good to be thinking more intentionally, feeling more intensely and really expressing myself more openly.  I mention the feeling more intensely part because this week I have been particularly in touch with my emotions. The time that I have to reflect on the meaning of my emotions is so precious. It is helping me learn so much about my genuine character. Never have I been so slow and gracious with myself, and never have I felt more accepting of what this person I call “me” is made of. I received a pocket copy of the New Testament yesterday. In the the front section I found a page that caught my attention. John 3:16 is copied in my pocket Bible in 26 languages including Afrikaans, Icelandic, and Sinhalese to name a few. Did you know that Bible verse John 3:16 has been translated in 1,100 languages worldwide? I know I sure didn't.  It is good to know that we can hear how much God loves this world in so many places.

“Car Dieu a tant aimé le monde qui'il a donné son Fils unique, afin que quiconque croit en lui ne périsse point, mias qu'il ait la vie éternelle.” John 3:16 (in French)