Last night I saw a praying mantis. It was life changing-ly gross.
There was the hugest storm last night. Quinn and I woke up because the lightening was lighting up our room. It rained so hard and was so windy. I have never seen anything like it. My flip flops ended up in the backyard with the cows and Buffy the Buffalo. Crazy town. While Quinn was looking for her flip flops, she found a bird hatching out of its egg! It was under some bamboo. We found the nest and Pankaj put the bird back in it.
We went to work at seven. It was my group and we had fun. Because of the storm, the camp's power has been out since this morning. There are no showers or laundry or Internet. There are no fans, which is the big killer. It's forty plus degrees. We're slowly dying - not actually.
The birds in the dining room are these grey fluff balls! They hop around! Eek! We saw one of them fly for the first time! I am so at one with nature.
Madan gave us a lesson on Hinduism. Hindus believe in a supreme soul, karma, gods and goddesses, and rebirth. People who currently have a poor life, Hindus believe it is because they did something bad in their past life (and vice versa with doing something good). I like when Madan says that you can still be a devoted Hindu even if you do not go to temple everyday. There are eighty four thousand rebirths before you become a human again. So if you are, you're lucky.
I forgot to mention some things about our trip to Banjara Basti yesterday. The little girl with the broken arm got her cast off! Also we learned that the boys who have yellow and brown teeth are because they chew tobacco. They're kids. That shouldn't happen.
We played cards this afternoon. The aces are e's and the jacks are d's, representing their Hindi names. I won, obviously. I painted Vic's nails. Immediately regretted that one (my nail polish melted). I tried to get people to play Big Booty. To no avail :(. Roni and I went on a walk waiting for dinner. We saw lots of children that came and talked to us. We peaced the scene when a huge buffalo came walking down the street toward us.
The women cooked dinner by candle light! We had to sleep on the roof because of the heat due to not having fans. We hauled all the mats up from the common room. The stars were beautiful; we found the big and little dipper.
We DEETed it up (insect repellant with strong deet). Hard. The Youth Touch fam slept outside too. They actually do it a lot in the summer months.
After about four hours (two AM) Vic woke up to thunder. Ten minutes later, the storm rolled in, just like the night previous. The family helped us move into the basement, where it is coolest.
The power is still not on.
Tomorrow we leave for Udaipur on a night train! It's dubbed the Venice of India.
Torry Harris
DWC Student Team Leader
Sikar, India: May 2012
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