Loving Life

"Everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it.
If it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said it would be easy,

just trust it will be worth it."

India Week

I know what you are thinking, isn't every week India week, you live in India!!! It was "India Week" at school last week. The kids participated in and attended a vaiety of different cultural activities. The week began with an assembly featuring some young girls demonstrating some traditional Indian dances. Mid week we had another assembly where the students heard some traditional music, a tabla player. By the end of the day on Wednesday everyone in the school was walking around with one stiff hand covered in henna mehndi designs. The kids loved it and once the children were dismissed you could find some of us visiting our elementary art teacher to get ours "professionally" done! It turned out great and would you believe he completed this in a minute and a half.... really, we timed it! Thursday, we visited Docshina Chetra. We, I say we because I learned about India along with the children, learned about different parts of India, the different traditional houses found around India, arts and crafts made from different parts of India, made some clay pots on a pottery wheel with help and all around had a great day full of fun! The kids and I got to ride on a bullock cart ride! They loved it, not going to lie, so did I! One of the best parts of teaching elementary school is being able to get excited like a kid again and it's ok! By Friday everyone in the school was deck out in their finest Indian garb! The children looked absolutely adorable and everyone on staff looked beautiful! During the assembly each grade performed some type of dance/skit representative of India. The third gade performed a great dance they had been hard at work practicing for the 3 weeks prior! At lunch time the students and staff were all treated to delicious Indian food! It was quite an exhausting week but full of so many fun activities.

Vadanthangal... or Bird Park

A few weeks back a group of us took a bus ride from school about 2 hours to Vadanthangal (Th is pronounced as a T). An area where there were thousands of migratory birds living around in this one area around a lake. I wasn't sure what I would see but was excited just to be getting out of the city and see a little more and a different side of India. The busy, people packed city of Chennai can be a little trying at times. I was a little hesitant to go on the trip considering we had to be at school by 6am on a Saturday to catch the bus. It was all worth it though, the bus trip wasn't too bad, sometimes the crazy driving/driver can be enough to convince you not to go on a trip here! We arrived smoothly and were surrounded by nature. There was the lake with birds on one side of our walking path and on the other the rice fields! It was a wonderful break from the reality of Chennai, the air was clean the scenery was beautiful and the company was good! I'm excited to take some more weekend adventures out of Chennai and explore more of the beauty that India has to offer! Check out more pictures here!