We Ate BRAINS for Dinner

Today we began our morning with another wonderful breakfast and departed for Loyola. We had three lectures today: one from Fr. Amaladoss about religions in India, one from Fr. Joe Anthony (an editor for the Jesuit's magazine here) about Indian Media, which was extremely interesting and my favorite, and one from Prof. Gutham (sociology) about Hinduism.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that Prof. Gladstone told us that Dalits (who are the Untouchable people in Hinduism) do not have last names because last names are indicative of cast. Instead, the father's first name becomes the first initial before the first name, with a middle name seeming to be the surname, but the surname does nto actually exists, even on passports.

Anyway, Prof. Guthram had an interesting concept that birth is the greatest accident to ever happen to us: we do not choose where we are born or to whom we are born, we are born where we are and that is not something we can control. There's a second half to this that I completely blanked on right now.... oh yes, so discrimination based on race or color or gender or caste is stupid because really we're all genetically/scientifically the same because we're all people (thank you Pat and Matt.)

Next we visited a history museum in the city and saw all sorts of creepy skeletons, stuffed animals, enormous elephant tusks, large fruit bats (what we saw on day 1!!). The creepy aspect came from the fact that the lights were off the entire time. Think Night at the Museum except not cool lol. Also, we saw bronze coins from the time of the British Rule in India, bronze statues of Ganesh and other Hindu gods, tons of Indian children, all of whom shook our hands and made new BFFs with Pat, and modern artwork. It was great.

Then we visited the Egmore Buddhist Monastery! We saw Bhante again like we did last year, and shared a New Year's Blessing and tea again. I just wanted to cry when I saw him - seeing a familiar face in this country is an amazing experience, and I feel so at home when I see them that I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. He is still caring for Sri Lankan refugees at his monastery, and construction for his new hostel will terminate on May 17th - the same day that celebrates 2,600 years since Buddha's Enlightenment. Yay!

We also visited a Jain temple and a Sikh temple where we had to cover our heads with bright orange bandanas and eat some sugary inundentifiable "mush to show just how respectful of other religions we are :) Next we attempted to visit a Mosque, but couldn't because of very special event going on there. Then we tried to find a Fire Temple (Parsi religion) but that was an epic fail so we just ended up at dinner.

And that's when the brains were ordered!!! Yes, seriously. Patrick ordered brains (human, sheep, pig, no one knows...) and Matt, Katherine, Stephen, all ate it! According to Matt, they were tasty and tasted like brains, kinda like jello, and melted in your mouth. I absolutely refrained from this (sorry Dad!) my goal is not to get sick!

Hannah and I shared garlic curry so we have no fear of large fruit bats tonight :)

After dinner was reflection, and tomorrow we leave to go to Loyola Secondary School in Kuppayanallur. The bus ride to the rural area is approx. 2.5 hours, so we will stay at the school in the Jesuits' residence for the next week. I'm so excited! The kids are really enthusiastic to meet us, and the most learning during the trip occurs here. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's reaction to the interaction!

I'm off to pack and head to bed - jet lag is still with us! But at least we're all still healthy :)

Love and miss you! Alicia