Only In India

Here is a new and better address (use it instead):
Universal education school
Alice project
Ghurohoopur, singhpur sarnath -varanasi
State-uttar pradesh
pin code-221007

Friday was great because it was a holiday for some Hindu god, Krishna maybe? Who knows there are like 300,000,000 so one of the important ones I guess. The goddess had something to do with children so they got out of school. In the afternoon a bunch of us gathered in the temple at the Project (there are two: one for Hindus and one for Buddhist, and there is a huge statue of Mary and Jesus in a glass case right in front of the shrine for Buddha, so who really knows what's going on?) Anyways I was cracking up all afternoon because I got to watch 16 guys attempt and reattempt to set up the perfect shrine for Krishna. It was hilarious! First of all other than artists men don't have the best sense of aesthetics and decorating. So first they set up this tiny table with a golden statue of the god and put a flower by her. They lit incense and then decided that this was a sucky shrine so they got a little bit bigger table and added some more statues and flowers and two spots for incense. Still not good enough...not even kidding 2 hour, 5 tables,11 different sized an colored silk cloths later this is what they came up with: It's a large table one foot from the ground with 4 spots of incense and lots of statues and huge necklaces of flowers strung together. They went into town and bought some Christmasy tinsel and glitter and balloons and what looks like birthday streamers. They hung these all around inside the temple and around the shrine until it was definitely a fire hazard. Okay so that's not good enough, so then they go into storage and get a huge trash bag of these manky old smelly stuffed animals, and army men, and McDonald's toys and arranged these ever so carefully around everything else. My favorite was the stuffed Santa Claus hanging from the ceiling. For the final, final, final touch obviously some blinking Christmas lights were used all around the Shrine until the whole scene looked like some Bollywood version of Christmas Vacation. Amazing. The best part was the Buddhist student Boom was sad that in comparison the Buddha statue looked boring so he found some lime green rope lights and swirled them around him. HAHA! No one understood why I thought it was so funny. They were 100% serious about how freaking beautiful it was and that made everything better.
Then from 5:00 pm to midnight the boys who live at the school had a huge dance party playing the same few technoy-Indian-discoy songs over and over. It was SOOOO LOUD! I felt like I was back at Bungalow 6 in Ecuador. I was talking to Cameron on the phone and had to walk at least 200 feet away and close the library door before I could hear anything. So I discovered that Akash is such a good dancer! People were giving him rupees because he was so entertaining. He would go up the the speaker and act like it was a girl and bow to it, then pretend to dance with it and blow kisses why he was dancing. All the boys were really good dancers though, I think it's from watching too many Bollywood films. After a bunch of "Aunti Aunti, you dance! I show you! You dance! I teach!" I couldn't say no and I tried my best, which in comparison was dismal but the pictures are still framed so at least none of you can judge me. I laughed so incredibly much that night, mainly at Akash and No'rbu being hilarious break dancers right in front of this crazy Krishna shrine thing.
Then Saturday was the Indian Independence from England (1947 I think.) The students and a bunch of the community came and watched as several students sing and Do dance reenactments of certain events. They dressed in beautiful colored sarees adorned with henna on their hands and feet and jewelry all over their faces. That night was the t.v. premiere of Slumdog Millionaire (Slumdog Coltapati) and twenty five of us made green cheesy curry and watched. Earlier that day Rajeesh and Devendra were walking to Sarnath to buy sweets for the boys because of slumdog and the festival but got caught in a huge monsoon. We had to huddle with many others under the shelter of a tea shop till the rain was walkable.
So I really need to de-spider my room but I'm so afraid to try and move or kill the spiders because they are really jumpy and stealthy. Until last night we have had an agreement about me now smashing their webs as long as they don't get of their webs. Today the 2 biggest broke the deal and now I'm all about revenge...as soon as I get a really long stick and some guts to do it.
I'm working on getting some pictures of the dance party and festival up soon!
Namaste. Goodbye.
Pedimilanghe. Goodnight.
Subrahtre. Talk to you later.
http://http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2230/2221993428_4efc9f090a.jpg?v=0