Puja

Puja is worship in Hindi.
One of the teachers at the school has a skin disease that western medicine has been unable to treat. Therefore, here they believe it's an evil spirit and the only way to healing is through puja. Also as I have mentioned the monsoon isn't strong and there are a lot of wells drying up. So 2 days ago, because of these two reasons there was a 28 hour long puja at the Hindu temple at our school. There are no sound laws in India so they set up enormous speakers that blasted the sound of the puja out, you could hear it far away.

It started at 11:00 am Thursday and about 30 people gathered in the temple as sang mantras, and read scripture and played music in the temple while screaming into the microphones. Other people stayed outside waiting their turn or joining in. Since it went all night we prepared dinner for maybe 70 people (that's a lot of chapati and churry!) it took hours to prepare and serve. the hostel boys did most of the work and never complained. they also served themselves last and ate at 11:45 p.m. Most of the people, including many students stayed up all night praying and singing. They prayed all through school on Friday then in the afternoon around 2 pm a Brahmin priest came and performed a ceremony for Negendra with fire and chanting. It hadn't rained in a week and right as the 27 puja ended it not only rained for almost all day and night but the temperature dropped 10-15 degrees for a couple days. It's something I can type up simply but never fully describe the sounds and smells and feeling of the school during the puja. They said they have never performed puja and it not rain. Kind of crazy. I think a lot of people think hinduism is a lot of superstions but i'm starting to see that these people have MORE faith that God can provide than most Christians I know. All in all it was an very interesting experience to say the very least.
Tonight I am going to visit a school about 5 hours away. It's supposed to be really beautiful with a lot of mountains so I'm excited I will stay their one and a half days. I will be playing games with the villiage children and planning a mural to paint at the school. It's also the same school Vipin and myself at starting the sewing project at so I am excited to meet his wife, who will head up the project.
In other news Cole (the cat) got himself in big trouble because he spilled all the dood (milk) that Kesav and Vivek bought with their own money. They have been cursing Cole all day and night for knocking over their milk. It took them weeks to save the money so they cried when it was dripping from the bed on the dirty floor.