"Vanacome"

That is definitely NOT the correct spelling, but it is how you say "good morning" in Tamil, the language most people speak in Kodaikanal. So, it's been a while since my last real post. I'm happy to report that this last week was very good :) I was able to teach, hang out with even more staff members, partake in a couple awesome afterschool activities, and I survived Pongal.... let's start there first, shall we?

So Pongal is a 3-day holiday that celebrates the beginning of the harvest season in India. This is not a small holiday. People (everyone but KIS because it's an international school) get these days off from school and work. The first day is dedicated for worshiping the sun god and eating lots of food. The second day is for giving thanks to cows because they plow the fields. Finally, the third day is where people visit family and friends and take time to just be together in the community. Ultimately all this meant for Mariah and myself was WAY more people in Kodai that aren't used to seeing Americans, and trying sugar cane for the first time.

Sugar cane.... the weirdest thing I've ever eaten. Once a year, they bus raw sugar cane stalks from the plains up to Kodai. The kids in my class LOVE this stuff! Like at lunch, they had 3 stalks of sugar cane and a small scoop of rice.... that's it. Anyways, eating sugar cane was bizarre! First of all, you have to peel the black bark stuff off using your teeth. This exposes the actual "meat" of the stalk. From here you have to gnaw off chunks (picture a dog chewing a bone) which you then chew and suck the juices out of, and spit out the rest. It was so weird!! So, so weird! It wasn't as sweet as I was expecting, and way juicier. It actually reminded me of eating an apple a little bit. Point of the story: I'm glad I did it, but won't be doing it again anytime soon! (it is supposed to be very good for your teeth though)

So after sugar cane, and Pongal things quieted down (sort of). It's never really quiet here, ever! But there were so many buses and people from the plains who were spending their holiday in Kodai to escape the crazy hot weather for a few days. Apparently that was nothing compared to "tourist season" in April. The other staff members were saying that there are so many people trying to get away from the 110 degree weather of the plains that the entire road up to Kodai is just a giant traffic jam... have I mentioned how much I am NOT looking forward to that?

Ugh these posts always take more time than I think they will, so I never get to say as much as I want. So very quickly let me just say that this last week I was able to teach 3 full lessons by myself, and then stepped in to co-teach with Ms Nandini multiple times throughout the day. It has been so good this week to finally get the structure of school back in my schedule. This entire last week has been all "up" days which has been so encouraging after my first week here. So much of that has to do with the fact that my official student teaching time is counting down.... only 15 weeks to go! But I think it also has to do with some of the activities I've done this last week that were outside of school. For instance, on Wednesday Mariah and I went to a staff dance class :) It was such a blast!! 2.5 hours of eastcoast swing and salsa dancing lessons! I am so looking forward to Wednesdays now! Also, we went to a women's bible study at my university supervisors house on Thursday that gave me the opportunity to socialize with some of the other staff members that I hadn't yet had the chance to.

Alright, it's officially dark out, and it's starting to get very cold! Someday I will be better at this blogging stuff and actually post one that has all the details, but apparently today is not that day! Hopefully I'll post again before next weekend, but if not, I'll make sure to include many more details! Thanks for the continual thoughts and prayers, they're well-recieved. Miss you all!