First of all, sorry for the long wait! We landed in India yesterday night and so far it has been INCREDIBLE (to say the least). We needed some time to soak up and process our first impressions and experiences before we were ready to get in front of a computerscreen. For now, there is just too much to talk about and we feel like we want to give you tons of pictures and videos so you could see it for yourself, but there is just too much to see. If only it was possible to make photographs by blinking with our eyes; every 2 seconds you see and experience something amazing. The culture, the people, the cows, the temples, the palms, the crazy traffic and rickshaws, the dogs and kids, the very poor people living on the street, the rich people, the ocean, our new friends…and then there is still sound, music and smells.. We’re in the process of getting internet for ourselves to show you photo’s, for now it’s just text. Here’s a little story from what happened when we arrived.
Arrival
We landed in Chennai after 12 hours of flying. Our flight was pretty cool, with sweet modern display where we could watch Adventure Time (one of our favourite shows) and other tv’s shows and movies..not too shabby! We arrived in the middle of the night and then we got our first real culture shock. India turned out to be very hot, very hot…the type of 25-30 degrees hot. When we walked out of the airport there were hundreds of taxi drivers but we had our own waiting for us. We got into the car and couldn’t believe what we saw. The traffic was crazy and there are so many people, everywhere! We drove for 6 hours in the middle of the night to Aurobeach through lush palm forests and through small towns, while seeing crazy things on the streets.. small abandoned kids making fires, holy cows, a lot of scarey looking stray dogs barking at our car, homeless persons just sleeping and surviving in the middle of nowhere…not a pretty sight. India has a social casting (class) system and it’s still pretty visible… It’s quite difficult to encounter people begging and sleeping on the road. We feel very rich here, and we are. Our taxi driver only received 4 euro for a 6 hour work, and that’s still a wealthy position for Indian people, we gave him double his salary as a tip which made him extremely happy. We stopped at a local house for some Chai for 10 cents and went to our new house where we met our new friends.
Our place
We’re sleeping in an appartment in Aurobeach at Senthil’s place, our host. He lives with his wife Kerran and his baby across the street where he has a small travel agency. We are always welcome and he has other Danish and Dutch volunteers living above him. We live above another familie’s house (friends of Senthil’s) with our new roommate Maya. We have our own kitchen and shower and roof-top-chillout/party place/awesome lounge. Senthil, Kerrin and the other Indian hosts are extremely helpful and kind in every way. Their kids are super cute as well. Senthil showed us around the first day where we toured around Auroville and Aurobeach on his motorbike with the three of us…..Steffie almost pooped her panties. It’s crazy here. Amazing nature, great beach, great shops, restaurants and markets.There was a Cyclone earlier this month ad the damage is very visible still. However,everything is still very beautiful. We have a temple next to our house and we can see the beach from our rooftop.
Today we walked around in the city of Pondicherry, a French colonial city with amazing architecture, but we’ll talk about that later because that’s a whole story on itself.
For now we’ll be off for some more adventures and we’ll keep you posted on them as soon as our internet is all set! The day after tomorrow we are going to work for Anbalayam, an orphanage in Pondicherry. We are also going to work for a gypsy family near the airport, who appearently live on a garbage dump…heavy stuff. Keep you posted.
Question of today, which we want YOU to answer: We have had multiple persons coming up to us already asking us for money. Even small childeren and handicapped people come up to us because in their opinion, we are the 'rich white folk' who have money to spend freely. What would you do, give?
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