Graduation Ceremony: March 8th

performance:dancing

10th standard boarding girls who were graduating! beautiful right?

demon sari is stinkin' hot!

BAH!!! Where do I even begin!?! So this past week has been CRAZY busy! I had a test, and 5 papers due! So needless to say it didn’t leave much time to update this blog or even really keep in touch with anyone back home (my apologies!) I didn’t go volunteer as much this past week because the girls all had testing time (kind of like our standardized state tests) But it was a nice break to kind of reenergize and revamp and prepare for this week and the weeks to come. Because I only worked about 2 hrs a day I also worked on Fri and Sat I went to the girls’ graduation ceremony. The graduation ceremony was pretty neat, here in India you graduate school in 10th grade and all the girls wore purple saris (which was beautiful!) The boarding girls hassled me and hassled me to buy a sari, so I did and let me just say, I have a newfound respect for the women of India who wear saris. Those things have to be the hottest outfits imaginable. Just imagine being in 95 degree weather wearing a huge blanket wrapped around you! Not to mention that they are impossible to manage—I was sure mine would fall down at any moment (the whole thing is held up by only two safety pins; which is incredible if you think about it) But despite the sweltering heat the graduation was a lot of fun! It wasn’t completely different from that of a US graduation, with the principle giving a speech, and the ‘class president’ giving a speech but differed dramatically in the fact that several different performances took place. Several girls did native dances, while others did skits. It was all a very neat experience and Im glad I got to enjoy. I was slightly bummed though because halfway through the ceremony Mrs. Kutty called and requested that I go with her to a women’s day luncheon. She said she would pick me up in 10 minutes and to be ready. And when Mrs. Kutty wants/requests something, you learn that you can’t say no. So I had to leave the ceremony early and wasn’t able to enjoy lunch or get any pictures with the girls after. The luncheon was extremely nice though. We went to a 5 star restaurant and enjoyed a 7 course lunch. Mrs. Kutty was a VIP so we sat in our own private room, me, Mrs. Kutty, her daughter, and her friend who is a famous Indian author. It was very neat to talk to the author about success and other things and see her perspectives on things. Its been extremely interesting to see the different perspectives that people of different classes have on things….talking to the nuns about social issues of India differs DRASTICALLY from what the high class Indians that Ive talked to, and yet still differs from what Rehka (a middle class devout Hindu) has to say about all the social issues. Its been such a great opportunity for me to be exposed to so many different social groups here in India, and I feel like I have been equipped with a well rounded viewpoint on several issues. After the lunch I went over to Andrews and we made grilled cheese and soup for Rehka and Kanan (our dance teacher and her husband) and played Apples to Apples with them (which I quickly came to realize that the game is directed towards Americans, seeing as how Rehka and Kanan hardly knew what any of the cards were…which actually turned out to be much more hilarious.) Then Sunday I went to church in the morning and out to Opus (a kareokee club) at night for Neha’s bday. In celebration of Womens Day they were only allowing men to sing songs that were by women (men were singing ‘its raining men’ and the like, which was pretty funny.) Overall a chill weekend but def. a good one.