All the Churches

After visiting the children in the morning, we headed out to visit several churches. I’m so confused between which churches are which. And if we are in a Catholic church or an Orthodox church or a Syrian Orthodox church. I always forget the minute they tell us and I’m so unfamiliar with Catholicism that I can’t tell if the differences are Indian or the denomination (branch?).

Our national prize-winning religion reporter Jennifer spent about an hour interviewing His Holiness. He was a funny guy and very generous with his time. He kind of had a Dumbledore vibe.

After that church, we went to another. I also don’t remember the name or type. Sleep deprivation is bad on the brain. At least it was pretty.

After getting in some holy rolling time, we headed to lunch at a local Rotarian’s house. We found these amazing little cracker things which was a complete miracle because we had just spent hours on the previous day bemoaning the absence of cheese in our lives. We cleaned that man out of those.

They also had some processed cheese wedges for us. I’m starting to learn that Indian people have terrifyingly good hearing. We were offered cheese about 8 times that day. I don’t know who heard us, but they sure did deliver.

We also met Jessica (on the right) from Madison, Wisconsin. She’s working on a graduate degree in post-Ghandian thought at a local university. She’s sponsored by Rotary and is a survivor of the program we are currently in. We quickly kidnapped her and forced her to spend all her time with us. She’s even staying in my house.

After lunch, we took our victim to a Hindu temple visit with us. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

We learned that these scales are used to determine your donation to the temple. You got on one side and the other side was filled with fruit until balanced. I can’t afford that many apples.

We normally have an hour or so to clean up before our evening Rotary meeting, but that has not been the case this week. We were a bunch of grumpy sweaty ladies about that. Thankfully, we had a fun night at my host parent’s house filled with more Gangam style.

And we enjoyed my personal swing.

During dinner, my host sister taught me to make dosa. It’s pretty much a pancake, but made of rice. And without syrup (that’s a bummer). But, they were delicious and I didn’t even ruin them.

I’m the Paula Deen of India.