Cochin

Today… we leave India…and Asia...and we are officially more than halfway done.  It’s so depressing.  But lets not get ahead of ourselves here.  So let me back track to the past 2 days in Cochin.
I enjoyed Cochin much more than Chennai.  Cochin was less crowded and less city like and was more tropical… it actually kind of reminded me of Vietnam with all the palm tree like trees.  The first day in Cochin I had the Khatakali Dance Drama trip for my human voice in performance class.  Our bus was supposed to leave at 8 but we had to go through immigration so we didn’t leave until closer to 9.  It was about a 3 hour bus drive to the village we went to.  On this bus ride, at our pit stop, I encountered an Indian toilet…aka a hole in the ground.  Oh the toilets I have experienced on this trip so far are ones to remember…the heated seats in Japan with bidets, squatters in China and India, and the Great Wall…Such great toilets.  But anyway!  When we got to the village we met our guide Kunju and he showed us to his father’s house.  When we got off the bus, there was a photographer there and cameraman there and they were with us the whole day… I felt like I was on the real world / famous.  Quick background on Kunju…he owns a temple in the village we were at, and he teaches Khatakali dance and he has a mutual friend with my professor and that is how we got to go on this trip.  So we went to Kunju’s dad’s house (who was a Khatakali professor also before handing it down to Kunju) and we had coconut milk and some really good baked fruit with him.  After we left his dad’s house, we walked a little bit through the village (which was so cute!  It was literally like a little road with little dirt roads off it that led to individual houses).  We walked through the village to a little place where they made grass mats.  This village is apparently known for their grass mats and we watched them make them and they are beautiful! 
After the grass mats, we went to Kunju’s uncles house where they cooked lunch for us!  We ate it the traditional way aka on banana leaves with all 5 of our fingers on our right hand.  It was spicy!  I’m also a baby when it comes to spices so my mouth was basically on fire and this one older man was standing next to me laughing at me.  And he also laughed at me because I was only using 3 of my fingers instead of all 5 so he taught me the right way to eat it and mix everything they put on your leaf into 1 big thing and eat that.  I think I got more food on me than in my mouth because I kept missing my mouth when I was attempting to shove the food into it. 
After lunch, we walked across the street to the temple and saw the actor’s getting ready for the performance.  They were putting their make up on and putting their costumes on and it was INSANE!  Ok, so Khatakali tells a story and is usually performed from dusk til dawn, but we had our own private 2 hour show.  And it is dancing, but it is more movement in the face and eyes and handgestures than dancing around the stage.  Also, depending on the color make up the actor is wearing tells you if they are a good guy or bad guy.  Green = good guy /diety and red = bad guy.  What’s so cool though is that their make up is so bright and vibrant but they also but a little seed in their eyes that make their eyes bright red and it sticks out so well against the green makeup.  It’s so cool.  So we watched the show for 2 hours and then afterwards we met the actors and got to ask them a bunch of questions.  After that we toured the temple and then headed back to the ship.  We got back to the ship around 9:30ish and I grabbed some food and then just showered and crashed.
Today I had a really good day.  Me, Andrew and Stephanie rented a rickshaw driver and he took us all around Cochin but we had to be back by 12ish because we had a trip at 1.  Our rickshaw driver’s name was Anu and he was awesome.  Our rickshaw was pimped out too.  The whole inside of it was red and blue leopard print.  It looked like it was on Pimp My Rickshaw.  But anyway… we stopped at a palace which is now a museum, a shop where I bought so many scarves and our guy that was showing us stuff in the shop actually brought us upstairs to the 4th floor which was a lookout and we got a free soda and just chatted with him and learned about Cochin and everthing.  After that shop, we stopped at a ginger factory where we helped sift through the ginger, then we stopped at another store, then a post office and then we stopped at a random street and just walked down it and looked at the shops and then headed back to the ship.  After lunch, we had our SOS Children’s Village trip.  The Children’s village is kind of like an orphanage and there are 50 houses and they all have a “mother” who takes care of about 15 kids.  When we got to the village we watched a video about the village and what it was and then we saw performances by the kids.  After that we got to visit the homes and this little girl came up to me and grabbed my hand and took me to a house where we met up with Christina and 2 other little girls and then my girl took me and the 2 other little girls to her house.  I didn’t know my little girl’s name because she didn’t really talk / understand English.  But her mother was so nice and was showing me all her pictures of all the children and past children she had that got married and are now psychologists or in hotel management, and a lot of the pictures she had on the walls were all of my little girl.  It was so nice.  After that, we went to the field where everyone was playing cricket and soccer and just met more kids and played with them.  It was one of my favorite trips.  It was just fun to give back and make these children’s day by just hanging out with them and spending 2 hours with them.  After that we just came back to the ship because we leave tonight.  Actually, we left already.  And we are now headed for Mauritius!  Woohoo!
India was definitely eye opening.  And I know I was dreading it in the beginning but it really wasn’t that bad.  It’s one of those places that you get so overwhelmed in for the first couple minutes but once you stop and breathe and slow down, it’s not that bad and it is a beautiful country.  It’s just so different.  Even going from Chennai to Cochin, I saw 2 very very very different types of places.  Chennai was more industrial and city like where as Cochin was more tropical and not as crowded.  But yea… we’re done India and done Asia.  Now for AFRICA!  I CANNOT wait for South Africa.  It’s going to be so cool.