This past Saturday I celebrated my birthday not only in
India, but on one of our weekend trips to the city of Madurai.
The day started out great because first of all I had slept
in air-conditioning!! My students were very kind to surprise me with little
notes and gifts and sang a hearty round of ‘Happy Birthday’ as I ate my
cornflakes and hot milk! After I got my stuff together to go off touring for
the day I was surprised to see a cake with ‘Happy Birthday Hannah Brown’
written on it (in case there was any confusion on which Hannah’s birthday it
was!)!
Then we started off on our full day of touring by first going
to Meenakshi temple. As we were walking around the huge temple we came across
an elephant standing in the courtyard. For a small fee you could have the
elephant ‘bless’ you and put his trunk on you. I was so surprised by how heavy
his trunk was and it was so so cool!
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| Being 'blessed' by an elephant! |
On the way back to Coimbatore we stopped at an orphanage for children with HIV and we
got to watch them perform little songs and dances (including the song ‘Making
Melodies in my Heart which I sang in Sunday school in Kenya). Then they let
them loose and the kids all grabbed our hands and pulled us to the playground where
I spent the next hour so very happy! I loved taking pictures of all my students
interacting with the kids so freely and joyfully. Shouts of ‘Akka’ (older
sister), ‘Ana’ (older brother), ‘Uncle’, and ‘Auntie’ rang out from across the
playground as they raced around showing us their games and including us in
their activities. One 13 year old girl Venitra gleefully showed me her room- her bed
and trunk and all her drawings. She told me that usually every day is so sad
but today is “very jolly” because we had come.
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| Beautiful Venitra from the HIV orphanage |
At the very end as we were supposed to be saying goodbye and
loading onto the bus, a little boy came to me and put his hands up for me to
pick him up. I did, and he wrapped his little legs tightly around my waist and
twined his little arms around my neck, laid his head on my shoulder, and
started to cry! Of course then I teared up as well! Playing with those sweet
children was the best part of my birthday! But it was also super cool to be in
India because I don’t think I would have gotten 'blessed' by an elephant anywhere
else!
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| Group pic! |
