Wedding Crashers!!!!

The bride and groom!

Wow it has been a crazy couple days!!! A lot of interesting things have happened all starting with yesterday morning.  We got up early to go to one of Dr. MohanKumar’s friends’ weddings.  In India, the weddings are all day affairs, but the most important rituals happen from 7-8:30 in the morning!! All of us girls got up at around 5 to get ready, and get wrapped up in our saree’s, then we headed to the wedding.  As soon as we got into the wedding hall, I knew that it was going to be like nothing I had ever seen.  When we walked in, 2 younger girls gave us all roses, handed us sandal paste to put into our palms, and made us eat a couple of grains of sugar.  Then we walked into the room, and immediately a traditional Indian band began playing really loud beautiful music.  Then we looked up to a very crowded stage full of the bride, groom, their families, and the priests and other special people.  There were many, many rituals going on, and Dr. MohanKumar was attempting to tell us about each one.  It was sort of a bizarre experience for all of us, because compared to American weddings, the two are not only not on the same page, they are not even in the same library!  The guests mingled with eachother as the wedding was proceeding, and there was breakfast being served in a different room at the same time.  Then, at an important ritual, such as tying the knot (literally the groom ties a necklace into a knot around the bride’s neck) people really pay attention, and the music blares.  Definitely an interesting experience!!!  After the wedding we came back to the hostel to prepare for our trip to Tanjoor.  Pam and I laid out in the sun, went on a 2 mile run in the 100 degree heat, and packed our things to go on the bus. 

The Bride!

The bus ride was an experience in itself.  We arrived at the bus station at 9:00 p.m. for a 9:45 bus.  We rode on a sleeper bus, where literally the whole bus is full of little beds.  Pam and I shared a bed, but neither of us slept a wink because it was bumpy, cell phones were ringing, there was stops and go’s, and most of all it was FREEZING!!!  All of us were really happy when we arrived in Tanjoor this morning, and checked into our hotel.  If there is one thing that I will take away from this trip it will be a pure appreciation for America, and a true feeling that I am one of the luckiest people in the world to be able to live in a land as great as the USA!

Us girls in our beautiful sarees!

We got a couple of hours of sleep, and then met for breakfast.  After a good breakfast we headed out to the villages to hit up some farms to get brucellosis/tuberculosis milk and blood samples, along with getting information for our mastitis project.  Our goal was to get 25 samples from all of the farms, and I just finished entering the data in the computer and I am proud to say that we collected 40 samples today.  We worked really hard!!  We used up all of our blood tubes, and even had to use some of our smaller milk tubes, and fill up 4 instead of 1 per cow.  We also saw some really really cute calves, met some really nice people, had tea in a village, listened to a villager sing us a folk song, and ate coconut water right out of the coconut!!!  It is unbelievable how hospitable the people in the villages of India are, when they seem to have so little, but in fact, they do not see it that way at all because I think they are really a happy people, and fully enjoy the lifestyle they live.  There is definitely something to say for enjoying your life versus having every material thing you could have.  Now I am relaxing in the hotel room, but dinner is soon so I gotta scoot! I’ll write more tomorrow!