We are in the town of Tiruvalnamalai! Try pronouncing THAT. We’re staying at a hotel near the interfaith dialogue center called Quo Vadis that we’re visiting, and there’s a huge mountain dominating the town that is apparently the center of the universe for many Hindus and religious seekers. There are many European and American people in this little village who come to seek spiritual answers (kind of like the woman in Eat Pray Love I guess). Anyway, we’ve been staying here and visiting ashrams in the area. The first night it rained hardcore and we walked barefoot to an ashram because you can’t have shoes on in them. In the ashram we watched a “pooja” take place—a Hindu ceremony in which people walk around a shrine to the divine god and offer flowers to him and chant. It was interesting to see but I didn’t understand anything that was going on really. We also visited an ashram yesterday in which they pretty much worship their guru and compare him to Jesus. They believe that he does miracles to this day (even though he’s deceased) and that his statue has so much power that it shocks them when they touch it. It was pretty strange for me, who has never been around much idol worship, to see the statue of a man be praised and revered to such an extent. Our tour guide was in awe of him and pretty much thought he could do anything; some of the stories she told made a lot of people in our group pretty skeptical and some people even thought it was comical. Not quite sure what my reaction is yet, I’m still processing the experience and how strange it was. Yesterday we also had a chance to experience what goes on in the Quo Vadis center and we had a dialogue about faith, in which we had to think about our personal relationship with God or whoever we believed in and then talk about it, being respectful of all opinions and not trying to force our ideas on others. That’s what the center—which is Christian-based—is all about. It’s not about trying to spread the word of God as much as it is about having people of all faiths come together and tolerate each other and love each other. Last night we had a cultural night! We had dancers with drums come and we were sung to, as well as taught how to dance the traditional Tamil dances they were doing. Then we made coloms (spelling?) which is the powder art that people put outside of their homes here to welcome people inside. It’s like sand art, you make designs with different colors, usually of flowers. An artistic girl at my table made a whole face that looked pretty realistic. Then we added homemade candles to a huge colom we all chipped in on. These candles were made out of halves of limes that were turned inside out and filled with oil and a piece of rope. It was all such a cool experience of the culture and we all LOVED it. Today we’re leaving and we are going to see two temples, one of which is a transgender temple. I’ll give feedback on that one, because I’m not quite sure what to expect there.

Love you all and I miss you!