Madurai Trip!

This weekend, we took a trip to Madurai, India! Its south of Coimbatore and took us about 4-5 hours to get their in our bus! We left at 5 AM Saturday, and got back around 9:00 PM Sunday, and it was a very full weekend!

We stayed in guest housing at Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, and started off Saturday with a tour of the campus! It is a very neat location, and I’m so glad we got to visit and learn about the goals and mission of the seminary! It is a 4 year program with some very unique aspects! The first year is traditional classes with the students living on campus and attending. The second year gets interesting because they have the student move into the slums, while still attending classes at the seminary! The third year the student chooses another country or area where they would like to live and learn more about, and the forth year is focused on creating a thesis that reflects the lessons learned in the second and third year. This seminary is also focused on the Daliat (“untouchable caste”) community of India. Saturday night the president of the seminary spoke to us about different aspects of campus and it was very evident how much thought goes into the programming, and how much they want to improve their country! Staying at the seminary was a great way to learn more about Christianity in the context of India and I’m so glad we had this opportunity!

Saturday after the campus tour and lunch we visited several of the seminary’s service projects that they have set up around Madurai which benefit many different kinds of people. The first place we visited was a place that is similar to a retirement home or nursing home. While here we interacted with the very nice people staying at this home, although communication was somewhat limited since they didn’t speak much English. Next we went to a service site that was centered on helping abandoned kids and struggling women. We got to observe them making rugs/fabric that are sold to help fund the program. The women and children we saw at this place were all very happy and joyful people, even though they don’t have much.

Then we visited the Gandhi museum in Madurai! It was a museum about the history of India’s independence, and Gandhi’s impact on the country. It actually contains the blood stained clothes Gandhi was wearing when we was shot.

After we visited these places, we stopped at a restaurant for some tea and a quick snack! Teatime is becoming one of my favorite times! Here is a picture of how we are served tea:

You pour the tea back and forth to cool it down and keep mixing the sugar/milk with the tea. Very cool and very tasty!

 Then we went to a palace in downtown Madurai for a “Light and Sound” show that presented the history of Madurai. This was quite the experience for many reasons; one being it was an open-air palace, which means we were swarmed by mosquitoes. Here is a picture of me and my friend Jessica using our scarves to try and keep them away from our faces! 

And here is a picture of the actual show; it was pretty basic with literally just lights and sounds that told us the story of Madurai.

Sunday morning we went to the Mennakshi Temple!

This is definitely the main attraction of Madurai; about 15,000 people pass through here every day! It is a popular spot for Hindus, some who travel long distances to worship the gods Shiva and Mennakshi. As you can imagine, a group of 15 white people definitely get a lot of stares in a Hindu temple. Some people even wanted to take our pictures while we were touring the place, so now I understand why celebrities hate it when people take their picture.  It felt really silly that they were staring at us just because we are white. I think a lot of us are at the point where we are tired of being stared at everywhere we go!

Like I said, so many people travel from all over India just to worship the gods at this temple. But I learned a lesson from these people about devotion. They are so devoted to these false gods they worship that they would travel for days just to come to this temple! Some Hindus view this as a pilgrimage and actually walk from Coimbatore to Madurai (about 4-5 days)! Our God is so much easier to communicate with, but I think I take this for granted. We don’t have to travel anywhere, perform any sort of ritual, or bring him anything! We just have to pray to talk to our God.

After a couple tours of touring the temple, we went back to the seminary to pack and rest for the trip home. On the way home we stopped at another service project that was for people who are HIV positive. This is a home for the patients and their children. This was our favorite stop because we got to play with the kids on their playground!

After what seemed like forever we finally made it back to Coimbatore! I don’t have any classes this morning so I wanted to give an update on the Madurai trip before I got swept up in the busyness of another school week!

Here is a picture I took in Madurai of a boy with earmuffs on! It’s so funny that this weather is sometimes cold to them!