Day 2: WORLDS BIGGEST SPIDER!

We are staying in the Parakeet room.

Holy crap we all woke up SOAKING WET in our beds!! It felt like 100000 degrees!! Apparently the power went off in the night so the AC turned off and none of us noticed. OMG. I think I lost 10lbs last night. Hahah the whole house was making fun of us because we each woke up atleast 10 times throughout the night noticing that it was HOTTER THAN H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS!!! ..but were too lazy to get out of bed and see if the AC was running…. LESSON LEARNED!

I got the top bunk!

Ok so we have decided to begin each day with a workout. (Neil you would be so proud) There is a small track for the school that we are able to use.  We get up at 6am every morning and get our workout in!! woo! I will post pictures of the track soon.  It’s hard to remember to grab the cam at 6 am.  I hope the workouts last the whole three weeks lol.  The other volunteers have asked if they can join us so we might start some type of a morning bootcamp group!! Wahoo!! I knew someone would let me kick their butts while I was out here!

For breakfast we just eat cereal, I had to bring boxed soy milk from home.  Buuut anyone who knows me, knows that cereal is pretty much my favorite food ever, so this is a highlight.  I also ate a mango (or two, or three) for breakfast.  I’m pretty sure I will have one (or two, or five) every morning!! The mango’s seriously are DIVINE!!! It’s cool to be surrounded with mango, papaya, coconut, and banana trees!! I think I could survivie in Hawaii after all, Jordan…hint hint.

After breakfast we do the “morning conclave” it’s kind of like devotional, we say a prayer, read a quote for the day, and talk about the days’ tasks and meeting times.  I have to say I am super bummed that Sam, Krissy, and I got put into 3 separate groups .(there are only three groups)  I wish we could share these experiences together while we are out here and it kind of sucks coming home each night and telling each other all of these AMAZING stories we have from the day and wishing we would have been there with each other.  It just seems like some of them would mean so much more if we had all experienced them together.  We asked if after the first set of rotations we can be moved to the same group so that we will be able to go into the colonies, do construction, and tutor together a few times.  It’s not all bad being without them.  I have made lots of new friends, I just want to share some of these moments with my best friends while I am on the other side of the world and not have it feel like even though we are here together we are always apart… ya know?

Anyways… My first rotation was construction!! 

Carl the construction advisor heading out for the day.

Our first task of the day: Maintenance Shed.

We got stolen away for a minute to deliver chairs to the school.

I thought this pic was cool.  One of the house mothers carrying water back to campus, on her head!

Still workin on the maitenance shed.

Finished!! Its beautifully organized, and a nice big garbage pile to pick up.

They have not nailed down a large project yet in the colonies so we are mainly doing service within the school area and with the grounds keepers.  Normally the rising star would help build homes in the colonies, or give small loans to those in need to help them start their own business and be more self-sufficient and then build them a workplace (i.e. market, barber shop, small store, etc.)  However; since we are the first group out this summer they are still fine tuning the details of this summers project.  No worries though, we will have this campus clean as a whistle by the time we’re done with it.  We were able to clean out several sheds, organize all of the closets/garages, and get all of the appliances in the kitchen back to silver!! (they started out with a thick film of black orange grease.)  It was a long day, but I feel like we accomplished a lot.  All of the staff here on campus seemed very appreciative of the hard work we put in and it feels good to be able to serve these people who do so much for the leprosy afflicted and their children. While cleaning and reorganizing the bike hut we decided to tackle some of the many termite mounds surrounding the buildings and attacking the trees.  It was disgusting, but fun to demolish them.  We also saw, literally, the biggest spider I have ever seen in real life.  It was like the size of a lemon.  Of course I was screaming and crying like a baby when I saw it so I missed my golden opportunity to get a pic! Dang.

Next Mission: Tool shed!

This is gonna be a BIG job.

So much CRAP!! As I was carrying that big green roll of whatever that is back inside the garage, a little gecko landed on my hand! I hope it wasn't poisonous.  I'm still alive so that's a good sign.

Beautiful.

On to the bike shed! For some reason there was a huge pile of old glass and lightbulbs out side of the hut.  TII=This is India.  That's all Carl kept saying. Which makes sense. There seem to be odd piles of garbage pretty much everywhere.

At lunch time we were able to go over and eat lunch with the kids.  I was able to hang out with Krissy a bit and she introduced me to her new little friends that she had made while tutoring.  Ahhh I just love these kids!  They eat with their hands here and sit on the floor. It’s nuts.  I will for sure have to give this a try before I leave, but as for now I will keep asking the lunch lady for a fork.

Lunch Time!

Cute kids!!

Lunch! Rice and pinapple curry with cilantro. Not bad, but not that good. lol.

And DONT eat the eggs!! They just leave them out on the hottttt counter all day/night. Im not even sure if they actually cook them, or if they just bake in the sun.

Walking over to the main gates to clean the next shed.

Cleaned EVERY shed around campus!

We scrubbed the kitchen!!

After lunch it was time to finish up construction.  I kindof already mentioned everything we did… just imagine us finishing it….now. ;)

The Rising Star School

The Mango/Banana/Papaya/Coconut field of trees.

The kids families as well as staff are able to harvest the fruit and sell for a profit.

We are not allowed to pick the fruit ourselves but they leave PLENTY for us every morning!

More of the campus grounds, still waiting to see those monkeys!

We get a short break from about 2pm-4:30.  This allowes us time to blog/nap/hang out and is pretty much our only personal time for the day.  At 4:30 it’s time to head back over to the school for playtime!  We decided to take Shawn’s dance class with the dance group today.  Umm… holy crap.  It was hard.  He is very strict on ballet technique which I LOVED!! We will for sure be doing this every other day!! One day to recover ;) one day to dance. Haha!! I am so glad I still get to dance while I am out here!! Shawn is the dance teacher, it has been great getting to know him better and here about all of the amazing projects he has started all over the world teaching underprivileged kids life skills through dance.  He is an amazing person and we are super excited to get to learn from him while we are here.

Walking over to play time!

LOVE wearing Genie pants!!!

They have a HUUUUGE community closet for us to pick our outfits from everyday. 

We have to wear the traditional indian clothing

 unless were in the Elephant House or doing construction.

Krissy stretching with some of the girls before dance class.

Dinner was served as soon as we got home and were able to change out of our now very sweaty chudidars (traditional Indian clothing)  We went up to the roof and had tonights concoction of curry , rice, and beets.  I liked tonights meal better than last nights, but still verrrry glad I brought food to supplement.

Dinner!

 At dinner we each go around and tell our “high’s and low’s” for the day.  My High:  Being able to get so much done during construction, and feeling like we were able to contribute to the school in a big way! My low: WORLDS BIGGEST SPIDER!!!

Termite mound that we demolished! ...and site of the worlds biggest spider.

DIE!

Finished!!

Okay let's play a game...

How many people do you think fit on this bike?

You can post your answers in the comments and I will post a picture on the next blog with the answer!!

After dinner it was story time back at the school.  I found out we are not allowed to bring our cameras to story time.  The kids get too wound up with the camera and want to play with it all the time.  So no pics. :(  I will try and sneak some before I leave though because the boys in our house are too adorable!! Tonight the boys were ROWDY!!! We sang songs, played a few games, and tried to read a story but the book we were given to read was just too difficult for a bedtime story so they couldn’t focus.  We eventually gave up on the story and the housemother Kala stepped in.  Thank goodness!! She is amazing.  We hear she is the best, so I am grateful for that too!  She put the kids to bed and we still had 30 min left at the school until we walked back to the Elephant House so Kala was so nice to spend time with us and teach us some Indian words!  I don’t have the paper I wrote them all down on at the moment and I know if I try to sound them out I will butcher them BADLY! So I will add those later tonight! 

Back home to bed! LOVE YOU ALL!! I’m still loving every second!! xoxo

Day 1 At The Rising Star

So this is kind of part 2 of the previous post.... It really was just one LOOONG day for me so I'm counting it all as day 1.

The bus ride to the school was CRAZY!! Bumpy, HOT and full of FUN!!  We made a new friend, Benson.  He is the only male volunteer and one of only 3 males (adults) on campus, besides the bus drivers. Ok so I guess he's not the only boy. He is hilarious!! He is from California and is staying an extra couple of months after we finish here at the rising star to backpack through India.  Brave soul.

We made a few pit stops at the Reliace convenience store to pick up treats, use the restroom, and buy large water bottles.  Even the stores here are so different!! They were not prepared for us.  I think the shop owners were overwhelmed with all of the Americans trying to purchase food.  They actually ran out of cash in the registers because of how much business we brought in.  In India if they don’t have exact change they just give you the next highest bill.  It’s pretty awesome.  (Like if they owe me 7 rupees, they just give me 10) I think America should adopt this policy. ;)

I'm pretty sure we almost got abducted.  Some man told Krissy Sam and I to come around the corner and look at a wedding and take pictures.  We were really confused about what he was saying so we grabbed benson and peeked around.  The man tried to lead us up some stairs around a dark back alley way and just kept saying "marriage" "marriage."  Later we found out India has the highest abduction rate of Americans.  Sorry Jordan, I think I almost just got "Taken" for an Indian arranged marriage slave trade.

One of the strangest things we saw on the bus ride was a man squatting “behind” the bushes to take a poop. Sick..  Apparently that’s super common here. And you see naked kids running everywhere!! And men and women peeing in the gutter.  Ahh… it’s crazy. They have no shame lol. When you gotta go, ya gotta go!!

I have to say, I’m not crazy about the food here.  I’m so glad I packed an ENTIRE suitcase full of snack food.  Even the meals cooked for us at the house make me a lil nervous.  

Orientation on the rooftop.

We had Orientation upon arriving at the Elephant House. (The house where all of the volunteers stay.)  We were assigned rooms and went over the rules.  I will post plenty of pictures of the elephant house.  It is beautiful!!! Its a big square and the center is all open with beautiful tropical plants and no roof.  Our room has 3 bunk beds and one single bed in the corner.  I like all of the girls in our room! One was on our flight over from London to Chennai, her name is Emily.  There are two Rebecca's and Sam, Krissy and myself.  After we got settled in to our rooms it was time to meet the kids!!

The kids at the school are seriously ADORABLE!! So if you don't know, The Rising Star Outreach is a school (kindof like a boarding school) where kids who have been effected by leprosy (either in their families or have been treated themselves) come and get educated away from the colonies 11 mos. out of the year.  They receive better education here and have greater opportunity for success when they leave, rather than begging in the leprosy colonies.  The way our session works is a 3 day rotation.  One day you tutor in the school, one day you do construction on campus our out in the leprosy colonies, one day you travel to the leprosy colonies and wash wounds and do medical work.  It really is an amazing program and I have a feeling this wont be my only summer out here.  Every day from 4:30-6pm we have playtime with the kids.  We did this for the first time today and it was amazing!! They were all so excited to meet us and show us their tricks!! It's a bit of a struggle trying to learn their names.  I can't pronounce most of them so I have resorted to giving them nicknames.  Monkey Boy is my current favorite, I will post a few of him and you will see how he got his nickname! haha. There are about a million Naveen's so I will hopefully get all of them strait.  We are trying to learn the language for our own enjoyment, but the teachers here at the school have asked us to speak only english with the kids so that they can practice proper grammar and speech.  It's amazing how loving this kids are!! They literally swarm to hug you as soon as they see you, and EVERYONE wants to play! It's so fun! 

This boy LOVED the camera!

Monkey Boy doin his thaaang.

He seriously climbed on the outside of EVERY part of the playground. lol. 

Monkey boy convincing everyone else to use the slide like him.

I love this beautiful girl.  I don't remember her name yet.

These boys seriously LOVED posing for pictures and dancing!

Just watchin the dancers.  Still have kankles!!! 

There is a dance group of kids here that we went and watched. They rehearse during play time.  The kids have to audition to be in this group.  They teach life skills with dance.  We (Sam, Krissy, and Myself) loved watching them, and will be involved with this group a lot during our stay here.  I really love watching dance in other cultures.  It will definitely influence my teaching style when I get home.  I recorded a lot of it, so I wouldn't forget!

Cute girl watching US and eating a mango.

This is our well. This is what we shower, and wash with.  There is a faucet for purified drinking water from the well, but it is HOTTTTT!!! Like boiling. 

Walking up to the Elephant House.

Guardian Elephant?

At 6pm it was time to come back to camp and eat dinner!! Needless to say, by this point we were EXHAUSTED!! (keep in mind were still runnin on the same fuel from Saturday morning.)  At this point I literally feel like I have been awake for 3 days straight lol.  The "Grandma and Grandpa" or couple that look over the entire organization came to speak with us about the work we were doing.  It was great to hear their passion for the rising star, and get to know more about how it all began and what they would like to see happen in the future.  After a quick meeting (that I almost fell asleep in several times) It was time for dinner on the roof!! It is so cool being in the middle of the jungle, even cooler eating dinner together EVERY night underneath a canopy on the rooftop! I seriously feel so blessed to have made it out here!  Every little part of my day is filled with something special.  We had traditional Indian food for dinner.  The rice was good.  The fruit was AMAZING!! I'm not a huuge fan of curry, but it might grow on me over the next few weeks, we will see.  The mango's here are unreal!! I'm pretty sure I will be living off of those!!!! yummmmm!!!!

Dinner is served on a banana leaf.

Sam and Benson

After dinner, we make one more trip over to the school for story time.  The kids are assigned rooms and "house mothers" each house mother is assigned to 20 children!! It is our job each evening to help wind the kids down and get them ready for bed.  Sam and I are assigned to the same room.  I WISH I would have brought my camera, I will not forget it tomorrow!! We read them a bed time story called Mugakati Jugapati.  The words were a mix of Indian and English, I did my best to read the story to them, but every now and then the kids would laugh at my pronunciation. oops.  We also played "down by the banks," "thumb wars," and sang fun songs!! I LOVED THIS PART, I can't wait to go back and get to know my kids better!  Seriously Jordan, I'm bringing one home. pleeeeeeease?

Ok, back to the Elephant House.  Time for blogging and bed.  That was day 1.  Whew!! LOVE YOU!

India Day 1: Traveling and Journey to Rising Star School

Okay so let me start off by saying, I'm extremely tired.  We left SLC at noon on Saturday, we arrived in Chennai, India this morning (Monday) at 7am, to catch a Taxi to the hotel in enough time to shower and hop on a bus for a 3 hour car ride to the Rising Star base camp and begin our tasks for the day.  With very little sleep in the last 36 ish hours and all of it being super cramped on a plane...lets just say, I'm POOPED!! Buuut sooo grateful to be safe and sound in India! Finally in a bed, and able to share the last few days (but really one LOOOOONG day of traveling for me) of experiences!!  Here is a little sneak peak, more pics coming soon!  Sorry the vid is a little choppy! I will try to film more! You will LOVE the India footage.

We started our day off right with Cafe Rio.. of course!! There is one in the SLC airport now. (am i the only one insanely excited about this.) I must say it wasn't as good of quality as the regular ol' cafe rio, but it sure made waiting for our flight seem like a breeze.  

We boarded our first flight from SLC to Dallas.. an easy two  and a half hours, 2 hour layover in dallas then a long 9 hour flight from Dallas to London.  4 hour layover in London, Then another LOOOONG flight 10 more hours from London to Chennai.  My ankles, calves, and knees are SOOO Swollen from the flights and super painful. I am sleeping with feet elevated tonight, and hopefully they will be ready to work hard tomorrow!! It's construction day for me! All 3 flights were full!! Not too bad though, I slept here and there on all 3 flights; however it seriously feels like I have been awake since Saturday morning.  Airplane catnaps just don't quite do the job.

Kankles.  So swollen. Ouch!

We arrived in India early Monday morning.  Our flight got in at 6am.  It was supposed to be in at 3 so our poor cab driver had been waiting outside the airport since 2:45am and by the time we got through customs and outside to the cars it was after 7am.  THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE IN INDIA!!! Seriously people everywhere!!! Our cab drivers name was Majeeb, he was waiting outside with a sign.  He was soo nice, told me all about arranged marriages, and government, daily life, etc.  It was awesome to get a sneak peak into their culture.  P.S. Did I mention, driving here is INSANE!!!! There is NO rhyme or reason, just honking everywhere, driving in whatever lane you want, speeding up onto curbs and gutters to get around scooters and other vehicles! Wow, heart attack.  The streets here are very dirty.  It makes me sad to see.  Few people wear shoes, I think mainly those that can afford them.  There are lots of skinny cows and dogs roaming around the BUSY streets! I haven't seen a monkey yet but we heard one today!

Our cab driver Majeeb.

When we got to our hotel it was BEAUTIFUL!! We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott.  Our cab driver (Majeeb) works as a driver for the hotel. He told me all about how he has a 1.5 hour walk to work every morning and night because his fam cant afford a vehicle.  It made me grateful for the car I have to drive.  I felt so guilty leaving him and entering this beautiful hotel, with air conditioning and marble floors, knowing he would be walking home later to one of the many shanty towns we passed on the way.  We had JUST enough time to take our last hot shower for 3 weeks, change our clothes, eat breakfast and meet up with everyone else from The Rising Star to head to camp at 10am.  WE ARE TIRED!  I will write all about Day 1 at the Rising Star Tomorrow and post lots of pictures and videos!! Buuut as for now, I NEED to go to bed, we start rotations tomorrow and my first day is construction! woohoo!!! Sooo SOOO excited for this experience! I am looking forward to meeting all of the amazing people! The kids are so cute, I want to bring one home... sorry Jordan. But I seriously might!! ooo I love em!  Pics and vids to come tomorrow!! LOVE YOU!!!

View from our hotel.

There are people literally everywhere sleeping on the sidewalk.

Drivin the streets.

Have I mentioned yet how tired i am??????

p.s. They only have squat toilets here, as in you squat over a hole in the floor. And you are not allowed to put toilet paper down, so you have to either "bucket wash" yourself off..onto the floor and down a drain, or put dirty TP in the trash bin.  Needless to say, you can probably imagine the smell, and envision me sanitizing every part of my body atleast every 5 mins. buuuut..(no pun intended) squatters aside, I am seriously loving EVERY bit of the experience so far. I can't wait to begin!

Flower Project

So I was feeling a little creative today and decided to finally tackle my "flower project." I took an old bakers rack from my moms house and had a vision of it covered in flowers on my front porch!! ;) So Jordan and I picked a bunch of my moms old antique pots, bowls, and coffee pots to fill with flowers. I was a little nervous because none of the pots matched and separately they were all a little haggard, but together they turned out beautiful!!! I love it!! Pics coming soon..

Go Jazz!

What a crazy last few weeks!! With Thanksgiving, Finals coming up, Jazz, Work, Pregnant Dog...ahhhh life can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Anyways I just got some fun pictures back from the Jazz and thought I would share them with you guys.. so before we get to those just a quick update.. Nebula is 5-6 weeks pregnant which means she should be having puppies any day now! probably over the weekend or early next week! How exciting.. I'm a little nervous.. I hope she will get through it ok..ohhhh puppies.. That is gonna throw a whole new stress in the mix lol. Thanksgiving was awesome!! I love my family! We were so glad to spend Thanksgiving with the Jensen side of the fam!! It is always a good time.

Hahah Jordan and I decided to have a weekend getaway after Thanksgiving to try and escape! Well, my Mom had a few free nights stay in Wendover and neither of us had ever been so it sounded like a fun opportunity. Friday night we drove out to Wendover and a couple of Jordans friends were going out the same weekend. We watched them play black jack and Texas Hold em for a bit and then went up to the room and watched ESPN. Ohhhh and how could I forget to mention that we had to go straight to the room when we got there to see the Jazz win the Lakers!!! wooot wooot!! GO JAZZ!! :) ...anyways.. the next morning we went to Burger King and decided to check out all that Wendover had to offer.. Smiths, Casinos, Strip Club, Blue Boutique and liquor store! How exciting... we were supposed to stay til sunday but after almost a full 24 hours in Wendover we decided we had seen all there was to see. It is not exactly the relaxing getaway we were hoping for, and if you don't drink or gamble (which we don't) it does not have much to offer lol. I did think it was funny though... I never got ID'd once in the casinos where you must be over 21 (which I'm not) but we stopped in Blue Boutique (where you must be atleast 18 to enter, which I am) to see if there was any good shopping (total failure) and they kicked me out because I left my ID at the hotel... and I was unable to prove my age. ohhhh jeez. That was the highlight of the trip.. hahaha.. BUUUT we did get to spend some quality time with my mom which was fun!! However, I'm not sure if we will be heading back to Wendover any time soon. I am a little bummed because I forgot to run to the gift shop and buy a cheesy mug (Jordan and I have a tradition to buy a cheesy mug from every "vacation spot")

...anyways on to the Jazz pics.. enjoy!

Nicole, Syd, Sam, Chenelle, Malorie

Funny story about this pic... I think this is me The closest dancer in the pic.. but I have NOOO Idea.. any guesses? It could totally be someone else.. but it is a cute pic of all the girls so I will keep it up either way! :)

All the girls!!

Games that I am in for December:

Monday Dec. 6 Memphis @ JAZZ

Friday Dec. 10 Orlando @ JAZZ

Monday Dec. 13 Golden State @ JAZZ

Monday Dec. 27 Portland @ JAZZ

Hopefully you guys make it to a few of them!! :)

Update!!

What??? A post from the Young Ohana?? haha I feel like I have not even thought about the blog for a while.. I need to get back on the train!

Anyways thought I would give a quick update.

well lets just start with the family :) Jordan and I have had the stomach flu this week. YUCK!! It has been miserable to say the least!! lots of sprite and saltines! Somehow I still made it through my dance classes and practice.. but only at the saving grace of close garbage cans to puke in.

ughhh.

As far as the "kids" go...

Nebula and Romeo are both in heat so we are breeding

them now because she is finally old enough!! Romeo finally figured it out and they made "tie" or got stuck together for the first time the other day! It was hilarious.. well at least Jordan and I thought so.. They were kind of freaked out. I was so happy for them I whipped out the video camera but after watching the video back.. I decided not to share my doggie porn with the world. I'm not sure if Romeo and Nebula would be comfortable with that. So sorry..

*awkward*

moving on..

Jordan is finding success in his new online business which is fun!! It is finally starting to get established and not cause quite as much stress.

The dance studio on the other hand.... we are still in the trial and error process and seeing which classes work and which don't. It's stressful but we are slowly figuring it out. ..I hope.

Other news:

Jamie, Sydney and I were asked to do a commercial for GoDaddy.com for the SUPERBOWL!! It is actually part of a commercial contest.. you can check it out at godaddy.com it was a "flash dance"/"Chris Farley" theme haha it was hilarious and SOO MUCH FUN!! I have not yet been able to find the direct link so you can check it out and vote for it but as soon as I do I will post it!! We were filming all day and seriously got to work with some amazing people! The film company we worked with has shot commercials for a lot of major companies so cross your fingers that this one wins!! If it does it will play at half time of the super bowl..

Thursday October 7 was our first preseason Jazz game!! It was such a blast!! We played Portland. So far the Jazz are 7-0 for the preseason!! WOOOHOOOO!! I know we are going to ROCK this year!! undefeated..(and yes we beat the Lakers twice!!)

here are a couple pictures I stole from Syd's facebook because we all know how great I am at forgetting my camera everywhere!!

The girls all went to Chili's after the game to celebrate!!

Next game is this coming Friday the 22!! I will post a home game schedule soon of the games I will be dancing in so you guys can come!! :)

October games I am dancing in-

Friday 22 (Preseason)

Thursday 28 (Season Opener)

LOVE YOU ALL!!!