Cochin, India

The heat of India was a warm welcome to the dirty streets of the city.  Unfortunately, it met up to it’s stereotypes and expectations I had for India so far.  The people of India have a sort of privacy to them yet were very intrigued by seeing tourists.  We first visited a local temple.  As we stood outside the side gate, cars quickly passing by only a few feet away, we were all asked to remove our shoes before entering.  This is something we are used to however most temples we go see are inside.  This side door opened up to a large courtyard of hot pavement, so most of us, including myself opted out of burning our feet.  I think I made a good choice, since only a few minutes later, everyone who had gone in was on their way back out after a Monk had come over and unexplainably yelled at them.  We still aren’t sure why, but we quickly got back on the bus to head our next stop, a local factory.  It was a small building, one room downstairs and one upstairs, with about 30 women manually operating loud machinery.  They make cotton sheets all day in an un-air-conditioned building, and get paid only two dollars a day.  I couldn’t believe how hard they work for so little pay.  The local village was our next stop.  We rode through the dirt roads on a three wheel open aired taxi called a tuk tuk and were welcomed by a family who placed hand made flower petal necklaces over our heads and a strange dot of orange cream on our foreheads.  It was to help cool our bodies down in the heat, and not the typical red dot that is used in the Hindu religion.  We walked around with them as they showed us their homes where laundry hung in the yard, and toothbrushes sat along a ledge on the outside of the house.  We walked slowly through their helpless homes, snapping pictures on our digital cameras of their reality to take home with us.  The snap shots we take with us of their lives will never help us understand how they live.

 

Back on the ship, we continue to stand apart from the other passengers on board.  There is a comedian who is performing on board who has been on the ship for the past few days with us.  I’m sure he expected to have a nice peaceful vacation time for a few days, but little did he know that there are children on this ship and he has 3 very big fans on board.  They are the only ones here who recognize him from his small role he plays as the dad on the Disney channel show “Cory in theHouse”.  The kids have made it a point to point him out and say his name every time we see him.  Luckily he’s been very gracious to give us a wave back every 15^th time or so.  Tonight we sat front row at the music show in the theatre.  Mostly we sit front row because the kids think it’s the best seat in the house.  The performer was playing a lot of classics, some Led Zepplin and Beatles. We didn’t realize that no one else in the theatre was into it until he handed the mic over to the crowd and we were the only 5 voices singing “goodness gracious great balls of fire.”  Like I said before, we continue to stand apart.  I’m just glad someone is here to make life on board a little more fun.