Student Post: Julianna Gibson on Homestays!

This post was written by Julianna and originally posted on her personal blog.

A Weekend To Remember!
by Julianna Gibson

Julianna poses with a carom board.

So this weekend we did our homestay!  Most of the group had a free weekend, but it was full of festival activities like a dance competition and the fashion show in which I narrowly escaped participating.  But one of the families in the church asked for two girls to volunteer to do the homestay a weekend early, so Kendra and I volunteered. We went to stay with Vasantha and Sam David, and they were the nicest people ever!  So hospitable and kind.  Sam bought a carom board, and he said it was an early present for Vasantha's birthday, but I think it was more because we were staying there.  They were shocked to hear that we had never played carom, but we learned pretty quickly.  It's a lot like pool and shuffleboard.

We also ate guava for the first time!  Uncle made us weigh ourselves when we first got there and then told us that he was going to make sure we gained 5 kg before we left!  He never weighed us again, but he really was determined to feed us as much as he could.  The food they made for us was wonderful.  Auntie tuned down the spiciness on purpose for our sakes, and we were endlessly grateful.

Julianna and Kendra in their saris and their host family at church on Sunday.

We also went shopping and bought sarees!  It was so much fun!  We also saw a regional film.  Completely in Tamil, and completely awesome.  It is called "Vettai," and I kid you not, this is actually a song in it!  Please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyc5WmYJaCI.  Apparently all movies have 4 or 5 songs in them, no matter what genre the movie is.  It makes things way more fun!
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Text and photo by Julianna Gibson and Kendra Fiddler('s camera?)