First two weeks in India!!

"Brace yourself for impact when arriving in India. The sensory overload of crowd, sound and smell can cause even experienced travelers to question their skills and their sanity" - Culture Guide to INDIA, pg. 121. If I was to read that before India, I would have thought it an exaggeration... but now that I am here, I this is SO accurate. FIrst of all, I want to apologize for not writing in two weeks! This past saturday marked two weeks here in India! It has been the craziest but most exciting thing I have ever done. I have a lot to say, so I will try to make this concise and to the point. First- like the passage I shared, arriving here was very interesting, but I was tyring to take it all in and I did not feel overwhelmed. The heat hit us like a wave, and the lack of AC soon began to take a toll on us, but we were fine. We were just so excited to get to India, because previously we were stuck in the Hong Kong airport for 6 hours... we were supposed to arrive in India by 1 am, but we arrived in Chennai at 7 am. (Just to clarify for anyone who may be confused- in India, I am in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the capital is Chennai, the fifth largest city in India. The village I am staying in, is in the city of Coimbatore, 8 hours west of Chennai). Joshua, a native to Chennai, and previous branch president for the church, was assigned to pick us up, and he was there! We later found out that he had been there since 1 am. He and his family left a lasting impression upon us. They are so kind and made sure that we were comfortable and definitely went above and beyond. They not only fed us, but took us shopping, to church, to the beach (even though we did NOT swim because the water is not sanitary... but we were in the bay of Bengal and it was pretty awesome, we even saw a baby sea turtle). Joshua's wife is Mercy, and they have two children- Zibia who is 15 and extremely good at English and very smart, and Solomon, who is eight and ADORABLE. I love him and towards the end of our stay in Chennai, he called me "akka", Tamil for "older sister" and would hug me all the time. That family was so wonderful and I will never forget them. After three days in Chennai, we got on a 6 am train headed for Coimbatore. The scenery was beautiful and we were excited to finally arrive at our assigned destination, although leaving Joshua and his family was a little sad. We (there are five of us here: Steve, who's studying dentistry, Nathan who is studying Health Care in India, Josh who's studying music, Emma who's studying pre-natal health and I) arrived in Coimbatore about 7 hours later, and the temperature was immediately cooler. Chennai was very very hot- about 90 F with humidity. Being from Arizona, the heat itself did not shock me, but the humidity was and is, still a bit of a challenge for me. At the station, our host dad, Matthew was there to pick us up. He is a very nice man too, and he and Joshua were mission companions back in 1986. Matthew took us to get some food and I will never complain about spicy Mexican food again. South Indian food is shockingly SPICY!!! Those of you who know me, know that I do NOT like spicy food because Colombian cuisine is not spicy, so I did not grow up with it. It has been a really hard adjustment! The restaurant owner was so funny, he served us, but stood right by our table for about 20 good minutes, just seeing how the "americans" liked his food. I mostly ate white rice, because it is not spicy and I love rice anyway. There are two sauces famous to south India- sambar and rasam. Both are SUPER spicy, but I was brave and ate it! After eating, Matthew walked us to our hotel, where we would be staying for a night before going to the village. We were still on a weird sleep schedule, so we all went to bed at 6 pm and woke up again at 4 am-- and could not go back to sleep. I am still getting used to sleeping here, it gets a little better everyday. We got on our bus, the 96 bus, headed to CHAVADI PUDUR, where the village is located- our final destination. 45 minutes later, we arrived and I will just make a quick mention about the transportation-- there are two rules: fill every single amount of space possible, with motorcycles, buses, cars, trucks, and auto rickshaws. Rule #2- the biggest vehicle gets the right of way. NO traffic rules are obeyed, and if you want to tell someone you are behind them and that they should move, you honk. There is CONSTANT honking, and sometimes when I am on the bus, I just look down or away because I get a little scared (I'm actually terrified... but I have yet to see an accident, so I know I'll be just fine). I will NEVER complain about Utah drivers again. ANYWAY, we arrived in the village and there is about a fifteen minute walk up to the actual village. It is mostly a dirt road. The first thing I noticed were the mountains- I had not seen mountains since Utah, and I missed them. The mountains here are so green, and not covered in snow. There are palm trees and coconut trees everywhere! It is beautiful. The sun was beating on us as we walked and we were all so excited about finally getting to know our host parents. We were met half way by the oldest son, Edvin, who is 17 years old. He led us to his house, where we met Jeeva, the host mother, and the daughter, Priya who is 15 years old and absolutely gorgeous. They live with Matthew's brother and his wife, who is acutally Jeeva's sister (brothers married sisters! kind of cool). It was so great to finally meet the people I had been hearing about for so long! The house is pretty big for a village home, and there is a nice veranda. This family has hosted BYU students for the past 20 years, and so they are pretty used to the adjustment. It has been an interesting but good two weeks adjusting to life here in the village, and I will write more about it later. There have been so many things that have happened in India since then, and I will write them through out the coming weeks, I just wanted to write my first post about arriving here. India is beautiful and crazy, all at the same time. Sometimes I feel like I am in a movie, and other times I can't believe that I am actually in a different country. I will be writing about the NGO, Shanti Ashram, where I have already held my first interview-- that place is WONDERFUL. I will also be writing about some of our adventures at the grocery store, with the buses and in the village. Quick side story- whenever we walk around to the village either to buy a soda or just walk around, the kids freak out and start screaming "hi! Hi! Hi!!" it is so cute and makes me laugh. Everyone thinks I am north Indian... until they speak Tamil to me and see that I speak 5 words, it is funny to see their reactions. Please comment if you would like to, I would love to answer any questions that you may have or anything. Thank you again for your love and support while I am here in India, it means the world to me. I will be writing again soon, with a lot of stories!