Temples

After work today we took a trip to two temples in the area. One was a Hindu temple (Chattarpur seen above) and it was very extravagant. It was built by a man who is considered a saint now and they had all of his things saved in a room where I wasn't allowed to take pictures.

We weren't allowed to go to the mosque today for safety reasons. Apparently there was a large crowd there for a holiday and the mosque is near a market so we steered clear. I wish we went though, we haven't been to many mosques.

Then we went to a Sikh temple (Gurudwara Rakab Ganj seen below) which was very simple but beautiful. They had people singing the prayers and playing music to them. It was pretty relaxing. This was my favorite temple because people were actually praying in it and it wasn't there so much for show. The hindu temple was very showy and a lot of people were there just to take pictures.

I've been thinking about what it is going to be like being home (in America) these past few days because time is ticking away and I have about a week left here. I'll be coming home on a flight on Saturday morning at 12:00am. I'm nervous to be in an airport here because it will be the weekend before a big holiday but obviously I have to be there. When I get home I will have one day at home (from about 7:00am) and then the Sunday after I have to drive back up to school that night. Then I start school the following day. I don't think I'm going to have time to go through any reverse culture shock because I just have to get back into the swing of things. The rush of readjustment will be very America.. fast pace, nothing waits for you.

I can tell I'm going to be upset when I find time to slow my life down, I imagine it will take about a week. I get upset thinking about it but I am listing the things I need to get done the first week of school in my head and it's just too much to even consider taking a breather. I can't wait to graduate!

Anyway, I'll stop talking about this because I need to live in the moment and enjoy my time while I'm here, this blog will probably be rewritten in a more emotion filled manner at a later date. lol

I'll end this blog with a picture of two children who were begging me to buy pens when we were stopped at a red light. I often stop and wonder about their terrible lives and how they are probably constantly in some state of melancholy. I blew a bubble at them for fun since I don't believe in supporting this type of child labor (they often never see the money from the things they sell, it goes to someone who is managing them). They stopped and laughed and were yelling about gum. They started making faces at me and I kept blowing bubbles at them in return. Then one kid flipped his eyelids at me and let me take a picture as you can see. I showed him the picture and he smiled and laughed with satisfaction. Then we said our goodbyes. This relieved some of the upset feelings I had about the mistreatment of children when I considered that they do have a rough and different childhood from me... but they find their ways of enjoying it. :)