Whirlwind tour time

Today I'm in Madurai; visiting this city's temple will be our last stop in Tamil Nadu. We've hit four cities in the past four days, which has been completely exhausting. This kind of travel is not the kind I like... but our week in Mamallapuram meant we had to speed through the rest of the state, because we are meeting one of Juliana's friends in Kochi, Kerala on January 1st.

It's funny, Mamallapuram really put us off schedule. Not just our timeline schedule, but our internal clock schedule as well. For two months we have been going to bed around nine or ten, waking up around seven... meditating every day, doing yoga, feeling very centered... etc etc... and then Mamallapuram happened: beaches + booze. On the last day we were there, Juliana and I had a nice walk on the beach and kinda admitted to one another how lost we were both feeling.. and that we really needed to get out of Mamallapuram and move on. But that night was really special; our lovely friends all sat on a rooftop with blankets and candles and hung out for the last time... I had this moment of, "oh, this is exactly why we stayed here one week. duh." What a beautiful group of people.

So we left, finally. We took a bus two hours south to Pondicherry, to check out an organization that we are thinking of volunteering for. Well, let me just say, it's funny how things work out. For this one I need to rewind, this story starts back at Burning Man...

It was late morning on Day 4, I believe, and I was waiting at the HeebeeGeebee Healers Group Camp to get a massage. I left for two minutes to pee, and when I come back I find out that my name had been called, I wasn't there, so the masseuse left and said that I could come back that afternoon. So, feeling somewhat defeated (I had been waiting for at least an hour... and really wanted that massage...), I left. Walked outside, and came face-to-face with the Shaman Camp. No idea what it was, I peeked inside the tent... and saw a bunch of shamans drumming and waving feathers and blowing incense to various people. Of course I was intrigued, so I went in and sat down, not having any clue what to expect.

Eventually a shaman comes over to me. He sits right in front of me, so close we're touching knees, and we start talking.

An hour and half later, after I pretty much share my soul with this man - and my tears, and my hugs - I leave. Some crazy stuff happened in there, not like... weird, magic voodoo stuff... but we had this connection, it's hard to describe. And the things we talked about were just so refreshing, it felt like I was being purged almost. Ok BUT, the point of this whole story... is that at the end of my "healing," he told me three things. The first two are irrelevant to this story. The last was that I couldn't just go to India to bum around. I needed to have some purpose. I needed to help people, because that's what I want to do with my life. He told me I would find someone who is working with microfinancing loans to women, and I needed to help this person.

And in due course of the universe just always seeming to work out....

I was sitting in an internet cafe in Darjeeling, late in the afternoon, when the power goes out. Juliana and I start up a conversation with the Irish girl sitting next to us, and before we know it, she's telling us about this volunteering she was doing in Tamil Nadu; an NGO that works with microfinancing loans to women...!!!

I squealed a little bit and took down all the information. Checked out the website, sent over an e-mail, and ... we had a coffee date with the founder.

So, after doing a little of sightseeing in Pondicherry, we met for coffee. Turns out this man has two foundations - one that does microfinancing, awareness and education for women, the other is brand new. It's more on the environmental side of things. When I told him that I studied Sustainable Development in school, his eyes lit up and told me that he has been waiting for people to get involved with Sustainable Development in this organization. And he wants me to start it. To establish a foundation for the program. !!!!

Oh, how things work out.

We'll be heading back to Pondicherry in about a month to start working. But first, we have some traveling to do. I'm feeling exhausted after these past few days but this is not the pace we'll be keeping after tomorrow. Thank god.

In other news, we've been much more adventurous with street food, and our stomachs have been paying for it. What else, what else... the evolution of my ponytail is something I am proud to show Juliana every day. She's not so into it. Oh! something exciting! For the past three days we have successfully navigated the local Indian bus system... we are very proud of ourselves for this. I feel somewhat accomplished to be the only white people in the bus station. I may not speak Tamil, but I can speak hand gestures and head bobs.