Our relaxing weekend in Pattyveeranpatty! September 26th-27th

This weekend was quite relaxing, but we can't wait to get back to the children at Bethania!
We got to explore the fields around the school and enjoyed the cool afternoon weather that comes with the rains yesterday. It was fun to walk by all the sapporta trees, cows, custard apple trees, and coconut trees. We had quite a few delicious meals and snacks; Chandra loves to feed us!
Today was quite exciting as it marked the beginning of a 10 day long festival. The music began blasting very early in the morning from nearby temples along with ringing bells. It was all quite beautiful. Chandra showed us the food that she had gotten up at 3am to prepare to take to her temple. One dish was called surinda, made of mango, coconut, chick peas, green peas and spices. Another, our favorite, was a type of sweet dumpling filled with sugar and cardamom spice. We had some fresh pomegranate and grapes from the vineyard we'd visited on Friday. After breakfast, we drove to a nearby village. We went to temple with Chandra which was a very interesting experience. A monk unlocked the temple and we admired all the beautiful statues and colorful paintings. It was interesting and unlike any other place of worship I've ever seen. The monk gave us white and red powder to put on our foreheads and jasmine for our hair. We visited a shrine of colorful dolls, set up for a festival, and the women there gave us bananas, banana leaves and sugar.
It was all very interesting.
Later we went shopping for clothes to wear with our sarees and other Indian clothes, shuridas, for the wedding in November. We bounced through the bustling town center on the dirt roads, crowded with people, honking bikes, and beautiful strings of flowers. We still get a lot of curious stares and are asked to take pictures with often, maybe more so since Kelsey was wearing Indian clothes. We stopped off at different dress shops, and made our selections from hundreds of colors and designs under the careful watch of Chandra. We went to the tailor to have everything fit properly. We also stopped to buy some gold bangles and bhindis before heading home. After a nice lunch, and a lovely nap, we went for a stroll with Chandra to her parents house down the road. They live with Chandra's brother and his family, with whom we enjoyed coffee straight from their coffee estate. Chandra's niece and nephew, both graduated from University and in their 20's, were very nice, and spoke perfect english. The niece, Nisha says she wants to join us at Bethania some days in the coming weeks, to help us with English lessons. Since she speaks Tamil, it should be really helpful with translating to the kids.
We leave tomorrow morning to go back to Bethania and I can't wait!