weekend.

This weekend was incredible. Every day was full of excitement and new experiences! Friday through Saturday we were in Aurangabad, a city about 3 hours away. On Friday, we went to the Daulatabad Fort.  This fort is enormous.  Its outer walls stretch for miles. It was built about 1200 years ago by the Hindus to keep out the Muslims. They held it for about a century, until the Muslims blocked off their food routes and starved the Hindus out.

This fort is fascinating because of all the details of its design. Every part of the fort was purposefully designed in defence against their enemies. There are 52 fake entrances, and to even enter the main fort, the enemies would have to cross through 3 main gates, complete with stone walls. The pathways within the fort are made out of uneven, sharp stones that are meant to trip invaders up. The rocks go uphill also, and when wet, they are slicker than ice. Right before the main gate, they built a tempele. Here we are standing between some of the pillars in the temple. (wish I could show you more pics of the temple!) From left to right is Amanda, Beth, Michelle, and me.

 Once you get past the main gate, you must walk on more uneven paths until you reach this: (see next pic). In the moat they kept posionous snakes. Yikes. The bridge you see made out of steel has been added for tourists. If you look further down you'll see a one-person wide footbridge: the only way to enter the main fort. So, enemies must go one by one in a vulnerable position to get in. When you enter the fort, you must make a sharp right hand-turn.  This allows you from drawing your sword, beause you have no room on your right side. There was a person standing nearby to chop off the heads of unprepared, unsuspecting enemies.

There are many, many more pics that I wish I could share! Takes too long to download though. When you are inside, you must go through a winding, pitch-dark circular staircase. Good luck, enemies! When we walked through this, we had flashlights, and it was still difficult to climb the steep, slick steps. Oh, by the way, there were BATS in this staircase. Hundreds of them, just hanging from the ceiling! hahah I've never seen so many bats. It was scary but fun :)

The rest of the fort is normal - where the "good guys" would hang out. This fort is located on a huge hill, and the fort is built in layers.  At every level we'd climb to, there we'd see another level that we could climb to. We must have climbed almost 1,000 steps, easily. When we FINALLY got to the top of the castle, we were on top of this mountain/very large hill! We were sweating and breathing hard, but check out the view:

We spent a night in a not-so-plush hotel room, but came out with some funny stories from our experiences there. I'll share those later :)  On Saturday, we went to the Ellora Caves. These are, by far, the coolest thing I've seen here. These "caves" are inappropraitely named - they are not caves, but structures, tunnels, and other things carved out of the side of a rock mountain.  They are 1500 years old, and they were carved from the TOP to the bottom (think about that for a second), with only a chisel and a hammer. The enormity, detail, and complexity of these structures is incredible when you think of how they were designed. Some of them were built by Hindus, and others were Buddhists. Below is a picture of 1/4th of the largest "cave" that we walked through. IT's from far away, but you can maybe make out the carvings of elephants on the left side of the picture.  There is a temple at the top of the structure on the left - you can walk through these things. So cool. I wish I could describe these structures better. They were incredible.

This next picture is a Buddhist prayer hall that they carved and designed into the rock. This is the most resonating place that I've ever been to. Our guide sung a chant while we were here, and the sounds echoed througout and filled the place with sound. It was amazing. Although I'm not Buddhist, it's a very spiritual place because you can imagine how the prayers and chants of people praying sounded so many years ago. We sang "Redemption Song" here, filling it with God's worship for maybe the first time.

Thi next picture is a Buddhist "cave" that was used as a dining hall for monks.  Next to this long dining hall were meditation rooms, 5x5 feet and completely dark. Here I am with Emily:

The caves were awesome! I will have to show you all more pictures when I get home! On Sunday, we had church, and our group sang "In Chirst Alone." Next, we got to observe a cataract surgery, which was really interesting because this hospital doesn't have the same machines as they do in Michigan, so the surgery was much different than the ones I observed previously.  They perform cataract surgeries for free here, so the eye surgeon that came was doing them as volunteer work. He did 18 surgeries in less than 10 hours that day. So glad I could observe this! We also got to see a burn patient.  With my experience on the burn unit at Spectrum, I was again able to compare what I saw here to what I've seen in the States. What I saw broke my heart, showed me how passionate I am about working with burn victims, and motivated me to think of ways that I can improve CRHP's ability to care for burn patients. More info on that later. Gotta tell you about the farm!

Sunday afternoon we went to the CRH P farm. Here, they grow veggies and produce other farm products that we use and eat here at CRHP.  They also sell their produce at the market, generating some income. More importantly, they hire women who have AIDS or other stigmatizing diseases to work on the farm, as they likey can't get work elsewhere.  Below is a picutre of some food that we ate, after Dr. Raj told us aboutthe farm.  The green things are sorgum - a main staple in the rural Indian diet. You roast it over a fire, and then eat it with your hands. It's starchy, even though they call it a grain. The red powder is a mix of chili powder and peanut powder. IT WAS SOOOO SPICY! haha and the tan chunks are chunks of pure sugar. Yum!

Next, we got to ride in a bullock cart! It was fun! Here I am next to our bullocks...I'm a little uneasy because when I knelt by him, he moved a lot and was skiddish... so I'm a little hesitant here....

And.... drum roll please..... We milked the CRHP cows! I did it! haha Maybe I was meant to be a farm girl after all....

Wow! Super long post! I could have written so much more, but thanks for sticking with me for this long! :)

All my love, Michigan! (and Indy)
-Carolyn