Mamallapuram

Greetings from Mamallapuram (formerly mahaballapuram, for those having difficulty pronouncing the first one). I've spent the week down here in Tamil Nadu. The first two days I spent working in Chennai on our condom activities - reworking an activity that teaches how to properly use a condom. It was actually quite fun to work on on-the-ground activities as I usually work on mass media stuff. It was really inspiring to see that not one of the promoters was just coming to work - they were all truely trying to do the best job possible.

The next two days were spent in a company training on social marketing for senior leadership, led by me previous boss and something I helped her plan. It was a huge success. We stayed at the Green Coconut Resort which sounds just lovely but was a disaster. I called them for a mosquito coil three times on Thursday and they probably still haven't brought it. And it was unbelievably hot. 115F easily and muggy!!! Anyways, despite that - the training was great. The people I work with are so unbelievably smart and fun. Where else can someone yell for the group to "stop", put on a dance remix of "life in a northern town", and everyone in the room dances??

And then I and a colleague took the weekend to come a little further up the coast to Mamallapuram, a little beach town that is famous for its stone sculptures. It's pretty impressive - and equally hot! The first night we went down to the beach and the shore temple - everything here is from the Pallava era (7th century AD). It was great to see all the indian families enjoying the beach. Very strange that the women go in fully dressed though. And it meant I haven't yet gone in the ocean - as I feel a bathing suit would be inappropriate. But dinner at a beach shack is always a good time. Then Saturday (today) we spent touring the stone sculptures. There are the 5 rathas (ratha means "looking like a chariot" or something) - so there are these temples that are meant to look like the chariots of the gods. Lifesized elephants, lions, and a larger than life cow. They were buried under the sand until 200 years ago. Then we toured some temples that are mostly carved out of huge boulders and have relief sculptures that are nothing like I've seen in India. They remind me more of Cambodia or something. There is this ancient lighthouse (oddly like 500 meters from the shore) that you can walk to the top of and from there you can see how far the tsunami came inland. Only 12 people died in this town which is surprising considering how far it came and how much damage it did. All the boats are new and donated from international aid groups (mostly Catholic Relief Services).

1st Photo - Women at the Sea Breeze Hotel in Mamallapuram working to build more rooms.

2nd Photo - The fishermen bringing in their boat in front of the Shore Temple.

3rd Photo - Two of the Five Rathas.

4th Photo - Relief carving in a stone cave of Durga (woman on lion on left) fighting the buffalo demon. If you click on the picture to see it bigger, check out the little woman in the center bottom with incredibly cut abs but a belly:)

5th Photo - A view from the top of the lighthouse to the ocean (Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean). The big rock is how far the tsunami came up - it's an unfinished Ratha.