Going to the temple Mantralayam in Andhra Pradesh, Tuesday 18 March

As we have one extra day we chose to use today for an outing outside the project. Getting up at 5 in the morning to go to a temple 3.5 hours away sort of seem a bit strange to me – but I was willing to experience something different. Choosing to take the local buses, change in Raichur and arriving almost simultaneously with the direct express, also seemed a bit strange to me – but again I am all up for a true Indian experience. There are many small details in the past two months that has puzzled me greatly. It seems lots of things get complicated, less effective and unstructured all in order to …??? In a restaurant there are 1 person taking the order, 1 person serving you, 1 person asking you if you are satisfied, one just checking last time, 1 person cleaning, several people standing around and I have no idea about the status of people in the kitchen. It is done in good spirits, to create work for more people. You should think this at least would make your food come faster – but no. In shops one at the tiller, one packing your bags, one standing at the entrance giving you your bags, one stamping your receipt with a paid stamp and then you are free to go. I admire the effort and the system; it just takes a long time to get used too.

So Mantralayam… After the bus trip we arrived in the town sharing the same name, and as one shall not eat before prayers, I was starting to feel a little bit hungry passing several nice food places. Entering the temple area, we first went down to take a holy bath in Tungabhadra. It is almost like still working, as the river seems to be everywhere. As the pictures clearly tell, there was not much of a river these days, and I did not feel like dipping myself in this water. But the Indians enjoy it tremendously. Soaping until the lather is covering their entire body, then swimming, laughing and chanting. A beautiful sight, but somehow sad to know that the water quality is so poor… how I wish I could leave that notion of knowledge on the shelf for a second and just totally live in the moment…

The temple was not as mind-blowing as other smaller temples I have seen in the past weeks, and the money boxes every second step, underneath every statue just enables me to enjoy the moment. I have yet to get over this paying for believing and receiving blessings. One thing is at the end of the experience you offer a donation, but at every step –how can anyone feel relieved. This I have met around the world, and it has blinded me – spearing me the opportunity to see what the believers see. I only see just that – business.

All in all, a nice relaxing day. The bus trip back, the stopover in Raichur wandering around a bit, then the lovely dreams when dazing off and the opportunity to update my blog finally. A good day.

Tomorrow will be another working day as our enumerators will be joining us and we will start to conduct the survey. This is it for now… Miss you all sooooo much now. But will be back on the 27th, so will give it 110% till then,

Lots of Love to you all
Mai