What's so special about India? # part 1

In India you never, or at least very rarley use toiletpaper.
Instead the toilet will be equipped with an extra watertap next to the toilet itself.
Practical! And way better for the nature not to waste all that paper.

 At first it felt strange. Then slowly we got used to it. Now we are considering never going back.
Toiletpaper is an unnecessary luxury in invented by western society? We think so.

Stay tuned for more crazy indian facts coming up :)
(Said with our very best tvcommercial voices)

Tranquebar & Tiruvannamalai - Impressions

                                          The old danish fort in Tranquebar.
Tranquebar is an old danish colony, even though today only the fort, the church and a "danish shop" (which doesn't sell any danish things) reminds of the old days. Still, a lot of Danes come to visit this beautiful idyllic little town.

                                   German writings in the old danish church.

Nina after our first Pooja in Arunachaleswara Temple in Tiruvannamalai.We were a bit confused because we just saw some people waiting for something and so we decided to join them. We then found out what a Pooja is: you go into the inner part of the temple, give some donations and receive a red dot on your forehead in return. It was so much fun that we decided to do it once again, in another part of the temple. There we received some white powder, which is used to make a white stripe, again on the forehead. The different colors and signs are symbolic for the different gods in Hinduism.

                                      One of the entrances of the temple.

Happy Pongal!

The biggest Ferrero Rocher in the world

Last Sunday there was a big festival here in Sadhana. About 300 children from different schools came to celebrate the first birthday of a project called Children's Land. It's a part of the forest that children can create and use as they want to. Some of the people (of the long-termers) living in Sadhana are responsible for this project, and they guide and support the children that come here. But for the birthday the help of all of us was needed. There were different workshops: music, sports, handicrafts, games, a clay village, face painting, and boat building (which Simone was a part of). It was a very very exhausting day, but also full of energy. It was so good to see how happy the children were  - even though they were really uncontrollable!

And then, this weekend, we finally made our way to the centre of Auroville: the Matrimandir. It's this Ferrero Rocher-thing you see in the picture, and it's Auroville's most important sacred place. Inside (but it is very difficult to get permission to go inside; we even had to watch a movie just to see it from the outside) there is the world's largest crystal. The Matrimandir is also used as a place for concentration and meditation.

Now we are half way through our stay here in Sadhana. By the way: New Year's was good. We didn't make it until the next morning, but we had some dates and cashews as a special dinner, and we chanted into the new year while dancing around a bonfire in the forest together with the other volunteers. (and we did Blei giessen!)
So happy new year to all of you!