Hot Dog

So yesterday I wore a shirt some of you know, that has a hot dog on the front of it.  The kids all noticed this, of course, and now sometimes refer to me as 'Hot dog'.  But today's title has to do with more than just this.  Our group was on construction today... so at 9 am we headed off to one of the leper colonies.  The one we went to is one that is quite well off, as in it has mostly permanent houses (not the grass huts).  I also learned that not only lepers live there... some family members live there as well.  Anyways, because they are doing alright, they can afford to build bathrooms (a small square cement building with a traditional Indian squatting toilet.  So the four of us (our other group members are coming later this week) moved 260 cinder blocks to 4 different locations.  It was exhausting, and even though I drank 2 liters of water there... I drank another 2 at home because I started getting chills and a headache.  It is amazing how hot India gets...

After we finished, we went to the snake-charmer in the village.  Apparently he drinks cobra venom every day so that he can handle being bit by one.  He brought out the cobra for us to take pictures of, and most of us held a couple of the rat snakes he had.  This led to a conversation later with Gokulraj about snakes and frogs when we were at playtime.  It's so fun to talk to the kids.  For family time, one of the kids asked me to draw something, and once I drew that one... everyone wanted me to draw something.  I ended up drawing a dragon, a dinosaur, a lion, an elephant, and some character from a book they had.  Apparently I'm a "drawing master".  They would all sit behind me and comment on how real it looked.  I think they're easily impressed.  And now for some pictures!

Here we have the cobra with two of the rat snakes being held by the snake guy.

Here's me holding a snake... the snake charmer was joking with us that we should hold the cobra, too.  I thought it sounded like a good idea.