Lessons learned in India won't soon be forgotten

Well this is my first time blogging since being here and I'll try not to bore you for too long. I got to India excited for the unknown. We arrived here and I was ready to go. Unfortunately my luggage was lost (for the next 6 days) but the Indian way of life must have already rubbed off on me, so I just went with it. Thankfully the people in this amazing group were kind enough to share with me the things I needed.
The days of teaching we have had have been wonderful. All of the students are able to retain the information we have taught them in a short period of time (I'm not sure I would be able to do that). They are all very polite and stand every time you enter a room. This city, Calicut, does not see as many tourists as where we where so the students today were very enthusiastic when they saw us. Everyone wanted to shake our hands and get our autographs. I guess the girls had never seen, or at least not that many, women wearing “American” clothing and were fascinated by myself, Jenna and Nicole. I even got asked if I was married a few times! (Probably because of my age…)
There are many culture shocks being in a country like this (like the one above) and I guess the biggest one has been just how hospitable everyone has been. When you read about people "back in the day" giving guests everything they had you don't realize that some people still live this way. We have been given so many great experiences from people that we didn't know; people that decided they liked what our organization was doing and then went above and beyond what any of us had expected them to do. The people from the schools haven’t just taken us to where we were teaching, but have opened themselves, and their home (India, not house) up to us. They have shown us the true experience of being in India. We have been given countless tours of amazing places and this morning we were even able to take a yoga class from a master yogi, all because of the men Ben had emailed. This has definitely been a memorable experience. The kindness of people in this country has been astounding and I am very thankful to be here.

--Erin