Ranjith is either the most engaging/competitive person in the world or else he takes pleasure in the embarrassing the crap out of us. Before Ali and Becca (Kate's cousin) arrived earlier this week, we were asked to sing after dinner. I'm sure that the looks on our faces was priceless on its own, but hearing us "sing" the Star-Spangled Banner after stalling for 20 minutes was pretty hilarious as well. Using the same creativity at a moment's notice that led us to choose indiaorphanage@gmail.com and http://www.katesusanindia.blogspot.com/ as our email and web address, we chose a song that was 1. out of our vocal range 2. that they already knew and 3. we goofed on the lyrics (sorry, America!). They said they'd rather not hear our national anthem again. We squeaked out "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, where Kate had to carry most of the weight since I kept forgetting the lyrics, then I busted out "Sitting by the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. Sumathy and Ranjith (who, of course, has won all sorts of awards for his singing abilities) sang us a few traditional Tamil songs which were, of course, beautiful. If only I was one of the those people who can't wait for someone to ask them to sing to show off their voice. We went to bed laughing at the situation as yet another 'only in India' moment. Little did we know that we would be called upon to sing at multiple occasions in the following weeks - as guests at a neighbor's home (we sang 'You Are My Sunshine'), in front of a crowd of 15 adult female visitors to the orphanage (a version of 'Amazing Grace' where Ali left Kate and I hanging) and finally in a taxi home where we found our voices and sang, without request, 'Because You Love Me' by Celine Dion. Beautiful things.



So. Badminton. Shuttlecock. Whatever. Ranjith and Sumathy both revel in this game and I've seen line-judging taken to new heights and record-long arguments on our dirt court at the orphanage. The best is when they get so intent on winning during our doubles games that they tell whichever American partner they have (me, Kate, Ali or Becca) to just stand in a corner and cover a 1x1 foot area while they proceed to annihilate their opponent. The whispered directions of "aim for so-and-so" comes up often, and I know I have been both directed like this and also on the receiving end of many of these attacks. I usually beg off when the mosquitoes get bad just so I can watch and laugh. We're definitely a great source of amusement for them, but its alright because we find it pretty hilarious too.



Another thing that Ranjith loves to do is prescribe his herbal medicines. We've been told that we could darken our hair shades and flatten our stomachs by eating curry leaves every day for a minimum of six months. When I had a sore throat I had the distinct pleasure of eating a 1/2 cup full of dry cumin seeds. It also seems that half of his herbal garden is "good for the digestion" and yet Kate and I, and now Ali and Becca as well, have had no such luck with this claim. He will call us into the office room, have us hold out our hands, and dump in them a sweet-smelling green oil that is "cooling for the scalp". I think our recent favorite, which hopefully he'll bust out on Ali and Becca, is the aloe leaves. He'd been threatening to improve our complexions since the third day we'd been there and finally, after lunch one day, he split open a few aloe leaves and passed us some small squares. We gingerly began rubbing our faces with them but obviously were not doing a very decent job because he came over, took my piece out of my hand and started rubbing it all over my face and eyes like I was one of the little kids. I started giggling while he did the same to Kate until he came back over with a fresh piece and started scrubbing it into my hair. After about 20 minutes Kate and I looked like a couple of rats that had drowned in a sticky vat of aloe. Kate asked "so, we can go shower now?" and he said "no, no, minimum 2 hours". So we got to go outside and paint the gate as little pieces of aloe guts would fall off as soon as we forgot it was there.