A day of learning!

Today was again a day of learning. We had three lectures again today. Our first lecture was on the art of dance. This was an amazing lecture because she brought in young girls to show us the dance movements. If you've ever seen classic India dance, the hand movements are very unique. The lecturer went through each movement and gesture to show us the meaning of each. Through these hand gestures they tell a intricate story of what they are trying to portray. Therefore, it was a lot more interesting to see the dance because it was easier to follow and understand the story.

Our second lecture of the day was on South Indian art and architecture. This lecture was one of the best we've heard because the our lecturer was very engaging. He provided us with a lot of information to piece together the temples and places we've seen. He gave insight to the progression of the temples and how they functioned to nomadic group of people and then to the urbanized group and then now to the modern function of the temples. This progression has really influenced the religion of Hinduism and has then played a key role into the architecture.

Our last lecture of the day was on the caste system and gender issues in India. This is a pressing issue and topic that many of us wanted to learn about because this is just so different from the culture we have at home it is hard to grasp and why it still plays into society today. The lady we had speaking to us was very interesting and played into the activism piece in India. We learned that it is a deeply rooted issue that is still being debated and worked about today because of the religious aspect behind it all. Some of the issues she talked about that related to these issues were in marriage, abuse, poverty, education and many more. This was very interesting and after her talk I went and read the newspaper and saw major headlines that discussed these very topics she had just touched on!

Okay so again I will say farewell from my blog for a few days as we will be heading to the Ideal Beach Resort at 8:30 am tomorrow and I will not have internet. I will post when I get back in 3 days as I will not have wifi where we will be going. I just thought of one way you can all read some of what I'm reading everyday by viewing the paper The Hindu online. It is a very interesting newspaper and you can see the different reporting techniques they have. Heck you may even see a familiar face! I saw Tom Harkin one day who knew Iowans would be making the paper still in India! So long for now!