I was by myself, so this is how I managed to get a picture of myself in front of the church. (I know I am just being paranoid, but I didn't really feel like I wanted to hand over my camera to anyone to get a picture of myself...)



I had the day off on Sunday, so I decided to visit the closest "attraction" to Nagapattinam. There is a huge catholic church about 11 km away from the town I am in that people from all over India make pilgramages to. The people at Bedroc told me to take the bus there, and boy was that an adventure considering that I don't speak any Tamil yet! Making it to Vailankanni was easy, but making it back to Nagapattinam was a whole different story...

The church was nice, although not like the churches I have seen in the US or Europe. It is definitely more brightly colored that I am used to seeing Catholic churches. People come to Vailankanni for the purpose of praying for babies....a women in Chennai told me that 3 miracles had occurred for her as a result of visiting Vailankanni. So, I gave it a shot...I guess we'll see if a baby comes along in the near future!

Because of all of the visitors, Vailankanni had a lot of stuff for sale, and a lot of beggars. It cause the dilemma that I have every time I come to India. To give to beggars or not to give? Most people say that you shouldn't give to beggars, but instead you should contribute to charitable organizations. Well, that is easy to say but it is pretty hard to walk by pitiful beggars with ample money in your pocket. The guilt is intense...but being alone, and not speaking Tamil, and the fact that there were so many beggars around me...I felt it was safer to not give. They were fairly aggressive, and did the whole grabbing on to your sleeve or pant hem thing...When I got back to Nagapattinam I realized how pleasant it was that no beggars were around. (That sounds terrible, but they do cause mental anguish for me! I am never sure how to react.)

I treated myself to eating at an air conditioned restaurant, the only one in town. Yay! I walked quite far to get to it, but I figured that it was Sunday and I should treat myself. Of course, I was walking by beggars to get there, and internally berrating myself for walking far to treat myself to the luxury of AC while I was ignoring all of these people...