Skip to content

Weeks 4 and 5: Temples and Landmarks

Over the past two weeks, we have finished nearly all of the 1,500 door-to-door surveys and village meetings for this month’s TB Education outreach. Mr. Mohamed plans to have an all-staff meeting later this week to conclude this segment of MEERA’s TB Project.

Throughout our internship at MEERA, we’ve also had the wonderful opportunity to visit some of the beautiful temples and landmarks in and around Dindigul. The first temple we saw was the temple at Palani, which is about 1.5 hours away from Dindigul. We traveled by bus with Lakshmi’s family to visit the huge temple honoring Murugan.

Inside the temple, which is at the top of hill overlooking the city. (We climbed a lot of stairs!)
Inside the temple, which is at the top of hill overlooking the city. (We climbed a lot of stairs!)

 

On the way up the hill we stopped to admire the gorgeous view and take a photo with Lakshmi’s nephew and daughter, who is just entering 12th standard, her last year of high school.
On the way up the hill we stopped to admire the gorgeous view and take a photo with Lakshmi’s nephew and daughter, who is just entering 12th standard, her last year of high school.

 

The following week, Annakkodi and Lakshmi went with us to the Dindigul Rock Fort, which was built by the British when India was still a colony of England. The fort is built on a single rock the size of a hill.

Inside the Rock Fort, which also contained a temple.
Inside the Rock Fort, which also contained a temple.

 

We also visited Thirumalai Nayak Mahal, Meenakshi Temple (Madurai’s central temple), and Alagur Temple, which contains a lot of monkeys and an area to take a bath with holy water.

Inside Thirumalai Nayak Mahal with Mr. Mohamed in the right hand corner. It was his first time inside the palace too:)
Inside Thirumalai Nayak Mahal with Mr. Mohamed in the right hand corner. It was his first time inside the palace too:)

 

Inside the beautiful and ancient Meenakshi Temple, which is built at the center of Madurai city.
Inside the beautiful and ancient Meenakshi Temple, which is built at the center of Madurai city.

 

A monkey eating a Marie biscuit. The temple monkeys are very intelligent and bold—one of them was rifling through all of the bags on the row of parked motorcycles!
A monkey eating a Marie biscuit. The temple monkeys are very intelligent and bold—one of them was rifling through all of the closed bags on the row of parked motorcycles.

 

Annakkodi also offered to take us with her to a festive family event where relatives gathered to take pictures, talk, and of course eat a lot of delicious food.

All the food we ate, not including the biryani and the puri—so much food!
All the food we ate, not including the biryani and the puri—so much food!

 

Our next entry will be posted from back in Houston! We’ll include updates on our last week in Dindigul, as well as our plans for expanding the wonderful partnership we have developed between Rice’s Nourish chapter and the MEERA Foundation next semester.

2016 India MEERA Rice University | projectintern |

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *