If being around Rakesh, Sonali and their family was not enough of a blessing, I was given a really special gift from Abel, Sonali's brother. He works in the precious stone business, which India is a world-leader in.  He took me to their old factory in Jaipur where they have been making jewelry by hand for over 100 years to show me how they do it.  When you look at the finished products, it's really hard to believe that they are made by hand.  The precision of the cuts are just like they came from a machine.   They made jewelry for my mom, two sister-in-laws, and myself.  The process started by picking out the raw stones.  We looked in the light for the greenest emeralds, with the fewest imperfections in them.  Next we decided which cut to do.  For three pair of earrings, we did one circle, one square and one heart shaped cut.  I went with an emerald cut ring, because I always wear rings.  I saw each piece be handcrafted by the masters themselves.  To become a master, someone must work on perfecting this craft over 10-20 years. There were three men working; one would shape the jewelry on a hand spun wheel, and the other two finished the pieces by polishing them.  Each finished piece was set in a delicate gold setting. They let me jump in at times to try and shape it on the wheel, but they said I was horrible, hahaha. I was.  I kept dropping the stones in the water and my movements were far from smooth and consistent.  It drew a crowd of about 20 bystanders outside, which was pretty funny.  Hey, I tried. Abel's enthusiasm was so sweet.  He was overwhelmed with excitement about this gift for us.  "Glory be to God" is what he would say anytime I would express my appreciation.     

I spent a few days in Varanasi, India with my friend and brother, Mahesh.  Mahesh is a missionary with Rakesh and Sonali’s ministry, and he does a ton of things including being in charge at a boys’ hostel in Jaipur.   Mahesh came to protect me, because it would be a terrible idea for a white, blonde, foreign girl with a hat and camera to go to Varanasi alone, haha. I had an interest in going to Varanasi because one of my favorite photographers, Joey L, did an incredible series on the religious men there.  I definitely had no expectation or plan to capture the kind of photographs he took, since he’s quite the master and I know he did a lot of crazy planning for those photos. I really just wanted to go to see it, and capture what I could in a more documentary way, and observe how they lived in an extreme religious pursuit.  In order to get the opportunity to work very closely with people, it’s best to dive into their culture head first, and I knew that wasn’t something I was going to do in this particular place.  Mahesh and I took a boat ride on the Ganges River at sunset as soon as we got there.  It’s one of those touristy gotta-do things.  The Ganges River is very sacred to the Hindus living in Varanasi; I've heard they put the ashes of cremated people in it, and every morning they bathe in it. On our boat ride, we went down the shoreline a bit, and came to a place where we saw a lot of people dressed in white grouped near a few blazing fires.  The fires were burning the bodies of recently deceased people.  I wanted so badly to take some photos but our boat guide was adamant that not one single photo could be taken.  It was quite the sight.  I could just envision a National Geographic logo at the bottom of what I was seeing. Soon we came across some other docked boats and a guy from another boat jumped in ours, and tried to collect donations. We talked to him for a bit, but when he realized we wouldn't donate, he got out of the boat. The next morning we got up at about 5am to go back to the shoreline.  It was over 115 degrees during the days that we had to go out in the mornings, and also it was the best time to observe the people in their daily rituals.  I think I expected the people to be a little more open to getting photographed than they actually were.  In exchange for photos people wanted money or gifts, so I tried mostly to just capture more scenic photos. Overall, it was definitely a really interesting place, but I wouldn't have any desire to go back.  For me personally, it felt very spiritually dark, which made me feel disconnected and a little burdened.  It was super dirty, and really crowded.  The closer you got to the shore, it was even too crowded for cars to drive.  Two days here for me was plenty. I'm glad I saw it for the exposure, but when I go back to India I doubt I would make the time to return here.  Either way, Mahesh and I had a really fun time, and it was great getting to know him better.  He is extremely selfless, serving, and pure as gold in the heart.  I'm blessed to call him my brother.  

With the downtime we had in Jaipur, Rakesh and Sonali were so incredibly sweet to take me around Jaipur to show me all the cool places.  Jaipur is known as the "pink city" because it has a ton of ancient palaces, and an old part of the city that are all made from a pinkish material.  Many kings of the past have lived here, and have fought battles from way up in the mountains from huge fortresses.  The world's biggest cannon is actually in Jaipur.  There were some really beautiful, extravagantly designed palaces that we visited.   We also went to this one place at night that was designed to recreate ancient parts of the Jaipur culture.  It was a blast!  I rode an elephant and camel, and we took a little wagon ride behind a bull.  There were Rajasthani dancers and food that kept the place alive all night. One day we even took a train ride to the Taj Mahal.  This was the hottest day I've ever felt in my life.  The heat index was 150, and from that day forward I was really sick because of the heat.  I remember just dumping a huge bottle of water on myself in the middle of a public walkway, and not caring at all.  You do what you gotta do.  It's cool to say I've been to the Taj Mahal, but it was kind of anticlimactic.  It is really beautiful but it takes just a few minutes to see it and you're done.  I wouldn't recommend anyone traveling across the world just to see it.  The details of the construction are very impressive though, it's know for being a wonder of the world because of the flawless, intricate inlayed stone work that make up the mosaic design inside and out. Despite the heat that led to a spontaneous nosebleed one time, we had a great time hanging out together!