a day at the jew.

This day commemorates our fourth week in India, so most of the group thought we'd make it special by going to the zoo! Or rather, as it is pronounced here, the "jew". Our friend Mohan told us that when he was in grade school learning English, his teacher would have the students do exercises where they would have to say "A Jew in the zoo" to help distinguish those two sounds. Not everyone here received that same instruction.

The initial fee for the zoo was a whopping 15 rupees. The man at the ticket counter didn't know what to do with himself when we all handed him 500 IRS bills. Needless to say, it took some time sorting out all the change that was due us.

Anyway, the Indira Ghandi Zoological Park is located in the hills overlooking Vizag, so in reality the architects of the zoo didn't have to worry much about planting vegetation, or anything of that sort. But because of the hilly environment, the paths in the zoo make it quite a workout in order to view any of the animals, and the zoo isn't really confined to any certain space, so it took a good three and a half hours to walk around the entire zoo. In that time, we saw more deer and birds than anything else, and there was one deer in particular that came right up to the wall wanting food or pets, or something. All the girls pet him and he almost seemed okay that we didn't have food for him, but when Collin attempted to pet him, the deer hit Collin's hand away with his antlers. It was pretty funny, and I wish I had caught that on camera.

So a bit later, Collin and I dished out another five rupees each in order to see the nocturnal animals enclosure. It was set in a "cave" that was pitch black and we had a tour guide with a flashlight, thank goodness. There were various owls he shone his light on so we could see them, and there was also a group of very agitated porquipine, who were all extending their quills in our general direction. Did I mention that there was no real barrier between us and the animals? But our favorite was the slow loris. The poor thing was curled in a corner sleeping, and after the tour guide attempted to wake it by whistling at it and shining the flashlight on it, the tour guide decided to hop into the enclosure, grab a stick, and poke it at the loris. The loris, still dazed from sleep I'm sure, grabbed hold of the stick and was then swung to a box that the guide intended the loris to land on. The loris did so, but just as soon as he was atop the box, he moseyed on back to his little corner to sleep a bit longer.

A while after our nocturnal experience, we came to a tiger enclosure. After admiring the beauty of the tiger, we had two zoo workers tell us that for 100 rupees, they would take the whole group of us back to see the tigers up close. We agreed, and we were all excited, and if you know me and my love and admiration for cats of all sizes, I'm sure you could imagine how elated I was. So we walk up a path and one of the girls was the fist to enter this building to the side of the enclosure, and all I hear is an absolutely astonished, "Oh my gosh." It was at that moment I felt it was going to be bad, not that we were in danger bad, but just bad.

We walk in and there are five full grown tigers all in separate cages in which their massive bodies nearly filled. My mind sort of went fuzzy at that point, and I passively took photos of them, because I felt that that was expected of me. But the first thing I saw was absolute fear in those animals' eyes. I hated it. All of us there hated it. Such powerful beasts who were snarling with their ears back and their eyes wide in terror was not what I had planned on seeing. I couldn't take it anymore and immediately left the building were the tigers were kept. The zoo employee told me I had to come back inside, for whatever reason. I think he actually wanted me to take more photos, but I shook my head and waited for everyone else to file out of there. It didn't take too much longer for the others to come out. There was a serious heaviness from what we had just witnessed. Collin and I walked ahead, and we walked past the one tiger we saw in the enclosure previous to seeing the other five tigers in their cages, and I just shook and began crying. I feel that my words don't really do the justice of what was felt when we saw those massive creatures, and I'm certain that the clumsy photos I took while we saw the tigers in their cages will not show the immense fear in their eyes. 

Shortly after, upon approaching the white tiger exhibit, we were offered by more zoo employees if we wanted to pay to see the white tigers in the back. We all learned our lesson and kept on the zoo path.

As a whole, the zoo was fine; but everywhere you go, zoos all have an element of depression behind the excitement and the fun that is involved in a day at the zoo.

But we did order Pizza Hut and watch The Fugitive afterwards. So I guess it was a pretty okay four week celebration!

xos!