Varanasi - Chelsea Cullen

Hey everyone! This is Chelsea Cullen, for some reason my blog connection won't let me post anything so I'm going off of Francesca's blog. Today was interesting and scary, at least for me. Here in Varanasi there is a Ghat called a burning ghat where hundreds of cremations happen daily. For most Americans they do not see death in this much of a close view. We were literally feet away from dead, burning, bodies. Most people don't like death to begin with but this personally freaked me out to a whole new level. I have an extreme phobia of dead bodies so this was a conquest for me. All you see is bodies brought down, mostly covered with elaborate decorations, then they are placed on a few logs then cover the rest of the body with more logs and sandalwood powder. I couldn't deal with the fact that we were inhaling death and the smell was everwhere, it was a sweet smell and was terrifying. I covered my face with a cloth but I could still feel my breathing increase from anxiety. Watching human beings burn and realizing that these were once people who felt and had families and danced and laughed just like we do who are now lifeless bodies lying on a funeral fire just scares me. I guess this is how Buddha felt when he was so sheltered then he ventured out into the city and saw death. Everywhere we were it was covered in ash from the burnings and there were millions of logs everywhere. I understand it's for loved ones who have died but something about it seems scary and evil to me. Not in anyway trying to be disrespectful it is just not something I have ever experienced. When walking back from the market with Francesca and Josie we had to walk through the funeral ghats again and this time was much worse. This time we saw an unburned dead body just floating in the water, we saw skin and the person looked like they had just died recently. We stared there and looked with amazement and I think all of us realized how sheltered we are in america. Half of me is so greatful I have the life I do and the other half is just so amazed that all of this exists outside of my safe american home. When we continued walking we saw a real human jaw bone just lying on the sidewalk, needless to saw I faced my fear today. Hopefully that is the last of the dead bodies I see but who knows.