Friendly letter | Teen Ink

Friendly letter

June 1, 2009
By Brianna Warner BRONZE, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Brianna Warner BRONZE, Kalamazoo, Michigan
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Dear Caitlyn,



Hi Caitlyn, how are you? How is your summer going? As you already know me and my family are in India. It is amazing here!!! I wish that you were here to see it with me. But I will take some pictures for you! Then again you don't want to be here because the Ganges river is SO polluted. It is more than 1557 miles long. It is also called the “Mother Ganga”. It effects the earth's surface by it can give the fishes diseases. It also can get into our drinking water. It is important to the area cause they use the river for almost everything like a bathtub, bathroom, garbage can, and a baptism area. It effects the organisms by the land animals can drink the polluted water and die. Also we can get diseases by eating fish that were living in the polluted water. When me and my mom saw what the people have done to the river we gave them the what-are-you-thinking kind of look. About 80% of the health issues in India are caused by the Ganges river. About 1/3 of the deaths in India are caused by the pollution in the Ganges river. It is important for us to know about it because we may be able to change it.

One good thing about the Ganges river is that the soil around it is good for agriculture. You should see these people they are strong believes. The woman in India ware a piece of clothing over their head. Also known as a Saree. Women also ware a red dot (also called a Bindi) on their forehead. The men here ware western clothing known as a long shirt and pants and sometimes a vest. We had some of their food, and man it was spicy! There food there is usually very spicy. In most of their food they have onions in it. The people there are vegetarians. When they drink from a communal cup their lips must never touch the cup. Pork and alcohol are not eaten by the Muslims.

In India there marriages are sacred and traditional. We were lucky enough to see one! To have there marriage to be sacred they exchange flowers or words then walk around a circle 5 to 7 times. I feel so bad for the kids in India because marriages are arranged for them and they have to work all the time. They get pulled out of their education to work at home or sometimes away from home. The kids that stay home and work are usually 14 and under. When the kids stay home they are treated like slaves working all day and night. Some families are so poor that they have to send there kids away to work in bigger cites. Which is also called a migrant worker. Sometimes the kids are 5 or 6 years old when their parents send them away. Some solutions tried to stop it were that we tried to make it a law. What needs to be done is that the kids need to go to school then when they get back from school they can do their jobs! I can't wait till we come home, can't wait to fell the fresh Michigan breeze, can't wait till we can finally get home and see all of our friends again! We went to a zoo and saw many things. One of the things that we did is we all rode our own elephants!!! It was so cool! It was really hard to steer the elephant! We also saw 3 Indian tigers! They were so cool! Our tourist told us some interesting facts like, there scientific name is Panthra Tigris, common name: Tiger, kingdom: animalia, phylum: chordata, and class is mammaila. Each claw on the tiger is about 4 inches long! They have tails that can be as long as 3 feet. A male tiger can eat as much as 150 kilograms a month. They usually live in tropical forests, tall grassland areas and coniferous forests. 2 adaptation's
that it needs is there stripes help them blend in with there habitat, also there stripes break up there body shape. Well I have to go now because today we are going to the orphanage to give them money.


I hope your summer is going as well as mine








Brianna




P.S. Cameron says hi


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This article has 2 comments.


saketh said...
on Sep. 17 2010 at 11:00 am

one thing i can say after reading your article is GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT

80% of diseases in india are because of ganges 

that is so untrue

next time please refer before


on Jun. 16 2009 at 12:52 am
Dandelion PLATINUM, Franklin, Massachusetts
20 articles 8 photos 173 comments
Wow! This is very interesting.