3.27.08

Hello Everyone!

Just thought I'd give a little update on how things are going here in India. We are keeping busy with our ministry sites each week. After this week, however, we only have two weeks of ministry left! That's crazy for me to think about. The third week of April, our last week in India, will be spent getting ready to come home and going on a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I'm really excited about the trip to Agra because I invited my friend Kiran who is on staff at Asha House to come with us. She is seventeen years old and we have gotten to be good friends.

The weeks all go by pretty steadily. Not too fast, but not slow in the least. I love Tuesdays and Thursdays which are spent at Asha House. I mostly hang out with Kiran and "help" her cook or do dishes or laundry. The staff there is really great and we have all gotten to where we love to joke around with each other. Sometimes in the afternoons I take naps with the little girls. I can't resist when they come tug on my hands and say "Auntie, you will sleep with me?"

The leper colony has been a little harder to create friendships because of the language barrier. Even though I know some phrases in Hindi now, my leper colony speaks a Southern Indian language called Tamil. So other than saying "Hello" and "Thank you" the rest is simply communicated by smiles and hand gestures. One of the staff members from Asha House named Rama comes to the leper colony with us to translate, but it's still difficult to have meaningful conversations. This week was very encouraging though. We really seemed to have broken down some of the awkwardness and are able to have more fun with the people. It sounds crazy but because the weather is getting hotter, they are more willing to sit down and hang out since it is too hot to do any work. Well, that, and the big Hindu temple they have been working on building all spring is pretty much completed. It's hard to see these people who have so little money and health spending everything they have and working so hard to build a temple to a false god.

My favorite part of the leper colony is spending time with two little Nepali girls from just outside the colony in the slum area. These two sisters named Mimbra and Sunita have captured my heart! They are painfully shy, but each time they require a little less coaxing to come and play with me.

We have developed a lot of good friendships in our neighborhood - with both kids and adults. I love to sit on the steps of our next door neighbors' house and visit with them. It's amazing the conversations we can have when they put in the few English words they know and we use our Hindi phrases. Of course, lots of smiling and head bobbing always helps too. I must admit that of all the quirky things about India, I have picked up the head bob. It's absolutely addicting! In America nodding means yes and shaking your head means no. But in India, bobbing your head from side to side means yes. However, I typically just bob my head during most of the conversation and let it mean yes or no.

All in all, things are going very well. I'm learning to just deal with it when I am forced to cook a meal with the power out, or spend a few days without water because a pipe burst. It's no big deal to wait for hours because people here are on "Indian Time" and not everyone has a cell phone so they can be quickly located. I can walk away from angry rickshaw drivers who want to rip off the naïve (or so they think) American girls. Though I will never understand why we are gawked at wherever we go simply because we are white. And I am learning that just because the internet café was open at 9am last week doesn't mean it will be open before 11am this week. Because that's just how they roll. And I like it quite a bit. :)