Hello again from South Asia.
Sorry for the delay updating our blog. As you may remember from our last blog, we spent several days in Delhi at an orientation and working with other Company students, so we did not have internet for much of that time.
Orientation
Since we are partnered up with the Company program, we were asked to complete their 10 day orientation in Delhi. This was a great time of encouragement and fellowship for us, since we had been in our city for almost 3 weeks by this point. As for how we spent our time in Delhi, most of it was a way to allow the others in the program to get adjusted to how life in South Asia is lived on a daily basis. For most of the students, this was their first trip overseas, and so there was a lot of info regarding how to get an auto, how to get simple everyday things at the market, how to learn language barefoot, and so on. It was interesting to see how the other students reacted to some of the situations that came their way. After we had been there three full days we moved from a very nice company owned guest house into a simple Indian style guest house. While at the company owned guest house it was very nice. The beds were soft, we had internet and a TV. But at the other guest house we had none of these things. When Sheena was showing the girls around and showing them the bathroom, one of the girls nearly started to cry at the site of the bathroom. Now to Sheena and I, this bathroom came as no surprise because it was very similar to our flat (just a typical Asian style bathroom), but it was very different from what many of the students were expecting. Also during orientation, Sheena and I were able to meet up with the SBU team that had been traveling in India. This was a great blessing for us for it allowed us to meet some very good friends and hear the experiences that they had had on their trip and what our Father is doing. We were also blessed to be able to meet with many of the company people who were a great help to getting us connected in our city, and who helped guide us in some of the different ways in which we can share the Story. Over all, we were very glad that we got to go to Delhi for this orientation, if for nothing else that we were able to eat pizza and McDonalds. There is definitely no McDonalds where we live – or anything close, however an interesting fact – in India, McDonalds does not serve beef, it is all chicken products, and French fries are made with sunflower oil. (Btw: for delivery, their phone number is 66-000-666 or if you're calling from a cell phone, it is 011-66-000-666.)
Home Stay
After we arrived back in our city, life became very busy again for the first few days as we worked with our national partner and some of the company people in arranging our home stay. This is a very hard task because we not only had to find our people group but make sure that they would speak the market language that we are learning so we would be able to practice. Here, people speak the market language in the city (in all kinds of dialects) and their heart language at home (of which there are countless different heart languages, so to learn the heart language is a goal eventually, but the market language is of immediate importance.) In the end our national partner found the right family for us to stay with. The family consists of a mother who owns two shops, a restaurant and a movie/phone center, and her two teenage children who live with her, a son and daughter. It has been a wonderful experience and they are really great helpers with language.
The restaurant is one small room with 4 tables that are like picnic tables. You could probably fit 24 people at most in the room. Then, through a curtain, across the hallway, and through another curtain, there is a small room. This room is a bedroom, the shop, the dining room, and the kitchen (all in one). There is barely enough room to move sometimes, and friends may also come into this room to eat. Sometimes they sit on the bed to eat. The cash register is the mother’s purse. You cannot use debit cards or checks here in our town.
Last night while we were sitting in the back room of the restaurant (where we spend most of our time with the family) a lama (Tibetian monk) came in and sat down. Since he was friends with the family he was allowed to eat in this back room where all the food is cooked. While he was eating, he realized that we were practicing our language with the mother and daughter and decided that he would help. So after he had finished eating, he began to point to different things and ask what they were. Since our language is limited, he used much drama to emphasize his points. When we got something wrong he would close his eyes and hang his head and proceed to correct us, but when we did get something right he would get so excited. This continued and the questions would become harder and harder but it was some of the best language practice that we have had up to this point. Another event that happened last night while we were sitting in the back room talking about their culture with the daughter we started talking about caste and she asked what caste we were. This lead us to be able to share the Story with her and she seemed very open to hearing about the Father but sadly she is so very trapped in her religion without really knowing why she does this.
We also practice our language daily with a little girl who is about six years old. She is an orphan who lives in the same building. While we were practicing our language, she grabbed a chopstick and ran off with it. She knows she is not supposed to play with the chopsticks, so when she was in an ornery mood. When a lama they are close friends with walked by, she yelled out, “Lama is dog.” The word dog here is very derogatory name to call a person. So she should have been slapped by any other lama in this culture. But this lama acted with some kindness and forcefully picked her up and set her outside of the shop while she was screaming the entire time.
All forms of Transportation
On a more humorous note, Sheena and I have decided to use all forms of public transportation to get to and from our language class in order to save money and thoroughly experience culture. This includes, but is not limited to, bartering with taxis, standing on busses (these busses are like normal transportation busses in the US except all the seats are overfilled with people stacked upon each other), and without even standing room only). Another type is a microbus, which is like a minivan with US seating for 8, but here it seats 18-20 with two guys hanging out the side to collect the money (usually these guys range in age from 7-25, because children can move in and out of these small places more easily). Finally, there is the tempo, which is the smallest, and cheapest form of transportation (this is cheap for a reason). These are battery powered and do not run on gas. However, the battery must be recharged every night by plugging it in. Since we are currently in a power crisis where we only have power for 8 hours a day (for 16 hours every day our power is turned off to conserve electricity), the tempos are having problems recharging, so these are more difficult to come by lately. A tempo has 2 seats open next to the driver, and then 2 benches as seats in something like the back of a small pickup with the shell on the top. Here nationals can fit 10-12 people inside, and sometimes two hanging out the back.
Today, after we got off the microbus, the money collector, who was about 18 ran out of change to give to the passenger. When the bus stopped, he jumped out of the microbus and ran down the street to a beggar sitting alongside the road. He proceeded to “make change” upon the random assortment of coins that the beggar had collected. Then he ran back to the microbus and proceeded to disperse the change among the different passengers awaiting it.
Yarp Requests
- Cont. prayer for Sheena’s cough
- For the daughter in our homestay as we share the Story
- For language learning
- For health as we begin training to hike through the mountains in March
- That we will be informative on training a new brother
- Our supervisors had their baby girl in Thailand 3 weeks early. She had to go through surgery 4 day after she was born, and is now in recovery. Please yarp for their family during this time.
Praise
Our city feels more like home everyday. We love looking out in the morning and being blessed by the view of the mountains when the smog is not overwhelming. After spending two weeks in Delhi, we were able to compare cultures, and we realize that our city is a perfect match for us. The people are friendly and smile constantly. The day I got back home, I went to a fellow coworkers house to have lunch and discuss plans. When we were walking back before a party that night to watch American Idol (the highlight of our weekend) we met an old man walking down the street. When we started speaking to him in his language he became so happy we were speaking to him. He started laughing and talking to us rapidly in his language. When he discovered we could not fully understand him, he proceeded to pull my hand out of my pocket in order to hold it while we walked down the road together. This is not uncommon. What makes this odd, is that while we are here, I can hold any man’s hand I want to and feel secure in that, but this culture would not allow me to hold my wife’s hand. While we walk down the street, we have conversations constantly with people we don’t know. Even with our limited language, they are so forgiving of our mistakes. Children greet us, saying “Hello tourist” in English, and giggle when we talk back to them in their language. While we were in Delhi, we felt so homesick to come back here to work. While we are here, though we miss our friends in America, we have discovered this is our home, and we are content here, even with no power or no beef.
We should have more pictures soon. Thank you for continuing to yarp for us.

Orientation

As we have previously expressed, the pollution in our city is thick. So thick, in fact, that on most days, we cannot see the majestic mountains emerging just beyond the hills in our city. In our valley, we reside at 5,000 feet above sea level. The hills rise up to 7,000 feet. And in March, we will finally climb those breathtaking mountains that constantly elude our sight behind the dirt and smog suspended the air we breathe. In the last photo Brian sent showing the view from our house, the hills appear to be the edge of the world. But the day before we left our valley to come south for orientation, the skies opened to reveal creation in its wonder. The picture above was taken from our rooftop; this was the only day in the 3 weeks we lived in the valley that we were able to see the mountains.

(Note: clicking on any picture will bring up a new window where the pictures can be viewed in a larger size)
This picture was taken on the same day. You can see part of the valley, the hills, and then the mountains in the distance. Living in the valley is wonderful. It is the meeting place where everyone goes in the winter because it is too cold in the mountains. We have met several people from the area we will be trekking to in March. Right now, they live with us mixed in with the other 700,000 people in our city.
However, even after all the research we've done, we are still learning new things daily. The people who live in our valley are afraid of the possibility of an earthquake. Every 75-100 years, our country has constantly been hit by major earthquakes killing a majority of the people. We are now at the 75 year mark from the last quake which was over 8. However, since we are in an under developed nation, we were most quickly informed to forget everything we know about earthquake safety. I vividly remember "bunny in the hole" drills in elementry schools in California, where we would quickly drop beneath our desks, cover our head, and hold on to the chair legs. I also remember being taught to run to a doorway if we were at home. Here, that is a request for severed limbs or instant death. Because all of the buildings are made out of concrete, an earthquake of similar magnitude causes buildings to crumble and levels just start crashing down on one another. The ground liquifies and the second floor becomes the first floor as whole levels disappear beneath the earth's surface.
Instead, we have been taught the "triangle of life." Rather than ducking for cover, here you huddle beside the furniture. This is supposed to create a triangle when the floor above you caves in of ceiling, floor, and furniture. The theory is that you will thus be trapped into a cacoon of safety for the next 72 hours until rescue workers begin looking for you.
So maybe this isn't the most optimistic outlook on life, but it's another way that we must rethink some of the things we have been taught since childhood as a part of living in a third-world country.
Another thing that is different here are the dogs. Most of them are mangy and sick. There are about a dozen sick dogs living around the stupa where the people do their kora daily. Kora is circumambulating around the stupa. (Our ESL students always want to know the English word for their practice of walking around the stupa several times in their act of worship, and all anyone has ever been able to come up with is "circumambulating." But while we walk around yarping, we often must step over these mangy mutts as they live there peacefully, living off the scraps the people drop. They do not name their dogs, but we have named our guard dog, "Jekyll and Hyde." By day, this dog is well groomed and sweet, but at night, he is chained right next to the only entrance. If we come in late, our Sherpa guard must hold his collar, and choke him while he barks and lunges visciously at us. We feel extremely safe with both our guard and his dog there to protect us.
We have been using the Story to teach English to our beginner ESL class. So far, the favorite story was Solomon's wisdom, and they were amazed that wisdom was given to him, not something he worked for. We have a monk in our class who was particularly interested in all of our stories. On one particular day, he was literally on the edge of his seat in his desk, and so engaged in the story that he leaned too far and lost his balance. He nearly tipped his desk so far it about landed on me and I had to jump back. Tibetans laugh quickly and easily at their mistakes however (and ours too) so he was good humored about it and we jumped right back into analyzing the story. He told me, "This is a very good story. It's easy to understand." However while we are away for orientation, he will be journeying back to his monestary to continue his studies. Please remember to yarp for him.
For the next week, we will be away from our home in Delhi where we are receiving orientation with the rest of the Hands On students. We're partially here for support for them, as we have already adjusted to our own place. Yesterday, we had a scavenger hunt in order to orientate the students to travelling around the city and asking for help. One of our tasks was to get Mehendhi (henna) on one hand. Another was to get a nose piercing. Don't worry, there have been no additions to my jewelry collection, though I contemplated this for the competion factor. If it were not for the fact that our PG does not pierce their nose, I may have been more willing to do so, but the Mehendhi did suffice my need for cultural extremes.
While we were waiting for 45 minutes while my hand was being decorated, we met an Indian girl who go very excited about scavenger hunts and quickly became our guide. She is a fashion designer and took me to stores to try on saris, buy kurtas, and find all kinds of various items on our list. We became friends and have planned tea for later during this stay. We have gotten to ride on bicycle rickshaws, autos (auto rickshaws), and walk through the city.
Since we are with a group, we will now be without internet until we arrive home. So the next blog may be a little while coming. We're anxious to get back to work at home with our PG, so remember to yarp for us while were in orientation away from our new friends that we want to engage in so much. We'll add more pictures in our next post.

Teaching English and Baby Animals

Upon popular request I (Brian) have been asked to write the blog page for this week. During this week Sheena and I were able to meet with an Indian American who is living in our country and he has been a great help in setting up a volunteer teaching position in a small Tibetan/English school. This is a great opportunity for us and has allowed for us to get to know many people that live in the area around our home. Though on first glance it would seem that this class is very western style class it does not take but a few minutes for it to come back to reality and realize that we are still in South Asia. So please yarp for our efforts in this class and for the furthering of relationships that can come from this.
Along a more humorous front I have two very funny stories that need to be shared. The first one happened when Sheena and I went to our didi’s house (reminder: didi mean older sister here, and when we refer to our didi, we mean our housekeeper) for lunch. With the culture that we are working in it is traditional for when the people have invited someone over for dinner to place the person in another room why the food is being cooked. This is what happened to us, which was fine because we were prepared ahead of time for this cultural habit. Now to the funny part of the story, after we finished with our lunch we were invited out onto the balcony, where it is much warmer than inside, (we will discuss this odd fact later), where our didi’s mother, aunt, and grandmother were all sitting around talking. When we walked up, and the grandmother saw us coming out of the house, she reached down into her robe and pulled out the biggest bottle of Ibuprofen that I have ever seen, and then began shaking it and yelling at me in Tibetan, in which I do not understand anything other than hello. My first impression was that this was some cultural difference that I was not aware of and that she was offering me some ibuprofen as a sort of after meal snack. This however was not truly the case, as it turns out another M had given her the ibuprofen for her knee, and we are still not sure if she expected us to bring out more for her or if she was just showing us that she had it. Either way it was an intense moment for me on how to handle the situation, and we are still working that one out.
The second story happened while we were walking around with our new Indian American friend. He is a person of peace (a Buddy who is a contact here) who has lived here for the past 3 years. He was introducing us to many of the local people that he knows. It happened that he ran into a Canadian nun that he is friends with and they began to talk about this small animal that someone had found. They were talking about how it had to be fed every two hours and could only be fed by putting milk on the end of her finger and letting suck it off. Then our American friend asked where it was and the lady answered that she had it with her and she patted her coat just above her chest. She then became very excited and told all of us that she had made a pouch to carry it around. It was at this point that Sheena and I, both being thoroughly confused, asked what kind of animal it was. Upon hearing this, the nun became very excited and unzipped her coat again and pulled out the pouch and opened it to show us, and on looking inside, we were both surprised to see a newborn rat lying inside. Now growing up on a farm, I am used to seeing many different animals and seeing them almost as pets, but this one took me back. Then after showing us her new pet she put it and the pouch back inside her jacket and zipped it back up. Now the point of this story is you never know what kind of pet someone will have even though I still think having a rat is a bit odd but oh well. We hope that you have enjoyed this small glimpse into our lives here in South Asia and ask that you continue to yarp of us for the following request:
^ Language – that we will be able to continue to learn and find good places to practice
^ English class – that through this class we will be able to create good relationships that will allow us to be able to share the story with them.
^ Our health – both Sheena and I have started to develop a cough and we are not sure if it is the being of a cold or just the pollution in our city.
^ For relationships – please keep asking the Father to provide opportunities for us to share our story
^ For a team – this week a short term team arrived in our city and are going with two guys from our team and a national partner to visit and work at some refugee camps that we will work at later on in our trip. Yarp of safe travel and that a good work will be do on this trip
^ Trip to Delhi – on the 12th Sheena and I are traveling to Delhi for training with Hands-On. Yarp that this time will be productive and we can continue to practice our language.
:) For our national partner S. who is attempting to arrange our home stay. That the family that he has found will be willing and to house us and that we will be able to share the story with them and establish a good relationship with them.
:) For K. and his brother R. who have become persons of peace around our stupa. They are very open to practicing language with us. And we have begun discussing sp. matters with them.
:) For another language helper who is a security officer around the stupa.

On another note, Sheena's family has asked what the flags are in the last pictures. These flags are Tibetan Prayer Flags, they believe that the words that are written on the flag are prayed every time the wind blows. Typically, these are prayers of blessing. Each color has its own meaning of different elements, like sky, earth, water, fire, and air. Since so many of you are researching our area, you can google it or just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_flags for more information.

Picures:

Cows run free here, but it is actually illegal to kill them. So we don't get beef. We get water buffalo to replace beef.

This is the view from our flat. Those are not mountains, those are called hills.

There is a monestary on the hill. We hang our clothes out to dry, we do not have a dryer here.

This is the road we walk on every day to go to the stupa. This is used for vehicles (one way at a time), and for people to walk on.

The other day, Sheena was grazed by a truck on this road.

She was not hurt though,

This is the main market. It is also the tourist district. Today, we went on a shopping spree. We spent 3600 rupees. We bought down boots, 3 north face fleece jackets, an arc'teryx softshell coat (remember, it is cold here and we are freezing). We also bought a light scarf for Sheena to keep from breathing pollution. While this sounds like a lot, this is less than 50 USD.