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.
