Just a picture blog

I feel like I've neglected my responsibility to show you our world while you are stuck back here and we are in this wonderful place. Brian will be blogging soon before we go to the mountains, but I thought I would add some visual aids for now. Due to the fact that we are on a power crisis in our country, and that I didn't have my camera battery charger for the first month, and that our internet connection is slow, pictures haven't been easy to post. These are small replicas of some that I have taken recently around the city. Today, Brian and I went to watch funerals at the major river. So most of these are pictures from today. Not all, but most. This river is a holy site for the city, and much life revolves around the river. They wash dishes, wash laundry, wash themselves, and gather water all from this river. They also dump the offerings into the river and the ashes from cremations. The monkies also play in this river. I added some captions, so that you might understand the stories to the pictures a little better.

These girls are washing their hair in the river. And this family is washing their dishes in the same river.

This is one of the "holy men." They want to take a photo with you and then charge you for it.
He is washing his garment in the river.

This woman is sweeping. What is she sweeping? Dirt, outside... we think she was actually trying to sweep away the trash. But as you see, dirt is flying. She is sweeping dirt...

The bell
Here, they ring the bells, in order to wake the gods. This reminds me of the story of Elijah calling down fire. I used this story in my English class (w/ moderations that would not compromise the story). It made the students very uncomfortable though because of the exclusivity of the proclomation.

This "holy man" is just sitting on top of the building... watching people go by. Laziness is completely frowned upon by our people group, but when I look at their lives, sometimes I just have to wonder what some of them do all day. Their lives are simple, but they do value a hard worker.

Monkies

This monkey is jumping across the river in parts to eat some of the offerings that have been tossed into the river. Sometimes he tried eating non-edible things like plastic too. He is young and learning... Looks cute, doesn't he?

This unfortunate little boy doesn't seem to think so. He's being chased by the monkey. He was washing up in the river when the monkey decided there might be food nearby. Children are frequently the victims of monkies.

But don't just assume he didn't go unpunished. Shortly after, he's hopping through the area again being chased by a bigger monkey. Cute? Sure. Just don't be deceived. They are mean. I thought I would get attacked today while taking a picture.

Temples

Temples are everywhere in the city. There are beautiful old buildings everywhere. Our city has such a unique architectual character to it.

This temple is built on an beautiful pond and was originally built about 300 years ago supposedly to help a queen overcome her grief over the death of her son.

I think it is the prettiest building in our city, but the gates ar never open, so we can't get very close.

This is the main temple in our city. Where most cremations are done for Hndus. Since this is a smaller version of the picture, I doubt you'll be able to see, but there is a bull tied up to a post around all the people, probably to be sacrificed.

Up the hill is a place far less busy. These are also smaller temples, but they look older. And there are so many of them. This is on top of a hill from the river. Few people take the hike up this far. The Hndu holy men enjoy sitting around and talking here though.

Offerings

As Hndus, they make offerings at the river. Sometimes as family and sometimes as an individual.

The white string around his chest shows that he is of the highest caste. He is a Brahmin, a priest, and people come to him to make their offerings.

This is a whole family performing offerings.

This is called puja in this culture.

They have also added some of the Tbtn culture as well. They all have prayer beads, similar to roseries that they are using while one man reads.

This woman is also making a form of a offering. This is near the hospices. This all also goes into the river, but there are many flowers they place here, and then they bow and touch their head to this board.

This is an area where only Hndus can get into. Foreigners are not allowed here.

Funerals

From what I could gather from a young man trying to be our guide, (I kept speaking to him in his language instead of English, so some converation was difficult) the building to the left with the doors is a hospice. Here, that means when they have the look of death to them, they bring them here to die. Then they wait. Once they die, they are cremated into this river.

This is a family standing around a body lying on the ground.

Once they die, they are first wrapped in linens because a dead person cannot be touched, and they covered in a garland of marigolds. They are laid on a stretcher. Then the stretcher is taken to the cremation poles.

Here the family carries the body to where the wood is laid. They take straw and soak it in the river. When they are ready for the cremation, they pick the body up on the stretcher and spin the stretcher around the wood 360 deegrees. Then they lay the stretcher down on the ground, pick up the dead body by the linens and place it over the wood. The light the fire under the wood and then place more straw on top of the body and wood over it. I haven't seen anyone cry at a funeral. Tbtns also cremate, but not in exactly the same way, and not at the river. At theirs, you cannot take pictures either.

Here are lines of cremations. On every post, there is a spot where bodies can be cremated. They do about 60-70 each day at this river at this temple.

Homestay, Language, Clothing, and Practical Jokes

Note: Our apologizes for the delay in getting our blog posted this month. Our school recently requested we e-mail our blogs for approval prior to posting, and there was some confusion as we never officially received approval to post. To everyone who has emailed us about how we are doing, thank you very much. We love hearing from you. Everything is well here, and we will get our next blog out shortly.
Hands, feet, etc.
Life is getting busier here in South Asia. We have been learning some important lessons. For instance, it is important to keep all hands, feet, and other body objects inside of the moving vehicles at all times. In addition, it is also important to remain aware of those who ignore this rule while walking down the street. Busses are often so crowded that the man in charge of collecting the money is hanging outside of the bus hollering the destination, with a wad of rupees in his hand. The other day, while Brian and I were walking to a meeting, Brian was struck in the shoulder by the man hanging out of the bus. Though there were no serious injuries, it was painful enough that we are being a little more cautious of the busses that go by, since they are not cautious of us. Children do a better job of avoiding being hit here than we do.

Language learning
On a more serious note – we apologize for our delay in reporting back to you. We have been very busy with our homestay and language learning lately. We switched language teachers to the company’s language teacher, and things are going much smoother. We can now introduce ourselves, describe ourselves, use descriptive phrases, command words, colors, times, numbers, bargaining, all food vocabulary, directions, and have simple conversations. We have mastered the basic grammar (as word order here is different than in English). We are also working on literacy, and can read and write – though we are still working on our vocabulary. We can also sing songs that relate to our project – though, anybody who knows us remembers, we cannot sing. :) These next two weeks of language before the mountains, we are concentrating on vocabulary related to our service here, so please yarp for us to retain what we learn.

Homestay
This picture quality is not the best, because the room is smokey and dark. This is the room we spent most of our time in over the last month. Learning to cook yummy food. We have not seen the lama since the night he taught us, we know many of you were curious about him. There are multiple monks who come and visit though as two of the sons in the family are monks. They practice with us a lot, and we are getting to know them and the other “regulars.” It is interesting to see that restaurants here are such a social thing, everyone knows our aama (the word here for mother). Ordering is also interesting, and it has been good for us to have our homestay in a restaurant because there is so much culture experienced this way. Here to order food, you travel back to the kitchen, talk with the chef, and place your order. You then go sit at the table and wait, or if you are good friends, you sit in the kitchen and talk while you wait. Our aama’s specialty seems to be chowmein. When you are done, there is no receipt or bill. You add up what your food costs, and go back into the kitchen to pay. With many meals, you may be given seconds as well. And they give you a lot of food! Sometimes, during slow times, you might ask the chef to have a drink with you. If this is the case, you pay for the chef’s drink as well. Even though we’ve paid for our homestay which includes all groceries and tea, many times, we will have someone buy us tea to sit and talk with us. And tea is NEVER to be refused. That is like the ultimate offense here. So we accept the tea, and then that person pays for our tea as well. Even though, we’ve technically paid enough to have tea for a year there!
Many of the children here will assume we are tourists and ask us for sweets after we have talked to them in their language. The other day, we gave the orphan in our homestay a fireball from back home. Now we actually got this Fireball in Delhi during orientation from a friend who worked here for 10 + years. And this is the little girl who is trouble and enjoys making fun of the lamas. Also, it is important to know practical jokes are appreciated here. And keep in mind, this is the same girl who finishes off my spicy breakfast with tears in her eyes and enjoys it. When we gave her a sweet, she immediately tore into the package to eat it, and popped it in. As you know with Fireballs, she was fine for the first minute, and then she started fanning her mouth with her hand. Pretty soon, she spit it out and held on to it. We started asking her spicy? Hot? This is a sweet. Everyone was laughing and having a great time watching her. We told her to eat, so she tried again. This time it was so hot, she spit it out again and began scraping her tongue with her finger to get the taste off. Then she tried licking it, and making faces, and trying to drink the water out of the bottle on the table. Only when she took a drink, she backwashed, and aama got angry and took the water away (backwashing is unacceptable in this culture) and put it on the floor to be washed. (Water bottles are communal here, you take a drink without putting the bottle to your lips – by the way.) It was fun to be able to share in their humor.

*We have now finished our homestay since this was sent for approval. The young daughter has asked many questions, and we will be giving her a book and movie before we go to the mts. Please continue to pray for her.
Food
One thing everyone always seems to wonder about is “What do you eat?” It is almost the same every day here. For breakfast, I am served what translates to be “potato soup and bread.” The bread is home made, and it just flour that is moistened, then rolled out to be in a pancake shaped, and cooked on the skillet over a gas fire. The potato soup however is a little more complicated to describe. This is potatoes, that are chopped up into bite size pieces, and put into a soup that is very, very spicy. Even the national have tears form in their eyes as they eat this, but it is addicting! You dip your bread into the soup and eat some of it when you eat the potatoes with a spoon. Gradually, I have been able to eat more of this soup. Once they finish their bread, they finish off the soup with a spoon – this I still have not been able to fully accomplish, and the little orphan girl we practice our language with often waits for me to eat my bread and soup, and then she finishes it for me, with tears in her eyes. Unfortunately, after becoming so used to this dish, many things back home that were considered spicy are now, not as challenging. We bought some chips and found a jar of Old Paso Hot Salsa. It simply did not taste spicy no matter how much I loaded the chip with salsa.
Brian gets served an omelet for breakfast every morning between two pieces of bread. We are also served two cups of milk tea. Milk tea is the best. It is female buffalo milk, and sugar, mixed into black tea. It is sweet and delicious.
About 4 hours later, after the customers are served their lunch (and customers, when eating out, will order a variety, like thentuk, chowmein, fried rice, etc.), we eat our lunch. Which is dal bhaat every day. Now we researched dal bhaat back in the states, tried some when we visited L.A. but still did not fully understand what it is. That is because Dal Bhaat is not consistent. Dal Bhaat consists of 3 elements. First, there is a plate piled with white rice – mounting rice. Then on the same plate the side varies each day from potatoes and wilted greens (cabbage, lettuce, spinach etc), chicken and fried potatoes, or broccoli and cauliflower with an assortment of vegetables. Consistently, there is also Dal, which is the lentils cooked in a pressure cooker to be a very creamy soup that you pour over your rice, and then also eat separately. Our aama also tries to serve Brian at least 2 heaping plates of this daily. She has learned I cannot eat that much, and will give me a little over half of what she serves him. My plate is smaller to begin with, because she feels the need to serve seconds. Something else interesting about lunch is while tea is served to you before your breakfast comes, you do not get served a drink for lunch until after you have finished. Then you may receive coke out of a glass bottle and opened with an old bottle opener (I’d heard about these from my mom and dad, but now I get to see them) or Tang (I don’t think it is recommended to drink the Tang, because there is no telling what condition the water is in, but there are medicines for whatever bacteria or parasites we could pick up, and Tang tastes good).
About 3 hours later, they are busy feeding us again! This is snack, which is another 2 glasses of milk tea or coffee. Now all you coffee drinkers out there, don’t get too excited… sometimes, it is hard to taste the difference between milk tea and coffee, except for coffee has a little more flavor. Along with tea, you are served some kind of bread, of either biscuits (which are cookies), plain sliced white bread, the bread served at breakfast, etc.
Around bedtime, you eat dinner. Now fortunately, we paid our homestay enough to get some really good food. Typically, we are served chowmein every night. If it was a busy day and the chowmein noodles are gone, we get fried rice, but thenthuk is also a normal variation. Often, there is more tea.
Tea is also served every time we meet with someone during the day. When our friends visit, our aama gives them tea for us. When we go visit them, we are also served tea. We find the food delicious on most days. Another snack that is served by Tbtns are momos. Momos are dough filled with meat of some kind. There were a lot of chicken momos, but there is talk about bird flu again, so we haven’t had much chicken these days. So often, they are pork momos, and sometimes, there are still little fragments of bone in them. Momos are like Tbtn butter tea to us. These items are taking some getting used to.

Losar & National Clothing
Well, Losar is here, and there. J Losar is the new year for Tbtns, but different Tbtns have different Losars, so we are enjoying many of them. This year the Dali Lama instructed Tbtns not to celebrate Losar, so some of them are, and others aren’t. Many of them are finding unique ways around these instructions as this is their biggest party of the year. I had my chuba tailored and wore it for the first time a couple weeks ago to one of the parties. We went around the stupa with the monkeys. It was fascinating to see people’s responses. In our city, I am supposed to wear Western dress (unless the occasion demands otherwise like Losar), and it became apparent why. The nationals here that are not Tbtn did not like it. No one said anything, but they always smile and talk to me, and they did not this time, even though we were with a national partner this day. The older Tbtn women and men really loved it. One man hollered out “Beautiful chuba,” and the women would tell me “Good chuba” in Tbtn. The older women would smile and nod. Our national partner kept telling me everyone was staring at me, which was a little uncomfortable. The younger women however dress in western clothes, and many of them seemed to have a negative response to a western wearing their traditional dress. I have purchased a second chuba for the mountains in the village, (they normally only wear 1, so it would be odd if I owned too many clothes) and will try when we are only around Tbtns in a more conservative area.
Fortunately for Brian, the national dress in North Face, so he hasn’t had to change a thing. I imagine no matter what, I will end up having to wear my chuba once we reach the mountains as I am losing weight despite the excessive amount they feed us. The big Losar event is next week for those celebrated, so we will have multiple pictures then.
At the last Lhosar celebration we went to, we were able to see bodies being cremated too. It was interesting to see the process of the lamas reading The Book of the Dead to the deceased as the flames consumed them. It was interesting to see.
Updates
· Our supervisor’s baby is doing better and was released two days ago from the hospital
· We’re preparing for the mountains and require a 3-month visa. We were able to get a visa, but it was twice as expensive as what is in our budget. We know our Father continually meets our needs, and we are over budgetted for the mountains, but please pray for our finances, that He continues to work these things out.
* We are also spending a good deal of this time training a new brother of 3 months. He could potentionally be a new translator for the team.

Pictures.

This is the inside of one of the monestaries. You can see the monk walking around . There are also flags strung up. We hike up a hill to a monestary train for hike in the mts.

This is the monestary that we hike up to. It is becoming very large, and more popular. they are currently adding additional dorm space for the new students.

This is the edge of the city. (Where we live is 3-4 miles away from where we are standing, all uphill) You can see the rice fields .

We found Walmart! This long blue tarp (actually multiple tarps) is covering a market. Inside here are lots of little goodies. I don't think foreigners go in here very often, because we got a lot of funny looks from people. But you can find shoes (as long as your feet are small for an Am.), belts, clothes of all fashions, jewelry, purses, wallets, no food, and some housewares. It was pretty neat to find. It's a fun place to go bargain. This structure is entirely held up by bamboo.

Interesting Fact: We live in the 2nd dirtiest country in the world.

Busses and Micros

In order to get a bus, we have to go to this park. This is a slow day of transportation. You also have to find the bus that goes where you are going, sometimes this is not easy. We thought you would like to see an idea of what transportation looks like in its most organized form here.