I just wanted to let you know we are in the mts, but internet works very very poorly here. We are unable to blog due to the fact that the computer is literally shutting down every 30 minutes due to loadshedding power outages - even though we had to hike clear to the other side of the mts to get to an internet site. Sorry for that inconvenience.
We should be able to email a blog and emails in about 10 days when we head down to meet our supervisor.
I'm feeling better now, but it is cold up here! The temperature is staying around freezing and there is no relief inside or out.
We appreciate your yarps back home.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
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.
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...
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.
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.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
What can be accomplished in a week
Happy New Year!
What can be accomplished in a week?
What can be accomplished in a week?
1) The Flight in
On December 23, we arrived at MCI, 2 hours prior to departure. When we got to the ticket counter, they looked at our E-tickets and invoice, and told us that there was a problem. They could only find that one of us had been ticketed, even though we were both in their system. It took us over an hour to get this matter straightened out, and after being transferred to various airlines, they finally found our other ticket at the first counter. After hurrying through security, and getting our luggage checked, overweight with no charge due to the hassle involved, we boarded the plane.
We successfully made it to Charlotte, Atlanta, and Frankfurt. Gradually, through each airport, the ethnicity of the people began to change, and we began to see more of our people group. Sheena was able to see her grandmother in the Atlanta airport and we enjoyed lunch with her and her husband before flying out through Lufthansa.
Once we got into Delhi, it was about midnight. All the lights seemed dimmed and muted from the plane, like there was a haze over them, and the city seemed so dark. After getting through customs with minimal difficulty, and explaining we would not be leaving the Delhi airport that night, we proceeded to get our bags since they could not be checked all the way through to our final destination, and then freshen up in the bathrooms before trying to find our next terminal. We asked for directions, and were told it was outside. When we went outside, it was very dark, and there were many taxi drivers asking to take us to a hotel, since we had a 12 hour layover. We politely refused, stating we would wait in the airport. They took us up to the visitor’s lounge trying to convince us that it was too dirty to wait in, but we told them it would be fine. The guard told us that it was 30 Indian rupees, which he converted to $5. While I waited in the visitor’s lounge, Brian practiced haggling, and told him that was too much, that we would wait outside with our luggage. Another Indian man came up, and told the guard that 30 rupees was only equal to about $1.50, and so we got by with only paying $1.00. The Indian man, who was a Hindu, came into the lounge with us and talked to us for about an hour about being students and our reasons for visiting South Asia. Later, we found out that the lounge is free if you have more than an 8 hour layover, and we got refunded completely. When we went outside that morning, we found the terminal was right in front of us the night before, but they city was so dirty that no light could pass through to see it. We boarded our flight and arrived at our final destination with no problems.
On December 23, we arrived at MCI, 2 hours prior to departure. When we got to the ticket counter, they looked at our E-tickets and invoice, and told us that there was a problem. They could only find that one of us had been ticketed, even though we were both in their system. It took us over an hour to get this matter straightened out, and after being transferred to various airlines, they finally found our other ticket at the first counter. After hurrying through security, and getting our luggage checked, overweight with no charge due to the hassle involved, we boarded the plane.We successfully made it to Charlotte, Atlanta, and Frankfurt. Gradually, through each airport, the ethnicity of the people began to change, and we began to see more of our people group. Sheena was able to see her grandmother in the Atlanta airport and we enjoyed lunch with her and her husband before flying out through Lufthansa.
Once we got into Delhi, it was about midnight. All the lights seemed dimmed and muted from the plane, like there was a haze over them, and the city seemed so dark. After getting through customs with minimal difficulty, and explaining we would not be leaving the Delhi airport that night, we proceeded to get our bags since they could not be checked all the way through to our final destination, and then freshen up in the bathrooms before trying to find our next terminal. We asked for directions, and were told it was outside. When we went outside, it was very dark, and there were many taxi drivers asking to take us to a hotel, since we had a 12 hour layover. We politely refused, stating we would wait in the airport. They took us up to the visitor’s lounge trying to convince us that it was too dirty to wait in, but we told them it would be fine. The guard told us that it was 30 Indian rupees, which he converted to $5. While I waited in the visitor’s lounge, Brian practiced haggling, and told him that was too much, that we would wait outside with our luggage. Another Indian man came up, and told the guard that 30 rupees was only equal to about $1.50, and so we got by with only paying $1.00. The Indian man, who was a Hindu, came into the lounge with us and talked to us for about an hour about being students and our reasons for visiting South Asia. Later, we found out that the lounge is free if you have more than an 8 hour layover, and we got refunded completely. When we went outside that morning, we found the terminal was right in front of us the night before, but they city was so dirty that no light could pass through to see it. We boarded our flight and arrived at our final destination with no problems.
2) Meeting our co-workers
As soon as we arrived, things had already been planned for us. Our supervisors picked us up at the airport and we tried to have a short conversation with them and other co-workers in the parking lot while beggars surrounded us. We then got back to our flat, and got set up with food. We then went to a Christmas party with a friend from back home, and many new friends. We had orientation for the next 3 days, visiting the stupas, learning how to use the taxis, and getting everything arranged between Hands On and ICS.
As soon as we arrived, things had already been planned for us. Our supervisors picked us up at the airport and we tried to have a short conversation with them and other co-workers in the parking lot while beggars surrounded us. We then got back to our flat, and got set up with food. We then went to a Christmas party with a friend from back home, and many new friends. We had orientation for the next 3 days, visiting the stupas, learning how to use the taxis, and getting everything arranged between Hands On and ICS.
During orientation one day, we went up to a stupa in another part of town where our supervisors live, and went for tea in a shop where they know a Tibetian family. We practiced what little language we had learned so far, and she spoke to us in TIbetian as if we understood everything she said. Occassionally she would switch to English, but then when she ran out of words she was comfortable using, she would hop right back to Tibetan again, 
and we would have to follow her facial expressions and gestures to get an idea of what she was telling us. Since they work in a shop next to the stupa where the monkies reside, they must be very careful when carrying food or plastic bags. She told, mostly in Tibetian, that her mother was attacked by the monkies last week carrying a plastic bag, and broke her leg. She told us about how she is taking medicine and seeing an acupuncture physician. We enjoyed talking with her and having good milk tea.
and we would have to follow her facial expressions and gestures to get an idea of what she was telling us. Since they work in a shop next to the stupa where the monkies reside, they must be very careful when carrying food or plastic bags. She told, mostly in Tibetian, that her mother was attacked by the monkies last week carrying a plastic bag, and broke her leg. She told us about how she is taking medicine and seeing an acupuncture physician. We enjoyed talking with her and having good milk tea.3) We break everything we touch…
We have had to set up so many different things. For the first week, we did not have any hot water as our "gas geezer" was not working when we got here. We also had an empty gas container to refill. Our phone would let us receive calls, but not call out (which means you need to pay the bill here), after our supervisor used our last phone call out. We had to get our cell phones set up, and reconnect the internet, and then call a repair man to fix the cable to get the internet to work correctly. Each of these tasks, though simple at home, took about a day each to complete here. Today, when we came home from language, we unlocked our door (here our doors are padlocked), and the lock fell apart in our hands. Unfortunately, the lock was still locked, though broken, so we had to take the lock completely apart to get inside. Thus, we had to go buy a new lock at the grocery store. We still don’t know how that was even possible.
We have had to set up so many different things. For the first week, we did not have any hot water as our "gas geezer" was not working when we got here. We also had an empty gas container to refill. Our phone would let us receive calls, but not call out (which means you need to pay the bill here), after our supervisor used our last phone call out. We had to get our cell phones set up, and reconnect the internet, and then call a repair man to fix the cable to get the internet to work correctly. Each of these tasks, though simple at home, took about a day each to complete here. Today, when we came home from language, we unlocked our door (here our doors are padlocked), and the lock fell apart in our hands. Unfortunately, the lock was still locked, though broken, so we had to take the lock completely apart to get inside. Thus, we had to go buy a new lock at the grocery store. We still don’t know how that was even possible.
4) Daily routine
Now that everything is up and running though, we are into a daily routine – that can change at any minute. Around 6:00 AM, we wake up with the city’s noises of guard dogs barking, car horns honking, and the monk’s clearing their throats in the flat above us. Today,
we woke up to Bollywood music, very loudly. We don't know where it was coming from. Along with numerous other sounds, but these are the most prominent. After showering and getting ready we begin studying. Now getting ready may or may not include electricity at this point, as we are on a load sharing schedule, which changes every two weeks. This means that during certain parts of the day we have power, and at others, we have no power at all. We do not have power more often than we actually do have power. So some mornings are colder than other if the hairdryer is unavailable due to no power. (In the picture to the left, you can see just how low our power lines hang. They are almost strung up randomly around here, and just because we're scheduled to have power doesn't mean we always have it.... I wonder why?)
Now that everything is up and running though, we are into a daily routine – that can change at any minute. Around 6:00 AM, we wake up with the city’s noises of guard dogs barking, car horns honking, and the monk’s clearing their throats in the flat above us. Today,
we woke up to Bollywood music, very loudly. We don't know where it was coming from. Along with numerous other sounds, but these are the most prominent. After showering and getting ready we begin studying. Now getting ready may or may not include electricity at this point, as we are on a load sharing schedule, which changes every two weeks. This means that during certain parts of the day we have power, and at others, we have no power at all. We do not have power more often than we actually do have power. So some mornings are colder than other if the hairdryer is unavailable due to no power. (In the picture to the left, you can see just how low our power lines hang. They are almost strung up randomly around here, and just because we're scheduled to have power doesn't mean we always have it.... I wonder why?)At 7:00 we are able to have a very healthy breakfast, of an Asian form of fruit loops, or make some toast using our skillet on the gas stove. This is usually accompanied by fresh fruit (after having been thoroughly washed in iodine for about 20 minutes). After breakfast, we review their language and do our personal studies before going to language class.
5) Getting to language class
To get to language class, we go past a field in front of our house. This field often serves as a public restroom facility. This is difficult to get used to. We walk down a stony dirt path where parts of it are under construction. If it rains, this path is muddy. On parts, the power lines hang very low, so we have to play limbo, lest we face a shock. We walk through a market area, which often has beggars on the road as well. Their language class is next to the stupa, so after working through the crowd, we go up to the first floor (which is the 2nd floor at home, here the “1st” floor is the ground floor), and begin our class.
To get to language class, we go past a field in front of our house. This field often serves as a public restroom facility. This is difficult to get used to. We walk down a stony dirt path where parts of it are under construction. If it rains, this path is muddy. On parts, the power lines hang very low, so we have to play limbo, lest we face a shock. We walk through a market area, which often has beggars on the road as well. Their language class is next to the stupa, so after working through the crowd, we go up to the first floor (which is the 2nd floor at home, here the “1st” floor is the ground floor), and begin our class.
6) Language class
Learning language is a bit of a challenge. We have to learn a new alphabet to learn how to read, and we have to learn how to say the alphabet. Some of our letters are very fun to say, as we’ve never made those sounds in English before! Our teacher, Kebin, seems to understand that these are funny sounds to us and can laugh with us about these. Kebin has also only spoken English here, so sometimes the words are not decipherable until he rights them on the board, which still are not always decipherable as they are not spelled correctly. We each have our strengths and weaknesses in language, and are pulling on one another’s strengths to make the class easier.
Learning language is a bit of a challenge. We have to learn a new alphabet to learn how to read, and we have to learn how to say the alphabet. Some of our letters are very fun to say, as we’ve never made those sounds in English before! Our teacher, Kebin, seems to understand that these are funny sounds to us and can laugh with us about these. Kebin has also only spoken English here, so sometimes the words are not decipherable until he rights them on the board, which still are not always decipherable as they are not spelled correctly. We each have our strengths and weaknesses in language, and are pulling on one another’s strengths to make the class easier.
7) In the community (around our stupa)
Afterwards, we typically go out in the community to eat and typically have some Tibetan thentuk. This is a type of soup which is very spicy. We really enjoy it, and Brian has even been eating his vegetables. Sometimes it is served with butter tea, and other times with milk tea. We
like the milk tea a lot, but the butter tea takes some getting used to. We are getting to know 2 of the girls at the Tibetan restaurant we go to, named Momatalama and Lhakpa. The other day, our didi (who is also named Lhakpa) invited us to her house to enjoy some Dal Bhaat. It was so much better than what we tried in L.A.! This consists of lentils, curried vegetables, and rice.
When they invite you to eat here though, you do not get to eat with the rest of the family. We were brought in to the family room where we were served our food while they prepared things in the kitchen. After our meal, they served us oranges and Lhakpa’s aunt came in and we practiced their language with her. Lhakpa showed us her photo album of her family, and we enjoyed seeing the pictures of her and some of our coworkers. We were then invited onto the balcony and were able to visit with Lhakpa, her aunt, her mother, and her grandmother. While we sat and talked with them, both the mother and the grandmother were going through their Tibetan prayer beads. We spent about 3 hours talking with them that day, and have been invited back for Dal Bhaat again.
We have also been able to visit several friends with our national partner around town. We had tea with his family the other day in their home, and he invited us over for their house fellowship in their language. We went there, and enjoyed hearing songs, reading and studying the story, and discussing together. We practiced their language with their family. We will also be attending another, larger fellowship soon, but have been unable to do so yet due to being so busy setting up here.
Afterwards, we typically go out in the community to eat and typically have some Tibetan thentuk. This is a type of soup which is very spicy. We really enjoy it, and Brian has even been eating his vegetables. Sometimes it is served with butter tea, and other times with milk tea. We
like the milk tea a lot, but the butter tea takes some getting used to. We are getting to know 2 of the girls at the Tibetan restaurant we go to, named Momatalama and Lhakpa. The other day, our didi (who is also named Lhakpa) invited us to her house to enjoy some Dal Bhaat. It was so much better than what we tried in L.A.! This consists of lentils, curried vegetables, and rice.When they invite you to eat here though, you do not get to eat with the rest of the family. We were brought in to the family room where we were served our food while they prepared things in the kitchen. After our meal, they served us oranges and Lhakpa’s aunt came in and we practiced their language with her. Lhakpa showed us her photo album of her family, and we enjoyed seeing the pictures of her and some of our coworkers. We were then invited onto the balcony and were able to visit with Lhakpa, her aunt, her mother, and her grandmother. While we sat and talked with them, both the mother and the grandmother were going through their Tibetan prayer beads. We spent about 3 hours talking with them that day, and have been invited back for Dal Bhaat again.
We have also been able to visit several friends with our national partner around town. We had tea with his family the other day in their home, and he invited us over for their house fellowship in their language. We went there, and enjoyed hearing songs, reading and studying the story, and discussing together. We practiced their language with their family. We will also be attending another, larger fellowship soon, but have been unable to do so yet due to being so busy setting up here.
8) Pictures
My camera battery has died, and I forgot to pack my charger, so pictures may be a while coming until we can get that, but until then, here are pictures of some of the things here we were able to capture before my battery died. And even once we get pictures, it takes about 15 minutes to load each one, not due to size, but due to the incredibly slow wi-fi!
My camera battery has died, and I forgot to pack my charger, so pictures may be a while coming until we can get that, but until then, here are pictures of some of the things here we were able to capture before my battery died. And even once we get pictures, it takes about 15 minutes to load each one, not due to size, but due to the incredibly slow wi-fi!
Left: This is a picture of 3 larger than life buddha's by a stupa where our supervisors live.
Right: This is the stupa by where they live, with the mean, hungry monkey infestation.
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