Just kidding MOM!
Here in India, they use a lot of dye on their skin for decoration. This past week they were celebrating one of the Hindu festivals/gods and some of the kids had designs on their hands. These designs are just for decorations, not for worship of their gods, and they looked fun. We picked the leaves a few hours later, and our new friend ground them for us. We had to go our nightly prayer gathering so we weren’t able to put the leaves on our hands right away(you have to keep it on for 1-2 hrs).
It was around 10:30pm when she came over to put it on us. Our translators were gone for the night so we tried to gesture and speak words to say…”let’s do it tomorrow, we want to bathe, and it’s late”. She nodded in agreement or so we thought. Gina and I were the only ones still up. We went to bathe and she left. About ten minutes later she came back. She wanted to do it now. We were tired, but stayed up because she had done so much to prepare it for us.
The design she put on my hand took one hour to complete. Then she wanted to put some of my feet, but it was almost midnight. She wouldn’t take no for an answer and then I had spots on my feet. After she finished both of us, it was 1am. We still had to wait up for it to dry and for the dye to stick to our skin. At 2am, we decided to go to bed. We cleaned off the leaf mixture and the dye remained. It was pretty cool in the end.
The people here are so generous and after spending time with our friend and telling her about Jesus, she accepted him as her personal Savior. It’s all worth it in the end, even if I am tired.
Gina’s hand is on the left and mine is the right. Pretty beautiful. Should last for the month.
