Below are 11 new perspectives that I now hold on a variety of subjects after spending a month in India and a month in Nepal. Some of the items on the list I was told about before leaving, but underestimated the impact they would have on me. Others I still cannot believe happened. And some I have become so used to them that I am continuing to follow them while I’m in South Africa!
- A “have the shirt off my back” type of people
I cannot begin to explain how generous these cultures are. They would invite you into their homes and give you everything they had. I mean everything! They would clean out their kitchen to feed you, use some of the little money they had to run to the store to buy you bottled water, and stand up to give you the comfiest seat in the room. With our host family in India, they hired a cooking staff that cooked for us all day, and would wait until we had finished eating to then help themselves. And in Nepal, there were countless stories of sQuadmates being invited into homes, huts, and shacks, and given everything that person had.
- Garbage everywhere
Literally everywhere. And not just a piece of trash, but a huge pile of wrappers, bottles, food, and anything else that was deemed unusable by the previous owner. It is part of the culture to just throw your trash on the ground when you’re done with it. And no one wants to clean it up. It is considered a low-level job, so people do not want to lower their social ranking with this job title. Therefore the garbage piles up, blows around, and covers everything.
- Doggies, chickens, and cows. Oh my!
Animals’ walking down the middle of the street in Katmandu is completely normal. Maybe it is a pack of dogs, or a rooster with his hens, or a giant cow. Regardless, they roam the city freely. The dogs are sometimes treated very poorly: kicked, hit, yelled at, simply because they are walking around looking for food, shelter, and love. This broke the heart of my sQuad. The sQuad named one of the dogs on our street Ryan. He would follow us when we went to the store, and excitedly greet us when we returned home after a day of ministry. It was enjoyable to show him love and compassion when it was appropriate. But because he lived on the street he was very dirty, so we could not do too much for him with what we had.
- Squatty potties
Look them up. They are fascinating! You very literally squat down over a hole in the floor. These are the toilets of choice where we were. Not pleasant if you were sick… I have found such an appreciation for American style toilets!
- No flush policy
You cannot flush toilet paper in many countries in Asia. It is just not a thing. Their plumbing system cannot handle the paper, and it will cause a clog that will backup the system. So, you throw your toilet paper into a garbage basket and remove that garbage bag every night. At first it was hard to remember not to just throw your paper into the toilet, but now I catch myself double guessing if I can throw my paper into the toilet paper compatible toilets in South Africa! It shows how much we will adapt in each country, every month.
- “Everything that is important gets cleaned.” –Eat Pray Love
Bucket showers are as straightforward as they sound. You fill up a bucket of water (hopefully warm, but most likely ice cold), and take them to a “shower area”. This area could be a curtained off section in your bathroom, or more likely it is just your small bathroom that has a floor drain in the corner. The whole bathroom normally gets wet, and not everything gets fully clean the first few times you attempt to bucket shower. It is a learned skill!
- That “baby wipe shower” life
Water scarcity is very prominent where we were. In Nepal especially, water is very expensive and hard to get. You cannot go take a 15-minute warm shower or wash a large load of laundry without it costing an arm and a leg. We were actually limited to two 2-minute showers a week meaning that we could have running water on for 2 minutes and that’s all we got. Normally you had to pick whether you wanted to wash your body or your hair that day. Dry shampoo, baby powder, and baby wipes became your best friends!
- Personal space…
There really is no such thing as personal space when you are living in a community. Back home you could go to your room or escape to a remote and special place. But with 54 people living in one home those places do not exist. In Nepal we had 18 women sleeping in one room and sharing one bathroom. It has brought me a new appreciation for only having to share with the five other women on my team. I cannot imagine how I will feel if I ever live somewhere where I have my own bathroom again….
- Clean air. What is that?
These last two months have exposed us to the most polluted air I have ever witnessed. In both countries they burn the large piles of trash that lay around the city, which put dirty, black smoke into the air. The vehicles are normally old and poorly maintained, so they also put dirty, black smoke into the air. It would cause our sinuses and throats to become irritated and rough, to the point where we sounded sick all of the time. My family would ask every time we Skyped if I was well because of my rough voice.
10. Beep Beep!
Car horns.. They are excessively used to communicate here. Not just to say, “you almost hit me! Pay attention!” But to say “hi”, or “I’m cutting into on coming traffic to pass you because you’re going to slow”, or “pedestrians walking in the middle of the road. Kindly move!” At first, we would jump when they would honk at us while we walked. But by the end of our second month we were so used to the over use of car horns that we did not flinch anymore.
11. No box large enough for God
One of the biggest things I have come to notice since being out of the states is how much we put God in a box. The “only on Sundays” box, the “only when I am struggling” box, or maybe the “He can’t really do that” box. I have watched every single box break. There is no box that God can fit into. He finds new ways to show us His love and blow us away. He has given many of us new ways to see Him with new eyes. And I am so grateful for all the new perspectives I now have because of those new eyes.
