We spent our first day with the family. We took a trip after lunch to the market. It was a little overwhelming because of the amount of people moving around together. There were 11 of us going from store to store. We were able to pick up some necessities, such as a drum for water so that we can shower, and some waste baskets because we use toilet paper when we go to the squatty potty, and we can’t put it down the toilet, so we have to throw it away.
Talking about toilets, that has been the most difficult part for me so far. The bathroom we have been using is right next to the kitchen/living room/sleeping area. I always feel reluctant to use it because the mother that lives here is usually sitting on her bed nursing her newborn, and I hate to disrupt her.
Another difficulty has been the heat. Yes, I’m from Florida, but I have AC there, and if I am too hot, I just go jump in my air conditioned car or go home. Here, there is no escaping the heat. We have to wear dresses, skirts, or pants that cover our ankles when we go anywhere away from the church. We also have to have our shoulders covered. The boys have it easy. They have really no dress code. They can go to market with shorts and a tank top on, and no one would think any differently. It was good, though, to go into the market and pick up our necessities, because we stink.
Even through the sweat and stench, our team has really been growing together and lifting each other up in love. During ministry yesterday, this included going house to house and praying for people. Which, you may think would be difficult for people to be accept, but we pretty much had a line the whole time. It was difficult to move from place to place because we were surrounded by people asking for prayer and children wanting to tell us “hi” and ask us our names.
Like I’ve written before, wherever we go, whether in the village or the market, we are surrounded and followed by a group of people. Sometimes they take our pictures, but most of the time they just gape and stare. To get back to our market trip, we were able to get things for the house, as well as get fitted for sarees. We went into a store and the owner had us sit in a circle on the floor, after taking our shoes off, and took out all different colors and styles of fabric. There were some with sequins and others with fabric that shined. Each of the girls on my team chose fabric for our sarees. I’m excited to get mine back today at 5:00pm and show you. After we chose our fabric, we went to another store where they fitted the top part for our outfit. They will be making those, and then we will be ready to go!
