Today we were "officially" initiated into Indian Culture. I wish I could fully describe the scene but you have to bear with me and use your imagination. Lets just say with was quite a commotion and rather funny.
Today is Saturday which is our off day. We wake up with the pastor’s wife and another girl from the village standing over us in our room cooking breakfast. So we get us and move our sleeping pads out of their way. Several other women from the village come and stand in our room. The pastor’s wife asks us to sing them our song… the one with the motions. She’s talking about “my rock, my sword, my shield” So me and Aubree and Courtney and Lizi sing and do the motions. We are now fully awake. We are such a novelty here. Soon we sit down to eat breakfast with our hosts. It was a delicious meal of noodles, tomatoes, onions and sugar. It’s called Ukma. It doesn't sound that great when I type it but believe me it was delicious! Indian breakfast has become my favorite thing here. After breakfast we are informed that they would like to "brush" us. Which we realize means that some of the women of the village want to fix our hair. We are invited down the street to our host's mothers house where they serve us "cookies" and mango. The mango was absolutely delicious! Afterwards they line the 4 of us girls up in a row of chairs and 4 women begin to comb our hair and give each of us a different hair do. It was quite comical 🙂 They don't stop there. They then try to put bangles on our arms. Turns out we have rather large hands and it’s quite a task. Everyone is laughing as they insist on making it work and we cannot help in the process! Finally, success! We all have our new bangles on. They dress us in Saree's and jewelry. I feel so pampered and loved and blessed. A little overwhelmed having them all talking to us but not knowing what they are saying and not knowing what's coming next as they usher us from one thing to the next. Ranooka also gives me a henna tattoo and a clip on nose ring. Hahaha. I didn't know those existed. So now other than my rather light skin I look the part. After all this pampering they serve us Chai tea. This is my third time having Indian Chai tea and it is the so different and so much better than anything I could get in the states. Once we have our tea we are ushered upstairs to the roof so we can sit and "rest". I am getting used to Indian Culture and enjoying it 🙂
Pictures coming at the end of the month hopefully!
