So this morning we were supposed to leave for our ministry site at 9:00am. But as we are getting used to, it didn’t happen exactly that way. We didn’t end up leaving until almost 2:30pm. When it was finally time to leave we rode a rickshaw to the bus stop. I have come to absolutely love rickshaws and may even trade my car back home in for when I get back. But this wasn’t any ordinary rickshaw. It had like bedazzled streamers hanging from the ceiling and was bumping Indian music from the system in the back. Basically rickshaws are oversized go-karts and they are driven like them too. They speed back and forth past each other while dodging busses, people, cows, dogs, pigs, water buffalo, etc. (I’ll have a video of this in a later post. But just imagine it in your head for the moment. It is AWESOME!!! Basically rickshaws are the major mode of transportation to anywhere within about 30 minutes from where you are. Full size cars are very rare where we have been. We made it to this bustling bus stop and they dropped us off with our 70lb bags of luggage we each have.
I need to say that there aren’t white Americans in the part of India where we are. As we stood there waiting for our bus the crowd of Indians steadily grew around us. We called it being stuck in a fishbowl because here we are circled around our luggage while over 70 Indians are crowded just inches away starring unashamedly. And it’s not like America where when you catch them starring they look away. No, they just stare more intently. This went on for a solid 15 minutes. Extremely awkward to say the least! The great thing was we got to experience the exact same thing at another bus stop a couple of hours later. After about three hours on the bus we finally arrived at our ministry site.
We are staying in a small church that DOES have electricity, but no running water and only one squatty potty that a majority of the village shares. We pump water from a well and take bucket showers. I’m really starting to actually enjoy those except for the fact that the top of the stall door only comes up to the middle of my chest. So I spend most of my shower time squatting to keep from putting on a show for the village because I’m the white American taking a shower. I’m gonna have some well toned quads before we leave India! Tony Horton would be so proud!
When we arrived at the church we set up our stuff inside and then came back outside to hangout with the large group of people that were gathering at the chance to see 7 Americans. We shared the gospel, sang, and played with the kids. It was a really cool way to kick things off!
Later that night, after a BIG dinner of rice and chicken curry, Emillee, Mike and myself walked down to use the bathroom. As we finished, our host pastor’s wife saw us and told us to come sit down. She brought out these 3 really big bowls of lintel beans that were actually really good, but we were soooo full. We knew that we had to do our best to honor her hospitality by finishing it all. Eventually though Emillee had enough. She put her plate down, rubbed her stomach, and said, “So good.” Well the pastor’s family doesn’t speak English, so she thought Emillee said “sugra” or “sugar.” So she takes off inside and comes back out and dumps a big spoonful of that on our beans. Ha. I made it that much better! I’m proud to say though, that as difficult as it was, we cleaned our plates. Our mothers would be so proud!
