a sleepless night

So it's 5 Am here and I've given up all hope of sleeping till 7.  It has definately been the worst night since we got here.  The reason being is because the power in India is extremely sketchy.  So instead of it going out every five min like it usually does we are just getting power surges every few min. So the fans will be going at regular speed and then all the sudden speed up really fast then slow way down.  And also another unfortunate side effect of these power surges is that the AC is affected also. So every few min it turns on with a loud clank and then turns off again.  So it's not on long enough to actually cause an effect on the room temperature. So when I woke up a few hours ago, I woke up in heap of my own sweat.  And now that I'm awake a just keep listening to the AC and hoping that for some strange miracle it will just remain on. My main question is I don't have any clue how steve is still sleeping through all this. Because if I'm hot then he must be boiling.  Maybe I should go check his pulse and see if he's ok. .. . . .

  So questions have been asked about the food here in india. Well here it is. That about sums it up. I always knew that India was famous for their curry but I always thought that there was other foods that were there. But I was mistaken.  All there is curry and more curry.  We do switch it up a bit and have fruits and vegetables with our diners.  Yesterday we were in charge of chopping up the fruits and veggies. And we just loaded the vegetables with garlic salt and vinegar because I honestly just want a different flavor besides super spicy.  Also I think because you sweat so much here I think that my body is craving salt.  In fact my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it.  When I'm eating the curry which is fairly delicious don't get me wrong.  I usually try to stay away from the whole unrecognizable vegetables.  Because those usually just end up being a whole spice and my mouth is burning for the next hour after I eat those.  They do have rice cakes sometimes. Which is just finely crushed rice, mashed into a patty.  I asked one of the girls yesterday what she would do if they didn't like rice.  And she said that they would probably starve.  Sad, but a valid point seems how they eat rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This next picture is us up on the roof where we have dinner. It's super nice because we get to talk about our day and our experiences and then the sun usually sets while we're up there. It's usually always a beautiful sunset. And a nice way to end the day.

After dinner we split up into groups and go to what is called family time.  This is steve's family time.  I don't know the stories behind these but it looks like to me a fairly typical guys night.  With the light sabers and I can usually here screaming coming from the boys hostel.  These boys love steve tho.  When we are walking up to the hostels there are boys waiting outside for him and as soon as they see him they say "Steve Steve me first me first" They are referring to a game where he puts them on his shoulders and he runs all around the path.  He teases them and pretends he's going to go into the mango groves and they freak out because there are scorpions and snakes in there that even they don't want to deal with.  This last picture is what everybody sleeps on including the girls.  The just lay down on these paper thin mats and go to sleep. With the girls in my family they love it when I lay down with them and tickle their arms and backs, while singing them to sleep.  I usually sing primary songs and hymns. It's a sweet moment to see these girls requesting songs.  One girl yesterday started singing a song that I didn't recognize and I asked her what it was.  She said she didn't know the name but it was number 2 in the hymn book.  So I started singing The Spirit of God.  And let me tell you the spirit is particularly close when your with those sweet children.  They are such an amazing example to me and I love getting to spend time with them. I couldn't have asked for a better experience here then the one that I've been given. 

Construction day

 No matter what country you are in little girls like to braid your hair and paint your nails. In this case I feel a little bit like a my size barbie.  This braid actually was done by one of the house mothers named Sarahswathi,  The term beauty is pain doesn't really do this justice.  She was pulling on my hair so hard I literally thought that  my whole head of hair was going to come off of my scalp. Funny part is that she just sat down and started braiding. No questions asked. It's funny also how critical they are of your imperfections.  If you have any flaw the girls will notice it and they will point it our.  While Steve has been here he decided to grow out a go-tee and everyday a girl that's in my family named Bianca would tell me how ugly my husband was because of it.  She then would go tell him that it was ugly and to shave. HA HA I loved it personally.  So finally after days of this Steve decided to shave and Bianca and Steve have been best friends ever since.  

Each day when we go to the leprosy colonies we help the community in building bathrooms for the houses there. So yesterday we were caring rocks from house to house.  I'm a little bit sore today but the smiles on these people's faces is well worth is.  After caring these rocks for about three hours the foreman called over to us and said that the snake charmer in the village has caught a cobra and to come see it. It was intense.  I took a couple videos but they wouldn't download. But this cobra was very angry.  The only thing that kept the cobra in place was a brick on his tail.  The snake charmer actually drinks the venom of these snakes so that when he does get bitten he won't die.  And he has been bitten before so apparently it does work.  While the snake charmer was preparing the venom to drink the cobra actually got away in which case we all ran away screaming.

After the cobra scare we decided to do something a little bit more mellow. There is an art school there in the colonies where they teach leprosy affected people to paint.  It was great seeing the talent of these people and the way that they chose to express their feelings on the paintings.  This painting we bought for our home and the woman is the painter.  So it was fun to get to meet her.  And I think that it is a nice feeling for them to see their work being appreciated and enjoyed.  I love this painting and already know exactly where it's going to go when we get home. 

 I just want the blogging community to know how hard I'm trying to be on being a dedicated blogger. And to show you my dedication I want you to know that I had this whole post almost finished and it was pretty great if I do say so myself, and lo and behold the computer crashed. . . . . . So here I am starting from scratch so that I can bring my stories to you.
Ok now that that is out of the way the past few days have been awesome and a little surreal. We spent Saturday going to a beach town called Mamalapurim.  The picture above is a rock called butterball rock. There has been teams of elephants trying to bring that ball down the hill and it won't budge. And yet it looks like it could slip off at any moment in time. We also saw some 14th century temple ruins which were very interesting. It's always fascinating to see the dedication of people through out time and the pride they put in their buildings.   After seeing those we went down the street to get some shopping in. Now I'm not a fan of shopping in general but shopping in India is EXHAUSTING! They will some how start bartering with you on something that you don't want to even buy.  And then on something you do want to buy you have to argue with them for a hour to get a fair price. And then with the currency exchange it was just overall an ordeal that I'm not looking forward to repeating next weekend.

 The good part about the day was the beach! We went to what was called Ideal Beach. And let me be the first to say it was truly "Ideal",  The ocean was the perfect temperature and I think it was the warmest bath since I've gotten here.  The sand was so soft and no rocks or coral to stub your toes on. There were beach huts to lounge out in and a waiter even came and brought you food. Thus the picture above with Steve sipping on a smoothie. There were also hammocks and palm tress so I think that I've sufficiently painted the picture for you to know how ideal it was.  My favorite part about it was that Steve has never been to a tropical beach before.  So when he felt the water I think he was surprised that his foot didn't turn into an ice cube that instant.   It was such a nice relaxing time and I think much deserved.

We went to church on Sunday. It was a long two hour drive so we had some time to snap some pics along the way. Once we got there though it was a nice slice of home.  I just love that the church is the same wherever you go.  I think that we nearly doubled their congregation but the didn't seem to mind at all.  It was interesting because alot of people spoke english but some didn't. So the teacher would have to go back and forth between English and Tamil. But overall a superb day. The church is growing a lot down here. They are constructing a three story chapel here and there is three branches.  The missionaries said that they had 6 baptism dates this week. So i think that the work is really starting to take off here. So it's exciting to see.

Today we spent the day at one of the many leprosy colonies. It was a fascinating experience to do what I do everyday in another country.  The medical techniques were different. And it made me very grateful for the knowledge that I have and the tools that we have in america for medicine. We are truly blessed. But that said it was great to make a difference today. The people were all very grateful and kept touching my face and saying thank you.  There are some very bad wounds that I don't think will ever heal.  Most of the patients have lost most of all of their toes and fingers.  It is sad to think that all of this could have been prevented by educating the Indian people.  It was great to see Steve in medical action as well. You should have seen him working that blood pressure machine!.  (I was all over that thing-Steve)  Enough said. I got to debride the wounds which was fun. And worked along side an Indian nurse who was very sweet and patient with me. Since I don't do to much wound care in my day to day practice.  Overall it was a great experience to get to see the smiles on these peoples faces and get to make a small difference in the world of leprosy. 

Good times in india

So today has already been a good day. We got up early at 6:30 and took a walk through the village. It was amazing because all the villagers were up doing there morning chores and getting water for the day. It was so great because the sun was just rising and it wasn't nearly as hot as it could of been. But when I say that it was still probably about 95 degrees but that feels like a cool autumn day now. ha amazing how the prospective can change. These two pictures that are posted above were taken this morning. the people would come up and ask to have their picture taken it was so cute. The family above were in shock when we showed them that picture because I don't think that they see themselves that often. They showed their whole family the pic it was so cute.  This lady in the next pic came up to us and at first we thought that she was angry because we didn't know what she was saying. but then she started adjusting her sari and flattening her hair so we figured out that she wanted us to take her pic as well. It's so fun to see their smiles on their faces when they see their pics. I wish that I could print them all out and give it to them because I don't think they have ever had a pic of themselves in their lives.

 Its amazing how different India is sometimes, the traffic, the food, the culture. All of it is so different on the outside but while we have been here we have discovered we are more similar than we think.  While working with some villagers the townswomen brought us mango juice. It was just like doing a service project back home and being served lemonade.  They saw it was hot and we were in need, they showed kindness by their gesture. Kindness, concern, gratitude, friendship are all emotions we all feel no matter what cultural differences.  We are all part of one human family. It was a simple act but a powerful lesson. The pic above is the ladies who gave us the juice, They were so sweet.

HEY everybody so we are in INDIA and we now have inernet because the first few days we didn't. But it's been a wonderful couple of days for sure, The flights were extremely long. Steve slept pretty much the whole way and I didn't even sleep a wink even after taking tylenol PM, epich fail. We did also miss our connection from dehli to chennai because the ticket guy was in so not a hurry to print out our tickets. Ha but I've found that is pretty much the indian people.  Not in a hurry for a lot of things. India  is by far the most extreme place that I have been too so far.  There is no happy medium for anything, it is always extremely hot, either you are super poor or super rich, the food is extreme and there are so many extreme colors.  But i really love seeing the culture in full force.  BUt now onto the greatest stuff. The Kids are amazing! They are so sweet and just want to be your instant friend.  Their names are ridiculously hard to remember or understand but I'm really trying hard. The boys absolutely love steve. At play time he has three boys on his shoulders running around playing soccer it's so fun to watch. The daily schedule pretty much goes like this. We split up into groups and go to different places around campus and in the leprosy colonies.  We haven't been to the leprosy colonies yet because yesterday there was a death and they are giving the people time to grieve.  Then we come home play with the kids have dinner and then split up into families and have family time before sending the kids to bed.  It's been so so awesome. The girls that are in my family are so sweet. One girl tongiht we just sang church hymns for an hour straight. She loves it. It's so funnny. Oh PS I swear we've almost died on the road every time we lease. But I'm convinced there is somehow a method to the madness of all the traffic here.  I'll have to analyze that a little more and get back to you. Well we are off to bed. But I'll be back soon with hopefully some more cool experiences to share. 

COUNTDOWN!

So I planned all along to have a countdown to india. But I've officially decided that I'm a blogging idiot. So this is my countdown to INDIA! and it happens to be that tomorrow is the day that we start our journey to the other side of the world.  Pretty easy countdown huh. It has been a couple crazy few weeks tho. I think we have got everything just about ready. So we have an activity to do with the kids, got some CTR rings as a prize for them, and have a whole suitcase of mostly all food. So ready or not here we come. We leave tomorrow at 7 am and get to Chennai India at 1045 pm the next day. So it will be a journey to say the very least.  We will going to the leprosy colonies the next morning. It's weird because I'm not sure what to expect but I feel fairly calm about the whole thing. I've got to figure out how to post lots of pictures on this blog so that you can all see the adventures. Well last but certainly not lease I've got to thank all the sponsors that have made this possible for us to go on this incredible trip. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart. I'm so extremely appreciative of the generosity of friends and family. I hope that your realize the magnitude you have had on our lives and hopefully some lives of the Indian people.  Well I've got to get back to packing. But I will hopefully be posting alot more these next three weeks so please stay tuned. Love you all Jessica