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Published: March 25th 2012
Hello blog-followers! This is Kirsten and Soren (currently on a train) filling you in on what happened two days ago. P.S. Hi mom and dad. I’m alive.
Well let’s jump right into it. We woke. And what a morning it was. We ate breakfast under the towering gaze of what the team members call the great “Thumbs Up” mountain. <span> From our patio, overlooking the girls who were already finishing up their morning chores, we began to feel the heat of the sun. But no Indian sun was going to prevent this team from busting out the sports equipment that we had purchased beforehand. Needless to say, the pandemonium of excitement that followed was one of great joy. It was quickly evident to the team that these girls were no western girls. Even in their full saris they could swing a cricket bat and bowl a hard pitch. If that wasn’t enough excitement for one morning, we were quickly swept up into the vehicles and heading to the market. After a longer than expected and slightly nauseating drive, we arrived in the center of a bustling city. Upon opening the door the cacophony of city sounds rallied the team into a shopping mood. Not long after entering the first shop, which was selling bangles, we had a sizeable crowd of people surrounding us either starring or asking for “
one photo”.<span> From there we went on to browsing the street vendors wares, which consisted of spices, soaps, sweets, smelly sea food, souvenirs, and to the team and Kirsten’s delight authentic Henna! With the noonday sun beating upon our heads, we sought shelter in a quaint clothing shop. The owner quickly realizing he had a small gold mine of customers in his shop and began pulling out scarfs, saris, shirts and everything in between at a frantic rate in order to keep our attention. With the women and Connor pleased with their purchases we made our way over to the silver shop. We left the shop a little shinier and our wallets barely lighter than before. Now in a rush to get home for lunch, we popped into a toyshop where some team members bought the same games that we had seen the students’ use. After a speedy walk through the veggie and live fish section of the market, we plopped into the vans, sweating and puffing. To everyone’s delight, Errol treated us to cold Coca-Colas. Unfortunately, we had to drink quickly because the owners wanted the glass bottles back (probably for the next visitors).<span> After a hot car ride home and food in our bellies, we split up into various groups to hang out with the girls. Some learned to count to ten in Marathi, while others played games like UNO and cricket. The evening came quickly and over dinner we laughed about how one of the songs we had been singing, even at the boys’ school, had been misspelled. Where we had thought we were singing, “My God is so big” the directed translation that was projected onto the screen in Hindi read, “My God is so bug”. No wonder the students weren’t singing that line with particular enthusiasm. After dinner, we had our first chapel with the girls.<span> What the boys lack in tone, they sure do make up in volume and confidence. The girls on the other hand, seem to understand the basics of melody and rhythm but encouraging them to sing with us rather than us perform is a bit more challenging. In the end everyone had a good time and if the day wasn’t great enough, Goliath was a hit as he managed to die on queue!
This is Soren and Kirsten signing out from a bumpy train heading back to Nagpur.
The end
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Lee
non-member comment
Praise the Lord : )
Our "Babe" is alive!