Varanasi, India 2008: June 2008

Not quite Siamese twins...but almost.

What does one do when your family and friends are on the other side of the planet?

How would someone go about living in India for 9 months without previously knowing the people they stay with there?

I'll tell you how...you put two crazy girls together and call them team mates and hope everything works out...

Thank the Lord that for us...it works.

"So you knew each other before coming here?" they ask us when we introduce ourselves. Sometimes we explain that we attended the same church, yet before January 20th barely saw each other. Other times we just look at each other and give a little laugh and answer, "Weeellll...sorta."

It's been nearly six months that we've been together and looking back at the first day we started this journey, it is almost funny. We've come from knowing only each other's names to reading each other's minds and I could not be more thankful for such a good friend to live with here in India.

There are days since being here where I have felt downright miserable and days where I would love to simply see my family. But being here with Jess is the next best thing. She has become practically like a sister and no matter how tired or grouchy we are...we manage to get along and even have a good time.

And now that more people know us...the question isn't "Did you know each other before." Now if someone sees us and the other isn't around, it's "Where's your other half?"

...only the oleanders thrived...

It stood there amidst the business of that Varanasi street. Small and proud it stood...no taller than a man's outstretched hand. It seemed no one noticed it. I may have even missed its quiet beauty had Margreet not said, "Oh look how cute that tree is!"

We were in a hurry. It was almost dinnertime and we still had to find the shop to buy material in. But as we walked I looked at that one lone tree...an oleander she said. I had never seen an oleander tree before and I thought it was just lovely. Of course on this street it was the only speck of green life you could see.
Both sides of the road were lined with shops and people milled around everywhere. As usual, car horns honked, men shouted, goats played, and cows lowed. It was a typically hot and dusty day and after a long day out, we were each tired and ready to go home.

I suppose this setting is the reason that sweet little tree surprised me. It was as though it had grown from nothing. The concrete and dirt surrounded it and I doubt it had a caretaker. It was ignored in the middle of a mess, yet it grew perfectly there. Perhaps that tree was God's gift to that area of India. Just like a rainbow after the storm, that small and beautiful plant was like the promise of life to that dry and crazy street.

Eating with what you got....Your HANDS

"Why don't they use silverwear?"
"I don't know", I replied but thinking " why use silverwear?"........

On Mondays all of the staff of the widow's home gathers together to have a time of worship and to eat together. Usually the meal is rice and a bean substance called dal sometime with some potatoes and other vegatables. Even though I was introduced to eating with my hands before coming to India, it is on Mondays that I get a real taste of how to eat with my hands.

So first you get a mountain of rice but I usually only have a small hill size. Then the dal is poured on. I have seen some make a little a little bowl in their rice and have the dal be poured in it or I have seen it be just pour on randomly. I usually have it random. Then you might think that you just dive into it, but first you take with your right hand and get a bit of rice. You move it around in the dal till it is in a bit of ball shape and then pop it in the good old month. Another way I have seen it be done is to do the same motion with the rice with the dal. But then take a bunch of rice in your hand and bite it out of your hand and then you throw it back on the plate, do the same process and then have another bite.

Most of the time Nebin and I resort back to using silverwear when we make our breakfast, lunch and dinner.....but there was this one time....We finished our dinner of probably vegatables and I still felt like eating something....something sweet. So I said, " I think I am going to have some oats" So we had oats and sugar with a little water to make the oats a little moist. We didn't eat it with our spoon, we went Indian style.

So why do they use their hands to eat?

Well I can't answer this question, why do humans do anything they do, perhaps there is an anthropologist out there that know the answer but for me, it is fun. It makes a weird bowl of oats and sugar become really exciting and fun to eat.

Thanks for enjoying the show
:Jessica