Date Nights

Just a side note before I get started- the power was out for 8 hours yesterday so we went to KFC for dinner and prayed our food in the fridge didn't go bad.

JP and I have always enjoyed being creative for date night since we were on a very tight budget.  Though it would be possible to do dinner and a movie here, that just doesn't excite us that much- I like adventure (my poor husband).  For our first date night here I decided we needed to try what was advertized as the cities "only authentic Chinese restaurant".  So, we hopped in an auto and went to the other side of town and a little bit into the jungle where we found a Cafe Cofee Day and decided to stop for drinks before dinner.  I got a yummy Lichee chill.  Of course at this point JP discovered that he didn't have much cash on him.  Before going to dinner we tried to find an ATM but to no avail.  So a new game developed- Let's see how much we can do in this city for 800 RPS.  After paying our auto driver I think we had 600 left.
   At the Chinese restaurant we ordered Chinese greens (so craving those), Kung Pao chicken, Jaozi, and Rice. The food tasted more authentic than most Chinese restaurants here, but the vegetable dish had about 5 pieces of bokchoy and then a bunch of mushrooms, cauliflower, and bell pepper.  The pork Jaozi was really good though.  After dinner we were down to about 100 RPS.  We knew that we couldn't get an auto back home for that, so we just started walking and exploring.  When we got to a main road we decided to hop on a Vikram- a little blue truck with the bed turned into a cab for people- it seats 6-8 people and then you have to squat after that.  We took the Vikram a ways and then decided to hop off and look and some stores around us.  10 RPS down.  I then remembered that I needed to buy a sifter so that my cook could sift our flour.  Another 10 RPS down. 
  From there we walked into a Bengali sweet shop and bought 4 little bit sized sweets.  Although I didn't know what I was eating, I thought that they tasted very good and have since bought some more.  15 Rupees down.   Not yet ready to go home and down to about 65 RPS, we walked a little ways and spotted a cute little bakery.  The decor of the bakery looked very French Bistro esque, but it was not well kept.  Regardless, we purchased a piece of mango cake and climbed the narrow spiral staircase up to the second floor to eat and catch a glimpse of the busy street down below.  35 RPS
     With about 30 RPS left in our pocket, it was time to start heading home to relieve the babysitter.  We were still too far away to get an auto for 30 RPS, so we walked until we got to the 30 RPS point and then took an auto home. 
   It was fun just being spontaneous, exploring the city, tasting some new things, trying new forms of transportation, walking around without a baby in tow, and spending quality time together. 

No Power

I finally have time to post on the blog, but we have been without power for about 5 hours so our computer is about out of juice (and our food is probably going bad in the refrigerator).  I am afraid the power will go out mid-writing so I will just keep it simple. 
I have been away because our hard drive mysteriously stopped working :(.  Our computer is up and running but it does not have all of our old programs installed and our picture software has not been installed.  This has been an annoying glitch, but we have survived.  Please pray for our hard drive. ( I realize that we should have backed up our hd, but let's not talk about that.)  We are still attempting to get to our data on our hard drive and all of Silas' pictures from 1 month to 9 months.  I will be very sad if we lose them. 
Will post more when power comes back.

Talking in the Car

9 months Old

My little man turned 9 months on the 17th.  Some people say the time flies by, but I must say, so much has happened since then that his birth seems forever ago.  He is such a precious gift from God and makes us smile and laught many times a day. 
At 9 Months Silas:
crawls quickly across the floor
pulls up on everything
climbs full flights of stairs
eats carrots, chole, yogurt, potato, green beans, mango, banana, crackers, egg plant, mashed peas, roti
talks all the time in a rather loud voice (he says dadada, bababa, mamama, and makes other noises)
loves to sing in the car or in the auto rickshaw
loves not having to sit in a carseat
loves playing with other kids
smiles a lot
scrunches his nose and makes a funny noise
loves reading books
has gotten quite clingy to mommy and has started snuggling :)
puts on a pouty face and starts to cry when he doesn't get his way
has learned how to throw his pacifier out of his crib :(
is greatly loved by mommy and daddy!

Still that Pride Thing

"but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:24

I may have said this before, but I am saying it again because it is still tripping me up.  Pride is a big issue for me- and it seems to creep up in many areas of my life.  So I have a confession to make, I am not a Hindi expert (gasp).  In fact, I think the term "novice" is being generous.  I daily stumble about with making sure that my verbs take the correct gender and tenses, and that my pronouns inflect correctly when followed by a postposition.  Yet even though I know that I don't know Hindi, I often find myself not having a very teachable attitude.  It really doesn't matter that I have a Masters degree, have studied Mandarin, and taught ESL, and the language school definitely doesn't care what my GPA was.  And it should not matter that my main teacher is 19 years old and admitted to us that she used to fail Hindi class.  The truth of the matter is that she has something to teach me and she is an expert and I am not.  Sure I may know a better way to teach, but I should give thanks that I am learning, that someone is available to teach me.  I need to get rid of the high and mighty attititude and lurks in my subconscience and realize that I am not above being taught by someone without an MA in Hindi.  We truly do value degrees so much- but it is just a piece of paper (and hours of class, reading, and writing papers).
   I really thinking I am doing better about this than I was in the beginning, but pray for me that even in the times when my teacher is texting during class or goes off on some tangent that fully reveals her age, that I would have an attitude of love and a righteous heart. 

More Pictures from around town

Here are some more pictures from near our neighborhood.  Pictures paint a good picture, but can only go so far, as you cannot hear, feel, or smell (a good thing) a picture.  As you look at these pictures, think muggy sewer.

A fastfood stall where they sell vegetarian momos (similar to Chinese jiaozi or dumplings).  They taste pretty good, but they are not all that sanitary.

Anyone washed their clothes on a concrete slab by the sewer lately?  Just wondering.

So this is how we buy chicken.  We go to a chicken shop and pick out a live chicken.  The chicken walla takes the chicken out, cuts her head off, lets her run around in a small enclosed space until she stops.  Then he takes the feathers off, cleans it, and puts it in a bag so that I can take it home and cook it.  Yes it is fresh chicken, but not the greatest quality.

 Bright colored clothing is the norm around here.  This shop sells fabric for Sariis, Salwar Kamiis, and men's clothing. 

Evening Walk

We try to take a walk every evening between dinner and Silas' bedtime so that we can meet our neighbors, stretch our legs, and get poor restless Silas out of the house. Sometimes we just walk in our neighborhood, sometimes we go get ice cream, and other times we cross to the other side of the sewer to see the real India. This is where the majority of my "friends" live. They are women I talk with, or just sit and stare at because I don't know how to say what I want to say. This is also where I go to buy vegetables, chicken, simple snacks, and to get my clothes ironed. Here are a few pictures from our walk.

Lalita lives right by the sewer.  Her "house" has an open area(as in no roof) with a fire for cooking and then a few rooms to the side for sleeping.  She sweeps floors for a living.

 I pass these buffalo just about every day.  Many people buy milk from this dairy.  They take an empty tin and bring it home full of fresh milk.

This lady was recently married.  She is staring down at us in her red Sarii and veil.

Many people walk around in the back streets selling vegetables from carts.  I think this is an interesting looking vegetable.

This is my Press Walii's stand, the lady on the left is my pw and friend Koosoon.  She loves Silas and Silas loves her.  Tonight she was showing Silas her different shrines to Shiva, Sai Baba, and a collection of other gods.  How important our nightly Bible stories are with Silas. 

These pigs live in the sewer and eat trash whenever they are not sleeping.