We had our birthday party for Velma last night!! Yesterday seemed extra hot, and I had gotten sick earlier in the day, so none of us felt very much like partying. But we rinsed off and tried to make ourselves look as presentable as constant perspiration will allow, and partied on. We got chicken again for dinner, it's only the 2nd time we've had meat here. Gill actually took a video of our chickens getting killed and cleaned earlier that day. He used Telma's camera, and when he brought it back there were actually blood splatters on the lens. Authentic.
There was so much going on, and so many people in a very small space, it was almost overwhelming. I think most of the people who came over were cousins or neighbors...we had seen most of them before. Still though, they all kept asking to take pictures with us. That gets exhausting; maybe the celebrity life isn't for me afterall. Velma said that she enjoyed it very much though.
We didn't go to the school today, I'm not completely sure why. It did give us a chance to get some things done though. I'm getting better at hand-washing everytime I do laundry. That's also because Sharlini and the boys keep showing me the best ways to wash things. Mowgli and Ely were like my little quality control monitors today while I did laundry. They also loved to help out, and kept switching out my water buckets for clean water. Eventually they just wanted to do the actual scrubbing for me, and I happily obliged. Doing laundry outside is one of the more exhausting and sweaty things I have maybe ever done. It's at least tied with Bikram. So to have them do my work for me was wonderful. I told them I would buy them Pepsi's or Mango Fruitees later, which made them super happy too.
Speaking of which, Katy and I have discovered that our brothers are quite easily persuaded (read: bribed) into helping us out. Whether it is giving us back massages, running errands for us, or finding our lost rings, they are eager to help. And we usually don't have to even offer incentives but we still do. It's making me think twice about child labor...just kidding. But I do love the ingenuity and creativity that they have. We learned a phrase in Jaipur that the only thing not possible in India is nothing. Indians are very inventive at finding solutions or fixing things. It's fun to watch, especially in 7, 9, 11, and 12 year olds.
I only wish they could fix the power-outtages. Those are the worst...they happen at least once a day still. When the power is out, we don't want to do anything but lay there. And we still sweat doing that. Even if we are getting used to it, it is still miserable. I think the worst times are when it goes out at night and you wake up because it's just too hot.
There was so much going on, and so many people in a very small space, it was almost overwhelming. I think most of the people who came over were cousins or neighbors...we had seen most of them before. Still though, they all kept asking to take pictures with us. That gets exhausting; maybe the celebrity life isn't for me afterall. Velma said that she enjoyed it very much though.
We didn't go to the school today, I'm not completely sure why. It did give us a chance to get some things done though. I'm getting better at hand-washing everytime I do laundry. That's also because Sharlini and the boys keep showing me the best ways to wash things. Mowgli and Ely were like my little quality control monitors today while I did laundry. They also loved to help out, and kept switching out my water buckets for clean water. Eventually they just wanted to do the actual scrubbing for me, and I happily obliged. Doing laundry outside is one of the more exhausting and sweaty things I have maybe ever done. It's at least tied with Bikram. So to have them do my work for me was wonderful. I told them I would buy them Pepsi's or Mango Fruitees later, which made them super happy too.
Speaking of which, Katy and I have discovered that our brothers are quite easily persuaded (read: bribed) into helping us out. Whether it is giving us back massages, running errands for us, or finding our lost rings, they are eager to help. And we usually don't have to even offer incentives but we still do. It's making me think twice about child labor...just kidding. But I do love the ingenuity and creativity that they have. We learned a phrase in Jaipur that the only thing not possible in India is nothing. Indians are very inventive at finding solutions or fixing things. It's fun to watch, especially in 7, 9, 11, and 12 year olds.
I only wish they could fix the power-outtages. Those are the worst...they happen at least once a day still. When the power is out, we don't want to do anything but lay there. And we still sweat doing that. Even if we are getting used to it, it is still miserable. I think the worst times are when it goes out at night and you wake up because it's just too hot.
I think we are going to end up working at the hospital for about 2 weeks, for the last 2 weeks of July. Kind of a long story but our volunteer agency emailed us asking how our hosptial placement was going and we pretty much let them know that we weren't doing anything of the sort. We said we loved where we were living and were very happy, but if it was possible to do any hospital work that would be good too. So they found us another placement, like another family, but now we don't want to leave our family yet. So we settled on the final 2 weeks, so that we can still get some of that in at least. Apparently this new house we'll be moving to has A/C and wireless internet, which will be glorious. I'm willing to sweat for a couple more weeks though to hang out with our family.
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