Worst Ever Brand Name

I just saw a commercial on television that outraged me. They've recently begun marketing emergency contraceptive pills here, and unlike I've seen in the States, apparently they're allowed to market them on TV. Want to know the brand name for the new "morning after" pill? Unwanted. What! Well, they certainly are saying it loud and clear, aren't they?

A Shrew!

Some insight from our friend Paul and a little research reveal that the "not mouse not rat," noisy rodent is a shrew! Now I know why cats never actually get down to truly catching them--they are fierce fighters.

Really? That's my evening?

So tonight, the night after my bday celebrating, I was looking forward to an evening of eating, relaxing, and having no paper to write. Just as I was finishing Nay's bath, I heard this crazy screeching, not something I was unfamiliar with but certainly louder than usual. I walked with naked baby to the kitchen to follow the sound, and found the cat, Sahara, crouched in front of the washing machine. Seconds later, a squeaking rodent (not a mouse or rat) ran down the hallway with the cats in tow. I screamed and frantically ran behind trying to close all the important doors so it wouldn't go inside. I locked the cats into a room with it and promised to join them later.

After putting Nay to sleep, I grabbed my broom and headed for the destruction room where I hoped to find an already dead rodent. Instead, I found two cats looking extremely puzzled amidst a huge mess of things on the floor. So, locking myself into the battle zone, I proceeded to move everything so they could access the little fellow. It was actually really hilarious to watch him be chased around and around the same box for about 5 minutes, squeaking all the way! I was really amazed that he could get his body flattened enough to fit under a heavy cardboard box. So, what ultimately happened to this little fellow the cats did not seem to want to kill?

Now you know I've lived in South Asia too long: I brought an empty cornflakes box from the kitchen, ripped off the tab of a cardboard box, laid it on the floor, caught him, and did what? Threw him back outside ALIVE! Boy have I grown over the years.

Efficient Transportation

I don't know if you could say that this nation has gone "green." The pollution levels here seem to suggest differently, but one of the main things that environmentalists stress is the need for people to use public transport or carpooling. You may be feeling that you are doing your part by sharing a ride to work with three other colleagues in your spacious 4 four-door sedan, but trust me, according to South Asians, you are wasting space and gasoline.

Every day I take what is called a "tempo" to my language class. A tempo is a battery powered tin can about the length of a sub-compact car that carries, legally, 13 people. That may sound insane, but actually I prefer taking those because they are more "spacious" than my return trip transportation. On the way back I take what is called a "micro-bus." A micro-bus is a 15 passenger van that drives a set route just like a regular bus. Unfortunately, the micro-bus operators didn't get the memo from the manufacturer that these vans were meant to hold only 15 people. They usually contain many more than that. The other day I was returning from class when I was unusually cramped so I started counting people. I was sharing the 15 passenger van with 37 other people. For some reason, I couldn't find my seatbelt. Why did God make me 6'3"?

Difficult Days

Our intentions with this blog are pretty simple. We try to give you an insight into what our lives are like here. We try to make you laugh with the things that make us laugh here on the other side of the world, although I think we may only have a 50% success rate. We rarely bring up deep topics, or even inform you of our needs. We save all that stuff for our email updates which you can subscribe to by sending an email to us.

With that all said we do have difficult days here. Many days we have what we now call "minor" annoyances such as having no water or no electricity. Or days when it seems that no one understands a word you say. Sometimes difficult days come because this world is full of fallen humans who do you harm when they cheat you, steal from you, lie to you, or in general put their needs over the thousands of others' needs all around them. God has blessed us though. He has prepared us and strengthened us up so that we allow these things to roll off like water off a duck's back.

There are some things though, that God doesn't and shouldn't callous us against, especially the suffering of humans. Last week I was on my way to school when I saw a mother with her child on the street begging. Beggars are nothing new to us, we are quite used to them. I don't believe Jesus would feel moved with compassion for the beggars who claim to need money for food but have thought it wise to spend their money on a pack of Marlboros so they can smoke while they beg and listen to their iPod like many we encountered on the exit ramps in Chicago. This was a different situation. I don't know what this woman did or didn't do that put her in this situation, but I know for sure that the little girl, about Naomi's age, laying on the cardboard did nothing to deserve this. Her little face was covered in sores, her clothes were filthy, and her lungs were being filled with toxic fumes all day every day. My heart broke.

We are here to see lives changed. Really difficult days are those when you are confronted with the truth that not every life here is going to change. Difficult days are when you realize you can't save everyone. As you read this, your heart may be feeling heavy, but just imagine how much this breaks the heart of this little girl's Creator and Father.

The Colony

Many people often ask us what it is like to live here. It’s a very hard thing to describe because everyone starts with a preconceived idea in his or her head. Some people who support us envision us in some sort of thatch-roofed hut in a small village where we have to hunt for our food. There are a few places in the world still like that, but I would have to guess it is a small percentage of the world’s population. In many countries people have traded in their straw huts for something I think is even worse: little concrete and tarpaulin hovels lined up in rows of thousands all around the developing world’s major cities (think Slumdog Millionaire). Other people though seem to envision us in a slightly poorer version of America. They are surprised to hear we have huge water, electricity, and gasoline shortages. They can’t imagine that most people don’t have refrigerators, central heating, clothes dryers, ovens, or even clean drinking water. After all, how do you live without those things? With the exception of the drinking water, amazingly, you can live quite well without all those “necessities.”

The other day we were watching the first episode of a show called “The Colony.” It was a free download on iTunes, and I can’t pass up something free. It’s a Discovery Channel show that is an experiment to see how 10 strangers manage living together in a post-apocalyptic world. They suppose a major natural disaster, terrorist attack, or epidemic disease has wiped out the vast majority of the world’s population, and now these ten volunteers are going to live in an abandoned warehouse for 10 weeks to see how they survive. They have to scavenge for food, live off the grid, and protect themselves against attacks from roving marauders (of course, on motorcycles). As we were watching the show, a surprising thought came into our heads, “Hey, this is like living in South Asia!”

So here are some similarities:

- They made the 10 volunteers arrive at the warehouse sleep deprived. Ever travel half way across the world? 20-22 hours in an airplane, another 10 hours in airports going through security checks? That’s sleep deprivation.
- They have to collect water from the polluted L.A. River to wash their clothes, cook with, and to flush their toilets. That’s pretty much how most of the world gets their water, except many of the rivers in the developing world are much more polluted than the L.A. river.
- The volunteers have to filter and boil all their drinking water. Yeah… us too. For more that just ten weeks. How about all the time?
- Since there is no electricity, the colonists gather together a bunch of car batteries and a power inverter they just happen to find laying around to run some lights in their warehouse. That is called an Uninterrupted Power Supply system or U.P.S. Many middle class families in South Asia have those for their houses. After all we do have 16 hours of no power every day in winter months. Oddly enough, we don’t have one because they are too expensive!
- On one of the first couple days of the experiment, the survivors were blessed with a heavy rain, and they scrambled around filling containers with rainwater. We fill up every bucket we have every time it rains, and just like on the show, we also put buckets under the downspouts.
- The roving motorcycle marauders attack the colony and try to steal their resources. Every week we hear about another foreigner getting their laptops stolen. So every night we have to secure our perimeter and keep all our valuables locked up. Who knows, maybe the thieves here also drive motorcycles.

All these things made us laugh. I kept thinking, “I would do really well on this show.” Then, the colonists cracked open a branded can of Spaghetti-O’s with meatballs and complained about their dinner options. Are you kidding me? Some days I think I would give my left arm for a family-sized can of Spaghetti-O’s!

Our Disappearing Neighbors

South Asians wake up early--way to early for me! Every morning the city comes to life shortly after five in the morning. By six o'clock, the little lanes around our house are alive with people fetching water, and there is a great symphony of the sounds of dishes clanging together, dirty laundry being beaten against stones, and the loudest of all dogs barking for the sake of barking. By 6:30, some kids are already on their way to school or to their extra "tuitions" (study groups) before school. All this happens everyday without fail for about nine months a year, but during the monsoon things change.

We have had a very poor monsoon this year, but on those occasional days when it rains all night through the mid morning, a drastic change happens to the morning routine. Two days ago I was standing out on our terrace at about eight o'clock (the earliest I would ever like to be out of my house) as a light rain was continuing to fall on the city. As I looked around, I noticed every house had its doors and windows tightly closed up. Our neighborhood was quiet. There were no traffic sounds. No washing, cooking, or water fetching could be seen or heard, and even the dogs mercifully had ceased their barking. Plus, our naughtiest cat decided to take the morning off for a sleep-in as well!

Now that's what I call a good morning.