Holiday extravaganza

On Tuesday 22^nd we are leaving for our holiday to Kerala. This is pretty much as far south as you can go in India, so we will be spending 52 hours in a second class non AC train compartment to get there. We are really looking forward to the journey- despite the toilets (Abha just laughed when we asked about them), and the fact that we will be sharing our compartment with two random Indians. Our host John, who has been spending a lot of time on the Indian railway system recently, has encouraged us to see this as opportunity for ‘bringing people into the light’ (he words it a bit more bluntly), which he seems to manage to do on every journey – last time it was an entire family of seven, as well as giving marriage counseling to four of the presidents butlers!

On arrival in Kerala we are travelling to the coast where we will meet the Kolkata team and spend 4 nights staying in beach huts on the edge of a beautiful beach and the Indian ocean. This will include a trip to the backwaters and maybe even an elephant ride at some point.

After 3 days on the beach we will catch a bus inland to a wildlife park for a few days of elephant spotting and trekking in the jungle (the same jungles as the Jungle book is set in!). We were hoping to stay in a tree house, but after a rather embarrassing and very confusing phone call trying to book them we don’t think that will happen- the woman just repeated the word ‘hut’ loudly every time I asked if there were tree houses available.

We are all really excited about having some time to relax and unwind and see some more of India before we get properly stuck into the rest of our time here.

New term

Happy new year sub ko!

We spent our new year’s eve being half suffocated by an indoor BBQ at the David’s apartment because of their concern for annoying the neighbors with smoke. The blackened kebabs were pretty good, but our clothes reeked!
New term at Anusaran started on 2nd January, so we were straight back into things. All our classes are going great at the moment, Becky recently did “pirate week” in her class, and Anna’s class wrote stories about a thief and went on to make wanted posters and TV reports for the dastardly incident they had written about.

Naomi’s girls class has faced a few changes since a new stitching class has been started at the city school at the same time, run by her prize pupil Sumetra Didi. The classes are supposed to be separate we think but they tend to merge together sometimes. Its all a bit confusing. The kids class I teach in has changed quite a bit too this new term- with new children and children moving up from group1, the class has swollen to about 30. The class dynamic has completely changed since almost all the kids new to the class have absolutely no English at all, so what I’ve been doing in class has had to change quite a bit to cater for them all. It just means I have an excuse to do more crafts and play more games with them really.

After a discussion we had with Abha at the start of term, I have begun to take the boys class at the City school every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so they can have a bit more guy influence. I’m supposed to be teaching them morals, and so far we have discussed family relationships, played carrom and done lots of handstands. It makes my day a bit longer but I always sneak to the sweetshop before I have to go to the village school straight after the boys class, so I can refuel with a 1/4 kg of deep fried sugary stuff. mmm.

David 

Curried Christmas

I just realised we haven’t said anything about Christmas day itself yet-sorry!

It was a great day, we were all far to busy having fun to be homesick. The day started with Christmas music blaring from I-pod speakers, a very scrummy fried breakfast and a very exciting opening of presents. We then all trooped down to the David’s apartment for the girls to get taught how to tie their new saris by Abha, and for me to eat the second breakfast they gave us.

The church service was very memorable- mainly because of Arnold’s fantastic bollywood style nativity he had spent weeks preparing with the church kids. There were synchronized dancing sheep, lots of make up and costumes, and even rapping wise men! After the service we went into the upper room (Becky’s classroom), which had been decked out in a very fancy manner, to have our mughlai Christmas lunch. It was delicious, and john explained to us this was because the chef was a Muslim- evidently they are the best cooks. I wasn’t about to argue.

We returned home very full for a lazy evening of bollywood films and phone calls home. We had all prepared ourselves for a different Christmas and it wasn’t a disappointing day in the slightest.

 David

Hot dogs, cake and dumplings

We hope you enjoyed Christmas and all its various shinnanigans.

I certainly did- i enjoyed a large Christmas eve dinner (a surprisingly good team effort) including stuffing, ample bread sauce and a quarter of a big chocolate cake- despite the fact that I came here to India unable to eat wheat because of coeliac disease. Meet the new and improved, able to eat anything David William Fleck!

After John praying for me (he couldn’t handle the fact i couldn’t eat chappati), and God speaking to me through…

1 timothy 4:3-5……..and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

…I decided to try eating normal stuff, and its been about 7 weeks now without any sore stomaches, illness, weight loss etc.

Ive been gorging on bread, cake, pakora, Indian sweet things, garlic bread, toast, farmers toast, tofu hot dogs, chicken hot dogs, chappati, roti, Pratha, dumplings, and even a particularly delicious Domino’s Pizza.

It’s the first time I’ve been eating Gluten without spending weeks feeling aweful since I was about 9, its so amazing. Maybe it was that with so many people praying for my healing when I had Dengue, that God just saw the whole of me and healed it all at once.

Exciting stuff-It will certainly be easier to cater for me on tour now!

David