Soli Deo Gloria

Family Day!

January 18, 2011 at 9:40 pm (Uncategorized)

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Sunday we spent the day doing team activities.  In America, that would mean two or three hours of baseball, maybe volleyball, a barbeque, and if we’re feeling sassy, trust falls.  In India, it means you break up into “family groups”, build a house, cook lunch (from scratch and over a fire), sing songs, spend time in prayer together in your newly built house and maybe play cricket when everything is taken down and put away.

Unfortunately, if you have the title of “guest”, they won’t let you help with anything.  You have to help on the sly.  I’m getting pretty good at that.  It’s probably better that I don’t…turns out I’m horribly inept.  Back home I successfully kept a garden, grew vegetables, and weeded.  I offered to help weed their vegetable garden and after two minutes several kids came running at me yelling, “Didi NAHI!!!”  That means, “sister, NO!!!”  I was pulling what we would call weeds…random greens in the ditches between the furrows….turns out they eat that stuff.  It’s called palak and is the Indian equivalent of spinach.  After that huge embarrassing failure, I walked passed Peter milking the cow.  I’ve been to a dairy before, so I felt confident in my ability to possibly squeeze milk from this animal.  Um, no.  It took me 5 minutes of wrestling with the udder, squirting myself, the ground, Peter…but I think I got a whole tablespoon into the bucket.  Probably.  Peter had to finish for me.  He had drained the other three teats and I was going painfully slow for his taste. 

So Sunday I basically sat in the shade watching as 5-17 year olds literally built a house from scratch.  The big boys went around finding long poles, the younger kids dug holes, the girls built a fire, cut onions, tomatoes, chilis, made chipati…it was amazing.  Each family group designed their own house out of poles and blankets; the blankets were sewn together with wire.  Then some of the kids swept the entrance and decorated.  I was finally allowed to help with the decorating (drawing colorful sand designs on the ground), although I noticed that it had later been erased and redone.  AND the big girls let me help them cut tomatoes!  With a dull piece of metal.  I was pretty stoked.  It’s not so awkward once you get the hang of it…