A few thoughts...

I am currently in a new city for a month doing language study.  Never in a million years would I have referred to a city with a couple million people as small…until now.  After a few months in M-town and its 20+ million coming here feels like we’ve stepped into a small town.  We have had a great time learning our way around, making new friends and are blessed to have a great language teacher during this time.  Thank you so much for lifting up this time of intentional language study!  As you do I thought I would post a few funny things that have happened to give you a glimpse into life here in our language city :-)

We have discovered the warmest place to spend our time is sitting on the roof.  During lunch on the roof the other day we decided to play a game, which basically consisted of guessing what would cross the road next.  Now for those of you in the states that may sound like a lame game, but here our options consist of motorcycles (sometimes with 5 people on them), dogs, cows, water buffalo, goats, pigs, children, cars, bicycles, two men holding hands (means nothing more than friends here), subzi wala selling vegetables, camels, elephants…you know, the usual!

Then, yesterday morning, we heard someone playing a flute.  I asked Kristin, “What is that?”  She sarcastically responds, “You know its probably just our traveling snake charmer.”  To our amazement as we looked out the door it was a traveling snake charmer walking down the road playing his flute with his cobras in a bag over his shoulder!  Have I mentioned I love living in South Asia, never a dull moment?!

One final laugh that I wish I had a video of...Our first morning here we woke up to a colorful mess of trash on the kitchen floor which I suspected meant we had a furry little friend.  The next morning when I woke up it sounded like someone was in the kitchen, only when I got up I realized everyone else was still asleep.  Hint number two we had a furry little friend.  During our language class we heard all kinds of commotion in the kitchen and narrowed it down to one cabinet.   After class I attempted to find “Steward Big” as Justine lovingly named him.  It only took moving a couple of things from the cabinet to see him and we’ll just say he had apparently been eating well.  Our language teacher managed to get him to come out of the cabinet, followed by a few screams and the girls closing the kitchen door to contain our little friend to the kitchen.  Only problem was that now our teacher and me were contained in the kitchen also!  Fortunately (or unfortunately) after chasing him for a second he made a run for a hole near the drain and we’ve yet to see him again.  We decided to put  a rock over the hole and call it a day.

In the midst of the fun our time here has already been beneficial for language learning…continue to lift up our time here this month.  Specifically lifting up our health, focus and diligence in studying the language, ability to retain what we are learning.