Thanksgiving, Moving in, and Watching a Funeral.

Sorry it's been so long since I've written anything, but the past few weeks have been quite eventful.
   Three weeks ago, it was Thanksgiving, and to celebrate the occasion, we went south to a city in the mountains called Kodaikanal. We spent Thankgiving with about 5 other families. While we were there, we hiked a mountain, swang on a rope swing, which was hanging from one of the many giagantic trees up there, and (of course) had Thanksgiving dinner. For Thanksgiving, we actually got to eat Turkey! Turkey is rather difficult to find in India.
    Two weeks ago, we were preparing our flat so that we could move in as soon as possible. We had to clean the flat from top to bottom. Also, we had to paint two rooms. We painted the foyer a gold color. In addition to that, we painted my room gray. Another thing we had to do before we could move in was buy matresses and sheets. Plus, we had to move in the little bit of furniture we had and get our den and kitchen set up. After we did those things, we were ready to move.
     Last week, on Monday, we took all of our belongings (as far as we know) from the guest house, and moved them, and ourselves, into our new flat. Our kitchen is completely set up, thankfully. Other than that, we have a couch, a love seat, a chair with an ottoman, a coffee table, and an armoir, with a flat screen tv and a dvd player in it. Then, we have matresses on the floor that we are sleeping on for the current time.
     We have been searching for a church since we got here. Sunday, we went to a church that we had never gone to before that some friend of mine from youth group invited me to. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and hope we make that our church. It was the only church that had quite a bit of people my age in it.
     Yesterday, I was sick for the first time since we got here. It was just a common cold, but because I was running a small fever, I got to skip out on language! :) On top of that, we got to see part of an Indian funeral take place right across the street from our flat. The entire time the funeral was going on, there was a guy blowing on a conch shell while playing a small drum. After performing many Indian rituals, that we couldn't see because of the crowd of people surrounding the body, they placed that body, which was covered with a red cloth and lots of flowers, on a ladder like stretcher. Then, they placed the body on the stretcher in a Qualis ( a vehicle sort of like a Montero) and drove away.
     Well, after these eventful past few week, I am quite looking forward to Christmas vaction. It will be nice to have a bit of a break, even if it won't be the full two weeks like back in the states.
     
       -Birdie

4 Monkeys Jumping in the Tree!

  Hey friends!
 This past week has consisted of learning Kannada, doing school, and two very ineteresting things.
   The first was Diwali. Diwali is a Hindu holiday that celebrates the light, and the goddess Lakshmi. During Diwali, it is tradition that everyone buys new clothes, if they can afford it, sets off very loud fire-works, and lights candles, which they set up all around the wall of there house.
   Last night, I walked down the street with some of the people that are staying in one of the flats downstairs, who are from California. We could only walk about 4 blocks when we had to stop because of the locals setting off fire-works (here they are called "crackers") in the middle of the street. We stood there and watched the crackers for about 20 minutes before coming back home.
   Now for the second very interesting thing. Today, while I was sitting here writing this blog, I looked out the window and saw a monkey in our tree! The parentals and I went out on the balcony to look at it. Turns out that there were about 6 of them. We looked up at the roof, and there were two little baby monkeys looking down at us!!! Right after that, a family of monkeys congregated and started chasing each other. (Picture on the left.) Then they all started jumping around through the tree, and chasing each other. They were so cute, I wanted to go on the roof and look at them from there. But then, I remembered that they have been known to steal cameras. Between that and my mom telling me that they might jump on my head, I decided not to.
      Over all, we have had a very exciting week, with lots of loud crackers, and curious monkeys. We continue to look for housing, and we appreciate your prayers!

   That's all folks,
          Birdie

Rain, Rain, and More Rain

     Here in India, there's a monsoon season and a dry season. Right now, it's supposed to be the dry season. However, it has been raining since yesterday morning!!! Not only is it raining, but it's 68 degrees!!! I find it a tad bit on the cold side.
      The cause of the rain is a cyclone, which is hitting a city that is east of us. The city that the parents of Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, are originally from. For all you people in south Louisiana, a cyclone is like a hurricane.
      For an abrupt change of subject, last night, my parents and I went into the home of some friends. Every Wednesday night, they have a bunch of street kids come in for a children's church service. Also, these friends of ours feed the children, who are all dirt poor and living in extreme poverty.Those kids were so sweet. I think it's amazing how these kids have next to nothing and are still so happy.
        On Sunday, my family and I went to the movie theater and watched Skyfall. Over here, they cut out almost every bad part. Also, in the middle of the movie, they add in an intermission. The good thing is, you don't have to miss any of the movie if you need to use the restroom or need some kind of snack. Unfortunately, there is a bad thing about this. They paused the movie in the middle of a sentence.
         We started language last week. We are learning Kannada and, thankfully, it isn't nearly as difficult as Thai was. Our language teacher is a Christian, and her husband leads 5 house churches!! Talk about a lot of preaching.
               
            Well, that's all for this time,
                          Birdie
 

Finally in India

Hey peoples,
    I know it's been forever since I last posted, but we've been quite busy with packing and such thinks like that.
     The last few weeks has consisted of packing, waiting for a visa, getting a visa, getting plane tickets, and finally, leaving for India. The plane ride weren't too bad. We had three of them. The longest being about 14 hours, and the shortest being about an hour and a half. Our total travel time, including layovers, was about 55 hours. Part of that is we had a 24 hour layover in Dubai.    
     We got to our apartment,and we had no food. So, we went on an adventure last night. As we were exiting the front gate of the apartment complex, we discovered that the name of our apartment complex has the words "welfare housing" in it. Are we living in the projects?
     Anyway, in order to get to any kind of store, we had to cross two streets. Now, crossing the street in India is like trying to get across a stampede of bison. Basically, it's ridiculous. So, after crossing the first street, we discovered that we were going to have to hop over some barriers to get to where we could cross the other street. After crossing the second street, we searched for the store, found it, and got what we needed.
     After shopping, we decided to find something to eat. By this time, it was about 8:30 in the evening. Our first night in India, we ate Chinese food because it was the only thing we could find.

Well, I'll be back in the U.S. before anyone realizes it.
Birdie.

P.S.
 Comments? E-mail me at: boidwee@hotmail.com

Greetings my peeps!

         Life here is probably pretty close to amazing. I get up, eat breakfast, go to school, go home, hang out 'til supper, then I usually go play volleyball for a while.

        There’s only one other person really close to my age. She’s 13 and pretty awesome. The other people I hang out with are all out of college and also going over to be missionaries.

      I live in a kind of a house but it has like 5 apartments in it. It’s kind of like sharing a house with 6 other people (not including my parents). It’s really fun though. Sometime this week I think we’re going to have a Napoleon Dynamite party. It should be pretty awesome. Some of the people are gonna make spam sushi, and (if I can get some cookie dough between now and then) I’m gonna make cookies.

     The place we’re staying is out in the country, and it is GORGEOUS out here.  When I go outside at night, I can see so many stars compared to my house back there in Lafayette. The only sad thing is that there’s no TV, so we couldn’t even watch the Olympics. At one point, some people hooked their computer up to a projector and we watch part of it off YouTube, but you can kinda guess how that went.

     There’s a band that plays on Sunday nights and I played with them two Sundays ago. We did pretty well, considering the singers (I most definitely was NOT one of them) were singing in Spanish. I was just a guitar player.

       Every Sunday night we have what’s called Cross Cultural Worship. That basically means that they select a region (South East Asia, for example) and if the language isn’t too hard to speak, all the preaching, testimonies, and the music is in that language. It’s really cool.