Day in the Life of .....

JOSEPH

Joseph gets up between 7 to 9 AM daily. Currently he's sick, so he sometimes wakes up real early...or real late. He lays in bed for an hour so, gets up and immediately starts school work (though he may not finish it before dark!). We've been depending on him to do 3 loads of laundry in the mornings as we loose water from 2-4pm. Currently, our Whirlpool washing machine is needing to be serviced. We called on a Monday. The service man came on Thursday and will hopefully return on Friday with the replacement parts (all on our service contract). Joseph usually handles these visits, too.

He loves to take breaks from school work to listen to Down Gilead's Lane and Adventures in Odyssey. Sometimes he's grounded from using the computer based on the status of his homework, so if you're interested in chatting with him on Yahoo Messenger (ID: usontheflipside5 ) and he doesn't, it may mean he can't!

Joseph enjoys earning money and making Coffee Jar deliveries (best coffee shop this side of the Ganges River!) The shop doesn't pay him to do it but friends of our do!

He's got a low-watt green night-light in his room. We catch him often reading pretty late. For his birthday a friend gave him the Eragon novels. They are great! He's got a trunk-load of Legos he's saved through the years or bought off other friends. Thanks to Oma (Bill's mom), Joseph will soon be getting a bike as his old one was stolen 2 months ago.

We've really grown the depend on Joseph for loads of stuff around here. He does lots of local purchasing (household needs from toilet paper to butter, cheese to laundry detergent) and when the fix-it man shoes up, Joseph becomes the supervisor. I enjoy hearing him speak in Hinglish with the local shop keepers and vendors!!! He also does his share in taking care of Nafisa. Some nights, she even sleeps in his room. I think he does more than most 13 year olds his age here. We are grateful for his help!!!

Day in the Life of . . .

Nafisa

She usually sleeps with Danielle and Maria in their bedroom. Maria's got the top bunk, Danielle and Nafisa share the bottom, though it was not always that way. Nafisa usually wakes up after the other girls. Maria tries to get up early to do her devotions with Brio Magazine. By the time most everyone else is up K-Love Radio is and we are eating breakfast.

Since Nafisa is allergic to wheat and dairy products, she usually has yogurt, oatmeal or rice and yogurt which is one of her favorites. Once a week Maria takes her to 'Toddler Time' which is a bunch of moms and toddlers giving a creative play time to kids Nafisa's age. We host it from time to time at our house. Nafisa usually has the reign of the house while home school is going on. One of us will usually take her outside for a walk in the park or to the grocery store. She LOVES getting out. When she sees one of us putting our shoes on, she says "You going out? I go out, too?"

When guests come over, she'll have fun walking around the house in their shoes. She loves to dress up and to get her finger and toe nails painted by Maria and Danielle. She loves getting her hard in pony tails. She'll daily watch a sign-language video called Sign-A-Lot and ancient VHS Sesame Street episodes about the alphabet and counting.

Hopefully she'll take a nap at some point and then regain enough stamina for the rest of the day. Can you believe she rarely falls asleep before 10pm!

She still keeps us smiling and laughing with her eager and happy demeanor. She's got her days, though. Sometimes I wonder who can whine louder, her or Danielle... :-)

Have you ever had a Gola?

This week we went to an annual home-show in our city with our friends, Mark and Aimee. I never did find a few items we needed but we sure had fun! There, we saw the "Gola walla" ('Gola man') quickly spotted with his big ice grinder and colorful syrup bottles. It's one of Merrilea's and Maria's favorite Indian cold snacks. It's basically ground ice on a stick, drenched with a sweet, flavored syrup! Below's Maria eating a Mango Gola.

I found a great article written by an Indian about the Golas. I think you'd enjoy reading it:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/966094

Life at the House

We’ve just said ‘goodbye’ to 2 college students who were staying in our home. They left on Friday the 14^th of Sept. for an apartment of their own. We are meeting with them regularly as they continue working in community, teaching ESL classes and learning language and culture. That means Maria and Danielle have their room back to themselves...with Nafisa of course.

Merrilea has been sick for a few days so missed a few language classes this week. Joseph took Danielle to class so she wouldn’t miss them. The class is only 10 minutes away and they both enjoy getting out of the house.

This is the time in India when festivals are all over the place. Muslims are fasting during the day and have special stalls set up at night for varying good foods. Hindus are currently celebrating a 10 day festival for their god Ganesh along with a mixture of other festivals around this time. Lights and colors are everywhere.

On top of that, we are in the tail end of the monsoon season. Yesterday it rained the whole day. Lots of water accumulated on the streets around our apartment. I’m very glad we have a car. 2 years ago, we simply got wet! This evening I can hear the frogs chirping out the window in the park.

Dance Class

Two to three days a week for the last few months Danielle and Maria have been attending a dance class. Recently they’ve taken up tap dance as well…and for homework they had to review some of the dance steps from “Singing in the Rain.” What's ironic is the class had to change locations as the place they were meeting at got flooded due to rains!

Nafisa enjoys spending some time with them as well! It’s quite a sight to see Nafisa do a split!

I’ve just come off of a long training time and am exhausted. Regretfully, I missed a friend’s birthday last night as I went to bed early. I’m feeling a bit better now, though.

In other news, our 2 college girls, Sarah and Chassidy, are hitting it hard, learning language and teaching English as a second language to several local women. They are keeping very busy.