Who gets to be in a Bamboo Tree house anyway?- A journey to South Asia, the Jungle Chapter

[Stopping for a bathroom break on our road trip to the jungle.]

[Grace, in all her beauty]

Roger had told us on the first day our 3 options for our little mid-trip jungle escapade. Our choices were: (1) Cottage, (2) Mud Hut, and (3) Bamboo Tree House. So of course we all agreed that the BAMBOO TREE HOUSE would be the best possible option. I mean really, who gets to ever stay in a bamboo tree house overnight ever. That’s right, no one, except us.

(Please forgive my smack-talk. Really, it’s just my way of saying, “Holy Cow!!! I’m so excited to stay in a treehouse!!!)

We left early for the jungle-mountains. Brent and I sat in the back with Roger’s bird books, coffee and mango saplings, and everyones book bags. We stopped at a really cool place to eat breakfast. Most of us ordered Puris, which we started calling poof poofs. (Roger misunderstood, and though we were calling them poo poos)We stopped in Mysore, and it was super cool. We got to tour an old Maharaja’s Palace.

[Puri's/Poof Poofs]

[Carlie and I waiting for our table at breakfast]

[Brock, Rebecca and Grace waiting for a table at breakfast too.]

[Indian Doughnuts...spicy]

Paul Billy dropped us off in front of the palace and drove off to go find us some pizza, and immediately we were surrounded by Indian salesmen selling all sorts of trinkets. They were selling all sorts of overpriced tourist goods, and seemed so excited to find Americans. One man sold post cards, one sold silver anklets, another sandlewood fans, and another wooden flutes. This is hilarious: as soon as we stepped out of the car, the flute man immediately switched from his Indian tunes to Celine Dion’s, “My Heart Will Go On”. So we walked through the first courtyard to the first metal detector all the while being serenaded with the Titanic theme song…. (I’ll never let go Jack, I’ll never let go.)

My Heart Will Go On from on Vimeo.

I swear I don’t know these people. I just found this video on a search for the song. Notice the guy in the school library… so funny.

I waltzed right through the first metal detector, but when I looked back it seemed like Brent was having some issues. He had his nice pocket knife with him, and was forced to go find a hiding spot for it back in the salesmen courtyard. He found a nice spot by some bushes, but just when he thought his knife would be safe, he made eye-contact with the postcard salesman. We thought for sure someone would take it while we were inside.

[Mysore Palace]

We walked on through the massive palace courtyard and checked our shoes into the shoe keeper. (The whole “shoe-checking-in” process reminded me of a roller rink, only we didn’t get roller skates in exchange for our shoes). We proceeded to the entrance of the palace, but an upset security guard who didn’t speak English got mad at us for having our cameras. Apparently we hadn’t read the sign: “No Photography inside the Palace”. So we turned around and walked across the massive palace court yard barefoot. We took some silly pictures by the panther statues. Some men stopped Brent to take a picture with him (… maybe cause he’s tall?), and then we walked on to go check our camera’s into a locker. As sketchy as it seemed we handed our 3 camera’s over to the locker keeper, and finally got to go inside the palace.

[Being silly in front of the Panther Statue]

[Hindu Temple next to the Palace]

It was incredible-- way more impressive then the palace in Aladdin. The entire palace had beautiful tile floors and detailed artwork everywhere: floors, walls, ceiling, windows, chandeliers. If I had a camera in there, I would have taken 200 pictures. The most impressive room was the marriage room. The marriage room has a 50 foot ceiling with massive decorated green cast iron pillars and a massive circle of stained glass with vibrantly colored glass peacock encircling the ceiling. It filled the room with colorful warm light. There were paintings of Indian history on every wall, and Giant Ivory Tusks framed portraits of the old Maharajas.

After our slow pace through the palace, we went back to get shoes, and got over charged to get them back. (Who does he think he’s messing with anyway?)…

We got our camera’s back, and walked back out through the salesman, and to Roger who met us with two fresh cheese pizzas. We all were delighted to see that no one had stolen Brent’s knife, and in fact the postcard salesman had been watching over it. So we thanked him and bought some Mysore Palace postcards from him at the full price of 50 rupees (close to $1).

We drove through a Tiger reserve and into the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu to get to the tree house. We scoured the brush just waiting to catch the eyes of a panther, a tiger, a leopard or a wild elephant. We all suddenly felt like we were in Jurassic Park. Grace did find a Crested Hawk Eagle. We found a few wild Peacocks, and Roger taught us the Peacock mating call, which was hilarious (eye-oh, eye- oh). We saw some wild bison, deer, and two different kinds of monkeys.

[Eye- oh, Eye-oh!]

[The Tiger we wish we saw]

Finally after 6 hours of driving we arrived at tree house. Oh! It was so cool! It was built about 40 feet up into a mature bamboo cluster. It was made with just two bedrooms, one that us girls claimed, and the boys got the other one. There was a creek running right next to it, so we walked down to go feel the water and get a good look at it.

[The View from the Balcony]

[The Creek next to the Tree house]

Roger’s then took us to his farm, and we met Roger’s farm aide family. We unloaded the mango and coffee saplings, and then went to go see a tamed Elephant feeding. The elephants ate huge balls of mucky stuff. There was a male elephant walked away and peed... We thought it was a girl elephant, but then BAM it was definitely not a girl. Really really funny. Brent vowed to never own male pets because they are just gross.

[Roger's Farm at sunset. Notice the man on the right, he is the farm's caretaker... he turns out to be a very special man for me.]

We went to a hotel where Roger’s friend Samuel was the cook and made us some delicious chicken and French fries. The god of creepy mccreepiness was on huge posters on two walls, but not so out of the ordinary. After dinner we went driving, looking for Tigers at night shining a flashlight into the brush. I got sleepy, and Rebecca feel asleep.

So we went back to do our “Swiss Family Robinson” thing, and met Betsy the spider right away in our bathroom. Brent killed her, and left one of her long legs on the floor. Rebecca took care of the leg. She’s so brave.

The showers in the tree house were so icy! There was no geezers (water heaters) to be seen anywhere.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever fallen asleep in a tree house, but there are a few things to be aware of. It sways with a good gust of wind, and the bamboo creeks all the time like old wooden door hinges. Not to mention all windows must be tightly secured to keep the monkeys out. I slept really well that night. Carlie and Grace shared the bed, and Rebecca and I laid on mattresses on the floor.

I woke up in the morning a little startled to hear banging on the roof and screeching. I peeked out the unsealed door hinge to see a female monkey just taking a stroll on our front porch. I quickly got dressed to see what was going on…

(A continuation of the next day’s jungle adventures are in the next blog. Please keep reading! And post a comment so I know if anyone is reading this!)

A Gold and Red Salwar Kameez- A journey to South Asia

Sabrina Grey is my friend from the dance team at 12Stone. She is an incredible woman with a love for Indian clothes, I discovered this when we did Jai Ho at church last year, and she offered us girls her wardrobe to dance in.

[Sabrina Grey is the beauty on the left]

[Pictures from when the dance team did Jai Ho at church in Sabrina's clothes.]

So about a month before we left for India I sheepishly facebook messaged Sabrina to see if she might let me borrow some to wear in India. So because she is wonderful and generous she gave me 6 whole outfits to take and wear, and on my first Sunday morning in India I put on her beautiful Red and Gold Salwar Kameez.

On Sunday morning we quickly planned a creation skit and rehearsed it for 10 minutes, AND it was awesome and the kids at church that morning loved it. We worshipped in English, Kannada and Hawaiian at church. Hehe…

The church had a party for all the Dads afterwards, and served an Indian feast for everyone. After we ate, we hopped in the car to go to the youth camp that we were leading in Hindustan that afternoon.

The Youth Camp was for kids 14 and up, and I think there were some older people there too. Brent did the same trick that had amazed the kids the day before, and some guys at the trick duplicated it 2 or 3 times! We were utterly amazed.

We did the everything skit (you can type “lifehouse everything skit” in youtube if you don’t know what it is). Brent, of course, was Jesus. Grace was the girl. Brock was the Money Guy, Rebecca was the drunk girl, Carlie was vanity, and I represented fear and oppression. It turned out to be very effective. They loved it and shouted for joy when Jesus broke through and saved Grace.

7 girls (I think Hindu Girls…) received Christ this day when Brent shared the Gospel. So wonderful!!!!

[ Some of the girls making a cross to represent their new faith.]

[The Youth Camp Crew]

We went to bed that night so appreciative of the day, full of praise towards God, and excited for the next morning because we were headed to a tree house in the jungle the next morning as the team’s well deserved break.

The jungle adventures are to follow.

Little Lions- A journey to South Asia

Saturday morning began with us planning for a kids rally that we were going to have in Hindustan. We went through our Daniel in the Lions Den skit narrated by Grace with Brent as Daniel, Brock as King Darius, Carlie and Rebecca as the king’s advisors, and yours truly as a ferocious lion. I made a crown for Brock. It’s quite impressive if I say so myself.

[Note: When we told the kids to roar, I went: "ROOAR!" and they went: "GURHHHHHH"... which kinda sounded like they were clearing their throats in unison.]

Brent started out the day with a magic trick. The kids seemed so excited throughout all the games and songs and stories, and afterwards they shook our hands and said “Praise the Lord”. I’m guess that was the only English phrase they knew.

[The kids watching Brent's magic trick... It was quite a hit.]

[The Kids saying bye to us on Saturday]

Last but not least, here is a little look into an Indian intersection. :)

Buses in their Prime. from Danielle Williams on Vimeo.

Chai Recipe and the 3rd/4th Day Adventures- A journey to South Asia

[This door took 10 minutes to open on the first day, but I perfected into an art...haha]

Shirley’s Indian Chai

What you need:
Water - you'll need 1 cup of water per serving minus one...if that makes sense...example, 3 servings = 2 cups of water; 10 servings = 9 cups of water, 7 servings = 6 cups of water, etc.
Sugar - 2 tsp per serving
Tea - 1/2 tsp per serving
Milk - enough until it's the color of chai (you really will just have to eyeball it)

Steps:
1. Add water to a pan on the stove
2. Add sugar
3. Heat to boiling
4. Add tea and continue boiling for exactly 2 minutes
5. Remove from heat and let steep for another 2 minutes
6. Add milk
7. Strain and serve

Note: If you'd like to make the tea for later, strain immediately after steeping and set aside. Reheat and add milk just before serving.

And there is the tea recipe, in case you wanted it.

On Thursday and Friday we also spent our days at Anugraha Mane. The more time we spent with them, the more comfortable we became. Manju and Nelakanta continued to completely obliterate us in chess.

[Brent singing with Nelakanta]

Padma was the neighbor girl I had met before across from Anugraha mane. She saw that we were out on the porch playing chess, and I called to the other porch across the narrow alley and asked her if she know how to play. I offered to teach her, but when a found another chess board it was missing a piece or two, so she quickly agreed that it would be better if we just talked. I spent the whole afternoon sitting with Padma. We had conversation about school, marriage and her sisters. She told me that her religion was Jain, and that she would hoping to have an arranged marriage in time for her and her sister to have a double wedding in December.

[Padma and I]

On Friday morning we were surprised with a breakfast Pancakes, Bacon, and Coffee. We ate well. Its amazing how quickly we can miss the comforts of home cooking.

After breakfast I tried my best to learn some Kannada. This is what I got:

Donyavada- Thank you

Namsaskara- Hello

Chanaagee Iddira?- How are you?

Chanagee Iddini.- I am fine.

Ootta Aita?- Is your meal finished?

-Iiatoo (eye-a-2)- It's finished.

Salaam Welicom- A Muslim Greeting

I always find it really fun to learn some of the language. I enjoy watching the people light up when they see us try.

Tried Papaya for the first time. It’s like unsweet creamy salty Watermelon, not awesome, but glad I tried it. Rebecca hates it, and tells me it smells like poop before I bite into it. (Thank you Rebecca) Mango’s here are the best I have ever had.

Sherrene stayed with us girls at the guest house. She was there in India for a separate purpose, and we quickly grew to love her like a sister. We'd come home exhausted from a busy day, and she would say with excited eyes, "Tell me everything". So we had fun staying up a little later spreading Rebecca's honey roasted peanut butter on cinnamon graham cracker as we talked about our day. Sherrene decided to take us to Girls Collection and I bought a really beautiful table runner, and a blue shirt.

[Sherrene doing her thing.]

Grace loves the animals. Even the dogs. There is one really hideous one though that makes me want to puke. It has a horrible knarly tail. She has taken on the task of learning the different breeds of bovine creatures that wander the streets. So far we had figured out Water Buffalo, Ox, and Cow. Carlie likes to sing the Veggie Tales, “Everybody’s got a Water Buffalo” song whenever we see one.

Also, a lot of the things we see remind us of Aladdin. (even though I think Aladdin is a Arab thing... not Indian) So every now and then one of us burst out in song singing the Magic Carpet song, “A Whole New World”.

Went to a bible study on Thursday or Friday night. I could not stay awake to save my life. It was miserable trying so hard to listen, but literally dozing off on 10 second intervels. I would just wake up long enough to see Brent giggling at me and passing Nacho Libre notes to Brock.

“Get that corn out of my face!”- Nacho Libre

We were all still too jet lagged to take an evening bible study seriously. Regrettably, even my best attempt to show respect to the bible study leader was an epic fail because I was asleep for most of it.

So then we went home and slept... the end of the 4th day.

[As Brock would say, "That lady is like, I am a women, and I am carrying water on my head."]

Jorge, Gods and Chess Elephants- A journey to South Asia

Second Day in India: Wednesday

Toast in the morning, but the eggs tasted a little more Indian because there were peppers, onions, and tomatoes in them. The tea is delicious. More sugary then what I normally make, but still delicious.

Today we learned a little about Hinduism from Roger after breakfast. Hinduism is really a fascinating religion. It really dictates everything about life for most Indians. In the morning I’ve noticed that good Hindu housekeepers sweep and wash the front of their house early in the morning. And then paint with a chalk-like powder a circular swirly design in front of their door to welcome the deity in. They scatter fresh fragrant flower petals on the design. They bring food and flowers to the alters of various deities, and spray sandalwood perfume on them.

Walk 10 feet in Bangalore and you will find a picture or alter to a god, walk ten more feet and you will find another (or three). They’re house, streets, and stores are completely saturated with them. I thought maybe that in the midst of the overwhelming presence of idols, I thought I might feel oppressed from them, but I did not. I did not feel them at all. They became to me personally as powerless as an empty wooden carving, as weak as the flimsy piece of paper holding its image. To me—these gods were entirely defeated and powerless. Not the same story for the others though. The Indian people are captivated and bombarding with every constant reminders of loyalty to their gods.

JORGE!!! (please do not take offense if your name is Jorge)

The girls I was travelling with turned out to be pretty skiddish around bugs. I myself am a recovering bug-o-phobic. I introduced to them a new stress relieving coping mechanism: naming them. There are not many rules to this coping mechanism. Only you must name all the bugs you see, and not use the same name over and over again. That is how we met Jorge. This is what I wrote my journal on the 16th,

"Right now there is a humongous bug in the toilet, and I don't know what to do. I'm suppose to be the strong one, but right now this bug is deabiliting our use of our only toilet and its upsetting."

It really was humongous. Definitely a cock roach bigger then my thumb just doing laps in our toilet. We flushed the toilet about 15 times and it wouldn't go down. Finally Brock held it under the water with a stick, and it went down.

We jumped into the car, and went to Anugraha Mane (The Grace House). It takes about an hour to get there, and we walked through a narrow alley. The aroma of spicy food, urine, and cow poop filled our senses and turned our stomach upside down. We gathered curious stares as we followed Roger to Anugraha Mane. When we got there we walked up the patina staircase into a room where three smiling young men waited for us: Nelakanta, Veenay, and Manju. This place was the center of the church’s street child ministry, and they were taken care of by George and Cindy a sweet Indian couple who make raising these boys (plus their own children: Adfrin [8 years] and Adwin [2 years]) their full-time job. Little Adwin is so cute, but when I asked Cindy if I could hold him, she said no because he would be too scared, and I would probably make him cry. This is probably because he almost never gets held by white people. Lets face it. White people are pretty scary looking if you haven't seen many of them before. I resorted to playing a 2 year olds version of “catch”, with hopes that if I won his heart slowly, eventually he’d let me hold him.

[Adwin and Carlie]

[Vennay and Manju]

[Nelakanta]

Nelakanta was the oldest of the 3 street children at age 16. He knew the most English, but still not very much, and the others knew almost nothing so conversation was difficult to say the least. They fed us lunch right away. They were so sweet to us, and also confused as to how we could maintain our towering physiques by eating so little. We ate us much as our uneasy stomach could handle, which was not much at all, and then a familiar word. Manju says, “Chess?”

We nodded and he ran to go get his beloved chess board. We took turns playing chess with him for hours, and he won everytime. Eeeeeeeeevrytime. I played two games, and then my jet lagged mind could take no more, so then Brock would play. They called the rook an "elephant". :) The rest of the group got to work on painting their dining/living room, and the boys bedroom. There were holes in the walls, and chunks of paint were falling off, so it turned out to be a huge blessing for the family. The first step was plastering the walls. Meanwhile, Brock and I played with the boys out on the porch. Across the narrow street there was another porch, and I caught the glance of a beautiful young woman who looked about my age. “Namaskara!” I said, practicing my Kannada. She giggled at my attempt and asked my politely if I’ve had my lunch yet.

In India, there is always a series of questions they ask in the beginning of a conversation, one of which is “Oota Ita?” Which means, “Have you had your lunch?” I think it’s a cute question.

She said her name is Padma, and I told her my name. We continued a real light-hearted conversation for a while, and then I went back to playing with the boys.

[Brock playing chess with Manju]

Brock and I lead a short bible story for them. Brock told them about David and Goliath, and I asked them how we could pray for them. They answered with real honesty. Their main prayer was: please give me to strength to not run away again.

[Squatty Potty!!! Rebecca did it! She conquered it!]

Grace waited till the second day to conquer the squatty potty.

I can only imagine the life of a street child. It must be so difficult to go from a life in which you are entirely “self-sufficient” and independent at such a painfully young age to being completely dependent again living in a home having everything provided for you.

[Grace painting at the Street Child's Center]

Almost A Zombie -A journey to South Asia

Now India. We arrive ears popping over the city of Bangalore. I changed into my yellow skirt in the bathroom, and a small women surprises me sitting on the bathroom. She wobbled her head a little at me, and I smiled at her and moved on. There were little birds flying around the inside of the airport like they do in the Mall of Georgia. So after we got through customs we went to pick up our luggage. All of our luggage made it through Hallelujah! Even Brock’s!

We stepped outside into the cool Indian dark morning, and we immediately captured then gaze of 150ish Indians, just staring blankly at us holding various signs. We walked back and forth in front of the fence looking for friendly Indian faces holding a “12Stone” sign. After the 3^rd time looking with no success I decided to call Roger. Up until this point I had only e-mailed him. A friendly man answered the phone.

-- Hello, is this Roger?

-- Yes, it is me. Are you already here?

-- Yes, we’re just waiting out front outside Baggage Claim. You can’t miss us. (again, we were the only white people around)

-- Well, we are actually just in the parking lot, so we’ll see you in just a few minutes.

…

A friendly looking Indian man and a white man walked up to us, and introduced themselves.

The boys went with Scott and us girls hopped into Roger’s Bolero. I asked Roger all sorts of questions, while the girls sat quiet in the back and took in the scene. In the quiet hours of the dark Indian morning, and sun hadn’t risen yet. But traffic still proved to be erratic and exciting. The girls were silently freaking out in their minds, at the seemingly “close calls” and weaving on the road.

We got to our house.

[Victory Dance]

They showed us how to work the foreign shower. The water heater is called a Geeser (like Geezer, aka: derogatory slang for a weird old person). Grace was the first one to try, but ended up with an icy shower.

We unloaded our luggage.

Sooo tired.

Surprise! There was a Hindu prayer closet in our house. Ugh! I was so mad (at the enemy), and kind of scared. I did not want images of idols in my teams resting place. So I prayed over the house, which brought us freedom. And made the girls feel better.

Breakfast was at 8 am. We were allowed to sleep before breakfast, but I didn’t fall asleep because I unpacked my stuff and explored the house. At this point 41 hours since the last time I was in a bed Roger's wife made us toast and eggs, and gave us itty bitty bananas. He told us that there was such thing as red bananas, which I had never heard of before.

This day is really a blur. I have never been so sleep deprived in my life.

Took us to commercial street to look for clothes and keep us awake. The goal for the whole day was really just to keep us awake so that we could become readjusted to the new time zone. I felt like a Zombie, but still tried on a couple things that I didn’t buy. We went to some other little store with bronze statues of Hindu avatars filling the front. I brought a camel bone elephant key chain there. And Brent was so funny, he was freaking out about these elephant with little elephants inside, and these little trick boxes (juju boxes).

We came back with maybe 2 hours to kill before dinner.

I laughed/cried in front of Rebecca and Brock because I was so exhausted.

We all sat on our beds like zombies (Grace tried her hardest to keep us awake.) and I accidentally fell asleep. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.

At 53 hours since last time in a bed I collapsed into my bed, 8pm… but woke up early because my internal clock was off and I think there was a neighbor dog fight right outside my window at 5am.

Epic Beginnings- A journey to South Asia.

We met in the Kroger parking lot across from the church.

Boys rode with Brent’s parents. Girls rode with my mom to the airport.

Mistake number one, we accidentally checked Brocks bag to Dubai and not Bangalore. Silly Delta girls assign all our luggage to the wrong names.

We made it to our gate with enough time to find our last American meal. Grace and Brock had Arby’s (Grace had a Reuban), I bought a South West salad from McDonalds, and Brent got Chinese. Rebecca and Carlie split something healthyish.

Luxury...aaaaah from Danielle Williams on Vimeo.

We got onto a Delta plane, and jealously walked past the sleeping pods in first class, to the very back of the coach section of the plane. Brock kindly switched with a man so that a husband and wife could sit with each other, Rebecca, Carlie and Grace sat in the middle, and Brent and I sat on the end. I had the window seat. J

We all talked excitedly for an hour or so, and then took a little nap. Woke up for Dinner. I watched the Book of Eli with Denzel Washington, and then proceeding to dream about people dying everywhere. (comforting, I know… but if you’ve seen the movie then you know why). I slept for a good long time, which is a God-Send for these 14 hour flights. 14 hour flights without sleep feel like a never-ending purgatory. Which is maybe how Grace felt on this flight.

I woke up again for a granola bar and to watch the new Disney Princess movie, “The Princess and the Frog”, and took another little nap, and then opened my window to see the very landscape of Iraq. High in the sky, and completely separated from all the violence on the ground, it felt surreal to be seeing it with my own eyes. We continued our flight over Saudi Arabia, and the Red Sea. The moving map on our personal screen always pointed an arrow towards Mecca, for the Muslims on the plane.

Now for the moment of testing. We descended slowly into Dubai, one of the most successful and “westernized” cities in the Middle East. We arrived a little late with 2 problems to solve and a time crunch. (1) Re-check Brock’s luggage to Bangalore, because those silly Delta ladies wouldn’t fix the problem in Atlanta. (2) Get boarding passes for our next flight. Brent and I tried our best to figure out how to do this, trying to talk over the Muslim call to worship that rang out through the airport. Eventually we made our way to one wonderful man who solved all our problems for us. We probably spent over a half hour standing in front of him (or more). With every minute passing I could feel the tension growing in me. I really did not want to spent the night in the Dubai airport, but God is faithful to us. I could feel his voice telling me that we would make this plane, so I relayed the message to Brent and said, “We will make this plane. I just know it.” The nice man helping us was soooo slow, but also so helpful. He made a few phone calls, and (1) redirected Brock’s bag to Bangalore for us, (2) Reassigned our luggage to the correct name, and (3) Gave us our boarding passes. Then we ran, and made it to our plane with just a few minutes to spare.

[Dubai International Airport]

A Blurred June 14-15-16^th

The six of us loaded onto our Kingfisher plane.

We were definitely the only white people. There were mostly men on the plane, hardly any women at all. This flight was our first experience of the smells and tastes of India. It was a 4 hour plane ride. On my personal TV I watched some old 70s Bollywood show. I recognized the main star from the movie slumdog millionaire. When the little boy jumps in poop to go see this guy, and get his autograph. Friends was also on.