it's been quite a while since i've blogged...i should be doing other stuff now, working on the orientation schedule for our first volunteer team--they arrive monday night, our time. but, there's a HUGE wedding going on right outside our house (why anyone would chose to get married in the heat of the day on a wednesday beats me) and it's too noisy to really concentrate. so, i think i'll give a little photo overview of the last few weeks:



this first picture is just for fun. instead of wearing helmets, girls here wrap their scarves in this crazy bandit style to keep dust and sun from getting on their skin. so we all have scarves now and decided we needed a goofy picture wearing them.



this is a shot of a family on their motorcycle--several of them are also wearing their scarves "Pune style"

PREETI'S BIRTHDAY




preeti turned 27 at the end of march, and we had quite a good time. one of the traditions here is to wake people up at midnight on their birthday, so alisha and i burst into preeti and sophy's room at midnight with cake and entertainment. we have this joke about preeti doing a monkey dance (people who own monkeys here will have them dance for you if you pay them), and so alisha dressed up and i made a monkey out of construction paper and we cranked up some hindi music and danced around for preeti. it was pretty much hillarious.



the cake we had was AWESOME! chocolate truffle, from our favorite coffee shop/bakery, the Coffee Jar. and of course, we had to smear some on the birthday girl's face (another tradition).



that evening we had a bunch of people over to celebrate. a lot of people couldn't come because of exams, but it was still a fun evening.




after Preeti cut the cake at her party, she went around and fed people, but before she got to everybody, she got attacked with cake again (as you can see, she fought back!)



this is a persian tradition, taking pictures with people as they give you your gifts--always makes for fun pics!

EASTER


not long after Preeti's birthday, we started celebrating Easter. one of our friends had a Passover seder at her house, which was really cool. on Good Friday, our friday night group got together and acted out the Passion of the Christ, which you see above. it was a very cool evening.



on Easter sunday, we enjoyed church and an awesome lunch at our friends' house. later that evening they hosted an Easter egg hunt for the kids in their society (apartment complex). they also got an huge inflatable slide, which was quite a hit.



the kids also enjoyed playing some new games, like duck duck goose (above) and red rover.



this is just a fun shot of one of my favorite 2 years olds ever, nafisa. i was feeding her snacks and she was just having a blast, looking super cute in her Easter dress.

SWIMMING LESSONS



another highlight of April were swimming lessons, for Preeti and Sophy and Ruth, another friend. they all seemed to have fun and learned a lot, and Alisha and i had a blast the day we went to watch them. their coach (the lady in the black wet suit looking outfit--it's actually a common style of swimsuit) was pretty dramatic and funny. i think she just enjoyed waving her arms around!



after swimming, i rode the bus home with preeti and sophy, which was quite an adventure. i don't think many white people ride the public buses here because i got quite a lot of stares.

BABY RACHEL



our neighbors' daughter, Faisy, got married last year and now has a precious little girl named rachel. she brought her over to see us one afternoon and we had a great time holding her and playing with her.



we were also invited to Rachel's baptism that sunday, which was quite a nice event. this is a shot of us with the family.

MORE BIRTHDAYS!



at the end of april, our friend merrilea had her birthday. merrilea is a mom of 4 kids, but this doesn't stop her from being one of the most fun people we know here. her birthday was on a saturday, which was going to be busy for us with discussion groups, etc, so we decided to suprise her at midnight with cake. her husband bill and the kids were all in on it, and it was quite a fun suprise. we ended up staying until almost 2 am playing phase 10 and watching the girls practice their ballet--quite an adventure!

DISCUSSION GROUPS



it's been a crazy month, with many people finishing and starting exams, so our discussion groups have been a little different, but it's still been a lot of fun, and we're excited about the summer and the 20+ students that will be coming from the US.

WE WEAR OUR SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT!



well, Alisha does, at least for a few days! she had laser eye surgery done last weekend and had to wear her sunglasses 24x7 for a day or so, so everybody decided to put on glasses and take a funny picture with her! she's seeing really well now, and i'm also seriously thinking about having LASIK done...we'll see...

RANDOM PICS



i said earlier that nafisa was one of my favorite 2 years, and here's the other, sophy! these 2 are quite a pair and all of us LOVE playing with them any chance we get. this is a shot of nafisa combing sohpy's hair--she got a little carried away and almost put sophy in a headlock, but sophy's pretty laid back so she wasn't upset and let her keep on combing!



this is me trying to hold them both in my lap and take a picture! didn't work so well, but it was fun.

well, i think that's about it. the wedding party has moved on, so i should probably get to work, esp since the volunteers will be here in 5 days! yikes--it's going to be wild and fun, and just plain busy here until the end of july, so it might be a while before i blog again...

2 shout outs!:

SouthAsiaRocks said...

WOW! That's a serious blog post!! THat was fun :) I enjoyed it :) Rockon!! Have fun with your vols :) That should be awesome :) Keep rockin!

Emily said...

I like the idea of waking people up at midnight for their bdays! Oh James got Lasik too and has had no probs. I love that pic of y'all wearing sunglasses - you can practically hear Debbie's awesome laugh.