Drive, Drive, Drive

Drive.  That was the theme for the day.  We left at 8am and our ‘funniest picture’ of the day happened right off.  The picture on the left is a political advertisement.  It shows the leader of India at a table with such notarieties as Obama,Clinton,Castro and even Prince Charles.  Unfortunately, people believe that stuff and it makes her look important even though you could obviously tell they were air brushed into the picture.  Gee, corrupt politicians, who would have belived?  After an hour or so of driving, we stopped to get  a soda and there was this gentleman in blue processing a goat.  It’s a little hard to see the number of flies hanging around but they were substantial.  Behind him on the black table is the goat heads(2) and a few legs.  There is a leg hanging from the pole to his left, but he said most other parts had already been sold.  They make goats head soup from the head and legs.  The hair is burned off and then the parts are boiled.  It really sounded good but I opted for a Pepsi instead.

From there we drove to Mayilandunparai.  It’s pronounced My-il-an-dune-pery.  We met Pastor Jacob.  35 people took the morning off to come.  His church is basically a bunch of poles with some corregated steel roofing but it works.  Pastor Jacob has big plans to build a building and have an orphanage.  We went to his house where the next  picture made me think of home.  It’s very windy there and the people have to put a lot of rocks and blocks on their roof to keep everything from blowing away.  I am sure they would feel right at home in Big Timber!  For now, I will spare you the photo of the woman washing her dishes right next to the sewer channel and move on with our day.

On the way to a second church, we stopped off for some lunch at a hotel.  At least, I think it was a hotel.  It was so dirty that it made me paranoid about getting sick.  Anyway, you don’t want to hear about unsanitary places or that is all I would talk about.  The picture on the left is a fisherman that we encountered at a state park.  He would wade out and pitch his net but I didn’t see him catch anything.  There was also a large fish hatchery!!  Wow, you’d think I would skip that but fish are in my blood and I couldn’t wait to visit.  Of course, being American, they let us go all over the place and I talked with a young man that had his masters degreein aquaculture (ah, a fellow fish brother).  We talked about his hatchery for awhile and then it was time to go.  (note for Anna: I didn’t ask about working there )  The hatchery raises carp to 4" to plant in a local large reservoir.

We arrived at Pastor Stevens Church to find out it is actually at one of his attendees’ house.  Actually, it looked more like the hallway than even a room.  There are people to the left of Bryan in one hallway and I was sitting with Daniel around the corner to the right.  We couldn’t see each other but we could hear them singing.  His church is growing at an extremely high rate (from hindu conversions) and we prayed for him to be able to buy land and build a building someday soon.  There were a lot of kids there, too, and of course I couldn’t not play with them after a short worship service.  A few of the boys had ‘tops’ to play with and showed me their skills.  Other kids had me chasing them around a concrete structure that Pastor Samuel later told me was a hindu god of some sort and me along with the kids had walked all over him.  After another long drive, we arrived home safe and sound at around 6:30pm.  We had a quick supper and Bryan has already hit the sack.  I guess it’s that time.  Tomorrow we travel again.  It’s our last full day and I thought about staying here and working on a presentation for next Sunday until Anna said to me "You can do the presentation anytime…get out there and see more of India"  You know, she’s right and I sure Love her for saying that…