The people of India are beautiful. However, the majority live in harsh conditions and difficult circumstances. Their faces reflect the hardships they deal with daily. There are no easy answers, yet we know that Jesus Christ gives true hope and joy. We have seen the amazing change in the countenances of those who believe. Their mourning is truly turned into praise! Please join us in praying for the people of India to be delivered from spiritual darkness and oppression. There is hope!

We live in a small Christian neighborhood in a mostly Hindu city. During the two weeks before Christmas, groups of believers visit houses in the neighborhood to sing and pray a blessing over the homes. The singers usually carry tambourines and an Indian drum called a dholuk. The joyful sound is magnified as it bounces off the concrete houses and buildings on both sides of the street. We run outside to watch and listen. This song is sung in the Garhwali language of the mountains, not in north India’s main language of Hindi. It's one of our favorites, and by the sound of the exuberant singing (and dancing), it's a favorite of many!

Each day brings new sights which fascinate us. The photos in this blog post show things which might seem exotic or unusual or funny to our western eyes but are normal daily scenes in India. 

Visitors to India immediately notice the waste piled in the streets. Poor families earn a few pennies by combing the city for bits of plastic, cardboard, and glass which they sell to recyclers. Every day we see women and children walking in the streets, back alleys, and garbage dumps of the city filling their large white collection bags with anything of value. Street sweepers are one of the lowest classes of society, usually illiterate and avoiding eye contact. The garbage heaps throughout the city are popular with pigs, cows, dogs, and rats.     

Though the majority of people in India throw their refuse in the streets and waterways (see Garbage for the Many), some of the nicer neighborhoods have a municipal garbage service. We pay about 80 cents per month to have our trash taken away in a truck to an empty lot along the main road that we often walk past. Many times a young boy who is too poor to attend school sits in the back of the truck, sorting through the putrid mess and picking out the recyclables to make a little cash.

The loudspeaker that announces the truck's arrival can be annoying. One day we didn't hear it anymore and saw that it had been torn off the top of the truck. (We don't blame the culprit!) Now the truck just honks loudly and continuously to announce its arrival.

We thought we had left American culture on the other side of the ocean, so we had to chuckle over these little reminders of our home country!

The main "bazaar" or market area is filled with shops of every type. Most sell only one type of item... kitchen items, bedding, shoes, shawls, fabric, plastics, electronics, heaters, and the list goes on. Usually shops selling similar items are clustered together in one area. An alleyway may only have shops that sell notepaper and books. Another section may only have vegetables on offer. There are no maps, a person has to just keep walking until the right shop appears. Between trying to avoid tripping into a pothole, getting in the way of honking motorcycles and scooters, or bumping into someone or something, the shopper also has to be able to take in all the sights bombarding his eyes. It's a wonder if a person can exit this cacophony unscathed. And just for you ladies, "shop 'til you drop" takes on quite a new meaning here, walking for hours just to find that one elusive item in that one elusive shop. Malls are a walk in the park compared to this!

A house on the street behind us is getting a make-over. Today we heard a loud, continuous noise. We looked out our screened window to see a cement mixer set up in the house owner's driveway and more workers than usual bustling about like worker bees. Each one had their own job and did it repetitively for the entire day, without stopping, in order to get the new roof finished before the cement dried. At night they built a fire in a metal fire-pot to keep warm and slept in the open night air. They work so hard yet probably make only a few dollars a day.

Walking on a back street to buy vegetables, we suddenly came upon a parade of sorts. A family probably hired the buggies and band to celebrate some family event. A few people dressed in the likeness of Hindu gods and others did worship rituals at an accompanying cart.