3 August 2015

This was a thoroughly crazy week. Lots of stuff has happened. On Tuesday, we had a very fun and long bike repair. Apparently, I needed a new inner tube. In India, it's a little harder to get those replaced than in America, because they usually just patch them. However, the place we went to to get the bike fixed didn't have spare tubes there. So they drove off on a motorcycle to get one, and then we waited. And waited. And even waited some more. They were in no rush to fix my bike, because there was a line. So, we looked around and spotted a baby crow.

 

It was just hanging out by the building, and sitting, while crows were flying around the air and making a racket. We got dive-bombed quite a few times, to the point that I started wearing my helmet. After about 45 minutes, they finally put the tube on my bike, and I was good to go. Or so I thought. Later in the week, everything else about my bike broke, but not that front tire!

On Wednesday, we got invited to a recently returned RM's birthday party. It was really low key compared to American parties, They brought out a cake, that had a plastic flower bud thing on top, which they lit. It fell open, and started playing "Happy Birthday." Then, the RM whose birthday it was got to have people feed her cake. Indian traditions are a little different when it comes to parties. 

Later in the week, we stopped by our very new branch mission leader. His name is Auto Raju, which is a little funny because he used to drive an auto. He pulled out his new machete to show us what he got for Pushkaral. He's a very fun guy, but a little weird. 

Not much else happened this week: we did a lot of visiting members, but no investigators, because they all disappeared during Pushkaral. One of them showed up in church, along with someone we had never met but were happy to teach. It was a good Sunday!

This is a cow, hanging out by an ice cream stand. I wonder if cows like ice cream.

This is the wagon that was set up for the pioneer festival last week. It looks pretty neat!

This is a whole bunch of Indians performing Cotton Eye Joe. 

 

This is what the toilets on the train looked like. That hole goes straight down to the tracks, by the way.

This is a prison that we toured. Not really, it's just the train we went on. Could you tell at first glance? 

This is how we entertained ourselves on the train. Yes, it was stopped at the time; no, I was in no danger of hurting myself. This was 8 hours into our trip, so I was really tired at the time, by the way.

 

 

This is one of the signs on the train, that I thought was hilarious. If you look, you can notice how they charge 100 less rupees if you can read Telegu. 

This is main road in Rajamundry. It is big, crowded, and full of people. But, you can find anything there if you know where to look. 

This is a picture of a picture of Pushkaral, and all the crowds. It's just a little blurry, but you can still tell that there was a whole lot of people there.