And now the real work begins...

The Friesens have left, so now we have to start actually working (we were hoping to start last week, but then we were surgically attached to the Friesens for 9 days). Today was the first day in the hospital for Raina, and I met with Mr. Peter, the maintenance supervisor, to talk about what work he had for me. Before I talk about the real work, I’ll fill you in on our last few days with the Friesens.

This is a National Highway!

Monday we visited Guttula, a village near the jungle about 1.5 hours east of Dhamtari. Guttula is important because it is one of the first locations where the missionaries settled when coming west from Calcutta in 1910. They came by ship from the US to Calcutta, then journeyed by ox-cart to Chhattisgarh. The total travel time was about 2 months (now there is a direct flight from Chicago to Delhi that takes 15 hours!), and they had 17 ox-carts (34 oxen) to carry all of their supplies. It is incredible what kind of hardships and difficulties the early missionaries endured to reach this area.

Cows everywhere!

On a lighter note, something quite amusing happened while we were at Guttula. We had to bring 2 vehicles because some of the local church leaders went with us, so therefore we had 2 drivers. While we were touring the church and bungalow, our drivers decided it would be a great idea to get drunk! So we finished the tour and came back to the vehicles to go visit a nearby rock formation, and they came stumbling out of one of the cars clearly unable to drive. The church leaders promptly began yelling and scolding the drivers and were very angry and embarrassed. So they called the rental company and told them of the situation, and they sent 2 more drivers from Dhamtari to “rescue” us. So we had to wait 1.5 hours until they arrived, and we were finally able to leave. The rental company told us to just leave the drunk drivers there, and they could find their own way home. I would guess they are currently unemployed.

Raina with an Indian girl eating off of a leaf-plate

Tuesday we went to Mungalterai (I probably butchered that spelling, oh well), which is located in the jungle about 1 hour south of Dhamtari. It was a nice drive and a very small little village. They had a “community gathering” for the Friesens visit, so there were quite a few people there, and we were instantly mobbed when we arrived. The children love to practice their English on Americans, so they were always saying “Good morning, what is your name? Where are you from?”. The youth group did a skit about the Prodigal Son, which was quite entertaining even though we couldn’t understand any of it. We had heard that some people in India eat from plates made of leaves, but until we went to

Waterfall we stopped at on the way to Mungalterai

Mungalterai we had not seen that (mainly because we were with the Friesens and were treated like royalty). Unfortunately (or fortunately), they did not allow us to eat from the leaf-plates, and gave us real plates, including forks and spoons. They allowed the Americans to sit in chairs, eat on real plates, use forks and spoons, and drink bottled water, while everyone else sat on the ground, ate off of leaf-plates, ate with their hands, and drank well water.

Lizard

Wednesday was a relaxing day visiting Dr. Martin (the Friesens grew up with him). We had lunch at his bungalow in Dhamtari, then went to visit his farm and had a campfire dinner. It was very nice to get away from the congestion and noise of Dhamtari and enjoy nature. There was a Leopard spotted at his farm a few days ago, so all the men decided we should go on a walk to see if we could spot it. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we did not spot the Leopard, although we did notice paw prints and droppings that were most likely Leopard. I would have loved to put up a nice big picture of Leopard poo, but alas, we forgot our camera. We ate chicken and pork cooked over the fire, with potato salad (finally something American!), rice, vegetables, and various other sides. It was a nice change of pace from the traditional Indian foods we had been eating.


So today was our first day of real work. Raina shadowed the nurses in the Casualty (what they call the ER), and got to see a typical day for them, which according to her was quite boring, they had only 5 patients while she was there for 5 hours. Things operate very differently here, and she is having a little trouble with the language barrier so far, but hopefully things will get better and she will learn some key phrases and become more comfortable.

The new apartment

As for me, I talked with Mr. Peter and asked him if I could take a look at our apartment they are preparing for us and see what else needed done. He gave me the keys and told me to report back to him what I needed and he would make sure it gets done. I was hoping I could actually do some of the manual labor since it is our apartment, but he would not allow it. It looks like they want me to be more involved with the planning and design of projects rather than manual labor. There is a building at the Sankra hospital (about 20 minutes away) in need of renovation and/or reconstruction, and it sounds like they want me to be in charge of that project, so hopefully I will be able to stay busy working on that for a while. I will have to adjust to the way things are done here, construction is very very different from how it is done in the US, and progress goes very slowly. There is no such thing as OSHA, and I will try to put up a picture later of the scaffolding they use (essentially tree branches and twine).

I think God is speaking to us in Dove chocolates...

Keep praying for us as today was a bit of a struggle trying to figure out what we will be doing and how we can best use our skills to help. We need to have patience and perseverance to get through the first week or so of settling into our “jobs” and getting comfortable with how things operate. I’m sure the next post will be filled with positive words to say about all of the great things we are doing. We have heard multiple times from friends, the Friesens, and even Dove chocolate, that the relationships that we develop are more important that what we actually do. We are trying to keep that in mind as we try to figure how God will use us here.


KC (and Raina)