Now You Know...

October 7, 2009
Advice from the Himalayas... some obvious, some interesting, some funny, all real!
1) Advice from Kyle Berlin: You don’t have to eat the food if it will make you sick, even if it offends someone. Really. It’s true.
2) Advice from Hannah Grafe: BRING PEANUT BUTTER! In a society that lives strictly off of carbs, the protein is much appreciated! Just a spoonful a day makes you strong and happy... especially if it’s the Crunchy Honey kind!
3) If you give a kid a camera, they will take 1,000 pictures, or however many your memory card holds, in less than two hours. Upon looking at them, you will find that there are about 30 of the floor, 30 of the sky, and every other picture is blurry beyond recognition. But it’s a GREAT rainy day activity! Just make sure they wear the wristband!!!
4) If your boss invites you to a party, the invitation is really just for show. You will go. And when he says “There will be a little food there,” he means there will be an 8 course meal! But they will serve Orange Crush, or the Nepali version of it!
5) If you see bugs crawling in your food, it’s ok to pick them out. They’re not meant to be eaten. And try not to think about them!
6) When you hear squeaks in the night, just say, “The Lord is my Shepherd” over and over again! And hopefully no mouse or rat crawls over you while you sleep.
7) Sleep with your mouth closed. Always. Otherwise, lizzards/mice/rats might crawl in during the night. If you have a cold, well, I’d choose suffocation over the chance of a reptile making itself at home in my oral cavity!
8) Get used to being dirty. When the water you bathe with is browner than the dirt on your body, showing doesn’t seem like that big of a deal! Oh, and washing with a bucket is much harder than it sounds ;).
9) Yes, goats do ride on the top of busses. Or cars. Or wherever. And people walk their sacred cows with red paint in between their horns. Kinda sad...
10) If the power goes out, and you have a laptop, play “kid-bop” praise music, and the kids will flock in. We had a rockin’ party going for an hour tonight with 15 kids in my room singing and dancing to “Every Move I Make,” “Mercy if Falling,” and so many more!
11) Speaking of power going out, keep your flashlight in the same place at all times. And always keep everything charged, so if the power does go out, you can still take pictures (or hand the camera to Raju) and listen to music!
12) It’s totally OK to throw trash on the side of the street. Or off the roof. Or burn stuff in the street. Really. It’s expected.
13) If you think people look at you a lot walking down the street in jeans and a t-shirt, they look at you a whole whole whole lot more if you dress like they do in a Kotessera. Then, add a tiny 7 year old Raju’s hand engulfed in your white hand, and heads will spin!
14) Wear your clothes for a very very long time before washing them; it’s too much work to wash very often!
15) If you get ink on your hands/arms from refilling pens, just rub it in the nearest kid’s hair; their hair is black enough to hide it! Or so they tell me...
16) Admire the beauty of God’s creation! The mountains tell of His Glory...