the happiest blistered feet in andhra pradesh

so. guess what we did today? ha! you'll never guess.

ok so there is mild political turmoil in the state of andhra pradesh right now. its caused mostly from the rallying of a local (statewide) political party called the TRS who are fighting the state government for an independent state for the telangana people. i don't understand it very much, but the jist of it is that there are two people groups in this state, the andhra people and the telangana people. so the TRS is opposing the government to form their own state within india but independent from andhra pradesh. and they have been enforcing several "bandht" in the last few weeks, which is basically a strike. so they come marching into the school, usually with flags or wearing pink, and demand that the school close for a holiday. and they will rough things up a bit if the school doesn't comply, so we say ok, we'll close the school tomorrow. the reason they have been doing this lately is because at the beginning of the week the TRS chief started a fast until telangana is given an independent state government. and because india is run with a parliamentary system this is a somewhat significant demand.

on monday there was bandht, tuesday and wednesday were mostly back to normal with classes going on and such. then today there was bandht again because of the TRS chief doing this fast (although he hasn't been very consistent about it, he started on sunday evening, then stopped, then started again). the local levels of the party feel that they must show their strength by shutting everything down. at a telugu school across the way from Matilda they even went in and stopped students in the middle of an exam and roughed things up a bit because they hadn't closed down.

so today. since there was no school in session, we decided to do something fun with the bindu kids. these are the kids who live at the hostile on campus because most of their families cannot care for them adequately or give them proper education. some of them don't have parents left at all, but most of them still have a little family left who come and visit on sundays. they are all excellent students and really good kids.

today andrea and i took some recordings of earl scruggs over to the school, and in the upstairs hall we taught them square dancing. it wasn't perfect but it was similar to what i experienced as a child. they loved it too! they love getting to spend free time with us, but it was really great to be interacting with them on the level of something as ordinarily human as a simple dance. and they showed us some indian dancing moves too, wild! it was so much fun, i couldn't stop laughing, i couldn't stop moving my feet even though they were the same songs over and over. we started at about 5:30 and didn't stop until 7:30. we were barefoot dancing for two hours strait and didn't fall over! even though andrea and i were both red-faced (indian people don't get red when they are hot because they are already brown, so this seems odd to them), so sweaty our hair was wet, we have the happiest blistered feet in maybe even all of india.

henna hills

This is a view from the top of our house. It is very peaceful.






It's hard to believe that we have been here almost 20 days now. But even in that short time I have managed to feel more and more at ease here. Rhythms have always been important to me, and I feel as though I have begun to develop a rhythm here, though it requires I move more slowly than I am used to
















We had been teaching english classes on mondays wednesdays and fridays. Since that time, the school has found a suitable and certified teacher for the children. So we teach art classes and do storytelling instead. The art classes are fantastic and such a treat for the children. The story telling is often a delight. We will soon run out of books though, and I am unsure what to do at that point. We must draw from the school's library, and it has a very limited number of books.





The children also lack art supplies. It is uncommon even for government schools to provide art classes, and many private schools like Matilda have popped up (especially in metropolitan centers like mumbai and new delhi).


Several days this week and last were spent celebrating teacher's day and children's day. This was fun and the children really enjoyed it. I took a lot of pictures. A couple of days were given over to relays and games. There were more treats than usual, and Julia and I performed a song(I played my harmonica). We were unsure of what to do, but decided on Swing Low Sweet Chariot. The teachers even played games. Musical chairs, tug of war, badmitton, volleyball. Very fun.

We have made a very good start to our interviews. There will be lots of transcribing to do. I look forward to the work. I am often moved by the stories which Das and Doris, founder of the Matilda schools tell us. I think that it is good that others will know their story as well.

We ask that you continue to pray for us.

how did i get a mosqito bite there?

hey all, julia here...

so india. i know nothing about this place, its hard to think of things to say about it. and the fact that i am so foreign is pleasantly reasonable here (as opposed to feeling foreign in your own country).

currently andrea and i are teaching at matilda high school monday, wednesday, and friday. we were filling in for the absence of an english teacher, but they just hired one this week. we'll see if he works out or not, i've already been informed by my students that they like me better. but i have to say my favorite subject is rollerskating. that's right folks, i am teaching fourteen and fifteen year old indian kids (mostly the boys, the girls lack interest) how to rollerskate. this is not something i imagined myself doing before coming here, but hey, ya roll with it in this kinda world.

the rest of the week we are supposed to be hard at work on the writing project, but this takes much self motivation so we are a bit slow on that front. we have been interviewing das and doris maddimadugu on tuesdays and thursdays, and eating dinner with them on wednesdays and perhaps saturdays. everyone makes a big fuss over us, its quite embarrassing. we just got the internet hooked up to our computer here so now here is this distraction...

our house is really nice. besides all the bugs, upon whom we have waged a tiny war. (it is my personal vendetta to kill as many fire ants as possible, if there are fewer ants left in india when we go home i do not think we will have left the ecosystem unbalanced in the least.) but our house is really nice, it is a sort of periwinkle blue and the doors are all creamy yellow. the light comes in with the sunrise and it is really beautiful the way the colors all change. we have a nice floor with a mosaics both in the middle of our main room and by each door. and we have a sweet little fridge and ceiling fans in both rooms, for which i am extremely grateful.

but my favorite part are the pigs. there are several little families of pigs living around here, and they come and go as they please, scavenging. andrea thinks i am weird, but i really love throwing our food scraps out and seeing the pigs come trottingg over. and the littlest ones scoot along trying to keep up, they are so small and cute all squealing and oinking and their ears flap when they run. sometimes i forget that i like pigs, then some live in the bushes behind my house and i'm all like, oh yeah... i like those things.

the worst part is having to pee in the middle of the night. and i am pretty sure that's how i got a mosquito bite where i least expected it. ahem. but there really is no need to put it delicately here, everyone is extremely comfortable with their bodily movements. there is no need to hide it or try to make it into something its not. people are just really plain and frank about pee and poop. and that's that.

Andrea says hi.

10 days out

Julia and I will be leaving in ten days. Lots of people have been asking for a good way to keep informed of developments of our work. For those of you who don't "do facebook," this is the place for you. Also, I kind of get sick of the time-sucking vortex which is facebook and Julia does not use it, so this is also a good thing for us.

Today we went to get vaccinations, and we are very thankful to the wonderful people at the Lawndale Christian Health Center who hooked us up with very affordable healthcare. We love you. We have been making lists and researching and praying and having heart-to-hearts; we are very excited to begin our work.

We would also like to thank everybody who has been praying for us and supporting us. If you were able to make it to our "fundraiser" on the 9th, we were happy to see you and we hope you had as good a time as we did.

We will be posting pictures!


helpful link: http://matilda-india.org/

Things you can pray for:
honesty and strength in our relationship
good common practices to develop while we are there
patience
our families
the work that the matilda school is doing

Godspeed!
Andrea