I'm not dead yet!

Hello all from ever so cold India...

    Well here is my first blog from India, and I am not really sure how to start.  There have been so many things that have happened over the last few days.

   So I guess I will start at the begining of the journey.  On Tuesday August 2nd I left for India feeling rather good about everything.  Made it to Dallas fine, and went to check to see if there was any seat closer to the front of the plane.  The lady at the counter then tells me that she does not even see me on the flight, and does not know how I checked in because I was not booked on the flight....this is when my heart began to race.  I looked at her with I am sure deer in the headlights look and just said "excuse me"  Then she realized she was looking at the wrong flight and I was really booked on the flight I needed.  So I get on board and find out that I am sitting next to 3 kids with no parents in sight.  Apparently they were going to London on vacation, and the parents were in 1st class and the kids got put in economy.  Well as you can imagine it made for an interesting ride.  All of them telling the same story over and over to me as they played musical chairs on the plane.  I only saw the parent twice the rest of the time the flight attendant was coming and going from 1st class to check on them at the parents request.  I finally get to London and have to RUN for the next flight.  I come around the corner to where I have to go through immigration and the line is huge. There is no way that I would be making it. So I grabbed a airport employee, and told him I was going to be late. So he put me in the line for 1st class and priority members.  I made it to the flight with 10 min to spare.  Once on the flight I slept.  I slept most of the flight, except when the girl next to me was elbowing me or the service cart was hitting me.  But on this flight I did get to see my first sign of the Indian people's kindness.  There was very large pregnant woman sitting in the row across the aisle from me. It was very obvious she was very uncomfortable.  So a man that had paid much more for his ticket offered her his seat to be able to have more room.  The rest of the flight were really uneventful.

    Then came the taxi ride.  It took us 2 1/2 hrs to get to the school from the airport.  The road was very curvy.  There was 36 hairpin turns that our drive did not feel the need to slow down for.  One really cool thing about the taxi ride is the random monkeys that were everywhere.  They were just laying on the side of the road hanging out.

    Once I finally made it to the school I was tired, in desprate need of a shower, and in very desprate need to brush my teeth!  When we arrived the kitchen was closed, but they opened up quickly to make me and my taxi buddy Liz some lunch.  After lunch we took a very quick cold shower(the hot water does not always work).  Then dinner then we passed out. 

     The next morning we woke up feeling much better, and decided to go exploring. We were told that we had to go see a movie in the town, because these movies are well known films they have just been cut like crazy so you may not really get to see all the vital information.  We were told that it was a very funny experience that all that come to India should have.  The movie was suppose to be Cowboys vs Aliens.  Well we got down to town and found it had changed to a Hindi film so not really worth seeing.  So we just walked around the town with some of the current staff and they gave us a small tour.  After we walked back up to the school(me huffing and puffing the whole way, because we are at 7500 ft right now), and just spent the rest of the night relaxing.  We had tea time twice that day one for morning tea and then after dinner tea. 

   The plans for today are to maybe go back to the market to buy some fruit, then later in the evening we are going to go to an orphanage to sing songs with the kids, and bring them some goodies.  I really can not wait to meet them, and just hug them all. 

   Well sorry for such a long blog! I will try better next timeto shorten things, but I just wanted to share my adventure with all of you.  Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures soon for you to see.

   Just a few things that you can talk to dad about are right now not all of the staff/IGs have visas yet so we are still waiting on those.  Next is just for getting used to everything and the systems the school has.  Last is just for unity of the staff as we all come together to work for a greater cause then ourselves.