Weekend of Festivities

On Friday there was a festival called Diwali here, which is the festival of lights. All the streets are adorned with beautiful lights, flower garlands and bright, vibrant colours. It is how I 'imagined' India to be before experiencing the reality of how a lot of people live.

During the festival, there are literally fireworks and crackers on every street corner, from the top of every building and they light up the sky like nothing I've ever seen. It first terrified me, I awoke at 5am literally thinking that a bomb had gone off because the explosion of fireworks was so loud. Soon after the first one was a second, and a third and then I remembered the sounds of what I thought were shotguns the night before and I pieced all the puzzle together. It amazed me that they had started their celebrations so early and carried it on throughout the day, and long into the wee hours of the morning. Practically 24 hours of explosion going on around me, I got used to it and put it down as the craziness that is Mumbai. I couldn't imagine that President Obamas team would enjoy it so, as they would be put on high alert from the 'explosions' that are going on all through Mumbai. I guess they didn't really think that one through as they planned his trip for this weekend. It just kinda makes me giggle.

I am over my mini-meltdown and I have renewed hope for this trip. I am excited about the things that I will get to impart into the teaching team and also get to experience while on the buses. My 'observing' time is over and on Monday I will get stuck into some planning, teaching, gathering and making resources and hopefully making life somewhat easier for these untrained, but very capable teachers. I can't imagine doing what they're doing without any training, it is truly brave and courageous and I think they're flippin awesome for doing it and being available to what God is asking them to do. So hopefully I will be able to encourage, help, give and be a resource for them to squeeze while I'm here.

I'm SO ready to get stuck in. Bring it!

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