Thanks to Olivia's high connectivity and un-hurried way of living, I have uploaded a large selection of my photos from my time in Chennai, India. To start off, I limited myself to only one flora photo. This was in the yard of Hindustan Bible Institute (HBI) where I spent my first weekend prior to the Academy start. HBI is an amazing ministry with a college, orphanage, guest rooms, medical clinic and community church. My first bonus experience--picked up the term 'bonus' from Jada Pinkett Smith who was interviewed in Good Housekeeping and Trisha Yearwood mentioned she got the term from her for a better term for stepkids. Random factoids.
The orphan girls line up by height and walk in a very un-Indian orderly manner to and from the dining hall.
White people! This team from Chicago blessed me with their presence. They're making fun of me and my wide-mouthed photo pose.
Hephzibah (see Isaiah 62:4), a college student the others call "akka" for older sister. Here I am on Sunday in the same clothes that I departed NYC from in on Wednesday. She was kind enough to let me sit with her and talked to me about her life and introduced me to a bunch of the other students.
New Calvary Church pastor and his family. Biju was so kind, serving as a bellhop of sorts to me. Later, he taught two of the sessions at the Academy. He studied in Chicago which is why the team was doing a missions trip from there, his friends from his time in the States.
The gate I unlocked every morning at 7:30am and went to breakfast. During the first two days, some of the other students thought I worked for RZIM as the dorm 'warden' (not a term associated with jails in India) because I welcomed newcomers and showed them around. Funny, as I was the only non-Indian in the batch.
Glastin, on staff with RZIM, my breakfast buddy.
Ajit Fernando. Works with Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka and was a great inspiration to me. Such a humble, scholarly man and so evidently in love with Jesus and His people. Treated even the most obnoxious students among us with the gentlest respect and honor. Amazing grace.
I want to give you an accurate impression of India so including this traffic picture. Unfortunately, not even this evokes the crowded, noisy, honking, speedy, go-go-go-ness fully.
Our first Saturday outing we went to some place that starts with a 'C' that I couldn't remember then and certainly can't remember now. Anyway, it's like a little South India Disneyland of sorts with mini-villages you can walk through. Here I'm having some coconut juice--a rare food that I don't love.
Later that day we went to the beach--oh, wait, I think I already posted about this. Anyway. Here's another pic of the boys enjoying the waves.
All the students are assigned to lead worship sometime during the course. Here Praveen had me do the hand motions for "I'm trading my sorrows".
My song pick was "Blessed Be Your Name". Here's a shot of the classroom.
Mooch happily listens to Sudheer introduce a Resource Person. :)
Chapati. My fav.
Will let rest of these speak from themselves. But, just so you know, this is a typical buffet lunch for us Academicians.
Handwashing station near our outdoor dining hall. The sink on the right had a broken pipe so it didn't lead straight into the drain. I joked that it was a simultaneous footwashing.
I never found out his name, but this young man who served us afternoon tea (not to be confused with mid-morning tea or late night tea) knew by the end of week 1 that I always came back for seconds.
The corner shrine. Do not use shrines as landmarks.
Pani puri. A north Indian fast food nibble that is sweeping the nation, according to Priyanka. This was got at Spencers, the fancy mall in Chennai, where I got a knockoff Jansport duffle bag for 450 rupees (~12USD) that busted its end pocket zipper before I even next packed. Back to pani puri: it's a crisp shell of fried something that is broken open and a potato mash is dabbed inside and then spiced broth is poured in. Eaten like a raw oyster.
Pani puri purveyors.
Squashed into an 'auto'--three-wheeled open-door motor cycle taxi rickshaw. In Dhaka, they run on natural gas and are painted green whereas Chennai's autos are yellow.
Priyanka arranged dinner at Galloping Gooseberries. David met us. He's a Chennaian.
Raj, another local--about two thirds of our class were--met us too. Gooseberries is an American restaurant. Hence, Leonardo. I also have a great picture of Priyanka with Dana Carvey which I will post upon request.
Here's Pastor Prince, Praveen, Suresh, and Benhail.
Shiv very excited about her cheeseburger. I joked that I was more Indian than she: eat with my hands, like spicier food, know that Tamil Nadu is the state we were in, etc. ;)
Typical lunch, plated.
Uncle Gunar, Raj, Prince, and Santhosh enjoying lunch.
Me at evening tea in my 'schlomit' necklace that I got in Israel. You see, the other students made careful notice of my earrings--which I've been picking up a pair from most the places I've visited this year. But today was necklace day. :) Schlomit--have I already posted about this?--is Hebrew feminine for 'peace' because 'Irene' means peace. I figured Schlomit (which really sounds pretty if said by someone fluent in Hebrew) was cooler than a phonetic Irene necklace.
So I mentioned Diwali or Deepawali in an earlier post. It's the Festival of Lights and here is the debris from our neighbors celebratory firecrackers. Loud is an understatement.
One of my favorite instructors, Cyril. He usually dressed like my high school chemistry Mr. Faddis, in dress shirt and tie. However, when he came back from holiday, he was sporting traditional garb. Note his shoes!
The following weekend, Shalini took us shopping. For atmosphere.
Auto Squeeze No. 2 This time with Kripal and Praveen, the Hydrabad brothers.
They got the driver to let me sit in the front seat for photos.
Average neighborhood cow.
Angeli, one of the housekeepers at the residence. She took a few of us for a walk to a market. She has two (normal sized) daughters. Very sweet and spoke to me constantly, in Tamil. Of which I understood none. And this frustrated her. Then she'd start charades. Which were no more comprehensible.
Of course on our walk, we had to stop for tea. This is Arnold, the youngest in our batch at 19, and Suresh--hours before he shaved the mustache.
Forget what these are called but they are a kind of sweet. Fried milk, sort of a nougat/malt texture with a thin filament of edible silver. Amazing. All Indian sweets, in my opinion, look like construction material.
So the last night, we ran out of tea. So our traditional evening tea was just...water. We used the regular pink mugs though. And had as much fun, if not more, than tea nights.
Suresh and Praveen. Aren't they cute?
Praveen, Suresh, Shiv, Peter, Benhail, David. 90210 style. Not that any of them are old enough or American enough to know what that means.
The day after class concluded, Santhosh, who is a local and was super helpful to me on the first day of class and helped me find a working ATM, took us to around. Having lived in Kuwait, Santhosh knows what it's like to be a visitor and had sympathy on us to take us around. Here's his son with an idli steamer. Remember those little white rice cakes I posted before? Santhosh's wife was kind enough to let me poke around her kitchen, saying: usually we don't let guests see our kitchen, but I thought you'd like to see an Indian kitchen.
Santhosh, Praveen, Suresh at Marina Beach--apparently not the 2nd longest beach in the world.
Our toilet and shower--the bucket and little vessel with a spout is the shower. ;)
The computer in the residence I likened to the hearth. You can see why.
Suresh, Arnold, Praveen and David.