Walking

Today I started walking...early in the morning. Okay, not as early as I'd intended, based upon when I set the alarm clock. 6 am was my intended wake-up. Let me interject here - I'm NOT a morning person. I prefer to ease into it, sometimes hitting the snooze once or twice. I move slowly and like it that way. I make my chai (sometimes twice if the milk curdles, which it tends to do more in the current heat), read the Bible, journal and chat with the Father. Take a nice shower (now that I have a curtain and rod - thanks Nita and Bob) I can do that. Get dressed and fix my hair and a spot of make-up (not sure why I bother, it is usually gone by noon). Then I prepare some breakfast - but by now it's at least 2.5 hours since I woke up. So yes, I ease into morning.

Not today, well, not really. I did hit snooze twice. After the second time I thought, I really wanted to get up closer to 6:30. :) So I set another alarm. And then I got up. :) But it was nearly 7 before I got out of the house. I'll work on that, because I really want to be out sooner, not sure I'll wake up before 6:30, at least not just yet. It felt good to be out before the heat. I took my iPod and listened to language lessons.

I went to an area I'd never been before - one I'm sure not a whole lot of pale faced people have ventured. This made me think, are there areas I should not be in? I'm sure as I ask this question, I'll get a handful of different responses. There was a huge deserted house - though it was concrete, it looked as if there may have been a fire inside. And the dump. Or a dump. Dumps are always disturbing to me. Why? For one, they tend to be something that people live around and in. Though this was not like the dump I volunteered at in Guatemala, it was serving the same purpose. People pick through it (today I saw children in there), and the largest pig imaginable was also finding the treasures that remained - not sure what that was because it looked as if it had been gone over very well.

There was a moment, when I was deciding, turn right? turn left? go straight? that I thought, I could get lost in this maze. I did make a nice turn down a road that came to a dead end and turned around. But then I ventured around the dump towards a road that looked a little busier (that's usually a good path to stick to when uncertain). And there is was, the (or a) fast food restaurant. :) Now I'm not really sure what that means, but my friend has mentioned it to me and I've said I'd like to venture over to it one of these days. At 7:15 it was closed, but I decided to figure my way home from there and then I will know how to get back. I was surprised how ridiculously close I was, just about a block off the main road that goes into our colony (at least how I usually enter with the rickshaw).

As I was rounding the corner towards my street I saw another friend out front (I didn't think any of my friends woke up so early). Today she starts her new job so she was dressed and ready (or nearly so) to go. She has been a nurse in Delhi for a while and moved back up here to be with her mother who'd had surgery on her hand. She's decided to stay and applied for a position at a nursing college. Saturday was her interview and Monday (today) she starts. It's a nice gig, lots of hours and responsibilities and it'll be such a good thing to have in her resume if she ever decides to go back to Delhi.

Which reminds me...yesterday she and I went to the mall to buy some earrings she'd seen when we were there a few weeks ago. As we were returning home, the call to prayer came on and I noticed she didn't cover (actually, I noticed this when we'd been together before). This time I asked her about it. You see, all the other women I've met, up to this point, always pull their shawl over their head during the call to prayer (which happens 5 times a day, depending upon the location of the sun). When I asked her (she's getting accustomed to all my questions), she said, "I know, I'm supposed to." I didn't push but I did ask if she does it at home. She said yes. Then I thought, lets try to go a little deeper. So I asked her what is the purpose of covering (I mean, if she does it one place, but not the other, perhaps there is more behind this - besides I generally knew, but it's always good to probe and see what they know). She replies, "Actually I don't know. I think maybe to show respect."