I'm sitting outside at the moment in my little courtyard writing this. The sun is just pleasantly warm like a May summer's day in the UK but already long shadows are creeping across the yard as the sun is about to disappear behind nearby buildings. The temperature is very autumnal in the early mornings and evenings though. I actually could see my breath early this morning as I ventured outside to take out the rubbish for the daily collection! No two weekly collection here!!! Everyday men with carts come round the sector collecting from every house and sweeping up the leaves and rubbish from the roads so the sectors are really clean. It's just when you step outside the gates that you see litter absolutely everywhere- in piles by the side of the road, tumbling down hillsides! Delhi is groaning under a mountain of plastic bags and bottles!! Now the sky is often very smoggy with pollutants especially in the evenings as the poor burn these bottles and bags as well as other rubbish to make fires to keep warm!
I read another horrifying statistic the other day about the city , that it produces around 75 million tonnes of sewage a day, of which only about 35 million is treated!! The rest is pumped out into the Yammuna river and into flowerbeds and lawns around the city!!! Certainly the other day Tim and I took a walk through Lodi gardens and we were enjoying the beautiful scenery when we smelt the most awful smell and realised that a hose was pumping out the public toilet contents on to the green lawns and flowerbeds!! I must remember to wash my hands next time I sit on the lush green grass!!!!
We have established a routine to our weeks now. First thing in the morning the maid comes in to sweep and wash all the floors and clean the kitchen and I try to communicate in Hindi to her with some success on occasions. She has however disappeared for the last two weeks to go back to Rajasthan for a wedding and so suddenly I am back to washing floors daily myself. Its amazing how quickly you can get used to someone else doing the work!! Our Hindi teacher comes in three times a week to teach us for an hour and what an intense hour it is with her refusing to speak any English to us!! It's amazing how, after a while ,phrases and words that were once unintelligible start to take shape and understanding comes! Then Tim disappears of to the office for the rest of the day and I spend my time either helping to home school Chloe or teach English at the girls home. I also teach a couple of girls privately once a week. Food does not keep in the same way it does in England so daily I find I need to make my way either to the Indian style supermarket known as Big Bazaar or to the many fruit and vegetable sellers along the side of the road or to the little shops on the sector. Some afternoons I get a rickshaw and head further into the city to go to some of the bigger markets to get purchases cheaply . On Thursday mornings I run a ladies prayer meeting where some of us get together to encourage one another and then we have lunch together. Thursday nights is our church prayer meeting and Saturday nights I have band practice where I have resurrected my flute after many idle years where it has remained in it's case! So all in all our weeks are now nicely busy but somehow simpler and less stressful than life in Woking!
I have found coming here has caused me to throw myself on to God far more than before as everything is so different and nearly every day I am taken out of my comfort zone so that I am so aware of my need of God to sustain me, strengthen me to cope with the rigours of Indian life and to give me wisdom to know how to act in different situations and in relating to people here. As a consequence my whole walk with God feels rejuvenated and I'm so aware of His great love and power to keep both us and our families back home.
