The word according to Josh

Hey peoples! This is Josh with the blog of the 16^th of December!!!!! I know you are all thrilled to hear from me so try to contain your enthusiasm. The 16^th began very early, for we had to go to church quite early. After a bite of muffin we took showers. We had a brief spell of darkness when our power cut out. India seems to be short on lights. The power kicked back and we all got ready to leave. We couldn’t fit in the family car, so we rented a motorbike-rickshaw thing. Mom, Alyssa, and Amachi rode in it on the way to church, but seemed uneasy about it. Maybe it was because it had an open side that you could fall right out of. They said their prayers and clambered in hoping not to die. The men rode in the car. Real gentlemen are we not? The women made it to the church in one piece and we all went inside. The church was a long and tall space that was open to the air. The first thing you see when you walk in is the gender separation. Men sit on the left and women sit on the right. The men were mostly old, balding, and fat. And they smell. You know the kind of nasty no deodorant, nasty pits smell. It was bad. Is hygiene that hard people? The service was quite different. It was mostly stand up, say this, chant that, sing this, sit down, and do it all over again. Mercifully the service was in English, but the priest has a thick accent. It wasn’t really bad, just confusing. Even with a chant book, I was lost at times. We did the sermon and communion and wrapped it up. It was kinda nice to do something different but I do miss our church. After that we went to the cemetery to see our family tombs. That was weird because we had to walk on other tombs just laying in front. Just walk on the dudes grave. The graves aren’t underground, they’re above. After the graveyard tour, we went to lunch. This time I got to ride in the auto rickshaw (a 3-wheeler taxi). It wasn’t bad when there was no traffic, but when he took turns I felt myself slide near the edge of the seat and over the side. It didn’t help that Ben kept leaning on me as we took the turns. At the restaurant we ordered masala dosa which were two feet long! They are like giant crepes with potato and onions wrapped up. So good. After I had eaten three, we walked around the city. Big lunch and walking: bad combo. We saw shops, stalls, people, dangerously close traffic and lots of people. We walked down to a bigger church and took some pictures poked around and left for home. Now we are here writing while in a food induced coma. Tomorrow we have to get up at three to catch a plane to Delhi for our tour of North India! Since our brains are still messed up and we think that it’s late afternoon at 10 in the morning, we should be okay. More blogging to come, so stay tuned! Peace out.