Sarah talks about India

Sarah was asked to speak in College Life at North Park Sunday, January 24th about her experience in India and I happened to catch it on video! I cut off the very beginning where she was introducing herself accidently...
enjoy!
-Kristen

These pictures were taken on Sarah's last day at St. Lukes Hospital. She will be traveling during her last 2 weeks to Hong Kong (visiting Brittany Nelson from Mead, NE) and to Mumbai. Her return flight gets into Chicago on Dec 20th at 9pm and then she'll be driving to Omaha with Kristen on the 21st. Hopefully she'll wear all her sarees and scarves to church on Christmas Eve :)

picture link

Don't miss Sarah's new post below...we just wanted to link the photos too
Click here to see some photos on facebook

here's another album too

click here

The Last Week

Well this may very well be my last post, I am leaving on Saturday for Hong Kong and then its only two weeks until I'm at home, wow that is so weird. I kind of felt like this day would never come, I didn't want it to, because even if I come back some people will have left and new people in their place. In India I feel like things change often in the sense people are always getting married and having babies which makes their lives change and makes them move. When I come back (hopefully next year) most likely one of the girls in my family will be getting married and Laxmi will be having a kid in May which is one of the reasons I want to come back so soon. Another one of my friends is getting married around the same time and will be leaving the hospital. I'm just trying to soak it all in before I leave. Most people have been telling me to just go with my plan of marrying a doctor and staying here, but I decided I would end up killing him because he would force me to do his laundry and the dishes and cook. Two days ago was Sabina and my going away party where Mrs. Abraham said that I cried every day becuase of how hard it was for me to see such poverty which in fact didn't happen and she went on to say some more things that are only true in her little world so I was happy that most the people don't speak English that well. Then I got up and said a few words in Kannada something like I want go no. haha. then Dr. Abraham kindly translated the rest for me. I didn't know what to say becuase I didn't want to feel like I was leaving, so i just said i never missed my family because you guys are my family. I think I'll probably end up saying more later. I feel like God has saved the swedish girl I'm with now for last becuase he knew if it was at the beginning i would kill her. I find it annoying when people don't put any effort into getting along with other cultures or they think they can act the same way around them without offending them, but I'm learning a deeper kind of patience from living with her.
Yesterday I went to Gulbarga with my indian family and had the best day so far. We went to see all the different sights and took pictures and I'll never forget sitting on the fort wall with them looking out and being able to see india for miles on end with kites flying high, it reminded me a lot of the book the Kite Runner. I was just sitting there thinking it doesn't get much better than this.
I dont know how the rest of the week will feel, whether I'll realize that I'm leaving or not, but I keep praying that I'll cry when I leave so they know that I will miss them. Sometimes when I leave a place I dont cry because I dont really realize I'm leaving.
Well I'm going to go watch a hindi film, a nice three hour one :). I hope everyone is doing well and I will see you in three weeks!

A few pictures...

Vacation

So my mother arrived here what a week ago or something, I dont really keep track of time... Anyways my vacation has gone like this...
Took a ten hour train ride to Mumbai to surprize her then we stayed the night in mumbai and left at 7 am on the morning train to Goa, the train ride was more interesting than Goa but we only stayed a day there...
Then we left the next night on the night train to Kochi. I however forgot to check the time of the trains departure to see if had changed and we ended up missing the train, 900 rupee's later we were in the sleeper cars wondering what we had gotten ourselves into, 15 hours later we were in Kochi, Kerala. From there we took a taxi another hour to Kottayam or something like that and spent the night in a place that is probably ment for honeymooners... It was nice...
The next morning we went on a house boat and I must say my expectations were blown to peices, it was amazing pictures will be online when my mom gets home.
Then the next morning we took another taxi to Kumily which is very touristy and we are at a home stay outside of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. Today we went to the sanctuary and saw elephants tigers and bears... okay not really, we saw a lot of monkeys and butterflies... it was still good though.
We hiked around the sanctuary with our own guide and got some nice leeches on us but luckly they gave us these atractive sock things to make sure they didn't suck our blood, my mother wasnt so lucky, she got bit twice...
Now we are going to a Martial Art performance... I know... weird but it looks cool.
Tomorrow were going somewhere prett, learning how to cook indian food, and something else. Well I must be off, sorry I havent posted in awhile, more later!

Love and miss you,
Sarah

Mom made it to India

Since Sarah never updates this, I wanted you all to know that my mom made it to India and is with Sarah right now! She'll be there until Nov 22nd and then Sarah will be there another month. Hopefully they'll update it soon so we can see what they're up to! I heard also that on my mom's facebook it says Sarah got all the goodies that were sent with my mom, letters from friends at North Park, toys for kids at the hospital and some food Sarah has missed (chocolate chips and M&Ms, I know, not fair trade...)

-Kristen