Slut Walk

A friend of mine sent a link to the Slut Walk in Delhi and asked what I thought about it. So now I have been thinking about it for a couple of days. I really don’t think it is worth the time to participate in the walk. I may be old fashioned or very conservative in my views, but that’s okay.

I understand it started in Toronto after an official made a comment that women wouldn’t get raped if they didn’t dress like sluts or tramps. That is a poor comment to make but unfortunately, there is some truth to it.

In a perfect society, it wouldn’t matter what a woman wore. In fact, she could walk around naked, and nothing would happen to her. But in the imperfect societies, a woman needs to use wisdom in the way she dresses. She is never at fault for a rape happening to her, or any other violent crime. As with other crimes, it is smart and helpful to not put yourself in vulnerable situations. Like we lock our doors. Is it right that we have to lock our doors? No, of course not. In that perfect society that I mentioned above, no one has to lock their doors.

We all know that men are visual people. They get aroused by sight. Obviously, a woman wearing provocative clothing, or revealing clothing, is a eye catcher for a guy. That is just how they are wired. This is in no way a justification for rape. It is just a fact.

I feel it is my responsibility to dress in a way as to not make me vulnerable to unwanted attention. It is also out of respect to my “brothers” that I do this. And I would tell all women that it is just plain common sense to dress socially acceptable. If you are in a tribe that only wears a loin cloth, it is fine to dress that way. But walking around Delhi dressed like that is not wise.

It will take a lot more than a Slut Walk to change society. In my opinion, the Slut Walk is not the right way to make the statement that they are trying to make. I don’t see anything good resulting from the Slut Walk. I do imagine that there will be a lot of men out to watch the Slut Walk. Many women walk in the Slut Walk dressed in very inappropriate attires and the only thing they are doing is entertaining the men who are watching.

How Low Can You Go

It has come down to this.... My friends aren't writing on their blogs very much these days (because they are having too much fun to take time to write, I guess) so I have to get my blog reading fill by hitting the "next blog" button on the top of the page. I'm not sure how it organizes the blogs, but I tend to read similar blogs that are on the same topic. I guess Blogger knows what interests me. Scary.

Full House

We have had a full house lately, and I'm not talking about Poker. Although I would love to play some Poker. We have a family staying with us for a while. They are looking for their own home, so until they find a place, they have our home away from home. We also had a single lady friend stay with us for a few nights. She was visiting from America. And this morning, we had our good friends over who returned from the States last night. We all ate breakfast together and had a small devotional time. It is so good to have this full house.

Proud Mama

This is a new comic series that Micah is making when he isn't working on Larry and Lenny. It is called Mushrooms. I think it is awesome and I am sure you will agree. Micah is so talented in his ability to make comics. I am so proud of him.

Burning Night

We have a family staying with us for a couple of days. It is their first time to India. They have Micah’s room. Last night, while they were sleeping, the lights suddenly came on in their room. The father went over to the switch to turn the lights off and noticed the board was hot and there was a red glow and black smoke. He quickly woke us up and I turned the circuit board off. For some reason, an electrical fire started in the wires and it somehow opened the switch which then made it impossible to turn off the power from the light switch. We had to turn it off by the main circuit. Weird. I would assume that the fire would have broke the circuit and the power would actually go off, not on.

We all went back to sleep, but not very well. Especially for the family that was in a room without power, smelled like burned wires, and no fan. We all woke up early. Steve tried the circuit breaker again to see what would happen and we heard a popping noise and again smoke. We quickly turned it off again.

On today’s agenda: Call the electrician.

Falling In Love

I am doing a Bible Study called Falling In Love With Jesus. Today’s lesson was on Jewish Weddings and what we can learn from them. I found it very interesting and encouraging.

In a Jewish wedding there is a betrothal. This is a ceremony that is like a formal engagement. The couple is basically married and after this time they would have to get divorced to call off the wedding. After the ceremony, the groom goes back home to start preparing a place for his wife, like a room off of his parents’ house. The bride goes home to start preparing her wedding dress. When the groom’s father decides the room is ready, he will send the groom to go collect his bride. The word used for this means “carry” or “take”. The bride doesn’t know when this will happen, so she needs to be ready at all times.

Then there is the official marriage ceremony, which is more of a celebration of the coming together of husband and wife. This is a very joyous time with a feast. After this, the bride and groom can live together.

After looking at the Jewish wedding ceremony, it made several verses in the Bible mean so much more. For instance, “In my father’s house are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive (take) you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

Also in Rev. 19 it says, “ Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” This is a picture of how we need to be preparing our wedding attire as we wait for Jesus to come for us. We are to be doing righteous acts.

I also think that this is a great picture of salvation and works. The bride is already married, but she now prepares herself by doing good works. We are saved when we confess Jesus as Lord. Once we are saved we can prepare ourselves for his return by doing good works. The good works don’t effect our salvation but it does effect our readiness. I want to be ready for my bridegroom.

2 Hour Massage

Susie and I spent two hours getting a massage on our third day in Nepal. We trekked our way over a block to the small coffee and massage shop. The shop is called Aroma. They used nice scented oils. First they gave us a nice foot bath, probably for their benefit. Then we were told to strip down to just our panties and get under the sheet. The lady leaves the room while we stip. Susie was in a room next to me. There was nice, calm music playing and the table had a heating pad under the sheet. So I got on my table laying face down in the face hole. My lady came in and put some smelly something under my face and I think she said to breath in. As I took deep breaths, she pressed down on my back.

Then she started the massage. It was wonderful. So extremely relaxing. Not like a Thai massage that is deep tissue massage and twisting, but it was rubbing and working out the knots in my back. She did a great job. After an hour she has us flip over. Then she massaged my face and front side. The only awkward moment was when she tried to tell me something. I figured out that she wanted something to go down. At first I thought she meant the sheet, which would leave me exposed. Thankfully I didn’t pull the sheet down. I tried to figure out for sure what she was saying. She meant for ME to scoot down, not the sheet. But actually she wanted me to scoot up. So after I scooted down she motioned for me to scoot up. Then she massaged my neck.

So two hours came to an end and I was ready to just lay there all day long. But we had to get up and continue on our vacation.

Lazy Gringo

Day 2 ended with a trip to another restaurant close by, The Lazy Gringo. It is a Arizona Mexican restaurant, which I guess is like TexMex. We were all excited to eat Mexican since we don’t get it often in Delhi. The Lazy Gringo did not disappoint. The only thing lacking is that they don’t give you baskets of chips and salsa. The food was delicious.

Day 1 and 2

Nepal sure does seem prettier than Delhi. At least Kathmandu does. It is so green and lush. Plus there are mountains. This is the rainy season so we are unable to see the Himalayas. We saw a few peaks from the airplane but didn’t take any pictures.

Our guesthouse was a little hard to find. It is actually not a legal guesthouse so there was no sign up to say that we found the right place. Once we found it, we decided to go try the near by restaurant that we were told had great pizza. And it was GREAT. There was canadian bacon and pineapple.

Day 2 was Sunday. We started the day going to church. It was a good message and we met some interesting people. There was a team from Singapore that led the music time. The people behind us were from Costa Rica and they knew some of the same people that we know. And Micah’s counselor from camp was there. So Micah was excited to see him and spend a little time with him playing Ultimate Ninja.

After church we walked to another recommended restaurant. On the walk, we stopped at a store to buy some sugar for coffee at the guesthouse. I was surprised to find Dr. Pepper. I bought four cans. Then we made our way to the restaurant. It is called Sing Ma. It is a combination of Singaporian food and Malaysian. We all enjoyed our meal.

After lunch we walked down the street to a donut shop. We were all looking forward to donuts. This shop is called Hased Donuts. It is run by a Korean family. Very good donuts.

After donuts we made a quick stop to buy some videos. We got Kung Fu Panda 2 (which doesn’t work), Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, and A Bee Story. Then we walked back to the guesthouse and Micah was excited to realize that the guesthouse has a DVD player so he could watch one of his movies.

Terminal

We arrived in Nepal at the small airport in Kathmandu. You can get a visa on arrival there, so that is what our plan was. It seemed easier to get it there then to go to the Nepal Embassy and wait in line. You have to pay 25USD for the visa. They don’t accept Nepal Rupees or Indian Rupees. We had enough dollars for three of us, but we were traveling with a friend, so there were four of us. And actually, the dollars were hers. So there is an ATM at the immigrations area for travelers that don’t have dollars. You are able to withdrawal Nepal Rupees and then step two steps over to the money changer and exchange them for dollars. No problem. Or so we thought. The problem was that the ATM wasn’t working. The lady before us got 9,000 rupees. She had asked for 10,000. So I guess the ATM ran out of money.

The money exchange will take Indian Rupees, but not the 500 or 1000 notes. We didn’t have enough 100 notes to make 25USD, so we can up with plan B. Plan B was for two of us to go out and find an ATM. We were told there were more in the airport. The officials said we would be allowed back in, no problem. So the two of us, Susie and I, went out, collected our bags, and got outside. I stayed inside the airport while Susie went in search of the ATMs. She found three, all of which were not working. She came back with the sad news. So we gathered up all our Indian Rupees and some left over Nepal Rupees from Susie’s last trip to Nepal, and our last 16 USD. I went back in to the immigrations area and went to the money changer. He took pity on me and allowed me to give him a combination of money and gave me the rest of the money we needed.

This all reminded us of the movie Terminal, where the guy gets stuck in the airport. We wondered how it would be for Steve to be stuck in the immigrations area for a couple of days. Not too fun for him. There are no restaurants and no TVs and basically nothing to do. So thankfully he was able to leave the airport and enjoy the rest of Kathmandu.

Man Vs. Food

Micah and I just finished watching an episode of Man Vs. Food. It was one where the guy went to Idaho and ate a 4 and a half pound burger, a plate of chili fries, and a 16oz. milkshake. If he could eat it in 30 minutes, he would win a guitar.

I have seen this show a couple of times and each time I have the same reaction. I am disgusted! I seriously hate the fact that American restaurants even make food like that. Huger than any one person needs to eat. Not only is it so unhealthy but it also is a slap in the face to the hunger in the world. I hate seeing food being wasted, and one person eating all that food is a waste.

So why do I watch it? Well, partly it is because I miss American food, like hamburgers. And then partly it makes me thankful I am here and not around such gluttony. I see people without enough food and it makes me thankful for what I have. I also have compassion and will give our left-overs away from a restaurant, even though it would make a great second meal. So the next time my you go to a restaurant, my dear American friends, remember that there are many people in need and maybe take a to-go box for the guy standing on the side of the street.

Stoked to be Soaked

I went on another shared auto today and enjoyed my squishy ride. I took it to the metro station, took the metro to the train station, but didn't take a train. Instead I took a cycle rickshaw to a hotel to meet a group of students. I shared with them about trafficking and what we are hoping to do with our after-care home. Then I had them all get on rickshaws and go through the red-light area to pray for the people there.

Apparently 4 American women are too much for one cycle rickshaw. We were two on the seat and two on a small seat on the back. Mostly kids sit on this seat. But today I and another young lady sat on it. We got lots of laughs and points. But the real excitement came when our rickshaw puller got off to pull us up a little incline. The whole thing started tipping backwards because of the weight on back (me). We put our feet down and the guy grabbed his seat and pulled us back up. But boy, did that cause a lot of laughs.

We got to the red-light area and the skies opened up and rain poured down on us. It was crazy. The rain not only came down, it came sideways right at us. We were completely drenched. The rickshaw puller stopped and got under a covering for 5 minutes to try to wait it out with everyone else. We ladies sat on the rickshaw and waited. Finally he gave up and decided to just take us in the rain. I don't know how he could see with it raining so hard. He even handed me his cell phone to try to keep it dry.

There was nothing we could do except laugh. The rain is glorious. It cooled us off. Especially when we went inside an a/c restaurant and were still wet. I am just happy that everyone made it back from their rickshaw in the rain experience.

Shared Auto

A shared auto is a small vehicle that is open and is able to squish a lot of people in it. On the road that we live close to, there are shared autos that take you to the metro station for just eight rupees (20 cents). They ply the road all day long, picking up passengers and making a killing. There are two bench seats in the back that face each other and 3 can sit on each side comfortably. There are usually more than three however. I don’t like to get in one that is full of men, so I will let those go by. If there is a woman in it, I will get in and try to sit by her. But more often then not, I still end up thigh to thigh against a guy.

I just came back from a trip to the metro station and enjoyed my ride. I was still a sardine in a tin can, but the people were nice enough. I was one of the first ones in the auto so I couldn’t choose my company, they chose me. I chose to sit on the edge so that I would only get one neighbor next to me. An old guy sat between me and the other person who was not touching me, which means there is enough room for one more.

In a country that has such conservative beliefs on touch of the opposite sex, these shared autos are a curious invention. Why is it that you can’t hold your husband’s hand while walking down the street, but you can press your thigh against a stranger and no one bats an eye?