So for the past few weeks one of the 3rd grade girls has been begging me to come visit her house after school, but the tricky part was that she lives two hours from school.  It was really difficult to find time at first, especially with soccer practice everyday.  But this past Friday I finally succumbed to little Laxmi's pleas.  It was actually very nice.  Instead of walking two hours to her house Laxmi sat on the back luggage rack of a bicycle and we rode about an hour to her home.  We rode down the road past the market, past the bus park and past the airport, until it became noticeably less populated again.  It was then that we turned down another, smaller road, which was lined with small shops but surrounded by sprawling fields of rice and other crops.  In the distance were a few small, rolling hills freckled with modest homes, some made of cement, others of mud and corrugated tin roofs.  We stopped at a temple along the way.  It had a beautiful garden with some awesome and very old trees.  Laxmi lived about halfway up one of the hills in a mud and corrugated tin roof house.  It was simple living for her and her family, but she lived in a very happy neighborhood.  After meeting everyone we shared some chow chow (ramen noodles), passed around a soccer ball, jumped rope, and played 20 million questions.  One of the more interesting exchanges went something a little like, "Where are you from?" "America." "You invented the atom bomb, no?" "Hah, um, yes we did" "Do you live in town or village?..."  Its funny how kids can throw you curveballs like that, even when living as remotely as they do.  I then shared a few snickers bars with everyone and departed shortly after.  Laxmi is already trying to make a weekly thing of it.

In other news, our numbers just grew significantly today.  Maggie has returned after being away for two months, bringing with her the famed Jeff DiLollo and a new volunteer named Ally.  A few hours after their arrival and the huge welcome wagon that attended it, Safira's parents arrived.  So with five more people staying here, and one more due to arrive in a few days, we have a packed house and a lot of excited children.  We will see how satsung (our nightly meeting and prayer) goes, I have a feeling it will get out of hand.  Usually we only have to play the question game with one new person upon their arrival, but now it seems we will have to play with three.  Anyway, it is good to have new guests among us and to have old guests back.


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