brushing my teeth on the front porch

It’s funny how we catch ourselves doing silly things, isn’t it? Strange little idiosyncrasies you didn’t even know existed until it just dawns on you one day, “Man, I didn’t even know I did that…”

I’m going to be honest here, I caught myself today. I just realized that I like to go outside while brushing my teeth. Weird, I know.

I was in my hotel room this morning and I went to brush my teeth. The next thing I knew I was staring at the gardener from my porch, toothbrush in hand (and mouth). Oops. I laughed about it, but then I realized it’s something I do a lot. At my house in India my bathroom is connected to the rest of the house by the porch, so instead of staying in the tiny bathroom while I brush my teeth I usually go stand on the porch and look at the neighborhood, mountains, cows, etc. It’s not that it’s intentional; I just sort of do it. The problem is I didn’t even realize I had this funny, little habit until I was in a new environment and sort of got called out about it.

And that gets me thinking… What other little habits do I have in my life that I might not even realize? What are the things in my life that I didn’t even realize I was doing, the things that have been flying under the radar?

I’m going to take the funny look from a Thai gardener to remind me to be more intentional in everything I do. What else am I doing that people notice? What does my “normal routine” show about me? Or better yet, what does it show about my Father? Am I living my life in a way that shows I’m constantly being made more and more into who He would have me be, or am I just cruising on auto-pilot?

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” - 1 Corinthians 10:31

-एरिक

Ode to the Missed Call

Living in a land of prepaid phones is pretty nice most of the time. You only spend money on the minutes that you use. You can buy special “tariffs” to make text messages cost a fraction of a cent or make your phone calls cheaper. Also, if someone calls you they pay. It doesn’t cost the recipient to receive calls or texts.

One down side is that voicemail is almost unheard of here. “Leave me a message and I’ll cal you back,” just doesn’t work here. In America if you didn’t leave me a message you probably wouldn’t get a call back. I don’t have that liberty here because there just isn’t a way for you to leave one.

Instead people use the “missed call” and it can have lots (and lots) of meanings. Here are just a few examples:

1) I meet a new friend. We want to get together for lunch next week. He gives me his number and then says, “Give me a missed call.” I call him and as soon as the number shows up on his phone I hang up. He’s got my number now and can put in address book.

2) A predetermined meaning can sometimes be behind a missed call. A friend of mine is coming to my house for the first time. He says, “I’ll give you a missed call when I reach,” so when he gets to the intersection on the main road he gives me a missed call. I know to go out and meet him and he didn’t have to spend any money.

3) My friend is short on cash. He doesn’t want to spend the 2 cents that it costs to call me, so he calls and as soon as it starts to ring he hangs up. This means “You call me and spend your money.” This one can get frustrating, especially if they call and call and call if you don’t answer the first time… I mean, I can’t reach I my pocket and answer while riding my motorcycle. I like to play ‘try and answer the phone before he hangs up’ not because I’m worried about the extra few cents but just have a little fun and maybe sharpen my reflexes.

-एरिक

Wisdom of the Sadhu

Oops! This blog about the life and faith of Sadhu Sundar Singh has been moved to EricRowell.net. Click here to read it now.

Narnia

This post about The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and what I learned from it when I reread it is now available at EricRowell.net. Click here to read it!

imagine this

a pizza and grilled cheese have a baby. sure it’s a stretch, but hang in there with me. i imagine it’d end up looking like the cousin of a calzone… maybe the half-sibling of a ham and cheese sandwich.

“that’s ridiculous, eric” you say. well, yes, you’re right.

“why would you even think about something so absurd?”

well i’ll tell you…

when i get packages here, they’re often filled with delicious surprises. in my birthday package from my parents was all the stuff to make some homemade pizzas. after the pizzas were eaten (it didn’t take long) i had only used about 1/3 of the pepperonis i’d been sent. now comes the time to get creative. seriously…i can’t let good pepperonis go to waste.

then i got to thinking. i took some fresh, sharp cheddar, some good bread, a little oregano-ish seasoning… okay, okay... so it was a domino’s pizza seasoning… i’ve got limited resources here… added pepperonis and cooked up two delicious grilled pizza sandwiches!

i cut it into "triangles" for illustrative purposes, but i think it made it taste better. something to do with 3rd grade memories i'm sure

mmm… i think i’ll do it again some day soon.

and on a very different note, this reminds of the classic movie… or I think it should be a classic, but hardly anyone has seen it… Hot Rod! near the end of the movie and grilled cheese and a taco battle it. let’s just say the grilled cheese wasn’t as successful in the movie

and just for fun
here's a picture of me dressed up as Hot Rod a couple years ago for halloween.

the hair was fake, but the mustache was real. because as Rod would say, "All great men have mustaches, Frank."



-एरिक

oh, and don't forget to check out my photoblog. www.eric365.wordpress.com

when you see yourself in art

i'm back. after a month+ with no post, i'm hitting it up back to back days. watch out.

and this will be a little different.

there's a really cool artist i've been following for the last few years named Sam Brown. he does drawings (often from reader's ideas) and then posts them online at www.explodingdog.com.

the drawings, mostly stick-figure guys, can be pretty darn clever sometimes. this one i stumbled across this week was just too funny considering the kind of life i live here...


...both in real life (surrounded by cows, but i'm not sure that they love me) and often in my head (i mean seriously, who doesn't want to be a superhero).

-एरिक

it's been a while

Wow… it’s been almost a month and a half since I last updated. I’ve diligently kept my new photoblog (http://eric365.wordpress.com) up to date, but I’ve been on the slacker side over here. Why? Well to be honest, things have just been kind of slow. Mid June rolled around the most of the students rolled out of town. A week or so later the clouds rolled in over the mountains and the rain started up. And it rained and rained. For all of June and first part of July my language school was closed. It seems like this city just slowed down to a creeping crawl.

I planned to get away and head north with a friend to his hometown for a while, but things got tense in that area of the country, travel shut down, and it just wasn’t going to be safe. So we stayed here.

We’ve done some fun things for sure though. Let’s see:

We had Prem’s boys over for a slumber party.

We took a day and went up to the nearby hill station when Lindsay’s friends came into town.

We learned how to make momos at Prem’s house in honor of my birthday (and I turned 23).

And I got a new expansion for Catan, so we’ve been played it a lot.

That’s the sort of things that have kept me occupied over the last few weeks.

This has also just been a good time of refreshment for me. In the beginning it was honestly a little frustrating. I had been SO busy for the previous couple of months that I didn’t really know what to do with myself. After a while though I realized that having some down time was good, and I’ve used it as a time to get myself ready for the busy school year that’s to come. I’ve done a fair bit of reading and relaxing, spent time encouraging the friends who’ve stayed here in town, and tried to spend time working on my language.

That being said, students are arriving back in town this week, so the pace of things will be picking up a lot from here on.

And with things being busier, I’ll hopefully do a better job of keeping you update on how life is going here on the subcontinent.

-एरिक

Where the Tea Comes From - Darjeeling

This post has moved! To read about my trip to Darjeeling you can follow this link to EricRowell.net

On the Road Again

After a solid month of being at home it's time to head back out of town again. Tomorrow morning we'll be heading to Delhi to drop our friends off who are flying back to the States, and Sunday T and I will be flying out across the country. We'll be going to Nepal and then coming back. Please be praying that our trip goes smoothly, and I'll be sure to let you know how it was when I make it back at the end of the week.

-Eric

a new photoblog

I've accepted the challenge of taking a picture every day for the next year. From June 1, 2010 to June 1, 2011 I'll be doing my darnedest to take a picture to document some part of every single day. Instead of putting them up here and really cluttering things up I decided to start up another blog dedicated just to that. Check it out over at www.eric365.wordpress.com.

-एरिक

Way to go Rahul?

For high school students in India there are two really important grades; 10th and 12th class. If you pass 10th you can keep going, and if not you're pretty much done with schooling. Well my friend Rahul was more than a little worried that he might not have passed his 10th class exams, but we found out this weekend that he did! So of we got him a cake... It said "Shabash Rahul" which translated means "Way to go!" or "congrats!" but instead of an exclamation mark, the cake maker put a question mark.

Shabash Rahul?


-एरिक

Weddings, Circuses, and More!

Okay, I’m sorry. I’ve really been a slacker when it comes to blogging this month. It’s May 27^th, and this will only be fourth time I’ve updated (and probably the last time I do before June). My bad. I’ll do better in June though. I promise.

In the last two weeks I’ve done a whole lot. Let’s see if I give you a little glimpse through pictures:

Where to begin….

Well I bought some new pointy shoes

Which I wore to a wedding. And of course, at the wedding there was dancing...

(but it’s funnier to show you a picture of T than of me).

I’ve also put quite a few miles (or kilometers on my bike). So as T. Sometimes we ride alone, some times it’s with two people, or every once and a while we ride three deep...

I also went to the Indian Circus: It was kind of like a “western circus”

And then when I went to my friends’ house to spend the night, all the kids decided to reenact the circus for us!

(I think that’s supposed to be a sword… He kind of looks like a dinosaur though)

These two guys are being the scantily clad dancers, or as their literal Hindi translation would be "dirty girls"

And even the dog joined in

It’s been a crazy few weeks . feel like I haven’t stopped for very long, but it’s been a lot of fun. Our friends who are here with us leave next Saturday, and T and I will also be headed out for a few days to Nepal. Maybe I’ll get another blog out before then, maybe not. Either way, expect more pictures in the not too distant future!

-एरिक

Human Powered Ferris Wheel

Yesterday we took a holiday. We took all of our friends who are here to the hill station at the top of mountain for a day of fun. We ate good food (chocolate pancakes) and did some shopping. Then we took everyone for a ride on what I think is possibly the coolest thing ever: A human-powered ferris wheel. There's no electricity or other special way to run it. Nope, three guys climb around and around in daredevil like fashion to create enough force to get it moving. And once its moving, it moves quickly. Then they stop and put it in reverse.


All for 50 cents!

-एरिक

"No, I won't take you to America with me" and a quick update on life

Since we got back from our hiking adventure, I've been spending a lot of time on college campuses. Right now I've got some friends from the states who are here helping with the research that I'm doing.

Basically, this research looks at the similarities and differences between college students in the U.S. and college students in northern India (probably one of the most culturally diverse places in the world). We look at a lot of different aspects of the college students life - hobbies, interest, and future plans... how this generation is different from the last... how western culture is influencing India... how religion is (or is not) important to the newest generation of Indian adults. From this simple survey we've had some really good responses, and the one-on-one meetings that often follow have been really encouraging to me. Daily I'm learning so much more about this place that has become home and these people who are now my neighbors. I'm having the opportunity to learn from them, and at the the same time I'm able to share with them also. I've been doing this for the last 3 or 4 months months (since my full-time language learning ended), but the last two weeks have been much more focused on it. Good times.

Today though, I had a funny thing happen. When I approach a person or a group I generally say "hello" or something similar in English. The Hindi word "namaste" is a little formal, and college students don't really use it much. Plus, this helps to gauge the level of English they speak and I decided from there if we're going to talk more in Hindi or English. Well, before I had a chance to say much more than hello, I heard a girl at the back of the group say (in Hindi), "He can have a visa made for me!"

The group laughed, I chuckled a little, and then switched the conversation over to Hindi. She was mortified when she realized I understood. The other girls started giggling, the guys laughed pretty hard, and she quickly found a reason to head off in another direction.

Other than though, it was a really great morning. My friend and I who were doing surveys had some really good responses from both students and administrators, this afternoon he was able to have some really beneficial follow up conversations this evening while I was in language class.

These guys helping with what we're doing will be here through the end of the month, and I'm really excited to see how they'll continue to further the projects we're working on!

that's a bunch of mountain

This post has moved! To read about my trek up to the Ganges River Glacier from Gangotri visit EricRowell.net