What it's like to be sick in India

They say the ultimate test to whether your throat truly is healing from strep is if you can eat cold pizza without chopping it into teeny-tiny pieces and heating it up before you chew it a billion times so that you don't even need to regurgitate it in order for it to be classified as "regurgitated." Actually, who says that? I say that. Guess what? I just passed the test! Though my tonsils are still quite swollen, they are no longer sore and even though my left tonsil still has a giant white spot the size of Mars covering the side of it, it doesn't seem to be doing anything but being lazy.

For the past 9 days I have basically been bed-ridden because of strep, or tonsillitis. Perhaps I will never even know because the doctors in India don't do strep tests. You tell them your symptoms and they give you medicine based on your symptoms. I had 1. Fever 2. stuffy nose 3. sore/swollen throat 4. upset stomach. So what did I get? 1. pill to reduce my fever 2. pill to get rid of my stuffy nose 3. antibiotics to kill my throat infection 4. mouthwash to further kill my throat bacteria and make it safer I guess for things to pass into my stomach.

I'll never forget my first time to the Indian doctor. I had been throwing up from both ends (sorry, but so true) for like 3 days, so I went and told the doctor what was going on. He made me lie down, pressed on my upper abdomen, "does this hurt?" my answer, "no." then he pressed on my lower abdomen, "does this hurt?" my answer, "a little, I guess." Then he said, "Okay, lets get some medicine for you." What? What is that? He just scribbled some form of writing on a piece of paper, made me pay 100 rupees, and sent me to the pharmacist across the street. I did not even know what I was taking, but I took it and lo and behold I got better. In fact, even though I have no idea what these guys are prescribing me until after I pay for it and read the labels, it works, and they know what they're doing though my American mind tells me with everything inside of it that they have no idea what they're doing.

In fact, I'm sure I'm getting all the illnesses that babies in India get since the adults are most likely immune to the strep bacteria and TB. Who knows? So the doctors are very familiar and probably think, "poor porcelain baby, she's getting so sick in our country."

I'll have you all know that the first 9 months I was in India I got sick once. ONCE. Then I went home for 11 months and did not get sick at all. Then, I came back to India and BAM as soon as I started TITUS Project, the optional SBS outreach where I learn how to teach and preach and then go out and teach and preach for 8 weeks. Now all I ever do is get sick. Seriously. I don't understand what's going on. I'm that girl that you regret accepting into your school because she has a "history of health problems." Which all seem tiny and insignificant, but 3-4 of them always happen at the same time so it's actually quite a huge deal. Sore throat? Whatevs, I can still go to class and stuff. Stuffy nose? That's nothin'. Fever? I got a fever, give me 24 hours and I'll break it and be fever free. But combine all those and you have a lethal weapon of mass body weakening. Thank you, Satan.

I've decided, and it's been confirmed recently in one dream (I'm waiting for more confirmation) that it's all spiritual attack. I mean, like Satan really wants another person out there telling people who Jesus really was and that he does not want you to live in shame, guilt, disappointment, or condemnation! I'm not just sharing the gospel with those who haven't heard, but I'm actually equipping people who already know and believe in Jesus with the truth! I'm helping them know who their Creator is better and pointing them in the right direction (not that I have it right at all, but we're all learning together). I'm teaching others to pass on this Truth. It's easy to ignore someone out there on their own preaching the gospel, but it's the ones who are equipping the believers Satan needs to watch out for, and so I've come to the conclusion that the reason I'm getting so sick is because I'm stepping up my game. I am not just a "comfortable" Christian living the American Dream influencing a few lives here and there which is totally awesome if that's what God wants you to do!! But God wanted something different for me, and so I am still obedient even though it might be more difficult than one of my good friends who's got a great job and spouse and lots of money. When we obey God we get attacked. That's almost how I know I really am where I'm supposed to be is when I face great opposition and despite that opposition amazing things still happen! Then who gets all the glory? Not this weak, little girl who has only lived on a diet of mangos and yogurt for the past 9 days. I couldn't blow out a candle right now if I tried. God gets all the glory, which is how it was always supposed to be.

Weddings are annoying around here.

Last night until almost midnight there was super loud, bass thumping, Bollywood dance music blasting through my windows into my house and into my very soul. There's a wedding going on about a block away from my house and the music was still that loud in my home. Try to fall asleep with that going on, not to mention it is fighting for loudest annoyance with barking/howling street dogs, the neighbor children playing and laughing in Marathi, honking horns, rickshaw motors, and a passing train about every hour. This is how I fall asleep most nights. It is far too hot to close my windows to shut out the noise, so I turn the fan up to "2" sometimes "3" if I'm really annoyed and then, if it's even louder than the fan (which last night it was) I put in the ear plugs. This wedding music does not happen every night, but it is wedding season right now and I think yesterday was a particularly auspicious day for weddings. In India they set their weddings for auspicious dates, typically consulting a guru or some holy man to choose a date with good luck or favor. They are very superstitious. People get married on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Sundays, any day that is auspicious.

I take approximately three showers per day. I get sweaty just sitting still. When there's no power everyone just about dies because then the fans cannot spin and we sit in hot, thick air. There is no such thing as central air in India and if you actually own AC in your home anywhere you are incredibly wealthy. So, I am delighted to take cold showers at least thrice a day. Once when I wake up, once after lunch, once more before dinner if guests are coming over, and sometimes I even take one before bed if I'm particularly sweaty. I look for excuses to run home and hop in the shower. It's amazing how quickly your sticky gross feeling goes away after a little soap and water. I just love taking showers here and look for any reason to squeeze one in!

When I was home for Christmas for 2 months however, I looked for any excuse to avoid a shower! I never felt dirty, sweaty, or hot so why take a shower, right? I had to join a gym so that I would sweat for a long time each day so that my brain would think it necessary to take a shower. Don't judge me for this. I just thought showering in Minnesota during the frigid winter was unnecessary. Your skin is barely exposed to outside air to get dirty, everything is so dry, and showering wastes time.

This Saturday I am going to Mumbai as a tourist for sight-seeing and shopping! You might think, "big deal, this girl lives 2.5 hours from Mumbai, she goes there all the time." But you would be wrong in thinking that. I have NEVER been to Mumbai. I repeat, I have never set foot in Mumbai aside from the International airport, the parking lot of the International airport, and a taxi that drives through the streets of Mumbai only to leave it far behind and bring me to my home 2.5 hours away. I have never walked around Mumbai or explored Mumbai. I have never had the energy or desire to go because quite honestly: Mumbai scares the crap out of me. It's HUGE, it's LOUD, it's full of incredibly poor people who only break my heart, it's SCARY, and it is the home of....Bollywood.

Don't get me wrong. I love me some Bollywood films! They're hilarious, funny, humorous, cheesy, cliché, corny, and some are just downright stupid. Mostly the types of movies I enjoy! They are so ridiculous they're awesome. BUT they are so influenced by the "West" and the people of Mumbai/bollywood culture who I have experienced are arrogant, too-cool-for-school, narcissists. Just being honest about the way they portray themselves. The funny thing is that the "West" they are influenced by fashion-wise and attitude-wise is the West of the 1990s. At least your average person's fashion, not the real, high fashion of India that's where it gets awesome.

All in all, I am filled with nervous excitement as I anticipate my upcoming day-trip to Mumbai. At least we have confirmed seats on the trains, and really, it's the travelling there that stresses me out more than actually being there.

I often forget that I get so offended and frustrated when people here assume things of me because I am from "America" and am white, yet I so often do the exact same thing to them. I think I justify myself by thinking that I am actually in their culture, in their country, so I know how it really is and therefore it's okay to stereotype because I actually know them. They've never been to the United States and have only seen Hollywood movies to show them what America is like which is not at all what America is like. What sort of Christian am I when I do this? I get so upset with their assumptions yet I think I judge them even more. I am trying to figure out how this can change, but ultimately I need a change of heart and attitude which is something I cannot do on my own. Don't you just love that we are incapable of doing anything on our own and must continuously rely on God to do all in us we wish to accomplish? It is quite a humbling life that we live, and if I am not humbled by it, something is wrong.