Several of you have asked what it is like living in India so I thought I would share a few pictures with you to show where we live and so on...
Here is the front of our house. We live here with The Doherty's
We wave these down everyday to get around town. They call them auto's or rickshaws. There is a law that the drivers are to use meters to determine how much they get paid. We have yet to have a driver use one, they always say they are broken, so we have to barter with them on a good price before we get in. This can be difficult because we have been here for a month now and know what decent rates are and they like to make it a lot more expensive.
This is the house across the street from ours. Just this morning I looked out of our window to see women carrying bricks on there head. On the bottom right corner of the picture is the stack of bricks and the women carry them to the roof on the 3rd floor.
I asked someone how much they get paid. They said "Oh, they get paid well, 300-400rs
a day". That is equivilant to $6-$8 a day. The cost of living here is not cheap either. Makes you grateful for your job and living in America, huh?
On Sunday we went for a walk from our church to the mall to buy some milk. We saw a family of goats on our way. This is in the middle of the city, there is a main highway about 100 yards away.
During the same walk we also passed by a water buffalo...Sorry I could get a better picture. I was not about to trudge throw the smelly trash heap to to get to him. :). The interesting part is that just to the right of the buffalo was someones clothesline. Wouldn't want to find him in my backyard!!!
To give you an idea of how big the autos are... this was an abandoned auto on the side of the road. A street dog was taking a snooze on the seat where the driver normally sits.
This is me posing in my rain gear. I am so grateful the monsoon season was mild this year. They say there are times during monsoon season where it rains for 10 days in a row. They don't have good drainage systems here and 2 years ago the water rose to peoples chests when outside.
Hope these give you some mental images of what life might be like in India. We are settled in and working on projects for potential future BFO business's along with visiting orphanages and getting to know the children.
The Toliver's
