We're moving!

Today Shelly and I are moving into a new apartment and we're sooo excited! We've been living in a guest house for the past couple of weeks, and it's pretty terrible! It's pretty much a box and we had one too many encounter with huge roaches.... seriously, they were HUGE! We've spent most of the week looking at apartments, and NONE of them worked. They were either too far, in a bad part of town, already taken.... there was always something wrong with them! We found this apartment yesterday and it's perfect! It's right in the middle of the city and we have a room on the 8th floor with a great view! We're really excited about our new little home! We even have a shower with HOT water... as in hot water that comes out of the wall, not even from a bucket! It may not seem like much to you, but trust me... in India, this is a big deal.

I thought I'd put up a few more pictures of our life and friends here in India. The first one is our little friend Samim at Coffee Day here in Kolkata. The one of the four girls is a little family that lives at Dum Dum. That's there home behind them... a little tent under a bridge. Sonaya, the smallest one, is probably one of the cutest little girls I've ever met. I absolutely love going to Dum Dum and just holding her. She's so, so sweet... she has the biggest brown eyes you've ever seen and she loves to just sit in my lap. Her older sister, Shema, the one on her right, is absolutely beautiful and has the sweetest spirit. I love to sit with the two of them and play games with them... I'm not sure what I'm going to do in May when I have to leave them and come back home. The other picture is of our new friends Acia and Chupa. Chupa is Acia's granddaughter... they told us that Chupa's mom died but we're not really sure about that... she called someone from our phone yesterday and kept telling us it was her mom. They make up stories about their lives to make you feel really sorry for them but then I think they forget sometimes when you become good friends with them! They make me laugh! I met Chupa one night on Park St. and she had a terrible burn on her arm. Shelly and I have been taking her to the hospital every other day to get it cleaned and dressed. I'm starting to think it's almost pointless... she always takes off the bandages and when we meet her it's realy dirty. It's really bad, though, and we're afraid she's going to get an infection so hopefully she will understand that she needs to keep it cleaned. She's a really sweet girl and her grandmother is hilarious... I'm realyl glad we met them! The other picture is the first night we found roaches in our room.... so, so nasty! And maybe you can't tell how big he was big, but trust me... he was huge.

Well, I need to go finish packing and start moving. I'll leave you with something to think about from a new book I'm reading...

"In 1996 the World Health Organization reported that an annual increase in preventive care of 75 cents per person in the Third World could save 5 million lives every year. That would take less than $3 billion. Surely the people of the wealthier nations can find $3 billion to save 5 million people. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that people in the United States spend between $30 and $50 billion each year on diets and related expenditures to reduce their calorie intake."
-Ronald J. Sider, from Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger