Sweet dream kisses/Davi goes Moroni all up on the demon spider/best take home lesson of the trip - Days 10 and 11

August 10-11

Food: The malaria pills I take in the morning don’t do great things for my appetite, and I am dehydrated like all of the time – there is absolutely no way to drink enough to replenish the amount I sweat – and the food is not a kind I am used to.  So not the best recipe for eating well.  On the bright side, either they have started making the food for me progressively less and less spicy (which is actually totally a possibility) or I am getting used to it.  My lips still burn sometimes though.  They give me this milk and sugar stuff sometimes that I am in love with.  It is like a steamer from starbucks.  I get to drink straight out of coconuts, and eat new fruit with names I can’t remember.  Mostly, I eat chapatti (similar to a wheat tortilla – just better) with this vegetable mixture that is pretty spicy.  Sometimes there is potato in the vegetable mixture.  And for lunch I often get rice to mix with it.  Oh man, lunch today was to die for.  Pria made a request to the cook that he cook me her favorite foods.  So I got this super good spicy scrambled egg stuff, along with an especially tasty potato/vegetable mixture and the always divine chapatti.  First time I was able to finish the very large portions they give me.

I take back what I said about the whole not having a problem with the critters.  Because I just encountered the largest spider I have ever seen in real life.  I came into the bathroom, nice and ready for a shower.  And there is was.  Its diameter was that of a decent sized peach, and it was dark brown in color.  I was terrified.  I had to take a lot of steps back and take courage before proceeding.  I have been in the war chapters of the Book of Mormon, so I asked myself what Moroni would do.  He would take up arms in defense of his liberty.  So that’s what I did.  I found shoes to wear, and armed myself with my seminary manual, a flashlight, and insect repellant.  I turned the shower on and it ran to hide by the toilet.  I sprayed water in its direction and shone my flashlight at it, and nothing happened.  I dumped a bucket on the toilet and it went running into the corner.  At this point, I said a prayer for it not to feel too much pain or be too scared of its oncoming death, and for me to not be too scared to seeing to its oncoming death.  I dumped water behind the bucket and eventually saw it come out, after having huge amounts of water poured on it.  I heard myself saying some things like, “Mutant spider!  You can’t still be living!”  And “I said a prayer for you!  Show some compassion by dying!” And “Get thee hence, you fiend!”  It came out again, but this time in a little ball, its legs all up under itself.  This led me to believe it had heeded my council.  However, I poured a few more jugs of water on it, just in case.  On the third pour, it took up his life and crawled on.  He was playing dead!  My desire for its well-being was gone after that treachery.  I flooded him out of his hideout and sprayed repellant on him as soon as he was in sight.  Though it did not kill the spider, I could tell it was disoriented.  At this point it became a pokebattle in my head, and I heard the music come on, and Ash yell, “Davi used stun!”  “Spider uses Fear!”  Both were critical hits.  While it was stunned, I dumped more water on it, til it seemed like it really wasn’t going to run away anymore.  I proceeded to use most of my can of bugspray on it, and then it didn’t move for a long time.  I left the spider out of my sight for a short moment while I looked for something kind of heavy I could throw on a wet floor.  I got my very full conditioner bottle and threw it on the spider four times.  To be sure, I dumped a whole container of bubbles on it.  To my best belief, the spider is no more.  But, I put a cup on top of its corpse and a pile of books on top of that as to be wary of its super spider strength and resurrection abilities. This whole battle lasted about an hour.  And let it stand as a reminder to all spider witnesses that Davi is a mighty force to be reckoned with.

To be added to the top of my attractive qualities list:  I am a squatty potty master. 

I love going to the boys dorm at night.  The girls seem to act as mothers to one another pretty well at night.  The boys do also – Naveen put Akash in his bed to sleep with him because sometimes he gets scared at night - but there is still such a sweet hunger for female love there.  Tonight when I went, one of the four dorms I went into, all about twenty of the boys were gathered close at my feet to hear a bedtime story and a lullaby.  I wish there was a better way to describe the way they look at you besides hungry.  They just are so desperate for love and so ready to receive it.  I find it so incredible and endearing that they have not hardened themselves to love.  They have not pushed me away at all, and there are no tinges of bitterness.  They just want the personal kind of adoration they are lacking.  They made a request to hear a story about Rapunzel and I made up a really lame one for them.  Then I sang “Walk Tall” because that’s the song my mom always would sing to me (I changed “daughter” to “child” out of respect for the boys).  I proceeded to give them each a “sweet dream kiss” which I explained to them is a kiss on the forehead that acts as a shield from bad dreams.  I had to put every effort into keeping myself from crying.  I have a mom to sing me lullabies and kiss my forehead.  And they have a strange twenty-year-old American girl who will be leaving in two weeks.  And even that they are grateful for.  Times like that I have to remind myself that God is their dad and no one is really an orphan.  It is a blessing that they are being raised in a place where that is accepted and taught for those willing to hear.  But it still tears your heart to shreds.

Monisha  (18) really helped me when I was having some difficult times.  She told me that she has been helped by many people from them talking to her a lot, and then told me that she was helped that without talking about things.  I got a note from her that made me cry and say some very fervent thank you prayers.  She said that she had felt as though Heavenly Father was talking to her through me and that she felt his love for her in a very personal way while we talked.  This was a huge tender mercy for me in a time when I really needed one. 

Take home: Here is the biggest take home I think of the entire trip: I will remember the way I am guided and led and comforted by the Spirit here, and allow that to continue.  Of all lessons I will yet learn, I can’t imagine one having a larger impact on my life than this one.  And Heavenly Father has helped me learn this well in my week and a half here.