Friday, May 31

Wedding wares with Sasuma and Nanand

I've decided that i love being busy. i've even developed a friendly relationship with exhaustion. When you're busy and exhausted, your breaks mean more. food tastes better. you sleep sound and sweet.
From the middle of May, I've been here, there and everywhere almost every single day. My mornings have been kids camp at CHEP. My afternoons were in Burari for some time. My evenings are filled with programs. On the 25th, a team of volunteers came from the States and among them are my future Mother-in-law (Sasuma)  and sister-in-law (Nanand)! We've had fun being together, climbing on (and off!) of camels, seeing the Taj Mahal and most importantly, (becca,) shopping.
While they've been here, i've finished most of my wedding purchases! They have enough space in their suitcases to take all my stuff back to the states for me, which is such a wonderful blessing. Things are shaping up for decor, and it's a great feeling to get details behind me with wedding planning.
I've been realizing how wonderful it is to get these types of experiences even in the wedding planning process. Like, every part of it is an adventure. I was looking for some moroccan lighting options, and i found out that there are some shops in Chandni Chowk, which is the oldest part of Delhi - the location of the first flag raised in independence in 1947 and also of countless enormous temples. I don't know the area, and furthermore it's fairly dangerous, so Praise and i needed some Delhi-bred backup. With that in mind, we took four of our CHEP guys and descended into the bowels of old Delhi, and not only are there unbelievable crowds there, there are baby monkeys climbing and tripping on the tangled mess of power lines overhead. Delhi is like that - a strange collision of the urban sector with a jungle that hasn't been allowed to evolve, but rather seems to have had an unbelievable amount of technology and infrastructure dropped in where it doesn't belong. Honestly, I don't know how 17 million people are expected to keep up.
Walking beneath the monkeys and into an uncountable number of lantern shops, I suddenly stopped and realized... I'm not buying my wedding decor on Amazon. I am scouring the markets of India for authentic, exotic, beautiful and cheap wares which can be reused after the big day. Yes, like bridesmaid's dresses.
 Not only that, I went back to Nehru place and the imported fabric market, but this time alone. I knew the ins and outs of the business from the wedding dress fiasco, and i worked the system to get 50 meters, which is 22 pounds, of gorgeous white fabric DIRT cheap. I carried it back across Delhi all alone, extremely proud of my independence and my Hindi, which has really been pretty good lately.

Everyday busyness keeps me going in Delhi, but I've enjoyed the busyness brought by the team as well - The kids' camps and medical camps they are facilitating are tiring but wonderful opportunities to serve, and I love serving alongside them.

I started this blog post as i "supervised" the English camp as taught by the team, and ended it after moving, packing, or consolidating everything i now own with one hours' notice and welcoming a family friend to move into our home!  Life here is full. Full in every way.

Love from Delhi!
Julie, Exhausted :)

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