monkeys

Today when I was walking to lunch with some friends at work, we passed this man who was carting around these two little monkeys. We stopped to take a picture with them- you can see that I was pretty nervous at first! They were sooo cute. I made sure to wash my hands thoroughly afterwards before eating- I'm sure he had about 85 billion colonies of germs from roaming around the streets. We gave him about 1$ and the monkey shook his head because he wanted more- it was hilarious.

I am not feeling well at all these days- I think it is a combination of the jet lag, the climate change, the stress of being in an unfamiliar place and most especially the pollution. I try to stay inside as much as I can because the air is making me sicker and sicker. I'd definitely appreciate prayers for my health- currently I have a sore throat, sinus headache, am ache-y all over and just feel terrible in general. That being said, the people in the office are so accommodating of me and understand if I need to rest. Today I left at about 2 pm to go home and sleep. I decided to stop by the grocery store on the way home because I really need some breakfast and snack food to eat. Oh my.

So.. where to start? The import section is.. very small and it was an entertaining shopping trip. There are guards EVERYWHERE inside the grocery stores, and when you check out, they tie your bags closed and mark your receipts to prevent shoplifting. They had three kinds of Lay's chips: American sour cream and onion, Indian masala, and some Mexican kind- that's it! If you know me well you know that I LOVE juice, and the juice here is good, but I don't recognize any brands so it is really hit or miss. The fruit I am too scared to eat, and I am really unsure of everything else.

Snack aisle.

I came across RAMEN NOODLES and was about to jump for joy until I realized that the only kind they had were spicy Indian Masala ones. wahhhhh!

On my quest for some snack food, I came across this treat: Aloo Papad anyone?!!?

I was going to buy some rice, but I realized that there were a lot of different kinds in bins, and I was a little confused about what the difference was between Tulsi Bhog and Chana Dal. This is going to take a lot of getting used to! I was able to walk away with some bread, some raspberry jelly, some cereal and some juice. PTL!

I really think work is going to be so awesome once I get into the swing of things and feel better. I am waiting to get some large projects and already have the beginning stages of one. The work that they do is so incredible and it is exciting to be on the front lines and know from the source what all is going on. It's really cool that there are 30 minutes of 'stillness' at the office each morning, followed by corporate prayer and worship. It's a great chance for me to be much more disciplined in my prayer life and I am excited about the devotional journal I am going through that was a gift from Mrs. Bowles :)

Life here is really overwhelming, but I know that God has me in a place where He wants me. Most importantly, I am really being stripped of most of my comforts and am slowly realizing that joy comes from a relationship with the Lord, not from earthly things, and I believe that this year I will learn that in a way I haven't been able to before.

More updates soon! Love you all so much!