India Update

An update from Brad (7-30):
It has been another good week here in Bangalore and looking at the calender our time is winding down quite rapidly. Next week is our last week at school, then we are off on another weekend trip. We will get back on Tuesday and then have Wednesday and Thursday and we leave late that night. Fast forward about 35 hours and we should be getting into Seatac Friday night. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Wednesday evening we went to a wedding, or rather we went to day 1 part 2 of a wedding. The girls got all prettied up in their authentic Indian dress (saris) and the boys... well pants and a collared shirt is pretty universal, though props to Howard for tucking his shirt in! The part that we went to was very elaborate, all sorts of lights, a band, camera crew - we are talking the works. The bride's parents own a jewelry shop which I think explains where the funding came from, but either way I was not complaining. The part of the wedding we saw basically consisted of the bride and groom standing in front of everyone while people paraded themselves and their gifts up to them and wished them what I assume was good wishes and nice sentiments like that. Once Prem and Rita had gone through the line we were directed upstairs where there was almost a carnival-like set up of booths for snacks. We tried a few things and admired the elaborate fruit carvings that had been made and then were directed into the dining hall where we were served dinner. Dinner was as delicious as it was authentic, we were served on a large, green leaf, no silverware; it was great. The power outage in the middle of dinner was grand too as this building didn't have the dining hall on battery backup so cellphones and cameras came out and the eating continued. Luckily it didn't last more than a minute or two. After that Nick and I hit up the fruit line for some delicious fruits to top off our meal, and then we were all out the door, it was quite the experience!
Saturday we went to Commercial Street, which is a lot like it sounds - just a ton of shops. It was fun, we did some shopping and had the usual bombardment of people selling us maps and drums and wood snakes and all sorts of things but I think we have apretty good sense of humor about it and it is usually pretty fun. After Commercial Street we went to see the Dell building, which I thought was pretty exciting. If anyone was on the phone with Dell Support around 4:30am PST time yesterday we were standing right outside the building! From there we went to the General Electric campus where Rita's nephew, Richur, gave us a tour. It was very modern and westernized (complete with small water feature and mini-amphitheatre), it looks a lot like Microsoft's campus or something, it is hard to believe within a short walk there are people who still sell fruit on the side of the road for their living.
Other than that we are going back to the school tonight where we will stay for the rest of the week as per usual and then Friday we have what should be an exciting train adventure to Goa. We will be at Goa until Tuesday and then leave late Thursday for America. I don't know if I will be able to find the Internet in Goa or what our schedule will be like once we return but I will do my best to get one more update out before we head out. Either way, thanks for all the prayer and concern throughout this whole journey it has meant a lot to us all.
Brad / Team India (+ Nick)

Let’s pray for India as they round of their trip also. They will be arriving home the evening of next Friday, the 11th.