The Lord Provides a Sari

(Beginning of April)


On Friday we made a home visit.

3 days before, on Tuesday,
Corinna went up to Postnatal to check up on a mom that she delivered, and after she checked up on the baby and prayed for the family, another husband motioned for her to come over.

So she sat and chatted with another couple who had delivered the day before, and they really wanted her to come to visit!
It’s very normal for the families to want us to come over, it’s really cool and a great way to follow up, not to mention experiencing the average Indian home.

So on Friday we went.
The baby was 5 days old, and we got picked up and welcomed into their one-room home.

The family business is Washing clothes.

Two brothers married two sisters (arranged marriage) and each couple has one room for their home.


Their shop is on the ground floor, then you go up some stairs to have two rooms and a bathroom, (where the two couples live) and then go up some more stairs to the roof and you have the washing basins and saris and whites laying in the hot sun to dry.

There must be some other rooms next door because there are kids of varying ages peeking out from every corner, and of course having two white foreigners gathers a crowd... let’s just say that you can fit quite a few people in one room and one doorway.

So we met the
grandmother,
(<---)
and the aunt who has 9 children and is only 45, and the uncles and the cousins and the other brothers of marriageable age... oh boy.

We sat on woven mats on the floor that also doubled as the space where they sleep at night. After eating some fried doughballs and chutney, we examined the baby and answered any questions the new parents had,
then had a chai interlude,
coupled with blatant staring by the two younger brothers who have yet to get a wife.
The baby was very cute, they slathered her hair in vegetable oil, they said it was for “peacefulness” or “calmness”.
But Indians are pretty keen on oiling their hair in general... usually with coconut oil, so why not start at 4 days old?


All in all we had a lovely time,
the varying family members thought it was just the coolest thing that two “nurses” from the hospital would come to their home to check up on the baby, and welcomed us once over and over again.
We told them earlier that we were going to an Indian Wedding later that afternoon,
and during a different conversation we were talking about how we loved the Indian clothes here and saris look so beautiful on the women.


Just before we got up to go,
there was a little pause in the room,
and then they opened up their one cabinet of possessions,
mostly folded clothes, and offered us to take a sari.

What!?

They insisted,
and started laying packages of unopened,
unused sari material at our feet and chose ones they thought were “suitable”.
They’d bobble their head, they even got the gramma in on the choosing,
and when they finally decided which ones were good, they’d smile and say,
“suitable.”
The boy who kept the unbroken stare chose mine for me.
It is blue and beige leopard print with orange flowers.
I like it.

“Suitable.”

So we left their house with new saris in hand,
which is amazing,
because I was really wishing I had a sari to wear to the wedding that day.
I had one sari that I got while my parents were here, but I sent it back with them when they left,
and pretty much immediately regretted that decision, because it's so much fun to wear!
Saris are just so much more elegant, especially for more formal occasions.

So I really didn’t know what I would wear to the wedding,
I’d scrounge something together, I’m sure,
but here I am, with a blue leopard print sari in my hand,
given to us hours before we go to the wedding.


So we get home, get ready,
dab the water from our faces in the heat of the day in our concrete room,
and ask the lovely cooks downstairs for their help.
They lent me a sari top (as mine needed to be made at the tailor’s) and a petticoat, and they tied and folded and wrapped us up all nice,

“You are looking like Indian.” they say.It was great.
Corinna had already organized to borrow a sari from the receptionist downstairs,
so she came up all ready to go in her green beaded masterpiece,
and off we went with the rest of the team to the wedding.

By the way,
let me just say that we didn’t know these people getting married.

The day before, we got a call from a Christian doctor-friend who runs an HIV/AIDS clinic, we’ve helped out there a few times before.
Anyway, two of the staff there were getting married.
So she called us up the night before,
invited us to come,
and asked us to lead worship at the reception.
“The wedding starts at 3.”

Alrighty.
So we had an impromptu song-singing session the morning of,
figured out some songs we could sing
for our guest appearance
at the Indian Wedding
of two people we don’t know
and have no connection to.
But I’m sure they’re lovely.

We’re Christians, they’re Christians,
it’s all good.

On our way to the Wedding...

Here is Corinna and I smiling.

Here is Corinna and I smiling like Indians. (No smile.)
This is the common expression when a
camera is put in their face.
Even in Wedding Photos, everyone just stands up tall, side by side, and looks straight ahead.

Here is us singing. We sang two songs. It went well!

fixing the sari pleats...

Half way through the reception, the photographer’s camera battery died.
They saw that I had an SLR camera, and while I was sitting in the audience, one of the guys leans over my shoulder and says,
“Hey Fia, the camera battery died.
They want to know if you can take the wedding photos for the rest of the reception.”
So for the remainder of the night,
I was right up there with the videocamera man, snapping angles and closeups and other wedding moments,
in my new blue leopard sari,
(that was just given that day),
with the nice camera
(that’s not even mine),
it was amazingly lent to me for my time overseas.

The beauty of giving!
Blessed to bless others!



At the end of the night,
we ate fruit salad and gingerbreadcake and got jasmine flowers in our hair.
Then we walked home by the light of street shops and traffic
with the hot gentle breeze
still blowing like an oven.


A day with a full dose of Indian culture!