day four

sleep does unbelievable things! today was so much better just because i slept through the night for the first time, only woke up once. the bus this morning wasnt as crowded and the bus driver burned incense which was a huge blessing because it covered the smell. preschool in the morning was good, only three of us went because everyone else had to go get checked for a parasite. Please pray protection over my body from parasites and disease! at the clinic today children kept bringing their cups but we had no milk to give out, it broke my heart. I took some pictures of the children and will try to upload them later, many of them have no teeth because they have rotted out already. but they are so happy and love getting their picture taken and seeing what they look like. During lunch we could hear the muslim call to worship from the mosque next to the flat where we are stationed, islam and hinduism are practiced everywhere in India. Then we had women's english class and the women's nutrition class. we talked to them about washing hands, which is something that they do not practice in india. they do not have toilet paper here so the left hand is considered unclean because it is the toilet hand. but spread of disease in inevitable and most diseases are spread fecal to oral from the children because they touch everything and everyone and no one washes their hands. sorry for the overload on information but since ive learned all this today i have a fear of disease here. Please pray protection over our team! After nutrition class we did home visits, i had never gone that deep into the slums until then. we weaved through mounds of shacks until we could find the people we knew. the first one we went to, i walked in and the heat and smell almost knocked me out. my eyes and throat burned, i do not understand how anyone could live in these conditions. then i looked around the 5 yard x 5 yard shack and was told that ELEVEN people lived here, no bed, no toilet. i dont see how there was even enough room on the floor for eleven people to lay. we did a few more home visits, we asked the women if we could pray for them and just visited for awhile. some of the women we are close to are married to their uncles, that they were married to at anywhere from 1 month old to 8 years old. Prostitution occurs regularly in marriages here, if someone cant pay their bills then someone will pay them for them in trade for the right to sleep with the other man's wife. one woman is currently a CSW (commercial sex worker) and some, we dont know their stories at all. so much more to say but ill finish posting another day, thank you for all the prayers and love!