8/18/08 St. Stephens- Madelin room 10:30pm

Two Days ago it was India's Independence day. one thing we have in common with Indians is that we both celebrate our Independence from the British, which made it a little comical to celebrate it with Andy from London. Unlike us Americans, they actually remember the oppressors, and they actually celebrate their Independence, not just the ability to shoot fir works off and blow things up with piccolo pete's. I like their tradition more than ours: instead of fireworks they fly kites. As we boarded the metro I looked out and saw what at first looked like Hitchcock's "the birds". Thousands of birds. tens of thousands. I thought they were birds.

On their Independence day, every boy and girl, children and adults fill the rooftops flying kites. And not our sissy way of doing it....they had those kites so high that it looked dangerous to fly over Delhi in a plane. Kites higher than I thought possible. I swear every citizen in Delhi was doing it (I wonder if the youth groups here have kite stands)

To celebrate Independence day we went out to a park with kids from a slum. We played games and sang Hindi children worship songs with hand motions, told stories, flew kites, handed out snakes and soft drinks and just hung out. it was really fun. Afterwards we took rickshaws back to the Coffin's apartment and ate pork (imported from Shillong, they don't eat pork here), watched the Olympics and watched Bruce almighty. the reason we watched Bruce almighty was because of our guest speaker from Shillong (who brought the pork) kept refering to it and quoting and said (jokingly) that if you are a christian and haven't seen bruce almighty, then your life will only be half fulfilled and you risk the very fires of hell.

The man's name is Godfry Fernandez (not spanish, just a coincidence I guess) and he is a very relational,very outgoing, very funny vineyard pastor. He reminds me of a mix between Aaron, Mr. Bean and Inspector Clusso. After talking to him for a while I found out that he is very involved with vineyard and is good friends with Andy Park, Scott Underwood and the guy who wrote "Dwell" and is organizing a concert for Delirious? in Shillong. He came here for a week to teach us "how to build healthy a healthy relationship". Something he said on the first day was that "space is healthy and necessary for a lasting relationship to grow healthy and strong" that "space can be just as important as love, passion and all the things it takes for a relationship to last". I thought to myself, "Wow, I really hope so. I don't think I could put any more space than me and April without talking to NASA"

Right now I'm sitting on my new bed. In the corner of the room there was one cot with 7 matts on it where we putt the guitars and bags. I decided to transfer all that crap to my bed and put sheets on the "super cot". Everyone here is pretty used to sleeping on hard surfaces so they didn't mind me taking it. I guess I'm OK and used to sleeping on hard things and the ground(from my late nights crashing at the Hooves) but I thought it wouldn't hurt to be a little more comfortable.

I'm listening to Alisha play and sing. He is like an Indian juke box. Every song he sings reminds me of someone. JUST today he played Zombie by the cranberrys (reminded me of Jordan) then the ballad of john and yoko (guess who I thought of), the californication (Caleb), That Thing You Do (My dad), Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin (My mom), Mr tambourine man (Alex) and then "Roxane" (April again [in her banquet dress...heh]). It's kinda funny cause he sings everything in his head voice and in his Naga accent and he gets all the words wrong.
"It's been a hard days flight, and I've been working like a log" and "sleeping like a frog" "pretty shy for a white guy" and that kind of thing.