From Alison Hansen

Hello friends and family,

Well, we are scheduled to teach in one more small city near Nellore tonight and will be leaving tomorrow for Kadapa which is north of Nellore. I will miss our nice living arrangements. Apparently this is one of the nicest hotels we will stay in. The other ones did not change our sheets and keep the rooms clean. At least this one does every morning. We had one little gecko friend visit us. They like to hang on the walls, but he never bothered us. We are getting some bug bites though. Not sure when or where. But Laura and I have experienced some red bumps on our legs and arms. Either spiders or mosquitos I suppose. It really isn't bad though. We have air conditioning and just make sure we wear sandals as much as possible. The custom is to take off your shoes before entering a building, but I kinda don't do it much except for church. I forgot one time and Moses kindly reminded me to take them off...oops!!

The church we went to last night was very nice. It looked relatively new so we were wondering if it was built with some money from the CLC in the US. The kids were a little more rowdy than were the ones the night previously. We tried to keep the little boys in control as much as possible.

I learned a lot of Telegu yesterday at Moses' house. There were two girls there who I had met previously--Sunneetha and Sreventi or something like that. They taught me many words and phrases. 'Neara challa poravu'' means "I am tall." So I have been using that a lot when I want the kids to laugh when I stand up. "Wanda nalu" is Christian greetings. I am writing them phonetically not with correct spelling. I learned and wrote down many more words so I will try to teach you when I return. I so want to take those girls back with me to America. They want to go to. I would love to show them how life does not have to be so dirty and hot. I want to show them snow and other things we have in America. I will pray that maybe someday they can come.

Today the Daves went to teach their pastoral classes this morning and Laura and I stayed behind to do our own thing. We did some lessons for Sanjay as we are teaching him Spanish. We also did a little browsing at the local shopping mall. I found a saree that I love.

It is 995 rupees which is about $25 but it is amazing. I will pray about it. I thought I would wait until I got to Chennai so I wouldn't have to lug it around, but I really do love this one. We went out for breakfast this morning and had TOAST WITH JAM AND CORN FLAKES WITH MILK!! Crazy, i know. I felt so spoiled. I think I may have gained some weight back :) Hope all is well back in the States.

In Christian love,
Alison