Jamalabad

we started on a bad note aaron was sick with intense cramps, and i had just taken to imodeum for diarrhea, the rest of the time in the village was spent hovering somewhere between needing to go home from illness and just getting by. aaron had giardia. i had altitude sickness. the first three days were incredibly hard, it was cold we knew only two people, and we were both sick. we were at 9,200 feet, i had just gotten used to being at around 5,000 feet in gilgit. one thing that was good was there are two english speakers there, they are punjabi christians working at the school we were going to teach at. the only frustrating thing about them is that no does not mean no, i know this is a purely cultural thing that in the east they are trying to be hospitable to their guest, but im from the west and no means no, here no means yes. would you like some more chai? no thank you, and then you get a new full cup of chai, so being sick was partly a blessing. i never liked school so the thought of me as a teacher is the definition of irony. but teaching was fun, the interesting thing was school was not even supposed to be in session, so we had about thirty students that they roped into coming to learn, it was a grade range from kindergarden to tenth grade. they love songs and would sing them any chance they got, so getting the room to settle down was a real task. but i figured out how, just sing loudly a line from radiohead’s wolf at the door and the shut up it was awesome. unfortunately the trip was not all chai and radiohead, aaron was not doing good, by the third day he had gone into a depression that soon turned into despair. we would pray and worship, and at times he seemed better but he took the rest of the trip hour by hour and moment by moment. i had my moments as well but whenever i would begin to feel down or have a bad attitude i would start to worship and Jesus would show up and things started to look up. i don’t know why this didn’t happen with aaron, or why i didn’t stay in the dumps, i wish i new but i don’t. it was a harsh area, no believers, no green, and no school. we had plenty of down time enough for me to start and finish the fellowship of the ring. one thing that was a blast for me was i got to farm, it was cool. but we need to leave, our time was up and aaron was deteriorating so we looked into the bus south.