Brita and I came out after supper to run up to Swirl & get some fro-yo for the family dinner, and were surprised to find some guerrilla sidewalk chalk art in honor of Freja's birthday! Fun! We have so

Rebecca & Andy, Merav, Zeev, and Joe

Since I'd studied Sanskrit for a year in college, I thought I might take a crack at learning to read Hindi. The writing system developed for Sanskrit is still in widespread use in India, so at least learning to read signs and menus seemed within reach. I began deciphering any devanagari I could find with English transliteration printed beside it, and I started to remember some of that I'd learned almost 20 years ago at Reed.

On our first day walking along the ghats in Varanasi, we met 10-year-olds Vandana and Anjalie, two of the many children peddling souvenirs to tourists.

Vandana, on the left, and "Pinkie" (Anjalie) beside her

When the restaurant owner saw that mom walked with a cane, she stopped giving us directions to walk to the train and asked her husband to give her a ride. He cleared drying fish off his Vespa and removed the rear rack to make space for her, and off the went!

Dilshath (5) and Hitaff Mohamad (almost 2) provide us with never-ending entertainment when we're home at Sabri and Shihama's place! Since the kids don't nap, and often stay up almost as late as we do,

The becak ("bay-chak") is Aceh's answer for small scale transportation (up to about 5 passengers can crowd onto one) and local freight (almost all transport to market seems to go by becak). It's a 3 wheel sidecar rig, sometimes with a seat for passengers and sometimes a flatbed for cargo. Some are bicycle based, but most are built on a scooter or small motorcycle.

Islamic Relief inaugurated three new health clinics Tuesday. They're built on a new model, combining part-time clinic functions and full-time preschool into one facility. Lots of kids came to the openings and had a great time on the new play structures.

Armia met us one day at the ferry terminal on Sabang, and adopted us. We and he both had to wait about 8 hours for the next boat, so he took us home, to his kids' school, to lunch, on a tour of Sabang and environs, back to school, back home, and back to the ferry.