ST College Girls Hostel--Completed 17 Nov 2016

ST (Scheduled Tribes) College Hostel is located near a junior college in Rajahmundry. The age 18 to 25 girls who live here are from very poor tribal villages deep in the rural parts of India. Most have never been anywhere far from their village. They come, wide-eyed and worried about being in a "big" city--even though Rajahmundry is basically a half-million population village.

480 girls live here. No beds, just a thin sheet on the cold concrete floor; 45 girls per room in a three-story concrete building that has few fans to help move the 


air during the scorching summer months of April-June. 

We decided they need something more than a thin sheet for a mattress. So, we ordered 480 new mattress pads. No room for real beds with so many girls in each room. they were elated!!

Their kitchen, at one end of the dining hall, is basic--large pots to cook rice and vegetables.

And cement blocks to set the pots upon as the staff cooks with scrap firewood.

Rations of vegetables and rice arrive each week.

The dining hall was dreadful. Paint that was worn off. Dirt everywhere. Not conducive to eating a nice meal.

With the help from members from the Rajahmundry Branches, we put on the Helping Hands Vests and set out to Get 'er Done!

Brother Augustus wrestles with his vest!

Everyone came to lend a helping hand.

Branch President Prathi...


District Presidency member President Chinna...

Young Single Adults...

The staff from the Hostel even grabbed a brush and helped.

Girls from the Hostel came from classes and also wanted to help make their dining hall nice...

Raju Neelapu really enjoyed the work...

Towards the end, it looked pretty good! Almost Done!!

We decided to give each girl a personal hygiene kit with such items as shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, feminine products, comb, toothpaste-toothbrush, etc.
Here the items are stacked in our apartment ready for packaging.

Relief Society Sisters came to our apartment and spent a half-day assembling the hygiene kits into "The Indian Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"* bags.

*That is what we are named by the Indian Government since we are not a recognized Church in India, yet.

It was fun.

We had to find enough boxes and big bags to place the kits into for transport to the Hostel!!

Transport of the hygiene kits to the Hostel was a challenge. We ended up loading all 480 kits into two Autos--filled to the brim!

When we arrived, there were plenty of people on hand to help offload the hygiene kits.


It was quite a task!

Brother Ramesh Chinna, brother of President Chinna, was ready, willing and able to help too!

A few days later it was Celebration Time!

We had a small banner made for the occasion...

The Hostel staff recognized our efforts with this permanent sign posted prominently at the entry to their office in the building...
Oh yes, we also provided and installed 20 fans (with the help of Brother Augustus' friends NGO), and a new 1,000-liter water tank at the dining hall so they could store clean water for drinking and for the washing of the girl's dishes after meals.

We all gathered in the freshly-painted dining hall...there was electricity in the air! The girls were so excited to celebrate their new conditions at the Hostel and their new mattress pads and hygiene kits.

Sudhira Neelapu, Branch Relief Society President, helped to give out the hygiene kits...

Nothing but smiles of gratitude!!

It was hard to say good bye.

Another day of "spiritual highs" as we go about doing the Lord's work of  giving and helping. 

Christmas 2016 in Rajahmundry

A few days before Christmas we went with the Third Ward to give blankets and oranges to the homeless on the streets of Rajahmundry.

We prowled the streets from 9:00 p.m. to midnight with people on a dozen motorcycles and in President Penugula's Mahindhra Jeep.

What fun!

Christmas caroling with the Second Ward.

We visited many less-active families, sang and left a short message and a blessing on their home.

We had a Christmas Devotional at our apartment with the Rajahmundry Zone Elders.

Our Christmas Tree.

Our Christmas Star for all the world to see!!


From the 5th floor at night, it is impressive.

We participated with the Elders when President and Sister Mortensen presented a Christmas Devotional after Christmas.

Sister Newton managed to bake Caramel Brownies, Lemon Meringue Pie, and Dinner Rolls!

What a treat!!

The Christmas Eve Activity at the Stake Center.


The youth danced to up-beat music on the stage.

Scary Santa made an appearance to the delight of the children!

The cultural hall was filled; some people went home because there was no more room; but it was fun.

Christmas afternoon after dinner with Raju, Sudhira, Nichol and Jesse.

We were invited to a Christmas party at a Lutheran Church in a village just outside of Rajahmundry after Christmas.

The youth recited scriptures from the Bible in Telugu.

They lit candles and sang.

It is traditional in India to feed a birthday person a small piece of their birthday cake. 

They served us dinner at 11:00 p.m. on banana leaf plates.

Chicken curry, rice, raita and two deep-fried mystery breaded items.

The First, Second and Third Wards hosted a New Year's activity in the cultural hall.


Colored sand decorations outside our door in the corridor of our apartment--done by our neighbors across the hall.

More New Year decorations with sand and chalk outside our apartment on the sidewalk.

November and December 2016 in Rajahmundry

November and December temperatures in Rajahmundry are a tiny bit cooler than other months of the year.

Here you see several people with heavy jackets, sweaters and knit caps. The temperature may dip to 85 F, so it's REAL COLD around here!

Because we don't ever want to run out of Diet Coke...here you see two cases packed nicely into our cupboard next to the frig...a two-week supply.

In case you wonder how we transport all that Diet Coke home to our apartment...here is an example.

Spencer's Market did not have a Coke box, so they packed a Budweiser box with the second 24-cans of Diet Coke.

Hope the Bishop did not drive by while we walked home...

While at a wheelchair distribution at Mandapeta, we noticed a group of women working in a field nearby. The women of India are some of the hardest workers we have ever seen.

We visited the Pushkara Matha Adult Day Care Center in Rajahmundry. 


We helped serve lunch. 

We see people riding on top and hanging on the sides of vehicles all the time. Here is a guy riding on the bumper of a Jeep--well, it's a Mahindhra.



He must be listening to a cricket game...

We decided it was about time to get mosquito screens on a few of our windows so that we could get a cross-breeze in our apartment when the temperatures outside are relatively cool during winter.

President Chinna installs them here.

Here in India, Mozzarella Cheese comes in little tiny cubes. Not graded, but cubed.

Huh.

Our favorite restaurant in Kakinada--Haveli.
They have great butter chicken curry, the best naan bread and Larry really likes their chicken fried rice.

Playing games at Young Single Adult Family Home Evening.

They really like Uno, Spoons, lots of different card games, and sometimes we get out the adult-sized Twister game we had made for the YSAs.

While on a walk one morning, we ran into the Indian "Men in Black".

So cool!

And we found these guys literally "bearing their cross" while on a motorcycle on the streets of Visakhapatnam.

November 2nd was our 37th wedding anniversary...

Anniversary dinner included fried chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh green beans and Darla's lemon meringue pie!

It doesn't get any better!!

We had lunch at Raju's aunt's house one day.


Very nice.

A few of the Elders also stopped by for lunch too.


Here in India, if you want to have a party and don't have room inside your house, you just put up a tent cover in the street and go ahead with the party.

Here are examples of different styled Hindu temples. They are large and small; and they are all over the countryside.

On the walls of another restaurant there were pictures of old American and European cars.

Very nice.

Here is a picture of the designs on an incense burner.

The swastika is a common symbol all over India. It is not canted slightly to the right like the Nazi Party of Germany. It dates back at least 11,000 years and means "that which is self existent and eternal."

We have Sunday Dinner with the Neelapu family almost every Sunday. We buy the food; they cook. And the company is great!

We visited the Chennai church house on the 13th of November. It is really a nice building.

It is located across the street from a VERY large Christian protestant church that has hundreds of people attend every week.

Walking in our neighborhood

We did not have the courage to try this ice cream flavor...Roses 'N Cream.

It looks interesting, though.

Thanksgiving 2016. A traditional American dinner:
chicken and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, frozen mixed vegetables,
oh, and Diet Coke. 

Notice the suitcase on the chair with the packing list and tickets sitting on top. We have made 79 airplane trips around India as of 19 Dec.

 Did we mention that Indians take their cricket very seriously? Well, they do. Here is a photo of a typical cricket stadium in Visakhapatnam. It covered several blocks.

A very big change took place on 8 November 2016 regarding use of 500 and 1,000 Rupee notes: We woke up and found out that none were legal tender as of that day, and we had just withdrawn 35,000 Rupees from our bank account for a LDSC trip that was three days away. It is called demonetization--and it means that 86% of the cash in a nearly ALL CASH country is no longer any good. The result has been very difficult for everyone in India. Here you see Larry standing in line to get the maximum of 2,000 Rupees (a single note worth about $30) per day. We have two U.S. Visa debit cards, so we can get 4,000--but the problem is finding an ATM that has any money. We struggle to get the cash to do our projects. Luckily, we found a grocery store that will take our debit cards and a few restaurants will also take them. We hope more cash and a replacement of the 500 and 1,000 Rs notes will happen soon.

While travelling from Puducherry to the Chennai airport, we stopped at a roadside cafe and got some juice. We noticed this building across the street and its unusual architecture. It looks like a collapsable plastic cup.

Here are some more sights of India.

There are statues of Hindu gods everywhere. The green monkey-head god symbol in this picture is Hanuman--he is the god that is known to make the impossible, possible; and is worshipped for his strength.

Notice the thatched roofs of homes and shops.

Out in the countryside, you will see Hindu temples placed high on mountain tops. 


This is a temple on top of "Rock Mountain" outside of Chennai.


The white concrete object in the foreground is an example of a grave marker. In India, you can bury anybody anywhere you want as long as you own the property. You see these all over. They tell us that the body is not inside the concrete marker, but buried in the ground below it.

While celebrating an R.O. filtration system turn-over at Kisan Nagar Park Village in Nalgonda, near Hyderabad, the Nagram Anjiah family gave Sister Newton a beautiful saree on 14 Dec. They invited us to their home, which was adjacent to the R.O. plant installation.

While visiting our borewell project in Tumkur and Gubbi Taluk, we stopped at a truly Indian restaurant and had dinner.

We ate some special spiced chicken as a "starter"...

Here are examples of workers in the fields of India--herding goats, working in the rice fields. The picture in the lower right shows workers pulling individual rice plants that are then transplanted into another field. The plants yield more if they are thinned.

The faces of India

While travelling by car from Rajahmundry to Visakhapatnam, we stopped for gas. Here are the restroom accommodations:

Bushes for Men.

Room with a "squatty potty" Asian toilet for Women.

Good friends (returned missionary) Prudvi Siddhardha Sampara and Anita Ventrapati--both members of our Young Single Adult Family Home Evening group--invited us to their wedding AND purchased ethnic Indian clothing for us to wear. Sister Newton wore a spectacular green, silver and white saree and Elder Newton wore a traditional white with gold trim dhoti.

We were late arriving at the wedding because our return flight from Chennai to Rajahmundry on 20 Dec 2016 was delayed due to weather three times. Here we are trying to get to our seats inconspicuously--to no avail. Everybody stared at us. We were more popular for pictures than the bride and groom! Embarrassing.

This picture was posted on Facebook by the photographer--Naresh Clicks. It received more than 400 likes. More than any other post of us ever.