Red-Letter Day

Today's shenanigans represented a small victory for me. D woke up this morning with a raging sore throat and informed me that it had been going on for "at least a week." Thank you, D, for not telling me sooner--while you prepared food for the kids...We're working on the whole germs-can-be-spread-from-one-person-to-another thing.

Anyway, I knew that I was going to be the one to take her to see a doctor and I was a little nervous. But I sensed from the get-go that the Lord was going to show me how He is always enough for me and whatever fills my day. So, I went downstairs to ask my landlady for a good doctor referral. And after not speaking Hindi for 5 weeks, I spoke without a hitch and understood her perfectly! Ok, almost.

Then I went back upstairs, collected D and my wits, and we walked for thirty minutes down the main road in our town to a nearby village where the doctor's office is. I managed to find the place (and this was the real miracle, as those of you who know me well understand) in the pouring rain, and then I used understandable Hindi to figure out where exactly the doctor's office was located. I had to ask because it was above a pharmacy on a narrow, densely-packed side street.

Then I signed D in (by the seat of my pants because the 'receptionist' guy spoke the fastest, mushiest Hindi I've heard in awhile), paid two dollars, and we saw the doctor. D wanted me to speak for her because I'm not sure she's ever been to the doctor before in her life. So I spoke more Hindi, answered questions, got a diagnosis and a prescription, and we left.

I stopped by a little shop to buy some sour cream and onion chips so that I could get change for the bicycle rickshaw we planned to take back home. No more 30-minute walk uphill in the rain for these girls. We hailed a rickshaw, got back to our apartment, and when I stopped to pay the driver he did not try to cheat me because I'm white.

It was a red-letter day.