What it Smells Like Here

I bet you are wondering two things:
1. What does it really smell like here? and
2. How am I going to blog about that?

I'll start with an answer to the latter.

Ahem. I have no idea.

But here I am on my self-imposed journey conveying of this place and life here via the five senses. Joyfully on the journey. It is a rather freeing thing writing because I like to and not because I have to. I'm up for the challenge. If I succeed, we may never have another visitor here again. And even if I fail, I don't think that changes most of your plans.

So imagine the smell of nothing, like just ordinary odorless wind and the laundry-detergent you are so used to you can't really detect it.It's probably what you are smelling now.  Got it? Ok, now add to that smell-less-ness this:

 and a little of this...but closer to your nose.

See, I had pictures. But now, because I frankly do not want to go around my house snapping pictures of household things and then out in the streets again (I just exchanged my kurta and jeans for t-shirt and shorts...I'm staying in!), you'll have to imagine without visuals.

Ok, so we have the garbage...rotting in piles, eaten by cows. Add jasmine flowers women wear in their hair, glycerin soap, all the spices (cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, mustard seed). Plus the almost-fermented smell of dal and rice, the sweet smell of chai, the heavy lingering cooking oil. Mix with dust, diesel fumes and every so often cigarettes. Then, particular to my nose: crayons, baby shampoo, tide and coffee. One friend's house smells like her fabric softener, another's like wood from the table her husband built, another's always of floor cleaner and metal pots on the stove.

It's truly an assault on the senses. And they say your sense of smell is the strongest link to memory. I can look ahead to one day if and when we leave here....I'll have so many smells to remind me of this season's home. 

What it Looks Like

Forgive me, dear reader. I have not posted in some time. I went to Bali for a week. The kids got sick and sick again. Brian got worms. You know...life. Anyways, before we begin, here's Bali:

Take a moment....

Forgive me, again dear reader. I am not a photographer, neither artsy or skilled in this area. But to forge the way in my feeble series of the five senses, I must show you what it looks like here. Caveats: 1) the above disclaimer, 2) this is only my city, the everyday life and 3) most pictures shot on an iPhone...nothing like the advertisements.

I see cows and parrots. I see dirt and potholes and piles of trash. I see the most beautiful flowers and fruit. I see people...all the time.

 The streets are not the best...

But you can get away with just about anything on them.

I find the oddest things (these guys were next to where I bought my coffee pot).

Some genius made a coffee table book of people carrying strange things on motorcycles. I could have added a couple of volumes, but I forget to take pictures....or I'm driving carefully around the loaded bikes.

 But most of what I see looks like this. It's a pretty good view. 

What I see, more than these pictures can convey is the beauty of God's creation tainted with our destructive-rebelling against Him. I see color and dirt. I see creativity and joy, despair and filth.

If we could pray for eyes to see what God sees, not just the beauty in the brokenness...but the redemption to come, His kingdom breaking through, what a glorious sight that would be. Better than any billboard or Bali vacation. Oh, grace my eyes!