This week has been
one of emotional highs and lows. Low, because I'm an
emotionally unstable psycho homesick woman living in New Delhi,
India. High, because the kids' last day of school was
yesterday. Dave and Z left yesterday for a 3 day rafting trip
back to Rishikesh with the young men (YM) from church.
Wednesday was full of school swim parties for A & D, and B had a 3rd
grade talent show. She sang in front of the entire 3rd grade,
teachers and parents included, Hillary Duff's Why Not,
all by herself and did an excellent job. I was so proud of her
- she didn't even look nervous. The kids have been bouncing
off the walls, excited for summer which is bitter sweet here.
Most, no... all of their (and my) friends are gone for the summer,
back to their respective home countries to escape the sweltering
heat, and so we are left to be creative with our time. We'll
spend a lot of time by the pool, and are really looking forward to
China in a little over two weeks. Hmmm... I was just looking
to post a picture of B's performance, but Dave took the cameras with
him. Maybe this weekend...
Oh, and a huge thanks
to those of you who sent boxes for the Koshish School. We are
planning to go the beginning of July, when the school opens again.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Another interesting
note from the school resulting from the riots/strike of Gujjars - a
lower caste wanting to be classified even lower so they can receive
the government benefit equivalents of welfare and affirmative
action:
Parents, Below
is a situational update from Hill&Associates that has also been
confirmed with the Regional Security Office at the US Embassy.
School will be in session tomorrow. However we will not be
sending buses to Gurgaon. We want to strongly encourage parents
in the Gurgaon area to consider keeping their children at home
tomorrow. Any student not in attendance tomorrow will be given
an excused absence. The rest of our buses will be in service and
we will monitor the protests carefully. If for any reason we
anticipate a safety concern in any area of the city we will act
accordingly and keep the children here until they can get home
safely.
We regret that some of our students may miss the last day and
formal farewells planned for them. Any going away gifts will be
kept in the school offices for children unable to attend
tomorrow. Again, we have no reason to believe our students
within Delhi are in any danger. Our concern is with those
children that would be traveling through the areas protesters
are planning to block.
India
Situation Update (28 May 2008, 11:15 hrs IST)
The Gujjar stir
that started on 23 May in Bayana in Bharatpur district in
Rajasthan has intensified and has spread to at least 14
districts of Rajasthan and to parts of New Delhi, Gurgaon,
Faridabad and Noida. The members of the Gujjar community are
demanding Scheduled Tribe status. Similar protests over this
issue were witnessed this very time last year.
The members of Gujjar community have called for a strike in
the National Capital Region on 29 May. The possibility of
traffic disruptions and violence in parts of Delhi -
Mehrauli road, Khanpur, Badarpur and sections of National
Highway-8, including, Jaipur-Delhi and Jaipur-Agra cannot be
ruled out.
Delhi has been put on high alert. Additional security
personnel are likely to be placed at all entry points to
Delhi.
Today (28 May), protest demonstrations and traffic
disruption were reported in parts of Gurgaon, namely
Sikandarpur, Nathupur and Mehrauli Gurgaon road. Blockades
were also held on the Gurgaon-Faridabad road. Similar
disruptions during the day cannot be ruled out.
Inter-state train services have also been affected. Nearly,
10 trains have been cancelled on 28 May and several others
diverted. The train services between Mumbai-Jaipur, Jaipur-Delhi,
Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Madhya Pradesh are most affected.
Clients are advised to remain informed of the developments
as situation remains volatile.
This situation also
caused consternation for Dave's trip with the YM to Rishikesh.
The district president came to our house the evening of the 28th and
they went out hunting for drivers who weren't afraid to drive the
bus on a strike day. My impression was they went through some
20 drivers before they found one, but that could be an
exaggeration... I'll clarify with Dave when he comes home tomorrow
night. I did hear that there were no problems on their way up,
and they arrived in Rishikesh safely. Over three days of
rioting there were 37 deaths, mostly in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
For us at home, had there been no news coverage, and driver
shortage, we would have never known anything was wrong. It was
just another day in Delhi. Oh, and the photo was from news coverage,
NOT included with the email from the principal.
26 May 2008
Miyajima
After
the Hiroshima Peace Museum, we took another train and a ferry to
Miyajima Island.
It is a very beautiful island of rolling green hills/mountains, and
home to the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine, or torri. This gigantic
"vermillion" (I would have said red) gate appears to be
floating during high tide and served as a gate for common people who
wanted to reach the holy island, years ago. We really enjoyed
this part of our day. It was beautiful and relaxing after the
emotional morning in Hiroshima. The island is home to many
wild deer who roam around and beg food from the tourists. We
walked along the path about 1 km to see the Torri which was quite
impressive. When we arrived, the tide hadn't started to come
in yet, so you could actually walk out and touch the gate.
Soon though, the tide began coming in and it was fun to watch how
quickly the torri became surrounded with water. Had we more
time, it would have been nice to see it lit up in the darkness
surrounded by water. On our way back to the boat, we browsed
several gift shops trying to find the samurai swords for the boys.
Luckily, with so many shops in one location, we were able to find
what we were looking for without breaking the bank. We headed
back to Kobe and crashed hard for the night. Sunday was very
relaxing as we went to church with the Tanners, and just hung out in
preparation for our entire day of travel to return home on Monday.
And that... wraps up our trip to Japan.
25 May 2008
Hiroshima
Saturday
(May 17) we headed down to Hiroshima on the bullet train. It
was an absolutely beautiful day. I'm not sure what I was
expecting, but I'll admit, I had a hard time not openly sobbing
throughout the tour. The
Hiroshima
Peace Memorial Museum, is very well done and presents a fairly
balanced approach of events surrounding the dropping of the first
Atomic bomb in Hiroshima. For a quick overview, I recommend
this. We decided to do the audio tour so we didn't need to
read every poster to get all the important information, since we had
more plans in the afternoon. The models of before and after
were very effective in showing the level of destruction caused to
the city itself. One news photographer arrived on the scene
and ended up only taking 5 pictures total because he couldn't bring
himself to photograph the horrific images he was witnessing. A
large portion of the museum was dedicated to personal stories of
survivors, or very personal stories of loss and heartache. It
was very heart-wrenching, and even now I have a hard time writing
about it without choking up. There was a almost life-size
diorama of a mother and 3 children with their skin hanging off their
bones, almost dripping, as they wandered through burning
devastation. This was a stop on the audio tour and I had to
turn around so I didn't have to look at it anymore. It was
horrible. Sadako Sasaki was 2 years old at the time of the
bombing; by the time she was 11 she had developed leukemia, and
given less than a year to live. Her friend came to visit her
in the hospital and told her about folding origami birds. The
ancient Japanese legend says that if you fold 1000 cranes you will
be granted a wish by a crane. She died having finished only
644 cranes. Her friend finished the rest and they were buried
with her. Today, children all over the world fold cranes and
give them to the museum as a pledge of peace throughout the World.
As we finished the tour, we were all emotionally exhausted. We
walked through the Peace Park and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
The cenotaph in the center of the park holds the names of all those
who died as a result of the bomb. We walked towards the river
and over the bridge to the A-Dome, one of the only structures left
standing. It is a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, serving as a reminder of the pain
and suffering inflicted by war, specifically nuclear war. We
were deeply impacted by this visit and highly recommend anyone
visiting Japan make an effort to see Hiroshima. Photos
here.
23 May 2008
Kobe & beyond...
Thursday morning (May
15th) Dave and I were able to attend the Tokyo LDS temple for a much
needed spiritual "bucket filling". We walked the few blocks
from the amazing New Sanno
Hotel, and enjoyed a few hours of peace, tranquility and
rejuvenation. Count your blessings! We then headed back
to the hotel for our next adventure down to Kobe to stay with the
Tanners (OCS '07). We took a taxi to the train station where
we boarded the bullet train. It was the coolest train I've
ever seen - sleek, fast, super clean, vending machines, restrooms.
It was a 2½ hour ride and we had hopes of seeing Mt. Fuji, but as
Murphy's law would have it, it was overcast on both days with
opportunities to see it. We arrived in Kobe in the late
afternoon and were met by Rich Tanner who wound us through the train
station and adjacent mall to get to their apartment - our home for
the next 4 days. We arrived "home" to Erika making Okonomiyaki
(a Kobe original dish, see photo page) which
was delicious. I even tried Sushi and liked it. (It is
important to note, that while on this trip, I learned to use
chopsticks. I'm not very proficient, but I won't starve to
death if I have to use them.) We enjoyed a relaxing night
getting to know them and their adorable little girls, and all the
episodes of Backyardigans.
The next morning,
Rich, Dave and I boarded another train to Himeji to see the famous
Himeji-jo
(Castle). It was spectacular, and the weather was beautiful.
We saw the cutest elementary school field trip group in matching
outfits and ball caps, and climbed a zillion steps for an amazing
view of Himeji and its surroundings. There was a movie being
filmed on location here and we saw several characters in samurai
dress, and were able to snap a few shots before being discovered and
asked to refrain. Shogun, the 1980s mini-series used
Himeji as Osaka Castle. It was ninja training school in
James Bond's You Only Live Twice, and most recently was the
set of The Last Samurai where they used artificial snow.
It is a beautiful place. We wandered through a few shops
afterwards and found a cute little restaurant where I branched out a
little more and ordered something I've never tried before (and can't
remember what it was called), while Dave ordered Ramen...come on!
Ramen?!?! Actually, it was authentic and really good, and we
topped it off with some Japanese soft serve ice cream.
Creamilicious! We hopped back on the train and rested up at
the Tanner's house for the exciting night that Erika had planned for
us.
Will Carr (OCS '07
Kyoto) came to Kobe to meet us for dinner and entertainment.
We ate at an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Toju Kitchen (yikes -
tofu scares me), but everything I tried was mostly good. There
was one dish of some sort of thick white pasta noodles served cold,
that reminded me of tape worms (yeah, I know they are really flat,
but it was a psychological thing) and I couldn't eat them.
After dinner we did something everyone visiting Japan should do...
Karaoke! I admit, I was a little apprehensive, and shied away
from the microphone, but Dave!... Dave blossomed into this singing
sensation. Will started us off with Neil Diamond's Sweet
Caroline, and Dave chimed in with some great base sound effects.
But my favorite, was Dave's rendition of Men at Work's Land Down
Under. (How 'you paying for retirement?)
After the excitement
of Friday night karaoke, we grabbed some pastries (who knew that
Japan is famous for it's pastries?) and hit the sack. Saturday
was a long day of sightseeing... more to follow! Check out
Himeji photos here.
21 May 2008
Coming Home
I blogged about
Hong Kong, and
Tokyo on Dave's blog, so I won't rehash them here, but I will
post photos on the Japan photo pages.
I've broken down this trip into several smaller blog chunks so as
not to overwhelm myself and/or my faithful reader(s) (thanks Mom!)
Today, however I'm not focusing so much on Japan, but our trip home
and the feelings associated with that. Interestingly, Dave and
both had almost identical feelings at almost identical times.
When
we were packing up to head out on Monday morning for our long day of
travel, I was very excited to come home and see the kids again.
While I love my children dearly, I have also learned to appreciate
the rejuvenating effects of time away, especially time alone with
Dave. However, this time, for the first time I can remember, I
was ridiculously excited to see the kids again. They are at
such fantastic ages for this experience, and on several occasions
this trip, Dave and I mentioned to each other how much they would
have enjoyed coming to Japan (we would have had to sell all of them
to pay for their trip though). So, Monday morning we boarded
the bullet train to Tokyo, to pick up the Airport train, to board
the plane to Hong Kong, to board the plane to Delhi. All very
uneventful experiences. However, when we arrived in Hong Kong
and paid $96 for two double scoops at Ben & Jerry's during our short
layover (that's Hong Kong dollars so divide by 8 - yes it's still
expensive), we made our way to our departing gate and had our
emotional event. As we were approaching our gate, we knew
without looking at the gate number that we had found our gate.
We arrived to a sea of color and turbans. We found our seats
and looked at each other with anxious grins. As I tried to
explain to Dave my feelings, he summed up both of our thoughts with
a single phrase. We were both feeling simultaneously "Love and
Loathing". Sounds awful right? Let me try to explain, at
least from my perspective. It was comforting be coming home
and surrounded by familiar people, hearing a fairly familiar
language. It was frustrating to see that this gate was already
littered with garbage on, under, and surrounding the seats.
The whole cleanliness comparison is it's own separate blog.
When they called seats 50-70 to board, people lined up (yes, that in
itself is amazing) but had to be weeded out by a cute little Cathay
Pacific employee who checked the boarding passes of those in line
and removed about half of them for not being in those seats called.
Dave and I remarked that it is like kindergarten training - lesson
1: how to stand in line. When we boarded the plane, we were
seated in the exit row in the front of the very back section of a
2/4/2 seated arrangement, so we were facing one of the flight
attendants for take-off and landing. Next to us, in the "4"
section was a 20-something young man who made himself very
comfortable by removing both his shoes and socks and rested his bare
feet on the wall in front of him. He needed to be reminded to
put his seat belt on twice at take-off and twice at landing.
When we landed and taxied to the gate, (you will recall that you
should wear your seatbelt until the plane stops at the gate), a
large majority of passengers had removed their seatbelts and were
already removing their carry-ons from the overhead bins. This
received an exaggerated head shake from the flight attendant.
As we exited the plane we noted the disaster left behind on the
plane. The bathrooms were disgusting, and their was an
inordinate amount of garbage on, under, surrounding the seats.
I really struggle with the mentality that allows such behavior.
As we cleared immigration and claimed our spot at the baggage
carousel it amazed me again how personal space is non-existent here.
Luggage carts are rolled right up to the carousel to claim one's
spot, even for one small piece of wheeled luggage. As we
proceeded to collect our luggage, standing side by side, people
would push their way between us to grab their bags, or stand so
close to us from behind as to be touching on almost every part of
your body. (creepy uncomfortable) I relinquished my spot
and retreated to a safer location removed from the luggage carousel.
We had planned to take a taxi home because it was 3am, and headed
out to find one. We were approached by two taxi drivers who
wanted to charge us 650 INR to get home (it cost 200 to get there).
We explained to them that "we lived here," they shrugged and
walked away, awaiting their next prey. We found the pre-paid
taxi stand and paid 200 INR to get home. The last half of this
trip, I was reading the book Being Indian and came across
this paragraph, which seems to capture a collective mindset so
apparently prevalent here:
"This complete
self-absorption is truly in evidence in their amazing tolerance
of inequality, filth and human suffering. They are a
pragmatic people, naturally amoral in their outlook. There
is no notion of ultimate sin in Hinduism. Any action is
justified in certain contexts, and gods are routinely bribed.
Corruption had grown endemically because it is not really
considered wrong, so long as it yields the desired result.
If discovered, it provokes great moral outrage, in inverse
proportion to the degree to which it is accepted. The
concept of morality, and of high-minded principle, is dear to
Indians as a theoretical construct, but largely ignored in real
life as impractical." - Pavan
K. Varma, Being Indian
As with everything
else about India, I experience opposing emotions which are
completely accurate despite their contradiction. I love living
in India, I love the Indian people - I can't stand several aspects
of living here, and many traits decidedly Indian in nature frustrate
me beyond all reason. I am aware that most of these
conclusions are based on my own personal lens or paradigm, and I'm
sure my behavior may be equally baffling to my Indian brothers and
sisters. Even our beloved Baldev fits into this equation - we
had received an email from him while we were away, and replied that
we would be taking a taxi due to the lateness of our arrival.
When the taxi pulled up to our house, Surendar, our night guard,
looked concerned and asked where Baldev was. We looked into
our driveway and realized that Baldev had taken the car to pick us
up at the airport. We ran into the house, called his cell
phone and reported that we were already home. He had decided
that he wanted to pick us up anyway, and had called Dave's cell
phone to tell us so, but since it was off, and we didn't even think
to check it when we arrived, we obviously didn't get the message.
Luckily, in Baldev fashion, it only took him about 30 seconds to
make the normally 20 minute ride home (ok, slight exaggeration).
We arrived home to
streamers, cards and signs that the kids had made to welcome us
home. I wanted to wake them all up, but opted to just kiss
them and wait until they woke up 3 hours later. They all woke
up happy to see me and gave me hugs and kisses, except Z, who whined
about wanting more sleep, said "I'm glad you're home...now I don't
have to be responsible anymore" and then said... "oh yeah, welcome
home... I missed you." (yep... he's a teenager!)
We waited until they were home from school before bestowing their
gifts upon them, giving them more anticipation throughout the day.
Dave made
Devender and Prabhakar Samurais in our kitchen, taught them
to bow Japanese style and to say "Hie" (yes, in Japanese).
It was hysterical, and had Manjula and Keeran in stitches.
The girls
received silk kimonos and these adorable wooden dolls.
Much to their surprise and
delight the boys received Samurai swords with a dragon
etched on the blade, t-shirts and headbands!
20 May 2008
It's Good to Be Home!
Dave and I arrived home to Delhi this
morning at 3am, and got a few hours of sleep before waking the kids
for school. We are worn out but so happy to be home.
Japan was amazing! I promise all the gory details in bits and
pieces over the next few days. If you didn't already check it
out, I did do a few blogs on Dave's blog (see right), but have a lot
to catch up on here. Until I can get to it though, here is one
picture from Japan that we loved... This is Himeji Castle, recently
made more famous thanks to The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise
from a few years ago.
9 May 2008
Leaving on a Jet Plane...
Well,
it's been a week of non blog-worthy busy-ness. Dave finished
his last final today, and we are packing and heading out tonight for
our 10 day trip to Japan, with a stop off in Hong Kong. Oh My
Gosh! Someone pinch me! Never in a million years, would
I ever have imagined that I would be going to Japan!
It's totally insane! I don't know what is more exciting...
that I'm going to Japan... or that there is a Burger King on Yakota
AFB where we are staying the first few days. All will be quiet
on the blog front until we get back, but we'll still have email
access. I've never heard of "Tokyo belly" so we should be good
on the health front, not to mention we're both getting medical check
ups there. Stay tuned... It's possible that I might use
Dave's blog while we're gone, but don't hold your breath!
4 May 2008
Who is that Old Lady in
the Mirror?
I
am officially old! (yes, old is a relative term, but now I
really feel it) Yesterday was my 35th birthday, and for some reason,
the psychology of 35, for me a least, is old. I'm no longer in
my early thirties. In 2 days I'll have a teenager. And
Friday night I found a grey hair. I pulled it out and stared
at it for awhile in horror. Then, as if appearing my magic, I
found more than a dozen... and I stopped looking. Now when I
think of coloring in my hair, it becomes more a task of covering
grey than getting highlights. When did this happen? I
didn't have a problem celebrating my 15th wedding anniversary, but
this birthday, for some reason, is slightly traumatic to my psyche.
On a lighter note, I
had a fabulous day! I woke up to breakfast in bed...Dave's
specialty, French Toast! The kids each made a card for me, and Z & A
had walked down to the flower stand to buy me a fresh bouquet.
It was so great. That afternoon, we went to the mall and saw
the Iron Man movie. This
Select City
Walk Mall is a mall in every sense of the word. Aside from
the turbans and saris, you would think you were at Woodfield Mall in
Schaumburg, or South Towne Mall in Sandy. Then we went to
dinner at Smoke House Grill, easily my favorite restaurant, that I
can never remember. I ate steak, and had crème
brulee. On our way home from the movie, we passed a burning
car. It looked like a little Honda, but it was hard to tell as
it was completely engulfed in flames. Of course, no one in our
car had a camera, so we all stared slack jaw at it, and the entire
situation. It was in the far left lane of a "three lane" road.
It still had random explosions coming from it, but there were two
police officers directing traffic to pass in the far right lane.
And while I'm glad we didn't have to sit there for hours until it
burned itself out, or the fire department got there, it was very
unnerving to drive that close to it, feel the intense heat, and
realize that the potential for more explosions of death and carnage
were significant. There were masses of people rubber-necking
to see the wreck, getting out of their cars, and standing way to
close to the scene for comfort. If there was a more
suitable place to study the behavior of the masses than India, I
would be really surprised.
A hearty thanks to
all those who sent well wishes and thoughts on my birthday. It
is so nice to be remembered, and your love and friendship means so
much to me.
1 May 2008
Random Ruminations
Happy May Day!
We celebrated May Day with 108° temperatures. You can
definitely say things are heating up quickly. The low today
was forecast to be 89°. This has been a very busy week, with
nothing too exciting to report. Dave has taken 2 of five
finals, and barely emerges from his books to eat. Z returned
in the wee small hours of this morning from his trip to Hungary for
Odyssey of the Mind. He really had a great time. A, B &
D decorated the living room with streamers and posters welcoming him
home. We are developing his pictures today so hopefully we'll
be able to report further on that trip soon. I donated blood
for the first time in India. I always feel great when I donate
blood, but being in India made me a little wary.
I am having a love
affair with beets. I LOVE BEETS! I have got to learn how
to prepare them before we head back to the land of frozen veggies
from a bag. The list of recipes I need to get from Manjula is
getting so long as to be overwhelming, but not so overwhelming as
the regret will be if I leave India without them. Maybe I
should get started on that.
The kids have 4 weeks
left of school, and Dave will be finished by next Friday. It's
difficult to believe that we're almost at the halfway point of our
Olmsted Adventure. The first scholar to Delhi and his wife are
packing up their house this weekend and will be leaving within a
week or two. Just thinking about that instills a mild sense of
panic that "it's almost over", "we haven't seen/done enough" --
which is pretty crazy considering he still have 14 months left here.
Time is really passing quickly.
I am having a love
affair with beets. I LOVE BEETS! I have got to learn how
to prepare them before we head back to the land of frozen veggies
from a bag. The list of recipes I need to get from Manjula is
getting so long as to be overwhelming, but not so overwhelming as
the regret will be if I leave India without them. Maybe I
should get started on that.