Working backwards - Kerala

I haven't written in a while and busy isn't an excuse, because I'm not that busy, really. But I have been to a lot of cool places and I would be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy it. But the truth is, the places are only as good as the company I was with and the people I met. And I meet great people everywhere. But as a short cut, here are some links to place I went and what I thought of them.

Working backwards, I went to Kerala last weekend. The people of Kerala are genetically programmed to say "God's Own Country" as soon as you get settled. This was confirmed by a local friend of mine. The highlight was a backwater house boat cruise. The most peaceful experience I have ever, ever, ever had. The perfect blend of quiet peacefulness and movement - as you move through the water on a quiet motor boat, with fishermen and other houseboats going by, drinking some wine and just sitting quietly. Oh. We stopped at a small village and walked around. Next stop was to a fisherman's cabin to pick up some fresh prawns and finally, just before dark, a stop at a "toddy" shop for some Keralan coconut feremeted stuff. Slightly alcholic. Then the boat parks on a berm that separates the waters from the rice paddy's. Dinner and some cards and pitch dark night. The next morning is coffee and eggs and motor back to the dock.

The day before I had a scalp massage called a "champi" which is the root of the word shampoo. A very nice head loosener.

On Sunday we toured (shopped) in an old city called Kochi (Cochin). We bought fish from the fishermen on the water front, then took them to a small shop to be cooked. If you ask for 'natural' you don't get all the butter and seasoning, which is worth it because these were great all by them selves. There are some funny liquor laws, I didn't ask the details, but the waiter asked if I wanted a beer. Of course, was the answer, so he brought the special tea. Never drank beer from a tea pot before. We went to a spice shop and and a old synagogue, and a cool antique store.

Life in general and Jake's Birthday weekend

Well, you can figure that if you haven’t heard from me, it either because things are soo bad that all I’ll do is complain – and that’s not very interesting, unless I was Jerry Seinfeld, who can complain about anything! Or very busy and fun and I don’t have time to write. I hope you’ll be happy to know that it was the latter – fun and interesting times.

Now I worry that when I write about how much I like it here, people will think that Bangalore is a second paradise and what is so hard about moving half way around the world to a third world, excuse me, emerging nation? Bangalore and India aren’t for everyone. If I had a different length of stay or a different job or a lot of different things, then this wouldn’t have worked out. But most of all, this was a challenge that I needed right now. Not too hard, not too easy, just right. But every time I get confident – watch out – so if you don’t hear from me for a while – think the worst!

But now for the stories.

This weekend was Jake’s 13th birthday. And everything fell into place! Dosa’s for breakfast, cool shirts for presents, a really really cool birthday cake – a rugby ball with the number 13 – and the whole rugby team to sing happy birthday. Dinner with friends at a ‘frontier’ restaurant. Deluxe hotel brunch – dosa again, but with strawberry waffles on the side. Paintball games with friends. Pizza. Civ IV game gift. Another cool India shirt. A girlfriend called from Singapore (Shannon, the stalker). I think he was happy.
Thanks to everyone who sent e-cards – Nancy, Karen, Grandma, Dad, and the friends here – Erica and her family, Lee Johnstone’s mom and dad – Dave and Cathy – and his 15 year old brother Drew, who just flew in from South Africa that morning. Carol Tait for the birthday cake from Taj West End. And Siwon, a sweet boy from Korea. And brother Thomas, who got the Purple Heart for injury in battle. Pictures posted shortly.

Thomas social life is huge also. He is either in an intercontinental gambling ring or a multi-national animation development company. He and his friends have formed a company called “HappyMan Productions”. His first powerpoint animation is so cool and funny. I am going to try and post it on Youtube – I’ll post the link if I can.

There have been changes that the Richmond Villa. Vani is gone. She had started to take advantage of being home alone most of the day, but going out or having friends over. Not really what I was looking for. Then she took off one weekend and didn’t come back. This was the second time and I can’t afford to give second chances. I got a good replacement after a week of frantic phone calls. When Vani came back the following weekend to collect her things, she said that she had been kidnapped by her parents to be sold into marriage and she was only able to escape the night before and she came right here. You hear weird stories about things like this. One friend was told that her maid’s aunt was badly burned. Britta offered to arrange a doctor and a hospital stay, but the girl only wanted the ‘money’. My Indian friends are so negative towards people that work for them that it creates this win/lose attitude. It’s a pretty negative vibe, and not fun to be around, but not an invalid attitude either, based on my experiences sometimes. I wanted to come to India to learn the culture, but not all of it is very pretty. I have to say though – at least it’s out in the open.

But Rebecca is working out so far. 27 years old. Waiting for her betrothed to finish building a house. This is her second engagement, the first one, the boy started acting demanding and weird, so her family called it off. This man is related some how and she seems very excited and ready to be married. I have a higher level of suspicion now, so we’ll see.

Other quick events – went to a colleague’s son’s b’day party – big Indian event. A little crazy for a 3 year old, but fun. No trips to Goa – the boys have too much socializing to do. A couple of visitors from the US at work – got some good dinners and pub crawling out of that. Overall though, it’s just walking the streets – watching the boys/men playing cricket on Sunday afternoons or early in the morning – I don’t know who stares more.

Last week, I was walking past the athletic fields and a team was out for their run, two lines of about 20 guys. They ran right up to me, then split and ran around me – made me laugh! Sometimes I’ll walk, and some boys on their bikes (at least 2 per bike) on their way to work will ride up behind and then around me, yelling some version of “boo”. No harm at all, I jump and they laugh and then I laugh and they are gone. And the construction families, the ones that live (exist) in the in shells of the buildings they are building, the kids run out and just want to say hi. And the temple across from the park, where I am greeted and given a ‘namaste’ and I return the greeting, review all the latest offerings. It’s not all pretty, but it’s a life and it’s embraced and joy is found and shared. I wish I could capture the life in pictures, but it wouldn’t be the same. I’ll post the latest from Jake’s birthday, but I don’t want to objectify the life I am seeing – it’s their life, not my souvenir.

The monsoon weather came in this weekend – and it’s kind of cold! If you aren’t used to it, the wind and rain make me wish I had a fireplace. A tree fell on an auto (autorickshaw) and killed a man yesterday. The auto drivers are wearing hats and gloves. We got out the blankets I thought we’d never use. And the newspaper had a recipe for soups. We go to Rajasthan next week and I don’t know what kind of weather to expect. Rain is fine, but monsoons blow hard and bring strong downpours – not good for sightseeing.

So July is fully of traveling and more changes. If anyone is still reading this – hope you are enjoying it. I wish I could write more, but then I’d be in a different profession!

XXXOOOO

C

Trip to Mysore

check out thse pictures of our trip to Mysore today. Birdwatching, palace, and fun market.

A Normal? Week

Not much exciting this week, unless you count lice. Thomas was sent home and had to be check. Jake had them too - go figure. Not bad cases, and in Thomas - he's easy to check. Jake - love the hair, but so do the bugs, so we are still combing through him regularly.

The rains started here this week. BIG thunderstorms in the evening. Kills traffic - the traffic lights go out, the traffic cops go home - gridlock. At the flat, we have this wonderful enclosed back porch, but this is the first year the owners have put it in - guess what - it leaks. We had to pull in all the PC equipment, move the furniture away and block the kitchen door so it didn't come in that way. I say "we", but it is really Vani and Jake doing all this - I only sympathize and call the landlord.

We had a scare from Vani last weekend - she took off on Friday night and DIDN'T COME BACK!!!!! I was okay for Saturday and Sunday, and even Monday, but I really need help here and she was it! Turns out she was behaving like a teenager, chasing some fun. The agency rep knows her father and she came back on Tuesday. I was so mad, but she seems to have that out of her system and we are back to normal. She does get time off during the week - I'm not a slave driver - but I do need her to show up on time.

Other than that - rain, lice, Vani, the week was normal. Working hard, but planning the trip to see northern India and to come home. Tentative dates for Texas are 7/18 - 7/30.

Also, if you can, install Skype. If you link up to someone you can talk long distance, even international for FREE! Our account is 'jakethom' and we should show as available whenever someone here is online, so you can just see if we are on and give us a call! I tested it out with Jamie last week and it worked great!

Boys are fine - they had their Arts week last week. They had a musical program - Thomas's class had to sing "Hey Jude" and Jake's sang "Layla". I missed the "Layla" performance - at Jake's request. but what kind of music teacher asks 13 year olds to sing Eric Clapton songs - I don't know!

Don't forget Jake turns 13 next month -OOHHHH - he promised to be the perfect teenager - and that is NOT a good thing :-))

Pictures from the trip to the coffee plantation. I don't think you have to log on to access these, but send me a note if you are having any problems

Coffee Estate trip

Belated Mother's Day Shout Outs!

To all the 4th grade Kolter mom's - hope the San Antonio trip went well. and I hope the baseball is still good - not too many rainouts or too many late games
To my friends who *hopefully* went to the Art Car Parade for me - don't forget the Accordian Kings are coming up.
To my friend who had elective surgery in April - hope it was successful and the recuperation was pleasant.
To anyone who is planning a visit - I have 3 people interested so far - I read about a flight from Chicago to Bangalore - don't know which airline yet, but check it out.
To my Bangalore friends - so many more places to visit - send me your favorites
To everyone in the US - I forget what the weather is like and the seasons, so send me a reminder - is it hot yet?
To anyone who is in transition (and there a couple of us!), remember that it's a journey and if you weren't on one, you'd be sitting still.
So to one and all - remember to breathe, and again, deep breath and smile :-)

Coffee estate and Mother's day

Alert!! More pictures coming in a link to another picture blog - we had a great trip to the coffee estate. The trip there was the best part - went to 2 temples and words can't express the awesomeness of these places. the first was a Jain temple. The Jain's are cool - they believe in the complete sanctity of life, to the point that some have been know to starve to death to prevent the killing of any life. Shravanabelagola is a massive stone carved man, that takes 265 steps to reach. They don't tell you that when they encourage to go there, but it was a fun climb. One woman was carried up on one of those platforms carried by 4 men, running! up the stairs with her reclining back. They were sweaty guys when we caught up to them.

Our second stop was in Belur, which has an wonderfully carved temple - all out of stone. I hope the pictures do it justice. At these places you can hire private tour guides and we had a very nice one - he pointed out things like the fashions the women were wearing (Shorts!) and their hairstyles and jewelry - there was that much detail. Really nice place. But that was just the start of the day (4 hours into it).

We moved on to the coffee estate. Okay - I am good with backroads, and B&Bs, but this place was awfully remote. The roads. were bad and long . . . . . . and hour up the switchbacks and potholes - but we made it just before the rain - which came over the mountain and cooled everything wonderfully. Now this place was a guest house - which means a group living room, one tv, not much furniture, but a working coffee estate. I call it 'estate' because when I called it a plantation, the boys pictured a typical southern plantation, which it's NOT! The long distance scenery is wonderful, but up close - it's weedy piedmont trees and underbrush. Some of the underbrush is coffee and pepper plants, but, nothing you want to oohh and ahhh at. Summary - glad we went - wouldn't go back. But it's the journey, not the destination and that was priceless, so there you go. (anybody who has travelled on Indian roads will understand that sentence even more)

So the week goes on . . . I have some meaningful work now - which means I take it all too seriously and intensely and I am working too hard. But I promised myself that I would find some balance in my life here - and I will miss the boys so much when they go back to Texas, I want to watch out for that.

Happy Mother's Day A friend brought me a box of Keebler cookies and a bottle of wine - they are both costly and rare here! I cooked fajitas on a tandoori oven and smoked out the house. Tried to make margaritas from local limes, but it wasn't the same.

I still want to write more about the shopping and cooking and eating and generally the things in my daily life, so stay tuned and thanks for all the great emails and comments.