November 20, 2008 – 2:43 pm
So my afternoon was fun. The kids’ passports are pretty full, so they need to get additional pages put in. Because the consulate is all the way in downtown Mumbai (a three hour round trip at least), going there to do that is not feasible during a workday (unless I take a day off, which [...]
November 18, 2008 – 5:29 pm
We’ve got all the stuff up and running - Christmas tree, lights, garland, mistletoe: the works. As I type this, “Deck the Halls” is blasting over the speakers (a big shout out to my new favorite web sites of the week: ernienotbert.blogspot.com, bigballsofholly.typepad.com, inkydog.blogspot.com, falalalala.com, and christmasyuleblog.blogspot.com. These are a bunch of sites where they [...]
November 9, 2008 – 10:01 am
We are, indeed, a week or so late - but that’s ok! Because of the week without walls trip and Diwali break, our Halloween celebrations didn’t take place until yesterday, but we sure jumped into them whole heartedly!
We had bought some Indian pumpkins - green, not orange - before our break, and kept them in [...]
November 6, 2008 – 8:54 am
As mentioned earlier, the mood around the school as the election returns came in was ecstatic, to say the least. Apparently this was not a localized feeling; because Breck is home sick this morning and I am staying with him (and he is still sleeping and I’m reading the paper) and I have a few [...]
November 5, 2008 – 8:38 pm
Well there you go. We woke up this morning all ready to watch the election results come in. Unfortunately they were just the earliest returns from the east coast, so the electoral vote total was only in the low 40s by the time we left for school. Throughout the hallways before classes, however, the electricity [...]
October 19, 2008 – 9:41 am
The next two weeks will be quiet ones on the blog front. Alea and Dave will both be gone for Week Without Walls trips, and then the entire family heads out to Udaipur for a week. We spent a lot of Saturday getting our packing and shopping done for the trips, and are looking forward [...]
October 16, 2008 – 1:28 pm
Our school held its observation/celebration of Diwali yesterday, and the entire campus was decorated in colors, flowers, and streamers. Our family was no exception, as we put on our finest Indian gear and posed around the rangoli that graced the cafeteria floor.
The holiday itself is not for another few weeks, but with the middle and [...]
October 12, 2008 – 10:33 pm
(No, that’s not a picture of Oktoberfest)
In the past week, after our return from Goa, things have been moving at a lightning pace.
At school, we’re getting ready for the week without walls trips coming up next Monday, organizing community service projects with local NGOs, preparing for a family fun day in December, getting Mathcounts up [...]
October 6, 2008 – 1:24 pm
Always a cause for celebration. We were so darn excited about the break - we packed ourselves off and headed to the beaches of Goa. It was a pretty funny sight at five o’clock in the morning in the airport: it seemed to us that 80% of the school’s population was doing the exact same [...]
September 28, 2008 – 10:11 am
Breck’s favorite weekend breakfast is French toast; he asks for (and usually gets it) on both Saturday and Sunday. This morning, Susan whipped him up a batch, and then quickly decided that she would have to make a brand new meal for him (and open a new bottle of syrup).
I just hope that this “issue” [...]
September 21, 2008 – 9:28 pm
What a swirling afternoon of sensory overload! Our neighborhood, called Bandra, was a historically Christian district, and there are a number of churches scattered around (to go with the Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, and various Sikh and Jain places in the suburb).
The traditional birthdate of Mary - Jesus’ mother - is September 8, and so [...]
September 14, 2008 – 10:27 pm
Ugh. Can you believe it? This is something that we’ve been dealing with since we arrived here, but have not gotten around to writing about - yet.
Talk about an inconvenient bureaucratic holdover, foisting moral decisions on an entire society. The different states in India, for whatever reason, have decided that certain days during the year [...]
September 10, 2008 – 1:15 pm
Since this is the time of year when the drums, firecrackers, pyrotechnics, and music all combine to give us a sleep-depriving evening cacophony, it is only fair to acknowledge that the visual feast rivals that of the aural treat.
For many of the 11 days between last Wednesday and next Sunday, worshippers of the Hindu god [...]
September 5, 2008 – 1:01 pm
Today is Teachers’ Day in India, and we were all welcomed with flower garlands (mala in Hindi) and little boxes of sweets as we entered the school grounds. Alea took a fun picture of Dave and Susan before the school day started!
The date for the holiday is actually derived from the birthday of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second [...]
Things you never consider before living in a place that has monsoons: after 8 months or so with no precipitation, the rains have a curious – though utterly predictable – effect on the roads here. That first little bit of moisture ‘brings up’ all the accumulated engine oil, axle grease, tire bits, and other assorted [...]
Through our first year here, we’ve posted a number of pages centered around things that we see in our daily life. As the school year is almost over, and we will be in the US for most of the break, this is the last page of pictures from India that we plan on uploading until [...]
India is a vegetarian’s heaven. Besides all the fresh fruits and veggies that are available in the markets, at roadside stands, and in neighborhood carts, the idea of vegetarianism permeates the culture. Religiously, it makes sense. Since India welcomes all sorts of different faiths, including those that won’t eat beef (Hinduism), those that won’t eat [...]
I love the news that runs in the papers here. Not necessarily because it is fun to read or ‘uplifting’ in any way, but because the headlines and stories serve as a constant reminder that Toto is no longer in Kansas. Just as a taste, here are a couple of snippets from recent articles (besides [...]
March 10, 2008 – 10:55 am
So in a country where the majority of people don’t have running water, most of them are used to squatting in an open field and ‘wiping’ with water. If they do have access to a toilet, it is usually a “Squatty” with two foot places and a hole in the middle with a bucket of [...]
