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Merry Christmas to All

Christmas is less than one week away and sometimes it is hard to remember that Christmas is so close. Living in a country where Christmas is not celebrated as a national holiday or a religious holiday by most of the country is an interesting experience.

On the one hand, retailers are not trying to convince you that the only way to show someone that you love them is to spend more than you can afford. On the other hand, no one is talking about Christmas or discussing their plans. The little signs of Christmas, like lights going up, Christmas trees appearing at the local market, and Christmas music on the radio are absent. You are left to create your own Christmas spirit.

I am reminded of one Christmas on my mission in Taiwan 30 some years ago. I was serving in a very small Branch way out in the country. The Branch had all of five members, any two of which might be missing from Sunday services since they were fighting with each other. I remember that the only Christmas decorations my companion and I had in our apartment were two small plastic wreaths of Christmas lights hung above the desks we used to study and write our reports. There were no signs of Christmas outside our apartment, only a few things inside, but we had the Christmas spirit anyway.

Unlike that Christmas so many years ago, we have so much to help us remember the Christmas spirit here in India. We have a lot of Christmas inside our home. There is our Christmas tree:

And our stockings, just waiting to be filled by Santa:

We have our advent tree that gets an ornament hung each day until Christmas:

We even have our book that we read a Christmas story out of each night:

We also had our ward Christmas party. The building was decorated wonderfully:

Each auxiliary put together a small performance of something. The primary sung several songs, the young women sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Holly Jolly Christmas, Rebecca and her friend Ganae Osorio sung a wonderful duet of Winder Wonderland. But the Oscar performance goes to the young men who wrote and performed an original play entitled Santa Meets the Missionaries. Watch by clicking here.

Michelle and her friends made gingerbread houses. Of course, gingerbread and all the traditional US candies were a bit hard to come by. So they substituted crackers and Indian candy. Still it looks like they had fun!

But most of all, we have our family and friends. Brenton will be here on Tuesday evening and we are so very excited to have him come. Although we know that our other family and friends will not be joining us here in India, know that our hearts are with you all. We look forward to talking with everyone this weekend, so get on Skype or at least call our phone!

Some Cool News

On Wednesday, I received an email from Rebecca's school. Basically, Rebecca's art project was accepted for the front cover of the school curriculum guide. It was a pretty amazing thing and Rebecca had no idea her picture was being considered. Needless to say, she is very happy and we are very happy for her.

Here's the letter:

Rebecca :

I am writing with a message of congratulations. Each year as we enter the process of updating our curriculum guide for the following school year, the Art Department submits numerous pieces of art from all of the different classes for review, only one of which is selected for the cover.

I am happy to inform you that the digital image you created of AES (attached for your parents to see, too!) has been selected for the cover of the SY11-12 Curriculum Guide. I realize that you will be graduating in May, but next year's guide will be handed out to all continuing students during the registration process in February of 2011. So you'll still have a chance to see it all around the high school anyway.

The team that agreed on your piece of work found your color combination dynamic yet soothing. We also agreed that the AES theme was perfectly suited to the cover of the curriculum guide.

Congratulations, also, on a successful completion to your first semester here at AES. Inbound seniors often experience a more difficult transition than younger students, and yet it seems that you have managed this transition well. Have a wonderful holiday.

Best regards,

Ms. Miller-Manchester

Beth Miller-Manchester

High School Assistant Principal

American Embassy School - New Delhi

And here's the picture:

The Happy Artist:

Another Biking Video

So I'm realizing that I am not posting to the blog as often as I should. I'm blaming Becca for always working on homework and not letting me have time on the family computer. At least that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

One of the things that I love about living here in Delhi is the sun all winter long. Although we are well into 'winter' here, the weather is chilly at night (say in the 40's) and pretty warm in the daytime (60's or 70's) with sunshine every day. No grey skies, no rain, no drizzle, no snow. So although the days are short, the sun comes out and it really is beautiful weather.

Mornings are often foggy/smoky/smoggy/whatever and the sunrise is more like a round orange ball behind a curtain. Still, it is fun.

One of the things the great weather lets me do is go for bike rides every Saturday morning with the biking crew. We tend to go for a longer ride, leaving sometime between 6 and 7, depending on where we are going, and getting home between 11 and 1, also depending on where we are going. Sometimes we just head out from the house and into the 'bush'. Sometimes we drive in the cars to another area where we can head along the river, or out into another wilderness area. Sometimes we just head down and ride the streets of Delhi and Old Delhi. It is always fun and always an adventure.

I've put together a short slide show of some of the pictures I've taken while out riding in the bush. Hope you enjoy it. Watch by clicking here.

Diwali - still trying to catch up

There is so much to catch up on and tell everyone about. This is a post that I should have completed in early November, but never got the video edited.

Diwali is the biggest holiday in India. It is really fun and is sort of like Christmas, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July all rolled into one. It is the time for exchanging gifts, getting bonuses, and celebrating like there is no tomorrow. This was our first Diwali in India and we had a hard time figuring some things out - like how much of a bonus we give our housekeeper, driver, the guards out front, whether to bring a gift when we went over to someone's house, where to buy fireworks, and a million other things. Thank heavens for good notes left by Marty and Donna, the folks that were here before us!

As to why folks here celebrate Diwali, read the Wikipedia link above. I asked many people and no one could give me a really good answer. Rather, everyone I asked gave me a different answer. I guess it depends on what part of India you are from as there are several mythologies that go along with the holiday. I just decided to not really worry about why it was celebrated, and just join in and enjoy the experience.

Leading up to the day, there is a general sense of excitement. Everyone seems excited and you can tell there are lots of preparations going on. Around the city, lights get strung and things start looking very festive. Some flats and houses around the neighborhood get strung with lights like at Christmas. Markets get busy and light up really pretty.

We were invited to a friend's home for Diwali. Lakshmi and his family are from southern India and they celebrate with a brunch, which they were kind enough to invite us to. At the brunch they served traditional southern Indian food, modified a bit for us westerners. In south India, they tend to eat with their fingers. A banana leaf is the traditional 'plate'. In deference to us, we had a large platter type plate, and they gave us silverware. Of course, all of them ate with their fingers. :)

The food was good and varied between too spicy for me to eat and very mild. Since Lakshmi and his family are vegetarian, the whole bunch had only vegetarian dishes. In south India, the staple of the diet is rice, so that featured prominently in the meal, with plain rice, coconut rice (really, really good) and tamarind rice (a bit too spicy for me) all served at various times. There was a great potato dish and some flat bread as well along with more food than I can remember. All I can say is that I ate until I couldn't move, and then ate a bit more for good measure.

We then came home to prepare for our own Diwali party. The house was decorated, and looked very festive. (I can't believe we didn't take any pictures, but I sure can't find any!) We had lots of friends over, and the food selection was pure american. Like Thanksgiving, we again ate way too much, but it was absolutely wonderful.

After dinner, we headed up to the terrace and watched and listened to the fireworks. It was like nothing I have ever seen. There are absolutely no restrictions on the type of fireworks you can buy here in India. There is everything from the huge rockets that you see at Disneyland to things that sounded like they were dropped out of a military aircraft. If you were just listening, there probably isn't a lot of difference between a military invasion and what we saw from the roof. Just imagine, 14 million people in Delhi, with absolutely no restrictions on the type of fireworks that people can buy and you'll get a pretty good idea of what it was like. (There is an expat that rides with us on Saturday sometimes. He works for a concrete company. He said he showed up to one job site and there were a ring of workers standing around seeing how high they could blow a 5-10 kg (11-22 lb) block into the air.)

At one point, we could tell that a pretty good fire was burning a little ways away from our flat. A couple of us headed out to see if we could find what was burning. We never found what was burning, but saw lots of people throwing huge fireworks around the street. I think that next year, I'll just watch from the terrace!

The fireworks continued all night long and for several days after.

Here's a short video that I cut together to give you a sense for what Diwali was like. Click here to watch.

Thanksgiving in India

Well, here it is the day after Thanksgiving and I'm having a real hard time getting into the holiday spirit. It is interesting living in a country where Thanksgiving and Christmas are not celebrated. I'm not sure if it is the weather (which really feels more like mid September than the end of November), the lack of Christmas music wherever you go, the lack of Christmas decorations around the house, the fact that we don't have all the TV commercials reminding us to go buy that perfect gift for that special someone, or exactly what. However it is clear that the whole holiday season thing hasn't really sunk in yet for me.

Michelle and Becca are gone to the market to purchase a Christmas Tree (artificial, of course) and we'll start decorating later today or tomorrow. We didn't bring our Christmas decorations (see the previous post about the interesting things that come when you move around the world and the things that get left behind), so we are missing the tradition of redecorating the house with the turn of the season. So I figure the lack of the holiday spirit is a temporary situation that will be remedied soon.

While Michelle and Becca are gone, I put on Christmas music, gathered all the photos we took yesterday, and figured I would sit and write about our Thanksgiving yesterday.

We were invited to spend Thanksgiving with our friends, the Cleggs. So even though we missed our children and all of our family and friends in the US, we had a place to go and share our Thanksgiving. It was a really wonderful event and we are really thankful to the Clegg family for hosting the event.

After a morning where Michelle baked pies, a turkey, cookies, and rolls, we headed out the door. When we arrived, we saw some traditional Indian festive decorations.

Strings of flowers on the gates and a walk lined with fragrant flower petals.

Large decorative bowels with floating flower petals and candles.

But once you came through the front door, it looked (almost) all like a traditional American Thanksgiving. Friends hanging out in the kitchen, kids all over the place, conversation, food. It was a wonderful time! One thing that made it even better, the Clegg family had a caterer set up tables, bring (and wash) the dishes, decorate, bring flowers, provide the juice and clean up everything after it was all over. Laura Clegg said it was the best and easiest Thanksgiving ever! The cost on the caterer was about double the cost that we paid for our turkey. Caterer ~ $180, turkey ~$70.

Carving the $70 turkey!

Friends in the kitchen. From left to right, Teresa Osorio (good friend), Sister Ann Jackson (the Mission President's wife and good friend), Laura Clegg (good friend)

Almost all the kids - there were so many, I'm sure there are a bunch that aren't in the picture.

The tables and chairs that the caterers set up.

Yummy!

Why do we always take pictures of people eating? They really aren't very flattering.

It's Amazing What Moves when You Move

By now everyone has heard that all of our stuff finally cleared customs and has been moved into our flat. In fact, as I type this, Michelle is unpacking the last box and helping me organize the stuff that moved over for the office. I have to say, I LOVE sleeping in my bed, rather than the air mattress.

Remember one of my first posts pondering the question about why we have so much stuff? Well, I thought we had made some good headway before we moved by getting rid of a LOT of stuff that just didn't seem that important anymore. I think we actually did make some good headway. But we still kept things that we weren't quite ready to part with. Stuff that held memories for us, things like that. We marked those type of things for storage, because it was clear to us that we didn't need them with us here in India. But it didn't seem to matter much.

Things that got marked for India must have gone somewhere else, because they didn't make it here. Things that got marked for storage did end up here. We got a big chuckle out of some of the things that made it to India. Michelle took a picture of some of the things that we just couldn't live without -- apparently.

In the front row you can see Michelle and my graduation tassels, two from our High School graduations, the others from our University days. Then we have 'burn baby' the doll that Rebecca carried when she was a very little girl. (Ask her to tell you why she is called 'burn baby'. It is a good story.) On the back row we have art projects from Rebecca (the tall green figure), Jameson (we think - the brown clay thing with three cups) and Brenton (the clay square cup), Michelle's Barbie and Ken dolls, and Brenton and Jameson's arrows of light from Webelos days. I don't think we could have made it for three years without these things so I'm really glad that they got shipped here by mistake.

So what should we do with all of these treasures while we are here? Remember the travel photos with the garden gnome? Maybe we should have the "adventures of Burn Baby in India" or something similar.

On the other hand, all the toothpaste that our Dentist prescribed for us all seems to have gone to storage.

Isn't moving an adventure?

Catching Up

I am really behind on our blog posts, so I'll try to do a bit of catching up with these posts. Let's see, what has happened? Well, we went to Agra and never posted any pictures. So I'll start with a Part 1 of our Agra trip. It is entitled "On the Road" and has all the stuff we saw while riding around in the car. It was our family's first trip out of the city to the 'country' and you see some pretty amazing things. In the slide show, look for little cars packed full of people, a car stuck in the mud up to the undercarriage, some monkeys, a couple of camels, women carrying huge bundles of grass on their heads, and lots of very typical things that you see riding around here. Of course, Part 2 - the Agra Fort and Part 3 - the Taj Mahal are still to come - someday.

The trip to Agra was really amazing and a lot of fun for our family. You will see we went with the Clegg family, who have become our good friends. If you come to India, the trip to the Taj is worth the effort. It really does live up to its billing as a wonder of the world. It is a great sight to see and a great love story. The Agra Fort was as interesting to me as the Taj. It has a lot of very different styles of architecture, representing the various kings who lived there. I'll write more on them when I post the other videos.

Anyway - here is "On the Road - Agra Part 1".

On October 7, Rebecca turned 18 years old. What a great age! It won't be long before she is off to the University (BYU we all hope) and Michelle and I will be empty nesters. That is a somewhat scary thought, although we are really looking forward to the whole grandparent gig (congratulations again to Jameson and Becky).

Michelle and I spent some time trying to figure out how we could make Rebecca's 18th a birthday to remember. Finally we hit on the idea - an elephant! So we figured out where we could 'rent' an elephant for her birthday. Well, I have to say that it was a huge hit with her and her friends. All the folks that showed up later in the evening (and there were lots), were disappointed that they missed the elephant ride.

Here's a short video of one of the rides - link here. Here are some pictures of the day.

Here's Raja (he's 45 years old and weighs in at 3 Tons), his trainer (the guy on the ground), his driver (on top of course), and the Birthday Girl.

Some friends that came to ride the elephant and celebrate Rebecca's birthday.

Elephants have really stiff, course hair - who knew about that?

What's a celebration in India without flowers?

And what's a birthday without cake?

Our driver Jogender (on the left) who bought the flowers and arranged the elephant and one of the guards (on the right) who helped put the flowers up.

Our stuff is now here, and I'll publish another post about that in a day or so.

I’m Back from the Land Down Under

This last week I was down in Australia and New Zealand for a business trip and just got home early this morning.  It was a last minute thing as I stepped in for someone at work for presentations on IP Commercialization.  I really enjoyed the sessions and the comments by people who attended indicate that they also enjoyed the sessions. 

My experience on this trip was a bit like traveling back in the late 70’s or early 80’s.  Somewhere between Delhi and Singapore, my laptop decided it wanted to act like a brick instead of a computer.  So scratch email, for the most part and phone calls home (I use my laptop for that).  Although my mobile phone would probably work, I hate to think of the international roaming charges, so it stayed turned off and in my bag.  Since I was a late pinch hitter, I also didn’t stay at the same hotel as everyone many nights.  It was a bit difficult to coordinate the whens and wheres of travel without a mobile phone.  I did manage to get a few email to Michelle so she knew what was going on.  But it was really hard not being able to chat like we usually do.  Yah, I know.  Whine, whine.  It all worked out.

It nice to see New Zealand.  I told everyone that my Mom had lived in New Zealand for about 18 months for our Church, including the immigration officer who stamped my passport.  The people from New Zealand seem to be really thankful that we would spend enough time to fly all the way down there to meet with them.  They realize that unless you are flying within New Zealand, outside of Australia (about 5 hours away), everywhere else in the world is a long, long plane ride away.

The weather is just turning spring down there and it was weird to leave from Delhi where it was still finishing up the monsoon season and step off the plane where the temperature was substantially less and spring was all around.  While we were in New Zealand we met with Weta Digital, who did special effects on lots of famous movies, including Lord of the Rings.  They had a shop called the Weta Cave (Weta are a type of cricket that lives in a cave) that has lots of props and things from the movie, including Aragon’s broken sword and a full size Orc (very scary looking).  They also do a lot of work with Microsoft on Halo and have a full-size drivable Warthog (which I didn’t get to see or drive – darn it).

I also really enjoyed Sydney (what I got to see of it).  It has a fun downtown area and lots of things that you can walk and see.  Of course, all I saw was the inside of conference and hotel rooms.  But still, it looked fun and I wouldn’t mind spending some time there with Michelle and Becca where we could just go see all the stuff.

One thing that was funny to me.  Every meal that was served at the seminars we put on had some sort of curry dish.  I told people that I’d eat anything on the menu except for the curry.  I’d leave the Indian food for when I got home.  They all laughed.  I can tell that it hasn’t been that long since they were able to have a nice steak or anything at all made with beef.

I’m hoping to get the first part of our trip to Agra posted soon.  Sorry for the delay.  It has been a bit busy.

Biking Video Redux & A Short Update

If you watched the prior video I posted, watch it again (you can expand it to full screen now and actually have good quality). I figured out how to post things from Vimeo and the video quality is much better.

I'm working on some slide shows from our trip to Agra, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'm headed out of the country for a week long trip to fill in for someone who couldn't go from the states. So I may not post much this week.

One day at the market

Special edition by roving reporter Michelle

Shopping in India has been a real treat!  Sometimes I miss the local Target store where I can buy anything and in a relatively short amount of time.  When you go shopping here you never know what experience you might have.  You have to watch where you walk.  Sometimes the road is so uneven that if you don’t you will trip on the uneven walkway.  Also you might end up stepping in something messy or even step on some one.  There are always lots of sales people and most of the time they are vying for your attention to buy something.  And there is a different store for everything.  If you want fruit or veggies you go to one store.  If you want bread you go to another store. If you want anything else there are several stores selling the different items.  It always takes lots of time and there is hardly ever any parking space.

I usually don’t go to the store alone.  I have a friend who is always willing to get out and go anywhere with me and today was no different.  We went to the store to look for yarn.  Kind of a tricky thing to find here because most of the time if you want yarn or thread, you get some one to sew the item for you.  But we needed yarn for an object lesson.  After we finished our shopping, we were standing by the side of the mall waiting for our driver to come pick us up to go home.  Since shopping is always a different experience we often take our cameras with us and take pictures.  My friend asked me to take a picture of her.  I was standing by a guard post with about a foot of space between me and the wooden structure.  My friend was posing and I was getting ready to snap the photo when all of a sudden I was pushed out of the way (with a little bit of force).  I looked over to see what the deal was and I saw a rather large cow walking by me.  Apparently I was in his way!  As I said, “Shopping in India is always a real treat!”

Riding in Delhi - Redux

This post has be updated - I figured out a way to link the video to Vimeo, which should give much better quality.

I was able to squeeze my bike into our air shipment, which means that I have it here in Delhi. My friend introduced me to a group of people that ride and I've been startign to ride with them. Of course, they have been doing this for years virtually year round and I've been doing this for days. I am really out of shape compared to these guys, but they are kind and ride slow and do easy rides when I ride with them. Not wanting to slow them down forever, I started riding a bit more often by myself. It is going to be a long time before I am in their league, but they are really welcoming and it is fun to have a group to ride with.

In my efforts to get into shape, I've been riding to India Gate and back. It is between 22km and 25km, depending on the exact roads I take. It has become my standard 'get in shape' ride. One morning I shot some video of the ride and I've been using some demo video editing programs to edit it into something that is more interesting than my last attempt. (See the boring video tour of our flat for an example of just how bad video I edit can be.) I think this effort is light years better than the last, but I will leave it to your judgement. Hopefully it gives you some insight into some of the things I see on an early morning ride.

Here is a shot of the rout from my flat to India Gate and back.

Here's the video. Hope you find it interesting. It was fun to try to edit this.

Ride to India Gate from The Tahi on Vimeo.