Kanha Kesli

This will be a briefer post than I wish.  I have many days to talk about,  but not much time to do it in.  This is our last day at Patanadi.  Sanjay will give the message at this evening’s English church service, we’ll have a potluck meal with all of the family, I will give a brief message at the hospital staff chapel tomorrow morning, and then we will be on our way. 

First we will have a drive to Bhopal tomorrow and will stay at the home of an old college friend of Sanjay’s—Mickey Singh.  The next day we will take the fast train up to Delhi, where we will spend two nights until we go to Germany for a 3 day layover, and then home.  We’ll see how internet coverage is and try to post once or twice along the way. 

But, first, a look back for the past couple of days.   On Thursday we loaded up for a long car ride to go to Kanha—a big National Tiger Preserve.  Ashish and Lisa and their two kids Andy and Jeetu, Mon and Ritu, the four of us and Mom went for the occasion of Uncle Raj and Aunty Rosa’s 50^th wedding anniversary.  The ride took 8 hours and was about 400 km each way.  For those of you who haven’t been to India, it is difficult to convey the complexities of a road trip.  The roads are a constant unpredictable morass of cows, bullock carts, goats, cars going every which way and honking the entire time, bicycles, and humans.   This is not the kind of driving where you can sip your cup of coffee and listen to the radio.  The driver has to be on constant alert.  And the riders in the back often bump their heads on the roof of the car from bumping up and down.

So we met many other family members at the Safari Lodge at Kanha.   “We met tons and tons of cousins at the jungle,” Elysia reported to her Dada (grandfather).  Kanha is not a jungle in the tropical sense of the word.  I think we would call it a forest—huge tall trees of teak, Sal, and others that I don’t know.  We had to awaken very early in the morning and load up into open jeeps to get our tour through the forest with a guide who was from one of the local tribal groups and very familiar with the ways of the jungle.   

Some trackers go out on elephants each morning and track the tigers.  If they have tracked them, then the groups all come and climb onto the elephants to go find the tigers.  We didn’t get to do this, much to the disappointments of the girls.  We also didn’t see a tiger, although another jeep full of our family did.  So we rode around in the forest for 5 hours or so and although it was bitterly cold, it was just spectacular.  We saw peacocks and hen, many bright and amazing birds, a big bison, lots of various sorts of deer including huge elk-like animals, wild boar, and lots of monkeys.  It was an unusually cold morning, but watching the frost melt off of the fields and drip off the trees as the sun hit was just gorgeous.  Daya and I went out for another safari in the afternoon and again struck out for tigers, although apparently one walked behind our jeep and the jeep behind us saw it. 

In the evening we celebrated Aunty and Uncle’s anniversary and as a special treat they had arranged to have a group of tribal dancers come and dance for us around the fire.  This was a spectacular experience and the we even got to join in the dancing for a bit.  After a nice dinner with family, two very tired little girls went to bed.

We had to do the reverse drive the next day to come back home.   But the scenery of rural India and fun playing games in the car made the ride quite nice. 

Singing River

The post from Pathanadi (which means singing river) for Monday, January 4.

  

Today was a nice quiet day around here.  Sanjay has continued his morning walks with his brothers and is so sore by now that they had the barber/masseuse come to the house to work the knots out of his legs.  This was on a bed that they put out on the patio.  Sorry, but I missed the photo op as I was on my own far less vigorous walk with Aunty Sarla through the village and farm fields. 

The kids have been roaming about freely all day and are familiar enough now with their cousins that they are beginning to have little tiffs.  I just now took them down to the village to see the inside of one of the mud houses in which people live—this one belonging to mom’s cook/cleaner Shevanti and her family.  They are having a new brick house built next door to their existing house.

It might be time to talk about food.   Because we can’t live without it, we brought our own coffee and use the press that we left here several trips ago.  Everyone else either has chai or instant coffee.  Chai is the several-times-daily-stop-everything-and-enjoy-drink around here.  Milky and sweet, it is black tea with ginger and a few other spices in it.  Breakfast is usually eggs scrambled with veggies and some other sort of vegetable dish served with fresh parathas—a tortilla like bread folded into layers and cooked with ghee.  It is not mango season right now, but it is guava season, so I eat several a day, along with the good local bananas and papayas.  Lunch is rice and dal, today a fish curry, a vegetable dish, and always plenty of fresh chapatis—a bread that is very similar to tortillas. 

The kids drink a lot of the fresh cow’s milk, and although they don’t go in for the curries, they eat plenty between all of the fresh fruit and the chapatis and dal.  After lunch comes nap/rest time, and then tea time.  Dinner is served very late here—usually around 8:30 or 9:00.  Because we have been having big festivities, these have been grand feasts.  Last night we ate at Sanjay’s brother Ashish’s house.  Lisa had several salads, chicken curry, mutton curry (which for New Mexicans out there does not mean sheep meat, but goat), dal, several kinds of veg, and palak paneer.  Desserts were a cake she baked and and sweet called ras malai.

I don’t think it needs saying that Sanjay and I will be a bit plumper when you see us next.  The girls might be a bit skinnier. 

Tonight is dinner at Mon and Ritu’s house.  Ritu is Sanjay’s cousin.  Like all of the rest of the crew, they are doctors at Padhar Hospital.

Yesterday was a bit busier day.  We went to see the dentist and Sanjay worked on thinking through a waste management program to institute in the village.  I (with the help of Aunty Sarla) worked on cooking some unfamiliar food here.  Mom has grown tons of basil but doesn’t know how to cook with it.  So we made pesto, a tomato basil salad, and a few other fresh salads.  In the afternoon with went to the closest local city, Betul, to do some errands, including shopping for gifts to take home.  Seems like I was just shopping for gifts for this direction!  Daya was too busy mucking around in the cow field to come on this journey.

Pictures will come at some point.  Relatives are beginning to disperse and go home, so it becomes a bit quieter here. 

Happy New Year

At the dam on New Years day 2011

 January 1 and 2!  Although the whole rest of the family stayed up to welcome in the New Year, the Sanjay Choudhrie family all fell asleep too early.  But January 1 rolled along splendidly.  We are the early birds around here, so we have had nice mornings of lolling around the farm.  Sanjay has taken long and fast “walks” each morning, while I choose sitting around the porch drinking tea and eating as my hobby of choice.  Visiting India is not good for the spare tire.  

We took a walk to the dam in the morning, which explains the pictures added to this post, all of them taken by Daya.  The damn creates water for all of the surrounding fields, which are lush and bright green right now with new wheat.  Saturday is market day, so we met many people bringing their wares to sell.  Handmade bamboo baskets, fish, and lots of other this and thats.  The Saturday market is a great experience, but we didn’t make it this time. 

Person carrying basket to Saturday market in Padhar

Ashish and Lisa

The party happened last night.  With a huge tent erected on the lawn and chairs brought it, we were ready for a big onslaught.  It was really very cold here, which was my first experience of a cold India, so we froze ourselves and the guests, but had a lovely little program, including a speech by Sanjay and a performance by the Choudhrie family singers.  Dad and Mom both told some of the stories gathered in 50 years of marriage, which were very fun for me to hear and learn.  Again, we were the big sleepy heads and our girls both fell asleep during the program before they could eat. 

We feel so blessed to be here for this event.  It is satisfying to see our girls begin to relax and fit right in.  They both agree that this would be a good place to live. 

Today will bring a long “family” party with breakfast and lunch served on the patio.  I think a long walk is in the works too.  And then I have to preach for the small English speaking service at the local Lutheran church.  Which is what I’m going to get to work on right now. 

Lemon meringue pie. Yum!

Sanjay, sister Manju, who know how to make pies amongst many other things

The former chicken coop and now our room.

Andy taking a break from playing and taking care of Buddy the lab.

And now, a word from Daya:

Lots of Stuff in India

By Daya Joy Choudhrie

There was a party yesterday and there is going to be one today.  Yesterday was the party in Hindi, and today will be the English one.  Last night at the party, there was a really suspicious thing going on.  Everyone was spilling their tomato soup and no one knew why. 

I got to name one of my grandpa’s calves, and its name is Fluffy.  I named it Fluffy because it is really fluffy.  There is another calf that is really shy and won’t let me or my sister pet it. 

Our beds are kind of hard here, but we can manage them.  We have been very sleepy from the time change.  It is night here when in New Mexico it is day.  So when it is day here, in New Mexico, it is night.  No one knows how to travel through time, like on an airplane when you are traveling through time to get to India.  I bet not even astronomers know.  No one will ever know except for God. 

The Last Day of 2010

December 31, 2010

Because we lost a day or so, on this trip, it is very difficult to remember that today is the last day of the year, but here we are.  We are snuggled away at the Choudhrie farm/mango orchard, and couldn’t be happier about it.  We arrived yesterday evening, after a grand total of 40 hours of traveling (not including the times sitting around waiting at airports, etc.)

Lys

 

A view of the farm.  Its very green and lush.  Very different from where we live.

We’ll post some pictures of the place soon, but know that it is a serene and beautiful place.  A simple, but ample house—we’re staying in what was the chicken coop when Sanjay was a child, but is now a very nice little guest room for us.  And the farm is beautiful.  It’s no longer mango season, but the guava trees are full of fruit, and the wheat fields are a deep green.  Lys and I went for a walk through the little village—small little mud houses with livestock running in and out and lots of little kids to giggle at us making a strange sight. 

All of Sanjay’s siblings are now here with their families in tow.  This means a grand total of 6 cousins for Daya and Lys to play with.  They have been playing with the dogs, racing around, picking flowers and watching the cows get milked all day.  More relatives will continue to arrive tonight and tomorrow for the big 50^th anniversary celebration tomorrow.  This one will be a “small” gathering with only 125 people or so—not like the weddings which have 1000 guests. 

Daya and her Uncle Ashish

Sanjay and I wasted no time in getting good, inexpensive health care.  We both saw the eye doctor this morning, and will go to the dentist next week. 

I used to have hair like that.

I still feel a little like I got hit by a truck, so I’m moving slow and took a nap while Sanjay got a tour of Padhar Hospital, the mission hospital that his brother Rajiv now runs and the other siblings work at.  Rajiv has lots of new projects going on to serve this rural part of India better. 

Moments of Grace

December 30, 2010

Moments of Grace

We left home at about 2:30 am on Tuesday the 27^th of December.  Today is the 30^th, and we’ve lost a day somewhere along the way.

The drive to Albuquerque and flight to San Francisco were painless except for the fact that both girls were awake the whole time.  San Francisco greeted us with a number of options for breakfast.  After mulling over the many food options we had udon noodles, miso soup followed by Peets coffee and cinnamon twists.  Yum

After a 6 hour wait we left San Francisco in a super crowded plane for Frankfurt am Main.  Apart from being shoe horned into the cattle car it was relatively tolerable.

By the time we reached Frankfurt, which is a far more chaotic airport than Albuquerque or San Francisco, we were tired.  Our rather simple breakfast cost more than $50.  We did notice quite a lot more people drinking beer for breakfast in Frankfurt than in San Francisco.  The snow left over from snow storms that hit Europe was piled really high around the airport.  It was too late that we found a whole waiting area filled with camp cots from the prior week’s flying mayhem.

We had left home worried that we would not have enough battery to sustain entertainment options, which we thought we’d need for child control.  We were right.  Amazon Unbox functioned like a virus, would not download, load, or uninstall.  My phone could not be charged.  But the children did fine without electronic entertainment options, reading a drawing instead.

In Frankfurt it seemed like they were going to need an extra-large shoe horn because there were so many people who were standby.  The row we had reserved last week was no longer available. We were assigned 3 aisle seats not near each other.  When I saw the seat assignments, my heart sank, because I knew that this leg of the journey was going to be a trial of endurance for Kris, Daya, Lys and I.  And we were already very sleep deprived.  I had less than 6 hours of sleep for the last three nights combined.

The ticket lady quietly asked us to wait once we had cleared the gate.  A few minutes later she showed up with different boarding passes that had three seats next to each other and one just behind.  When we boarded the plane we discovered that we were in Business Class.  Not just any Business Class but the one where the seat becomes a bed.   We all got some major R&R.  I got 4 hours of sleep on the plan.  Lyse got about 6, Kris and Daya about 3 hours each.  I even watched a movie and at a great meal, Christmas goose.  Thank you Lufhthanza.

I am writing this as we fly the penultimate leg of the journey, the flight to Nagpur, the winter capital of Central Provinces during the Raj, and one of the principal cities the state of Maharashtra.  My sister Manjula and her husband Sunil will pick us up and take us to the family farm about 100 miles away.

Pillar erected in 1903 in Nagpur at the center of India, which at the time included Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Cousins having fun together.

More cousin time.  This Andy (the boy on the left) and Daya.  The sheep are not relatives except in the New Testament sense of the parable.

The new milch cow.

So far the girls have done wonderful with an upper case W.  They have managed their moods while communicating their needs.  They have been better then we could have possibly imagined, making friends and chatting up strangers wherever we went.  The food has been pretty good between what we bought, got and brought.

One downside to visiting India:  When we arrived at customs at immigration in Delhi, the immigration officer refused to speak to us.  He just used gestures.  Later, when I was next in line to check in for our flight to Nagpur, after having been given the wrong information twiceby the Information Desk, I was suddenly passed by two people behind me and then bulldozed by a luggage cart.  Not accidentally bulldozed, because he was waiting in line behind me for a few minutes.  The presence of the Commonwealth games ensured a very much improved Indira Gandhi Airport facility, but customer service still sucks!

This trip would not be possible without the generosity of our parents, who basically paid for all our travel so that we could be present for their 50^th Wedding Anniversary Celebration. 

Rajiv describing his vision for a nursing school on land he purchased adjoinng the hospital

We are looking forward to riding an elephant, seeing a tiger (hopefully), visiting with cousins, uncles, aunts and friends, eating good food, and hopefully some sleep soon.  (At about 2:30 Lys said that she was done with traveling and wanted to sleep in a house tonight).

Until Next time

Post Script by Daya: Taking a Trip

We went on 3 planes and we are sleeping in lots of weird places.  We’re up in the air right now we’re going to land soon.  My family and I just might ride an elephant.  We’re on a little jungle tour.  India is very hot but since we are going in the winter it won’t be so hot.  We are at India now and we just got a room to sleep in.  We cut the ribbon to get into our room and everyone was happy.  (grow ups did to)  All of the kids had a tickle war.  We opened lots of presents and there is a party but I don’t know when the party is.  India is great so far.

The Wedding

Let me just affirm that Indian wedding are very different from weddings in the US and very similar. Apparently, there were 23 other brides waiting to get their hair and make up done at the shop she went to.

Here is a picture of the chaos as the beginning of the service and yes the bride was late.

Thats Daya as the, yes, THE flower girl. The most important girl in the wedding. Here's another difference. There was no rehearsal.

Ashish taking pictures of the wedding up front. He is Daya and Lyse's uncle. A general surgeon in his working life and doing a residency in Urology. He has two more years to go.

Here is a pre wedding photograph at the hotel we were staying at. From left is Carol from Colorado Springs, Aunty Rosa, Aunty Sarla, Daya, Elysia, Kris, Manju and Sanna.

The pastor insisted that everybody take off their shoes and that women cover their heads. He refused to begin the ceremony until all women had covered their heads. Talk about making rubrics the idols in a formerly Lutheran church.


The bride and groom. Daisy and Abhishek

The groomsmen: Aditya and Swarit. By tradition they are meant to be eligible bachelors. Aditya is in high school.

Its almost done

Here is the picture at the end of the ceremony. The day is not done. It must have been 100 F. they look very composed for having been in a building designed to be the inside of an oven.