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.