Closing the Lucknow Chapter

Our ride home was a study in my Father's heart.  The heat of our lives got turned up by ten degrees in one day.  I am not exaggerating or alone in my estimations on this reality.  We are now in the heat.  We were driving frying in our little car like a bun in an oven.  We needed to stop for lunch but nothing looked appealing out in the crazy dust swirls.  Where were we to stop.  Any turn off whizzed by and marital tensions were rising with lack of clear communication.  Finally I hollered "Turn."  Whipping off the road a second too late we were at another little dirt track.  There ahead was a little picnic house for us.  For us.  What a gift.  What a crowning loveliness to end our journey (well not quite as it was late and we still had many miles to travel).

We munched, played, and siesta-ed.  All very rustic and real.
Lovely really.  I realize only one photo is required for you to get the picture and that I am in excess of over five photos but please understand that there is no way to overstate the wonderment of our little house with the breeze, golden wheat and quiet all around.

Juice, Bread, Homemade Hummus, Peanut Butter,

Cheese, water, Apples, cucumbers and good company.

The trusty Nano got us there and back!  

It will be serviced this next week.

It needs the tune up.

Abe wanted to climb this tempting hill!

He was undeterred by our stating it was poop 

so we had to lay down the law with a 

"Because we say so, NO."

Chick Fillet

Just to break into my meanderings about Lucknow....
George passed away.
He has been looking poorly lately.
He survived two baths and was healthy but he was getting pretty gross and dirty.
He got another rinse off and died.

Kind of sad but thankfully we have friends staying from Bangladesh with two little kids and they are acting as a great diversion for the sorrow felt.

No more George photos.
Maybe a pet in our situation is not going to work.

Oh well.

ps. We did not eat George (in case my title was misleading).  We threw him off the balcony in the derelict lot across the way where the young men play cards after dark (gamble and sometimes drink).  It is called conscience littering.  Trash goes in predetermined areas and then people come and sweep the trash up.  George could not be buried, we have to land, so tossed he was.  

C or K

Today at 5:30 25-year-old Mohammad Ajmal Kasab was hung in India for his part in the November 2008 attack in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.  India feels that day keenly.  It is imprinted within their national identity like September 11th on an American.  Kasab was hung and we were informed if you so desired you could watch the capitol punishment take place on television.  

TELEVISION!!  Everyone could watch this event?  It heralded back to days in old school London where hangings were community affairs. (read The Great Train Robbery if true crime in British history appeals to you, excellent story)  However this was NOT TRUE  it was not a public execution.  You could just watch everything leading up to the affair and photos afterwards.  

There was a sense of holiday in one man's take on the event, the hanging.  A sense of justice.  It feels heavy to me.  What do I actually believe about capital punishment? What do you believe?  What did Jesus say?  Does the eye for an eye apply here because it is different or in Kasab's case should there be pardon, grace as one farmer from his village in Pakistan declares should be given. Would Jesus have said, "Forgive."  Would I be willing to forgive? Who is in my life right now that I would like to see hung?  What is in my heart that needs to change, to whom do I need to extend forgiveness?
Life is no picnic, no walk in the park, no holiday at the sea shore, it is messy, sad and sin sapped.  

It felt heavy to find out at 6 pm as we saw someone else's television that at 5:30 a nation had been privy to a hanging, or so we were told. Though that did not actually happen every other detail was carefully covered.

On a lighter note......

On our way home we passed an outdoor restaurant, where free diesel fumes act as appetizers, called Gargan Picknik.

Chup Karo

My children were sleeping.  Both at the same time.  My hubby is out doing various amazing things to help our lives resume to normal after being gone for four months and outside my apartment door a fire was brewing.

A fire of five tongues, waving hands, heated tears, flashing anger, sharp pointing fingers and banging doors, raged.  I cracked my door open because one of the voices sounded suspiciously like the lovely young lady who washes my floors and dishes.  It was "Jane", her two sisters, her mom and the new upstairs neighbor who moved in with her sister.  Everyone was yelling in Hindi.  I did not try to wade in, jump in or even dip into this language nightmare NOPE I was pulled into the mess with an abruptness my jet lagged brain squabbled with.

Upstairs Amazon Woman had hit Jane.  Rightfully so Jane's family was on her door step ready to take action.  Overall they are very peace loving and quiet.  It was as though a sleeping giant had been aroused.  This family was up in arms and  good and angry.

I was pulled into the conversation (read here riot) and promptly told to mitigate.  What? Me?  Tears and giggles threatened to spill over at the same time.  Tears because sweet Jane was weeping in terror and giggles because of my complete lack of ability to handle the situation.  Okay I also wanted to giggle because Amazon Woman kept yelling that Jane had torn on her mau mau.  As she shouted this injustice she pulled out her neckline giving everyone a view down to the ground.  Needless to say we were all momentarily floored by the view!

I am not sure how it all ended.  I just know we all yelled "Listen" over and over.   I know that I clearly communicated that Amazon Woman should never touch Jane again.  I also know that I told the lady to stop saying slanderous things against Jane.   I prayed the whole time.  I did not laugh.  I did not cry.

My kids stayed asleep.

A wonderful grace in the light of the war outside my door.

Comfortingly Close

When I make chicken the neighborhood in India knows.  When I make mutton they know.  They know what I serve my guests to eat.  They know what is on my laundry line.  They know if my kids do not sleep through the night or if they are teething.  They know.  When I open the windows to my son's room someone says hi from across the gully.  There is no privacy.

I have been living with my in-laws in the middle of a forest for the last few days and I miss the neighbors!  I miss needing to close curtains.  I have nightmarish thoughts from throw back horror film ads that I saw when I was a teen (note that I said "ads" if I had ever seen one of those movies I think I would have never slept again).  I kind of miss our neighborhood watch.... Whenever Anyone Twitches Conversation Happens!  Not the type of Neighborhood Watch that is only for safety but for conversation, gossip.  I miss it particularly in the dark when I get home with the kids.  I miss Auntie from across the road striking up a conversation at unreal decibals while I try to keep Zana's sleeping ears covered.  I miss telling at least three people where and what exactly we were doing while we were out.  I miss people there to greet me home!  I miss India!

Pamela Anderson, MacDonald's, and Al Qaeda

Ever hate being put in a box.  Ever gotten angry about a gross generalization concerning you, your people, your religion?  Ever made a stereotype and then had it broken in such a powerful way you stopped to really evaluate your presuppositions?

A couple days ago I was sitting with the ladies downstairs.  My friends.  Five young ladies, a young mother, me and two little toddlers duking it out while Zana gets passed from loving hands to loving laps.  Zayba, the young mother, likes to wear her muu muu all day.  Who wouldn't in this heat.  However maybe it would be better worn just indoors.  Much to my surprise one of the young ladies commented on her indecency.

"Who are you?  Pamela?" The comment was coupled with a cryptic look at exposed skin.  I went into gales of laughter.  Of all the people.  Of all the illustrations to use.  Pamela Anderson.  I know she was on their version of Big Brother here in India but really is this what America exports?  Is this what my friends know of my country... Pamela Anderson?

Last night I was sitting on a bed in the middle of nowhere eating spicy mutton with truly dear friends.  Abraham was playing with the precious items on the bed frame shelf.  It held various knick knacks all carefully dusted.  One was a blond doll the height of my hand.  It was a MacDonald's doll complete with a little register and a MacD hat.

What do we know of Afghanis, Khans?  Are the Muslims we hear about in faraway lands condensed into one face?  A big bearded man with a fierce agenda of destruction and annihilation?  The more I thought about Pamela Anderson the more I found the situation humorless.  I am a modest wife who finds my identity in more than flaunting my sexuality yet my culture has been given a face.  When I speak of where I am from I fall into a stereotype that is not at all comfortable for me.   Zayba in her muu muu would be horrified if someone questioned if my clothes meant I joined Al Qaeda.

What do you know of someone's country who is not of your culture?  Ask.  Listen. Learn. And avoid boxes.

Chand or Sun?

Today's conversation with Jannat.....

Jannat starts the conversation with an impossible demand as no one in her family owns a phone.

"You will give me your number while you are in America."

"I will not give you our phone number in America."

"You do not know it?"

"No, once my husband gave out his number and someone called in the night. Late.  They did not understand that America was having a different time."

"Oh."

"It is night there now."

"No.  Not night.  giggle.  Look outside it is day."

"Oh yes right now it is two in the night."

"No, it is day."

"You know the earth is round."

"Yes."

"See my nose, it is India, see my braid it is America.  My head is round like the ground (earth)  The light bulb is the sun.  When my nose is facing the sun then...."

"America is seeing the chand*."

"Yes."

"giggle"  "It is a strange thing that."

"Yes."

* Chand is the word for Moon

Cultural Norm Assimilated

The picture is so common you barely see it.  Three guys working..... actually one guy working, one guy talking and one guy chewing paan.  So when it takes three guys to do a job, one working and two watching it is no surprise.  This is normal.  A norm that at times drives me crazy.  However I feel as though I have assimilated this concept particularly in the area of poopy diapers.

Recently I found myself correcting my husband's diaper changing skills while HE changed the poopy diaper!  Ouch!

We both laughed about the cultural norms of road labors around us but really it isn't very funny.  It is part of the reality for many of these workers facing the heat, the lack of tools and the lack of sleep.  They need a break on the job.  I don't.  It is my job, my task, my work for today, tomorrow and this season.  I need to be joyful, thankful and Spirit led to work hard at these simple tasks.  I need to have zest and zeal.  I want to be thankful for what my husband does to help me around the house.  I also hope that I grow in being busy with my hands in a productive way that helps him do his job better! 

Cry Out

I do not know how to write this.  The hurt is too deep, the memory almost still too raw.  I was pregnant, miserable, emotional and it was just our first month in India.  We were both on the bike, me sitting side saddle on the back stuck in a jam hanging onto Chad.

The wailing was loud and horrible.  The kind that comes from animal like recesses in the deep of our soul and wrench out at octaves that stop traffic.  There was blood, there was a woman rocking back and forth, there was bikes all around.  The pain was so raw the hurt so real that it shattered everything around except people kept walking, kept moving.  Chad kept driving.  I begged him turn around and go back.  Maybe we could help, maybe an accident had happened, maybe I could do some first aid.

What I did not know was that this woman was sitting outside a police station.  Chad knew.  He went to find out what happened.  Men were yelling, I saw the police, the woman gasping for breath.

A little girl was dead.  A mother broken. A father guilty.

I never saw it in the paper never knew if the father faced justice. This story is in the paper now, Baby Afreen.  It is hard, it is real, it is wrong.

There is an abortion every 30 seconds.  There is over Three Thousand abortions per day.  Girls are dying, Babies are dying.

Cry Out!

Currently I'm Culturally Behind

Boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayan mountain was home for a lot of the 90's  Consequently I missed out on almost a decade of TV shows and movies.  Now that I live here in India I find it hard enough to keep up with my neighbors, family back home and world news that I find myself slipping in keeping up with cultural norms in the States.

Not really that important but when your tile guy plays a song twenty times on his cellphone while putting tiles up in your wash room/skylight/drain room/play area/catching ground for water that sloshes into the house, it sticks (the song that is not the tiles).  Baby, baby, ooooh yeah!  Over and over with a distinct female vocal that grows on you.

I looked up the Tile Guy's favorite song up on Itunes and found....... a little moy sings it... MOY you may ask... Boy Man.  How can he be old enough to be singing those lyrics and how can my female vocalist be a MOY.  Guess I am really behind in the times.  At least I recognized the moy's name.  Here he is singing Baby.

Confession... I did not watch the whole clip so if it turns bad I am sorry.  What I watched was pretty tame.  The little Moy danced and sang beautifully.  The lyrics should be sung by a man!

Community in the 'burbs

What would happen if your neighbor got up tomorrow morning in whatever they slept in, walked over and stood on your front lawn, and then squatted down, all the while brushing their teeth?  What if they then spat?  What would you do?

What would happen if everyone in your neighborhood got up tomorrow and decided to brush their teeth together outside on the sidewalk?

What would happen if everyone in your neighborhood decided to brush their teeth together, share two newspapers, and sit on only three sidewalk squares?

My husband and I strap our two kids on, both in their Ergos, and head out into the neighborhood early each Tuesday morning.  We pray for blessing, for truth, for grace and justice to rain like the monsoon onto the people we know and don't know all of whom God has created.

Every Tuesday we go I am struck with the absurdity of how much space, how much quiet, I want and expect when I watch morning in our 'hood.  I have actually burst into laughter as I watched a group of men sitting brushing their teeth reading the paper together and thought what it would look like in some random suburb in America where the Easter Bunny puked up the color of all the houses.  I liked the thought.  It might be a good way to bond.  Dental Friendship.  Once you got your mind around it all and you really sunk your teeth into the tradition, a neighborhood could really unite around the morning ritual.

The morning ritual of community dental hygiene will never happen in America but it happens here... another reason to love this country called India.

Counting

I counted because I was hot.  15.

15 people gathered around to watch us do nothing, just sweat.  We were at a wedding in a graveyard.  While we waited for our delicious wedding meal others ate theirs while sitting on graves.

Below in the  closed in mausoleum was a home.

In the corner of the one room crypt like apartment was a bride lounging on a bed.  She was in all her pink splendor.  Her she is with Zana, the visiting white baby!   Don't miss the big ol' thighs!

Cider and Apple

The names of 2010 pardoned Turkeys; Cider and Apple.
Hmmm.  Thanksgiving is not about a sacrificial turkey but somehow turkeys have been being pardoned for awhile now?  Weird Americans! But what about Easter?

However Eid, the Bukra One, is about a sacrifice.  Sins are placed on the animal and then it is slaughtered in a special way by a religious leader.  My hubby has seen a camel sacrificed and then the men run into cover themselves in the blood.

Easter, for those that believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, is about the sacrifice being paid (Good Friday) in full by Jesus' death as the perfect man, and His resurrection (Easter Sunday) revealing His deity and fulfillment of the just requirement by God Almighty of death for our sins.

A sweet family who have celebrated Eid for many years celebrated Easter this year.  On Bukra Eid meat flows in abundance.  Everyone shares.  Refrigeration is in short supply so what do you do with all the extra meat?  Gorge yourself and share, share, share.  I had a freezer full of meat from the most generous of people living all around me.  What about Easter?  What we decided to do to celebrate this special holiday is to give a living goat.  No sacrifice is needed anymore for this family.  It has been paid in full by the perfect God/Man on the cross.  He died the death we deserve after living the perfect life that we cannot.  Wow!

Eyes lit up.  Laughter ensued and in the midst of it all Christ's sacrifice was glorified!
A picture of "Ralph" (the spotted goat who can not take away the sins of the world) so named by one of the kids at Sunday School for TCKs, is on the way!  Personally I like Ralph's name better than the Turkey duo that were saved two Thanksgivings ago!

Cosmetics

My husband went with the groom to the village where the wedding was to take place.  I took my gauze kameez, makeup, and two kids to the little house to sit and celebrate with the family who stayed behind.  Mainly the mother of the groom and two of his sisters and a slew of cousins, aunts and uncles.

 As we sat and talked and then called the wedding party and talked and then called the wedding party and then ate and then called the wedding party, glitter was pulled out.  There were these beautiful glimmers that you sprinkle on your hair and flowers that attach with a little glue making your hair shine.  My head was applied liberally and before I could say stop my little girl's barely there hair was a kaleidoscope of color.  She did not seem to mind.  Abe thought it was delightful and demanded some for himself.  Zana grinned a gummy smile and shimmered in the florescent lights. 

I thought I would hold off on ever letting my baby girl wear cosmetics but at month four she is already wearing hair glitter.  What can I say we live in India where it all sparkles!

Corners

I was visiting my friends.  I had carried Zana in the Ergo, while half carting Abe through the graveyard, over the low wall, through the cricket grounds near the mazaar, past the meat shop, through a long gulley, through the vegetable bazaar, and down another street, left into a little lane and we arrived.  I was tired from avoiding the street dogs, the sewer, the vehicles and the neighborhood kids that run after us yelling all sorts of things in Hindi and HE-ng-lish

I was tired and a little flustered but delighted to see my friends.  A wedding in the family was coming and the new room had just been finished. 

Walk in with me.  The new room is the size of two single beds with a foot around each one.  It is small.  I walk into the sound of chanting.  I sit on the bed where I am directed and realize there is a full house.  The small room has 13 people in it (all women except one teenage boy) but I can hear men in the next room, lots of them all reading the Quran.  Hmmm. 

I ask my friend if it is alright that I am here visiting at this time.  Of course it is.  I am offered sweets, a special kind, I refuse.  Zana starts to cry.  It is then that I realize I forgot to feed her before leaving as I planned.  Where will I go?  I state my need and that I should probably leave but Auntie just says go there.....
 
Go Where?

I am sitting in the corner with bags of clothes behind me and yet she is motioning behind where I am.  I am confused.  Am I to go out into the gully?  No that cannot be right.  No she means just scrunch into the corner and feed Zana there.  So I do but I realize as I am scrunching that it is not an American gift to scrunch.  I don't think it is just my size but it is part of my cultural identity.  I just don't scrunch well.  When I sit on the hard wood bed three people are displaced by me.  I feel terrible and try to scrunch so that two can come back but there is never room.  When I try to scrunch with neighbors in rickshaws they always hem and haw and one of them is left hanging over the edge.  When I try to scrunch in photos I am always a head or two or even three taller and dominate the frame.  When I turn around in their little home I displace a crowd and usually step on a toe or foot.  Oh well.  I have to nurse so I just jut out my elbows, try to get comfy and displace the teen boy!

Sometimes corners are just not big enough for us Americans!

Cinema~ 300 Second Saturday

Cinema.

The production of movies as an art or industry.  Cinema going is different here.  How do I know?  Because I went to my first ever movie here where I live.  It has been over two years that we have been living here in India.  I saw a movie in Delhi (3D which I think is a waste of money and a good way to get a splitting headache) last year and this was my movie for this year and maybe the next ten.

I am nursing so I fed Zana and hit the door running to make the showing that would allow me to return in time to feed her again.  I ran to the road where I took a bicycle rickshaw to the mall (which sports the first escalator in our State), ran up to the ticket counter and encountered the first difference.  Here is the top 20 reasons why going to the cinema in India  (at least in my city) is vastly different than in the States.

1. There is no ticket line.  You have to push yourself forward.  
2. You can purchase tickets to one of three types of seats.  Silver, Gold and Diomand (original spelling kept to preserve authenticity of this story)
3. Diomand seats cost you about 3 dollars and 50 cents almost double the other tickets.
4. You are assigned an actual seat.
5. There is a guard when you enter the mall (you buy the tickets outside).
6. There is a guard when you enter the movie floor.  (both guards check your bag)
7. There are just two theaters to seat the masses.
8. The movie starts late!  They don't even let us in the theater (we enter ten minutes late ~ no one is perturbed.)
9. Even though there are only about 8 people in the Gold section (which is the entire top section of the theater except one row~that other row is Diomand and those seats are a different color and have cup holders) all of those 8 people (in Gold) are seated directly next to each other! (they did not come together)
10. A guard seats you.
11. Chilled bottled water costs less than 50 cents for a liter.
12. Popcorn, a large, is a dollar but light on the butter.
13. The ads are short and most of them are from the government about NSSO.  (I still have to look that up!)
14. The guard stays in the theater shining his light at us all ever so often to make sure we are in our assigned seats.
15. The movie starts with no direction to turn off cell phones or shush babies. 
16. Cell phones ring continually.
17. The film is in Hindi.  With no subtitles.  It is an American film and all the voices are done by what seems to me to be four people. (two men and two women)  One dialogue felt like it was the same woman doing the dialogue between two girls.
18.  During the film I am asked four times to give an order by swift footed young people offering to bring food at the intermission.  My favorite was when I was asked if I wanted "Pijja"  (z's and j's are interchangeable, hence the signs for Tarjan the Hero of the Jungle)
19. There is an intermission.  This was my favorite difference as my bladder was so thankful.
20. Okay so the strangest thing was that most everyone left before the end of the film.  They felt that when the two main characters survived that was enough.  The guard even opened the doors and everyone started leaving.  There was still two minutes or even three left.  The other guards came in and started playing with their flashlights.  I even started to pack up then I realized I had paid good money for the WHOLE movie and so I got my full 3.50 worth!!  

If you are ever in town maybe we could go to the theater together.  Or not!

Colored by Chai

Today a young lady who usually drinks chai in my home every day only drank milk.

Why?  Because.....
"If I drink the chai I will get darker, blacker."

What could I say?
"So if you eat spinach you will get green?  If you eat tomatoes you will get red?"

She wasn't buying my logic because you eat those particular items.  So I tried another tactic.

"What about Abe's dad, what color is his coffee?"
"Black"
"And he drinks four big cups every day, is he blacker?"

No was her answer to that question but she still has decided to cut back on chai.    Not only did her friend tell her this new fact about chai but a character on a soap opera stated it too.

Oh Well... my logical arguments didn't stand a chance against the "serials" (local soap operas).

Chaat Man

What exactly is chaat?  Well it is a savory, spicy snack served just about anywhere in the city off of stalls that are stationary or mobile.  Uttar Pradesh is supposedly the area of origin for this popular snack.  Chaat's etymology comes from three different words; a delicacy, to lick and lastly to devour with relish or eat noisily.  That last one I have found to be particularly true.  

In our current home I can set my clock by the chaat wallah (chaat man).  At 7, on the dot he bangs his steel spoon on his huge steel diba (massive pot) and yells to find out if anyone in our apartment building is hankering for a snack.  He gives quite a deal for just 5 rupees.  His particular version of chaat is a spicy lentil mix in a crispy ball core.  To top it off he pours water into the "ball" of goodness and in one fell swoop you down that baby, or three or five!  

Chaat, honestly, is pretty good but I do not get down often to indulge.  Why?  Because seven is crazy, wild, nuts.  It is when my son wants his bedtime milk, my daughter wants to nurse and the melt down which has been on the back burner suddenly rears its ugly head when I realize there is only a few hours before my head hits the pillow and I have two poopy diapers to rinse in the toilet, a load of laundry to start, a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room to clean or straighten.  However the cheerful banging of the same man each night adds a good reminder that this is my reality just for now and some day soon (while maybe in a few years) I will jump up, patter down the stairs with my kids and have a night time snack!