Baby you can drive my car....

5 May 2013

Before I get started on this week’s blog, I want to report some exciting news from the other side of the world. Our daughter Sarah delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl yesterday. Carrigan Leigh Clifford came into the world at 7 lbs 4 oz and 18.5 inches long. Jeremy and Sarah are great parents. Having CC join their family and ours is a great blessing.

“Good news; nice intro; now how’s he going to tie it to a blog about New Delhi” you may be thinking to yourself.

Technology is a wonderful thing. It is making this time of separation from family much less of a challenge than it would have been otherwise. While I was at the church cleaning the chapel getting ready for our Sunday worship, I got a text from Rae Saturday afternoon my time that Sarah and Jeremy were on the way to the hospital. From that moment, through texts and then phone calls over Vonage I was as involved as I could have been without actually being there. There was functionally no difference between being half way around the world or half way across town. Now I don’t know about you, but since I remember the days of rotary phones and VERY expensive international calls, I consider that a modern day miracle.

Now, on to the actual blog.

I have been wondering what to write about this week. I decided to try and give you an insight into what my daily life is like. I have been in India almost a month (next Thursday marks that anniversary). I can’t say I have done anything particularly “touristy”, in fact I am deliberately holding off on those things until Rae gets here. My weeks kind of consist of long hours of work, Church on Sunday, and trying to get by in between. This is a picture of our main campus where my office is and where I spend 12 -14 hours a day and a few hours most Saturdays. I hope this will slow down by the time Rae gets here.

This week has marked the addition of two people to my life both of whom have made life easier and more enjoyable. Below is Christina Massey. As of last Monday, she comes in five days a week, cleans, and cooks an evening meal. She is also teaching me some Hindi (mostly by text, since she comes while I am at work). Christina is a returned missionary and she and her fiancé are saving money to go to Hong Kong to get married in the Temple. She is a sweet, fun, helpful young woman. I can’t wait for her to meet and connect with Rae. It will be a good match I think.

She also is a good cook, which has made my evenings much nicer. For the past few weeks, I have pretty much lived on some version of eggs and toast or sandwiches. I am not a bad cook, if I do say so myself, and I kinda enjoy it but I can’t get excited about cooking for just myself. Since Monday, I have enjoyed a variety of Indian and Western food – no eggs! In addition, her portions are large enough I haven’t had to cook this weekend either. Christina is another blessing!

  

The second major change is in transportation. On Tuesday my car was delivered, a Honda City, which is about the size of a Civic but it is a little taller, a little shorter, and it has suspension tuned for the Indian roads. This is a picture of the car.

So you don’t worry, I took off the ribbons before we used it. So, car on Tuesday but no driver until Friday. Below is Mehendi, our driver. His English is not great, but we are getting by. He also is teaching me some Hindi and I am teaching him some English. It’s pretty amazing actually. He lives in a town called Faridabad. It takes him over an hour to get from home to here. He has to take a bus until he is close enough to catch the metro. 

So that's it for this week.Stay tuned for more of our lives and times in New Delhi.

Namaste.