For those of you paying close attention to the dates these blogs are
published, our apologies for the delay. I (Phil) have still been dealing with a
kidney stone. It has pretty much taken all of my strength and energy to deal
with the day to day issues I have to cover. I haven’t had the moxi to deal with
the blog too. Rae was supporting me in my sloth, so the blog didn’t get itself
written. Anyway today, the 4th, is a holiday of sorts in India and
so we are going to try to get last week’s blog done before next week’s is due.
I said today was a holiday of sorts: it is Election Day and all
businesses are required by law to close so their employees can vote. So, that sounds
like a holiday. However, to make up for today being an off, Saturday is a
regular work day. Hence, a holiday of sorts.
Speaking of holidays, in the US last Thursday was Thanksgiving. That is
a holiday that is of no interest here in India. It is even almost impossible to
find turkey so if one wanted to celebrate finding the traditional centrepiece of
the meal would be missing. Rae and I had thought we would go to Agra to see the
Taj Mahal for our Thanksgiving. I have about a week of leave days I need to use
by the end of the year or I will lose them. So I took off Thursday and Friday
so we could finally see Taj.
Because of my kidney stone issues, we decided we didn't want to be off
even a couple of hours away from home. We decided to go with Elder and Sister
Slocombe to Old Delhi and look for Christmas decoration items. I have mentioned
Old Delhi before. There has been a bazaar in the same location for over 2000
years. Some of the stalls, like the ones which sell Christmas decorations, are
more modern in what they stock. Some of the stalls, like those for spices and
dried fruit, are probably essentially unchanged over that time. Here are a few
pictures we took in Old Delhi.
After we got the Christmas tree and other decorative objects, we
decided we should celebrate Thanksgiving with the Slocombes by having chips, salsa,
and hamburgers – nearly as iconic as Turkey with all the trimmings! It was a
fun day but it was a good thing we didn't go to Agra because by about half way
through dinner I was done in. I had to white knuckle it through the rest of
dinner and the ride home. When the pain really hits, the pain pills take the
edge off but don’t really take care of the issue.
I finally broke down and went to the doctor. We spent Friday at the
doctor’s office and getting a CT scan. I met with the same physician I met with
in June. It turns out that when I thought he said I had lots of stones that
what he actually said was I had a very large stone. It has moved but he thinks
there is little chance it will pass on its own (around 20%). He wanted to do
surgery right away as in that day or on Tuesday the 3rd. He did say I could
wait a week and see if it resolved itself but he wouldn’t wait longer than
that.
Most of you know that we decided to wait to see if we could beat the
odds. Family and friends joined us in fasting and prayer on Sunday the 1st.
As of this writing I have not yet delivered thee bouncing little kidney stone.
On the other hand, I have been blessed that the pain and nausea have been
tolerable. We have also been blessed with real, tangible expressions of love
and support from family. It is a lesson I seem to have to keep learning. The
Lord answers prayers. It may not be in the timing we want or the way we
anticipate. He rarely does so with overt miracles that defy explanation (though
that happens too). Usually he touches the hearts of people, inspires them to
act, and through them blesses lives and answers prayers.
We have had other interesting experiences this week. I will turn the
blog over to Rae to talk about some of those things.
Hi all,
I will start by talking a bit about Old Delhi. Because we were hoping to find some specific
items, like a tree and some decoration, we mostly went to a certain area in
search of those items. I know that we
barely scratched the surface and there is a ton more to see on future visits.
To say that it is a bit mind blowing is an understatement. Some streets are closed to cars, but that
doesn’t mean that they aren’t packed with motorcycles, bikes, carts, pack
animals, pack people, and tons of people.
You might get some idea when you see one of the pictures we are
including.
Shopping for Christmas items was a bit comical as it seemed that every
stall pretty much had the same items and at the same prices. Most of which were not so nice, cheaply made
stuff from China no less. We did buy a
little 5ft tree, some lights, and a few ornaments. I then spend almost all day Monday trying to
get our little tree decorated. One of my
best purchases was a huge bundle of gold cording. It cost 110 rupees which is about $1.70. I hung ornaments with it (because they don’t
seem to have little metal hooks here), hung stars in my windows and made lots
and lots of bows to put on the tree, and I still have a lot left. Anyway, while we may have a rather little and
cheaply decorated Christmas tree, we do at least have a Christmas tree and that
makes us happy.
One thing that I had sent over in our shipment was my Willow Tree
Nativity, a tapestry Nativity, and our Christmas stockings. It’s beginning to look a lot like
Christmas! I will say that decorating
for Christmas was a lot easier this year that it has ever been. It doesn’t take
much to make us happy these days.
As you look thru the pictures, you will see two that are of an ox
pulling a cart. In the one you can see
the cart moving down the road next to the car and the other is a close up of
the cart. Sharing the road with animals
is so common place around here. One
picture that we were not able to get was one of an elephant that we passed
along the freeway on our ride back from Old Delhi. That is my second elephant I’ve seen. Usually they are used as pack animals and
this one that we saw was carrying a large stack of something that looked a bit
like palm fronds. It just seems so
strange to be traveling down a wide freeway along with elephants, horses, other
miscellaneous animals, and let’s not forget the ever popular cows.
Another picture that we took was of a place to get you dentures. We took a picture of one person selling them,
but there were probably about a dozen on them, one right after the other. Even their signs were the same. It is always amazing to me how these people
make a living when there are so many of them, right by each other, selling
exactly the same things. I can’t imagine
going to some place like that for my dentures, but maybe they’re great (kind of
like the shoe repair guy along the road).
Sunday was another interesting day.
We went to Noida, which is about an hour out of Delhi, to hear the Dalai
Lama speak. Because of our connection
with the University, we were considered some of the special guests. The auditorium was set up with white couches
for the first four rows, and then regular chairs behind those. We happened to have a couch in the second row
and just to the left of the podium. I
guess I’m saying we had pretty great seats.
After the Dalai Lama spoke and put white prayer scarves on all the
people on the stand he came down into the audience and placed a white prayer
scarf on an elderly man who had been setting directly in front of us. While we did not get a prayer scarf, he did
look at Phil and ask him where we were from.
I guess the fact that we were white faces and Phil is 6’4” tall made us
stand out a bit. Anyway, it was a very
special thing to be able to see the Dalai Lama, and something that will always
be a fond memory. We were invited to
High Tea after, but Phil was feeling pretty bad and so we didn’t stay for
that.
Namaste.
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