We're not Romeo - not Juliet, No we're not - that's a fact….

So, from time to time President Jurial asks me to sit in on counselling sessions. I assume it is because I am old and he can, if required, lean on my many, many, many years of experience. In some cases, most often actually, I am not sure why he asks me to sit in. He typically gives the advice or counsel that I would. He might word it differently but the essence is usually aligned. Particularly when the person he is counselling only speaks Hindi, I am not sure what I offer.

Apropos the above was a session today. A single mom wanted to counsel with President Jurial about her 18 year old daughter who’s a senior in high school. I actually had a session six months ago with the mother and one with the daughter six months ago when President Jurial was out of town. At that time the mom’s concern was that her daughter was getting too serious with a boy. She was doing poorly in school and generally being a difficult teenager. She wanted me to counsel her that she was getting too serious and she need to slow down and be more cautious. I knew this not from the mom, who speaks no English, but she asked a Sister in the Branch to sit in with us and translate. She assured me her daughter speaks English well and I agreed to talk with her. Turned out, her English? Not so much. She sat and smiled at me as I tried time after time to speak with her. It turned out President Jurial was going to be back in a couple of days, and she ended up waiting to talk with him.

What brings us to today. Same mom. Same daughter. Same total lack English skills. Same problem with the daughter running around with boys, not being responsible at school, and generally worrying her mother. But this time mom has a solution. She has arranged a marriage for her daughter. To her this seems like a great solution. The daughter is out of her house and is the husband’s problem. President Jurial tried to counsel her that pushing into an arranged marriage shifts but doesn’t solve the problem. It’s a difficult sale in a culture in which an arranged marriage seems like a perfectly reasonable solution. The girl just sat there most of the time staring at the ceiling. I think she will be glad to be out of her mom’s house and on her own. If the price of that is an arranged marriage to some guy she has only met once, doesn’t seem too high. I am afraid neither mother nor daughter have thought long term about the situation.

Shifting gears: yesterday was the first day of Ramadan, 30 days of fasting and worship for Muslims. The fast lasts from before sunrise to after sunset. I read, a few years ago, about a Mormon Chief of Police in a city near San Francisco that in a show of unity decided to observe Ramadan (high Muslim population in both the city and the police force). Since I read that article, each year as Ramadan approaches I consider observing it myself. This year, I thought about it again. Then I thought about dealing with the Delhi heat without even water and I decided, “hmm, well not this year.” Another item for my bucket list.

Here’s Rae.

A couple of things made this week different from the usually heat, power outages and my trying to survive them.  On Monday morning I decided to put a load of whites in the washer.  When I saw there was still room in the washer I decided to take my robe off and add it.  While the washer was running I decided to mix a batch of cookies.  When I started looking for my phone so I could set a timer, I had a sick recollection of dropping it into the pocket of my robe.  DANG!  I went to the washer and sure enough it was there in the pocket.  DANG!  Immediately I shook water out of it and set it in front of my hair blower.  Couldn’t find rice to put it into.  I sent Phil and email and told him what I’d done and that if he wanted to reach me he’d need to email.  I then put the cookie dough into the fridge to wait for Christina (who has a phone with a timer) to come so that we could bake them.  I was trying to make cookies in preparation for some house guests that were coming on Wednesday.

When Christina arrived later in the day I told her what I’d done.  She found the rice and so I transferred my phone to a bowl full of rice and prayed that that would be the answer to saving my phone.  I left the phone in the rice until Tuesday night and then decided to try it.  It turned on, YAY!  But, I couldn’t get it to open so I could access anything.  Back into the rice til morning.  Wednesday morning it wouldn’t even turn on, just black.  DANG! 

Wednesday afternoon Phil arrived at the house with a new phone.  (Here it is)  

He is such a good guy.  So, I now have a new phone with some of my old info and more work to be done in getting things restored.  This whole thing has made it very clear to me how tied to technology (our phones) we are.  It was almost embarrassing how many times I found myself reaching for my phone that of course, wasn’t there.  I kept hearing my Dad’s voice saying “Well, it was an expensive lesson, but hopefully you’ve learned it”.  He, like Phil, was/is a patient man.

We had 4 house guest Wednesday-Friday morning.  Our friend McArthur who lives in Faizabad came with 3 young people.  Michael (16) who is from the US but visiting McArthur for the summer and 2 of her Indian neighbors, Ruby (18) and her brother Siddharth (23).  Ruby was meeting with the US embassy to apply for a visa to do an internship in the US. Siddharth came, I don’t know why, maybe just to come to Delhi or as a chaperone, not sure.  Michael turned 16 on Wednesday and so had made arrangements to be ordained to the office of priest, which Phil did today.  It is always fun to have house guests and get the opportunity to meet new people and share some of their experiences with them. 

Finally, the sister missionaries arranged a Branch photo this afternoon. You can't tell from this picture how HOT it is.

Namaste.                         

I rap in a power outage, don't need a microphone I can rap without it…

Rae here.  This week has been uneventful so here are a few random things that may or may not be of interest.

One thing has been consistent this week and that is power outages.  I wasn’t here at this time last year and Phil was usually at work during the day so I don’t know if this was the norm last year.  I’ve been told that the heat is the reason for the outages, but according to our driver there is another reason which I will explain in a bit.  Anyway, whatever the reason, it has become a pain and I’m beyond tired of it.  It is not exaggerating when I say that we lose power a dozen times a day, or more.  We have a generator that gets turned on after a few minutes so the house doesn’t get too hot, but it’s still annoying to be in the middle of something and have to stop.

Here’s the other reason for the outages, according to our driver.  India has a new Prime Minister, a man named Modi.  I know our driver did not want him to be elected and had some dire predictions about what would happen if he was elected.  Robinson says that the power outages are his doing and are directed to certain areas where Modi didn’t have their votes and support.  Also he is Hindu and only likes Hindu’s, and also this is his plan so that he can raise electric rates.  Modi must be pretty powerful and vengeful. My theory is that we live in India.

While I’m sure it is MOST interesting hearing about power outages two weeks in a row I thought I’d share a few other random bits. I’m including a picture of me holding a banana.  Why you may ask.  I thought seeing the size of bananas here might be of interest.  In the US our bananas are pretty big, usually unblemished, and quite often we buy them green and let them ripen.  Here they come smaller, usually look a bit beat up, hardly ever picked green, and here’s the best part, are more flavorful than our US variety.  You’ll have to take my word on the flavorful part.   

These next two pictures are of Phil down a very narrow street buying light bulbs.  I think we’ve explained that there really aren’t any Target, Walmart or Fred Meyer type stores here so when you want light bulbs you go to a light bulb store/stall, when you want fabric you go to the fabric store/stall, when you want paint you go to the paint store/stall.  You get the idea.  The street that Phil went down has several electric (light bulb) stalls, one right after the other.  If one doesn’t have what you need then you go to the next and so forth, until you are hopefully successful. 

I think we have mentioned in previous blogs that our branch doesn’t have anyone that plays the piano.  While I’m pretty pathetic, I’m quite often the best they have and I end up trying to play for sacrament meeting.  The only way for me to practice is to go to the church.  That’s what I’ve done in the past, but that only happens about once a week and doesn’t make for much improvement.  Since I’ve vowed to try to stay inside and out of the heat as much as possible going to the hot church building to practice hasn’t happened.  Phil braved the heat and went out and bought a keyboard so that I could stay in the comfort of my air conditioned house and practice.  What will be my excuse now for being pathetic?  I know, I can blame the power outages for interrupting my practicing.  There, we’ve gone full circle and made our way back to power outages

Hi, Phil here. I have just a couple other items to talk about. As with Rae, nothing terribly important today, just a couple of randomositities.

First, I am very disappointed with myself. I have been in India for over a year but I have hardly made a dent in learning Hindi. I have been looking for a tutor or convenient class. I really want to get to the point that I am at least conversant. I have tried Rosetta Stone but I haven’t been thrilled with it. So far, most of the Hindi I have acquired has been by listening, trying to determine meaning when I hear the same thing over and over, and when all else fails asking someone. I have always thought I had a pretty good ear for languages. I still remember with pride the time I passed as Japanese in a café until I stood up and the person saw that I wasn’t Japanese after all (I still kinda smile at the shocked look on his face). One of my professors (native Japanese) told me when I made mistakes, I made the same mistakes as Japanese. I attribute that to my preferred way of learning a language as described above.

I say this not to brag but to reinforce that I at least used to have a good ear for languages. All of that self-delusion went crashing down yesterday. There is a commercial I have heard a hundred times or so. There is one particular line from the commercial I think I understand but I wanted to make sure. So yesterday, I said to our driver, “there is a line in this commercial (repeated what I thought I was hearing), “what does that mean? He replies by repeating exactly what I had said. I said, right, that’s it. He said, “No, that makes no sense at all. That is a meaningless statement.” Wow, so much for my mad language skillz!

World Cup is going on currently in Brazil. Although I read there is more interest in the US this year than in previous World Cups, four years ago that wasn’t particularly the case. The rest of the world goes crazy and in the US it attracted less attention than a regular season of college football. Well, I have found a place that even cares less than the US about World Cup. In India, there is no apparent recognition that it is going on. I have missed having someone to talk to about it. I have had to seek out a couple of African students who I know like soccer and a Nigerian brother at Church today just so I can talk about it for a few minutes. I don’t know which is weirder. That no one in India cares about World Cup or that I care enough that I am seeking out people just to talk about it.

Well, tune it next week to see what new adventures we might uncover.

Namaste.                        

Hot town, summer in the city, Back of my neck getting burned and gritty…

Well, as you know if you are a regular readers of our blog, we got back to Delhi last week. After days of temperature between 60 – 70 degrees, we came back to 120 degrees. The difference in temperature was just the beginning. As Paul Harvey used to say, “this is the rest of the story.”

It has been so hot that there have been rolling power outages, particularly in the poorer/older parts of town. That has stressed electrical systems all over the city in general and at our campus in particular. Monday it was another scorcher; about 10:00am the main electrical line into the campus burned out. We have two generators and they both kicked in. And caught fire. So we were out of electricity, had it again for about two minutes, and then nothing. No lights, no computers, no air conditioning. It was pretty sweet. Finally about 2:00pm we determined that it wasn’t going to be fixed until later in the evening. So, I cancelled classes and sent everyone home. I stayed as long as I could stand it and then went home where I had both AC and Internet. Finally about 10:00pm I got word the main line was replaced and power was restored. Whew! It was a hot day but at least now things were going to be back to normal.

Not. Next morning, things started okay until there was a power surge. First generator kicked in. No worries. Second generator kicked in and lasted about two minutes when it threw a piston and ceased up. This caused the first generator to overload, catch fire, and shut down again. Once again we were dead in the water and it was a million degrees. Again I cancelled class and sent everyone home. This time, we enlisted the help of the facilities department at our parent company. Turns out we have to rebuild both generators. Between melted pistons and totally burned wiring things are bleak. The only good thing that came of it was we were able to find and bring in a large portable generator (think small trailer) while the repairs are being done. It is supposed to be fixed by tomorrow; we’ll see. I am not holding my breath.

I know that power shortages and power outages are the norm in the majority of the world. I really don’t understand how you are supposed to conduct business, at least not modern business based on computers and telecommunications, in these conditions. I was beyond frustrated. But, Wednesday I pulled my boots on and went to work. Amazingly, power stayed on. We had computers. We had phones. We had air conditioning. Ah the simple pleasures!

Well, that was the essence of my week. Here’s Rae to tell you about her first week back.

My week has been a mixture of jet lag and power outages.  Don’t think I’ll spend any time elaborating on jet lag other than to say I’m still trying to figure out the best way to make that transition.  I don’t seem to make the adjustment as fast as Phil does.  Maybe I’m just a bigger whiner.

The heat has caused problems all over the city and that includes our house.  My day is continually interrupted by power outages.  Luckily the power never stays off too long because we have a generator that kicks in.  Luckily no fires here.  Still a bit annoying to have continual interruptions in what I’m doing.  Sadly for a lot of people there have been long periods of no power and no AC.  There have been some heat related deaths.  Phil didn’t mention that we were fortunate enough to be here when one of the days they broke a 62 year record for heat.  Should be excited about being able to witness a record being broken, but somehow I didn’t feel very excited.  Found it a bit deflating. 

Heat is the topic of the day and my goal is to avoid it as much as possible.  I can have groceries delivered, work on some projects that have been waiting for my attention and spend some time trying my hand at art again. That’s my plan for surviving these next few months.  I know, I sound like a whimp.  I am.    

Namaste.                         

Gee but it’s great to be back home….

We are back in India. We got back this morning and by the time we got in bed, it was about 36 hours since we woke up. It makes a long day. I am getting too old for this stuff.

The last two weeks we haven’t posted on our blog because, while we were busy and enjoying ourselves, there wasn’t anything to write about India. So, this week will be kind of a recap/catch up post and then starting next week we’ll be back to business as usual.

The past two weeks have been anchored by three key events: Jeremy’s graduation, the celebration of Carrigan’s birthday, and Isabel’s blessing. Likewise, this blontry (I have just coined this new word that is a contraction of blog and entry. Pretty exciting, isn’t it, having a ring-side seat when history was made?) will also focus on those three events.

Jeremy’s graduation was an event three years in the making. I am sure it doesn’t seem that way to Jeremy and Sarah, but the time to me went very quickly. The ceremony was well organized and nicely run. The truth of the matter however, and I remind myself of this every time I am responsible for a graduation, is for the graduates and their guests the only part that really matters is the few seconds he or she is on the stage. Likewise, the highlight for the Clifford/Lundberg family was hearing Jeremy’s name called; watching him walk across the stage; seeing him get hooded; and then the pictures afterward.

Lewis and Clarke did one thing I thought was unique and pretty cool. After the graduation ceremony, they had a mini-graduation for the children of those whose parents graduated that day from law school. I have never seen that before. It was a nice gesture for the families who also give so much so their “graduate” could achieve that milestone. Later in the day, Sarah and Jeremy hosted a family celebratory party at a local park. All in all a very enjoyable day. Now Jeremy just has to prepare for and pass the Bar Exam. No pressure though. It’s not like failure to pass that exam would obviate three years of study and preparation. What. Wait. It would? Oh. Never mind. I’m sure he feels no pressure. 

Here are some pictures of the day:

The next day Sarah and Jeremy hosted another family event: the celebration of Carrigan’s first birthday. Her birthday was actually earlier but they held off the celebration until the weekend of Jeremy’s graduation so his parents and Rae and I could be there to participate. The food was good; the company better and Sarah made an amazing looking flower of egg/dairy free cupcakes. In accordance with the ancient law, Carrigan “ate” her cupcake by mostly smearing it on herself. Pictures below:

The final event of the triad was Isabel’s blessing. That took place the following Sunday at Ben and Becca’s house. With Bishop Glausi presiding. Ben conducted a brief ceremony and then gave Isabel a blessing. It was an honor to stand in the circle and help hold her as Ben pronounced her blessing. We took some pictures and then went back to the park where Becca and Ben threw a picnic dinner and we sat around and talked until it was time for the little kids to go to bed.

Now that I think of it, there was a fourth event that happened a few times actually, both in connection with the above events and just because: Damn Hursts. For those that don’t know, a Damn Hurst is where the family sits around and talks: telling stories, joking, and generally enjoying each other’s company. The name comes from a Hurst family reunion held years ago in Blanding, Utah. Some family members were in a grocery story buying supplies for dinner when they overheard a couple of people talking about our reunion and the one woman said, “Those damn Hursts. All they do is get together and talk!” When that story was told later that day, the name stuck!

Anyway, next week’s blontry will be back to talking about India. Until then….

Namaste.