And all he’d say was
rain, rain, rain….
The monsoon started
this afternoon, two weeks late and three days early. Two weeks late because
historically the monsoons should have started by now based on historical start dates.
Three days early because the weather man said the rains were supposed to start
on Wednesday. The two week delay is actually a big deal. A deal of three weeks
means the monsoon will produce so little rain that crop harvest will be
catastrophically low. A delay of two weeks like this year will mean crops will
be reduced but there will still be a viable harvest. I read an article the
other day that stated, probably correctly that there is no single weather phenomenon
that affects more people than monsoon in India.
I have decided to
kick up my study of Hindi. I have been focused on learning the Hindi alphabet.
This may be more detail than anyone else wants to know but I think it is kinda
cool. The “natural” state of consonants is accompanied with a short “a” sound
like the (A in America). So (written in roman letters) the consonants are ka,
kha, ga, gha, and so forth. These consonants are changed to other consonants
not by adding another vowel to the k, kh, g, gh, and so forth but by adding a
mantra to the base consonant. This is harder
to explain than to show, so I’ll show it using ka as an example:
The red marks you see on the "ka" symbol are called mantra. As I said, they change the sound of the base consonant. Note the third symbol. The mantra that changes the sound actually is written before base symbol (in this case a short i sound, as in bit). The fourth symbol is essentially the mirror image of the third; it make long the base symbol a long e sound, as in feet) So, too much
information, right? I am sorry. I know it makes me a nerd but I think this is
really cool.
Here’s Rae.
This week has been
pretty uneventful so this entry will likewise be pretty uneventful. I did go out to lunch with Sister Slocombe
and a sister from our branch, Amy Paul.
Sister Slocombe is a senior missionary, here with her husband, who are
assigned to the mission office. Amy and
I had agreed to meet her at the mission office and then go to lunch from
there. The mission office is on the 3rd
floor. Remember that the way they do
floors here is ground, 1st (which we would call 2nd), 2nd (which
we would call 3rd), etc. So, the office is on the 3rd
floor (which we would call 4th).
The building is being remodelled.
The basement, ground floor, and 1st floor are being converted
to take the place of the building that is currently being used for 2
branches. The old building is about a
block away and is owned by someone else and leased by the church. This new building is part of the mission home,
office and Mission President’s residence.
I digress. Back to lunch, and my
reason for the long explanation about the remodel. Because of the remodel, the building’s
elevator was not functioning and so a trek up the stairs was required. I know that sounds like I’m in such bad shape
that climbing the stairs was too much. This building like the one we meet in [Phil-and
like most buildings in India] doesn’t enclose and air condition the stairs. So when you need to use the stairs, you have
to enter the “hot zone”. The multiple
flights of stairs was not the problem, it was the 104 degrees that I objected
to. Anyway, we survived that and had a
nice lunch at a local mall that had nice air conditioning. It was fun to spend time with these
ladies.
I’ve been thinking of
writing a bit about some of the buses around here. There are basically three different colored public
transportation buses. Green, orange and
red. I’m unclear on the difference in
the green and orange, maybe routes. The
red bus is the only one that is air conditioned and it costs a bit more to
ride. There are pictures below of the red and green but we still need a picture
of the orange one there. Here’s the part that I find interesting. I’ve been told by more than one person that women
should not ride the red bus because it is air conditioned. Air conditioned buses, it is explained, are
bad for women and will cause them to become ill because they are too
cold?!?!? I’ve tried to pay attention to
see if people really believe this and if the red bus is only ridden by
men. While I know this is not a
scientific test, I do have to say that I have observed mostly men on these
buses. I’ll keep observations going and
update if I find my conclusions are wrong.
Poor women!
Today was branch
conference at the Delhi 3rd branch which meets in the old building
that I talked about above. Since I’m the
1st counsellor in the District Young Women’s I visited that branch. I was told that normally they have 4 or 5 young women but today they had a record number [Phil - the word had gotten out that Rae was going to be there].
There were a couple of investigators, one young woman that was baptised last week
and one young woman that just came in from primary.
I thought you’d like to see what a Young Women’s group in Delhi India looks like.
There are some really impressive young women here
and they will be the future leaders of the church in India.
Namaste.
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