The whole work holds its breath again, The marriage ring it shines…

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THE topic this week is the wedding Rae and I attended of one of my managers. I’ve always heard Indian weddings are noteworthy. Based on our experience, I would say that’s an understatement. I guess I could talk about our preparations for the ACICS visit – that certainly has occupied nearly every moment this week – but I just don’t want to. There will be time for that next week when the visit is over. Let me just say, I think we are as ready as possible; now it just depends on the conduct of the team.

So the wedding. Given the variety of sub-cultures in India. It may well be that if you’ve seen one Indian wedding, you’ve seen one. Both Deepak’s and Seema’s (the bride) families are both Punjabi. I am sure that influenced the wedding to some degree. So, while not holding ourselves out as experts Rae and I will try to describe what we experienced with pictures accompanying the text.

The first thing to know is that Indian weddings take several days (I think this is common to all). In Deepak and Seema’s case the parts of the wedding to which we were invited covered three days, err, nights. The first night was the ring ceremony and Sagan. The event was held at a banquet hall and there were probably about a hundred people, family and friends of the two families. No alcohol was served, a fact for which Deepak’s father apologized to me more than once. So, the event was dry (befitting the fact the center of the evening was a religious ceremony) but that was the only way in which moderation was shown. There was a constant flow of food and drink: sodas, energy drinks, juice, and all kinds of appetizers. Then the dinner started. So, the second thing about Indian weddings – there’s a ton of food!

And dancing. There was a dance floor, DJ and everyone danced. Well almost everyone. Rae and I stood to the side and watched, this time. That almost wasn’t the narrative. One of Deepak’s aunts was actively dragging Rae towards the dance floor; pushing people aside. The only thing that prevented Rae’s debut was the announcement that dinner was served. Until the dance portion of the festivities were over, everyone from two year old kids to 90 year old grandmas were dancing. I say that dancing stopped with the dinner – paused is more accurate. We didn’t stay to the end but Deepak told me the party went on until the banquet room threw them out at midnight.  Tat was the early night  

Now to the ceremonial part of the evening. The Sagan is a religious ceremony in which the bride’s family blessed the groom. First there is a purification ceremony then the family of the bride blessed the groom marking his forehead with a paste made of spices, rice and flower pedals, then other members of the wedding party are also blessed. Finally, the family of the bride give the groom sweets, cash, and other presents. Then boxes of sweets are given to members of the groom’s wedding party (see comment on food). The ring ceremony is somewhat an adaption of the exchange of rings from a western marriage, although it happens before the actual wedding rather than at the end of the ceremony.  Another adaptation is cutting and eating a wedding cake. Of course, it has to take an Indian twist.

First the cake was nothing like a traditional western wedding cake. It was chocolate, which is okay, but it was a large rounded cake as if it had been baked in a mixing bowl. It was covered by a sort of gelatine frosting. After the exchange of rings, the groom fed a little cake to the bride and she did the same to him. Then each took turns feeding bites of the cake to all the key members of the wedding party (this is an Indian tradition that pops up at all kinds of celebrations). After this, the cake was cut and pieces were served to all the guests. While the cake serving was going on the dancing really took off as mentioned before.

So all of that was fun and enjoyable but the highlight for me was meeting Deepak’s two aunts. They are probably, I don’t know, 75 – 80, one with teeth, and one without. And they were a hoot. They adopted Rae and me as if we were their long lost children. They were a constant throughout the three nights of the wedding and I have to say, I miss them and I am a little sad I probably won’t be seeing them again.

Night two was just a wild party. Actually there were two parties: one at Seema’s parent’s house for her part of the wedding party and one at Deepak’s parents’. There was no ceremony on night two (well the women could get mehndi (henna tattoos) on their hands. Mostly there was VERY loud music and drinking, drumming and dancing. So much dancing. And food. So much food. The drinking occurred discretely.  Individuals slipped out of the main party, drank, and then rejoined the party. I disappointed Deepak’s father and uncle by declining their offer to join them for drinks. Neither Rae nor I disappointed them on the dance floor however.

We were brought out by hand to the dance floor by various family members, who encouraged us to jump right in and join the dancing. We gave up and went home about 2:30 (the police shut down the party due to neighbors’ complaints about 4:00) but before that Rae and I were both brought out onto the dance floor and got to try our hands (and feet) at Indian dancing. Rae was a natural and appeared to have a great time. I also enjoyed it but I was more self-conscious than she. I was ready to go at 2:30 but Rae I think would have stayed to be kicked out by the police.

The third night was the wedding itself. It took place at a huge wedding center (I estimate the grounds encompassed three acres surrounded by a twenty foot high wall like a fortress. Inside the wall were dozens of food vendors with all varieties of food, drink, and deserts (again, no liquor). Deepak and his wedding party arrived in a sliver studded carriage drawn by two white horses and led by a Punjabi drum band and a brass band in “music man” uniforms. I think the primary requirement for membership in either band was being able to play loudly. It took hours for the grooms wedding party to make it into the venue.

Then the bride’s party came to the venue. Again, the process took quite a while to make their way in side. The bride’s male members carried a covering over the bride’s head. I understand the covering is made of red fabric, although this time it was more of a lattice work with bells on it. Once the bride came into the venue, the groom brought her onto a raised platform and put a garland of flower around her neck and she him. Then, the platform on which they were standing started to turn (it seemed kind of unstable) and flower pedals were shot out over them and the gathered throng. Eventually they came down off the pedestal and made their way to a stage which was at one end of the venue, on which there were two large, armed chairs. For the next two hours everyone was expected to come forward and have their pictures taken with the bride and groom.

It was now after 2:00 and the party had started to drag. When we saw one of our favourite aunts headed home, we decided it was okay for us to leave too. I found out the next day it was a step we took too soon. I have heard about the details of the actual Indian wedding (husband and wife circling a fire seven times; hands ceremonially bound together, etc. When that had not happened yet by 2:00, we assumed it must have happened earlier at another venue. No, it actually happened after we left around 5:00 AM. Apparently the lull we observed was pretty typical. About the time that happens most of the people other than immediate family leave and then the real ceremony takes place just before dawn. I wish I’d known that. Even though I had work the next day, I would have stayed for the whole thing if only I had known. I don’t know if we will be invited to another wedding whilst we are here. If we are, I am tempted to take the time off and really enjoy it.

Well that’s my take. Here’s Rae who will give you clearer insights.

As Phil stated, if we are ever invited to another wedding, we will be smarter, and better prepared for certain things.  One thing we would be better prepared for was money.  It is wise to carry lots of 10 and 20 rupee bills, as money is something that is waved and thrown around.  As people dance, other people will circle their heads with bills and then the money is given to someone.  The “someone” was never clear to me.  I wasn’t sure if people were dancing to earn money for the bride and groom, or if the money was given to the drummer, the DJ or who.  I do know that when money was circled over my head as I danced, it wasn’t given to me. One thing that was clear was that everyone who is working at the wedding is always ready for you to hand them some.  Once we finally made it into the wedding venue we (Phil and I) were DOGGED by about three waiters that kept bringing us food, drink, napkins and any number of other things we didn’t necessarily want.  After several attempts to extricate ourselves from them it became clear that they wanted us to give them money.  The problem was we had already given all our 10 and 20 rupee bills out and were not about to give them 100 or 500. 

Staying up very late is another thing that we will be better prepared for.  This particular wedding was difficult because it was taking place while Phil was knee deep in all the preparations for the upcoming accreditation. With Phil putting in 70-80 hour work weeks, taking days off to rest so we could party all night just wasn’t an option.  Next time, if there is a next time, he won’t be going through accreditation.

When we were given the invitation to the wedding, there were three separate invitations enclosed. These were invitations for each of the events that Phil has just described.  The thing we learned was that even though there were times listed for each event, they were meaningless.  Deepak told Phil what time we really needed to come, for instance, the ring ceremony stated it was to begin at 6:30 with dinner at 8, but Deepak said we didn’t need to come until 9.  The wedding stated it would start at 5:00 but he told us we didn’t need to come until 10.  We arrived at 10:20 and the groom was sitting in the carriage outside the venue and didn’t begin his slow movement into the hall for another 20-30 minutes.  You will notice a picture of Phil in the carriage with Deepak.  This picture was taken right after we arrived. 

The movement of the carriage with the groom into the hall is very slow.  It moves forward about 10 feet and then stops.  The band plays, the drummers play and the family and guests dance for a while then another, 10 feet.  Clearly the horses are used to all this commotion but I was amazed at their patience through all this noise, movement and their lack of movement.  They didn’t even jump when the different fireworks went off. I did however.

Hopefully you will be able to see all the details of both the bride and grooms clothing. The groom had to be warmer that the bride.  The groom had a jacket while the bride had short sleeves and was not as covered.  A few things to note; the groom had money attached to different cords that hung around his neck, the groom had strings of flowers that hang from his turban as a sort of veil, and the grooms curled toed shoes, just to mention a few.

Now a few things about the bride.  Typically the bride wears red, they also wear red bangle bracelets and this bride had many on both arms.  It is tradition that the bride continues to wear these bracelets for as much as a year after the marriage.  Not sure how well it shows in the pictures, but it is typical for the bride to wear a larger nose ring with a chain that connects to one ear, this brides were pretty subtle compared to some I’ve seen.  The bride’s gown while it is made of delicate fabric is actually very heavy.  It is heavily jewelled and all those jewels add up to a lot of weight. I’ve looked at several wedding outfits that are jewelled and beaded and I can’t imagine wearing all that weight for many hours, think 20 -50 lbs.  I’ve looked at several wedding outfits, and I could barely lift them.

My mehndi, henna tattoo, was my first and so I wasn’t smart enough to only have one hand done.  As I was having my first hand done, Deepak came by and said “Oh Rae you should have both hands done”.  I had no idea what that would mean for the rest of the evening.  The henna is painted on with a paper tube similar to a small icing bag.  One young man did one hand and another did the other hand.  Each design is different as they are created as they go.  The palm is more decorated than the back of the hand, and the tips of the fingers are painted solid. Having finished the painting I went to sit and let it dry.  As I’m sitting I’m informed that this will take 2 hours to dry, WHAT!  How do I scratch my nose, take a drink, or eat a bite of food?  Well. Let me tell you how.  The little aunties that Phil talked about earlier would come along and feed me bites of food, a task that poor Phil later took over.  At one point I decided I needed a drink so as Phil was trying to give me a drink, always a fun experience trying to have someone else give you a drink, a little lady took the glass from him and started “helping me”.  She was short, and I am not.  It had to be pretty comical watching me trying to get low enough to make contact with the glass and drink fast enough so as not to just wear it.  Anyway I finished the drink and she was so happy to have helped me.    

One thing that was so surprising to me was how accepting and welcoming everyone was.  They treated us like we were the guests of honor.  It was a bit embarrassing at times, as I was prepared to just stand back and observe, not be thrown into the middle of all the celebrations.  These people are so warm, accepting and loving.  They really did make us feel included and never like intruders. 

Weddings here really are a BIG DEAL and I can’t imagine how much it must cost them, both in time and money to have these many days of food, fun and celebration. So glad we got to experience it.    

Phil and I kept saying that in our western minds we could see many ways to streamline and speed things up.  Certainly a different mind-set.  Streamline vs revel in the process.  Once again an experience in contrasts.

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Namaste!

When the slow parade went past….

 Today, 26^th Jan, is Republic Day in India. Unlike Constitution Day in the US (the celebration it is most akin to in the United States) it is a big deal here. It is a national holiday and in many parts of the country buildings are draped in saffron, white and green buntings or electric lights. Here in Delhi there is a grand parade. Seating for the parade is by invitation only and it is somewhat of a hard ticket to obtain. We weren’t able to go (even if we could have gotten tickets) because it is the same time as Church. However, Rae was able to get tickets to the dress rehearsal on Thursday morning. That experience will be the heart of her part of this post with pictures. It also caused me to select the Matchbox 20 lyric as today’s blog title.

As for me, I am going to focus my part of the entry again this week on work. I mentioned last week we are in the throes of preparing for our accreditation visit. This involves making sure all of our processes are compliant with accreditation standards and that everything we do is adequately documented. This is the substantive part of both the visit itself and of preparation. There is also a portion of the visit that is based on perception. Do we look professional and competent? Part of that perception is the look and feel of our physical facility.

At the last campus I led through accreditation (Charter College in Vancouver) our facility and equipment were brand new and beautiful. The place spoke for itself and immediately gave the accreditors a positive impression of us from the first walk through. Our campus here in India is not quite the opposite (there is nothing unsafe about it) but it is definitely long in the tooth. My predecessor(s) have neglected the building and the furnishings. There has been deferred maintenance and even inadequate cleaning. So now, in order to get the building ready for the visit we are doing a top-down, inside-outside “freshening” if not refurbishing. This has firmly exposed me to the current standard for cleaning and maintenance here in Delhi.

We have been trying to get our cleaning contractor to actually get things clean. Their standard is to wipe everything down with damp rag. A Damp. Dirty. Rag. Which is dipped into dirty water. Further, it doesn’t matter if things actually get clean. If things have been wiped, that should certainly be enough. Rae has been helping us with prepping the building including cleaning, identifying repairs that need to be done, painting, and wall hangings. I am sorry to say that after nine months, many of the deficiencies I saw when I first started have faded before my eyes after repeated exposure. Rae, who has a great eye for detail anyway, does not have that issue. Rae has been known to take the aforementioned rag, and show the cleaning people that by applying effort light switches, electrical plates, and dirt on the wall can also be made clean. A sophisticated, well-traveled, cosmopolitan Indian friend of mine says the problem is they can’t see the problem. They don’t have enough experience to know the standard we are seeking and therefore they can’t discern the difference between that standard and where we are now. It’s a work in progress but we are moving closer to the standard of cleanliness and order.

Now for painting. That has also been quite an eye opening experience. First, it has been hard to get people to understand the concept of a unified pallet of colors. If basic off white paint is thrown up (and I use that term deliberately) everywhere, that should be good enough. So, we have had several discussions with the painter about what colors of paint we should use where and how one light wall color can have a dramatically different effect than another light wall color. And don’t even get me started on accent paint. Why one would want an accent wall or feature seems a concept beyond understanding. Well, we finally got all of that sorted and agreed upon. I think we will now have a sophisticated, homogeneous pallet of colors that will lead from the entry through to the top floor.

Now if we can get them to paint with a bit more care.  Apparently the concept of taping off edges is beyond the understanding of painting crews. Sure they put down drop clothes to take care the big issues like spills but they seem to think it is cheaper and easier to clean dried pain off of light switches and coveing than it is to tape them. Likewise, it also better to paint and then clean and repaint where paint meets hard surfaces than to tape the boundary in the first place. This would be okay, I guess, if they actually do the detailed cleaning they promise will happen. Let’s just say I have my doubts it will be done right the first time. I think it is likely I will have a discussion with the painter about what is an acceptable standard. The painting is all supposed to be done this weekend. I guess the good news is that still gives us a week to actually make it right before the accreditors arrive.

This lack of quality and attention to detail that seems common to Indian labor is quite distressing to me. It is clear from the magnificent, iconic buildings throughout India that at one point there was an amazingly high level of craftsmanship in India. The decedents of those men and women apparently have little pride in their work. It is a tragedy actually. Another Indian friend of mine says the problem is that India is a country of laborers who have forgotten how to labor.

Well, I am sure this discussion of my cleaning and maintenance challenges has been insightful (read boring). I will now turn the writing over to Rae for what I am sure will be something more interesting. I know I am looking forward to it.

HI all,

Since Phil has talked about labor, I’d like to add a bit to that theme before I move on to the Republic Day Parade.  India is a country on contrasts, at least in my mind, on so many levels, one of those being labor.  In the US we are all about tools and having the right tool for the job.  Here I am continually amazed at the lack of tools or equipment.  I know I’ve talked about the number of times we’ve had repairmen out to fix our toilet, and the number of times they came with no tools or maybe a screwdriver or two.  I know we’ve mentioned that labor is cheap here and so the mind-set is just tell the person what you want done and let them figure out how to do it without the help of proper tools or supplies (because those cost money). 

I’ve been so amazed when I see men balancing on top of a very narrow wall or painting the front of a tall building or anything that I would assume you’d need a ladder for and yet there they are and no ladder in sight.  When you do see a ladder it is almost always made of bamboo and always looks like it needs repair.  When Phil and I were at a mall one day I noticed three repairmen outside trying to work on something over a doorway.  I watched them take a table, put a chair on that and then something on top of the chair and then climb the precarious pile to almost be able to reach what they needed to reach.  One man builds the makeshift ladder, climbs it and does the work while the other two do ?????. 

There is a new metro system being constructed between our house and the campus and so I get to observe that process regularly.  I’m amazed at the lack of equipment that I see, and occasionally find myself gasping when I see someone perched way up high working away and wonder how it is they got there, how they stay there, and how they will live through this process.  Oh well, labor is cheap and there is always someone else who will be happy for the work should this poor guy not make it.  I know that sounds cynical and I guess it is, but laborers don’t get many protections or considerations around here.  Labor is CHEAP. Words fail me when I try to paint an adequate picture.

Not many people here take initiative of their own.  Most people have a specific job and that is what they will do and not one thing more.  That was reinforced in my mind when I went to the rehearsal parade.  There are many fenced off sections set up with bleacher type seating and also different height folding chairs in front of those.  There was rain the day before the parade and so when we arrived at our section we found that most of the chairs had water on the seats.  There were many guards and guides there to help with crowd control.  Most of these men I observed just stood around and never did anything.  I kept thinking, “why didn’t someone, (or why didn’t they think of it themselves) have them tip the chairs and dump the water off so they were drier for people to set on”.  Just a thought.  It appears if it’s not in your job description, or someone over you doesn’t tell you to do it, then you don’t do it.

On to the actual parade.  First, it didn’t start on time, that’s a given.  Once it did start, it was really enjoyable and I was glad I was able to go.  Next year it will be on a Monday, Phil won’t be in the middle of accreditation, and hopefully we can get tickets and both go.  It turns out that because of tight security they didn’t allow cameras; I had to send mine back to the car.   No cameras, but nobody stopped us from using our cell phones so I was able to get some pictures.  They’re not great, but hopefully you’ll get some idea.

I wish I’d done a better job of getting some closer shots of the many different military uniforms because they are spectacular.  I know that there is an army, navy and air force and I’m assuming that the different uniforms represent different units or areas where they may serve.  Hopefully you can get some idea of the different colors and hats that each units wore. There were probably 20 different military units and almost that many bands to accompany them.  They were very precise in their look and movement.  I was very intrigued by their elaborate and colorful hats or headdresses.  They were spectacular.  It was easy to spot the Sikhs in each unit as they wore turbans instead of the standard hats.  Their marching was very striking and it was clear that these guys were in great shape.

There were several horse units also and they too were beautiful and impressive.  The horses had to be a certain height and color.  They could have been more closely matched if they’d been cloned, but short of that they were very similar.  I thought I took several pictures of these, but I must have been too busy being impressed to get more than one.  At least I got one.

There were huge tanks, and several other types of military equipment.  These were painted in some interesting ways.  There were floats with communications systems, missiles, aircraft and other items that highlighted the military power.

Many states had floats that represented something unique about that area.  We saw more primitive villages, the Himalayas, the coasts. Industrial, and craft and textile areas to name a few.  These floats were beautifully made and impressive. 

Now to my favorite part of the parade, the camel military unit and military band.  Where else could I see something like that?  The camels moved with smooth elegance and appeared to have an air of “aren’t I spectacular”.  I loved watching the band members sitting on top of the camels and preforming with the same precision as all the other bands.  If you look, you will see the large drums mounted on the camels.  Loved it!

There were some gaps in the parade and I’m assuming those were left for the groups that didn’t participate in the practice.  One on those gaps I believe were for the elephants.  I’ve been told there are elephants.  Don’t know if they’re part of a military units or just elephants.  Hopefully we can go next year and fill in some of the blanks. 

Well, those were the highlights of the parade and the highlight of the week was the parade.  The military and police presence were everywhere and security was tight.  There is always a security section for women and you are searched by a women.  The day we went there was one booth for women screening.  They gave us a pretty thorough pat down and then checked our purses.  I had a very small purse that held my wallet, glasses, chapstick and a couple of odd papers.  They unzipped and inspected each section of my purse and my wallet.  I have always found these women to be kind and friendly.  I do wonder how will they take that much time and care when they process the million people who attended today?  Kind of glad I went on rehearsal day, the crowds this morning had to be insane. 

    

Well enjoy your week and the fact that you have tools.          

Namaste.

It’s a backyard hodgepodge. Ooh, a backyard hodgepodge….

 First, for those of you who use our blog as a marker for the start of the week, we apologize for missing last week. We got carried away with the details of life and when we looked up, not only had Sunday gone but so had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… well you get the idea. At that point we were closer to THIS week than we were to LAST, so…well, here we are. We hope our negligence didn’t cause you too many problems. Now this week we are again a day late and a dollar short. Our delay this week is because we have had no Internet access at our home for the past four days. It is amazing how quickly something moves from a luxury to a necessity. How quickly we can develop a dependency on technology.

So, this week, huh? Well things are a little crazy these days. We are getting ready for our accreditation visit in a couple of weeks. In addition to that, we have our annual convocation on Friday of the same week; the same day as our annual Joint Venture Board Meeting. Then if that’s not enough we have our usual board meeting the following week. Yeah, I know, that wasn’t very bright. But work has been crazy busy. Things are normally busy but now they are crazy busy. Every day when I crawl into bed, I feel like I have slipped further behind. I can’t tell you the number of times I have said to myself in the last week, “I need to find a way to add more hours to every day;” and “if I can just make it through the 15^th everything will be okay.” The first statement is a true need; the second is foolish hope. I know there will be something else coming down the pike. I could use a few days to breathe however.

Monday the13th was another festival, Lohri. As it was described to me, Lohri is a primarily Punjabi celebration of the end of winter. However, there is a festival by some name on the same day all over India, mostly with the same meaning and many of the same or similar practices. Interestingly, it is one of the few festivals that is not tied to an astronomical occurrence – it is always on the 13^th of January. The purpose of Lohri is to rid one’s self of the evils that have happened during the year. At the end of the day, a bonfire is set. Once it is going well, people throw hands full of popped corn or sesame seeds into the fire. The popcorn and seeds represents the evils that have occurred. Then, everyone circles around the fire, while a traditional song is sung. Of course there are also traditional sweet crackers.

For the Lohri fire at the campus (pictures below) about half the people knew exactly what was to happen at every step and for about half, it was the first Lohri they had experienced. It was fun participating but even more fun to observe all of the international students taking it all in. I had someone explaining to me what was going on and the meaning. I am not sure all of the international students had that same advantage. Still, they did seem to enjoy it.

Speaking of international students, it occurs to me that I may not have told you about a development that has occurred over the past nine months. We have always had quite a few international students but we have become the #1 international college in India (we have the highest percentage of international students of any other college). We have just under 60% of our students from 39 different countries. We have the greatest number from Nepal, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Congo, and Ghana. Afghanistan and Nepal are traditional trading partners with India and historically many students have come from there to India for college. Africa is a more recent phenomena. Some of the more exotic countries from which we have students are; Mongolia, China, South and North Korea, and a little place called America. OK, our American student is Indian but his family does live in Houston so it counts.

Our repatriated Indian student has led to our most recent strategy. There are millions of PIO (persons of Indian origin) and NRI (non-resident Indians) all over the world. In fact the Indian diaspora is of great interest and concern both to the Indian government and families affected thereby. The Indian government looks at the brain drain from all of those who have left and wonders what impact those skills would have on its own economy and society. Many families are concerned that dis-located Indians are losing their Indian-ness.

So, I had the thought, let’s ride this horse in the direction it is going. So, we are going to market our college to expatriated Indian parents: send your children back to India for college. They can re-establish their Indian roots and get a US degree. Or, they can come for a semester or two, have their Indian experience and have credits that can transfer back to the US, or Canada, or wherever home is located. Getting the contact information for these people is the challenge but this is where the government comes in. They are so keen to re-establish relationships with these folks they are spending millions to identify and make contact with them. Hence the source of our information. I am pretty excited about this strategy. I think it will be a big winner. I hope so. I could really use a nice, solid win.

Well enough about work. Here’s Rae to tell you more about what’s going on in our social life.

Hi all,

The last couple of weeks have been busy with church work, consulting at the campus, trying to figure out clothing for upcoming weddings and a few other things.

I am currently serving in the District Young Women’s presidency and as a result of that I have had several meetings and things to be at and prepare for over the last couple of weeks.  That doesn’t sound like it should be that big of a deal, but all these things take place at the Vasant Vihar building and the Vasant Vihar building typically takes about an hour to get to, so that just adds to the time commitment.

I had District council meeting on a Tuesday night, then Leadership Training the following Saturday, and New Beginnings yesterday.  Oh, and we started teaching seminary/institute again this week.

For New Beginnings, one of the things we decided to give the girls were socks. The socks were to say “Come Unto Christ”, our 2014 theme, on one foot and have a set of footprints on the other foot.  Sounds simple enough, right?  If we were doing these in the US I would have known exactly where to go for the materials to get this project done, but it’s not quite as simple here.  We had to go to the market to try to find the socks, then someplace to find fabric paints for writing the words.  We were hoping to find a foot print stamp to make the footprints. We couldn’t find stamps, so I bought a cheap doll hoping to use its feet as a stamp. I was shocked when I took the doll out of the package and found that it was a boy doll. How do I know that you may wonder?  Well, it turns out that boy dolls here come with boy parts, WHAT!!!!!

Shopping for the socks took us to Saroijni Nagar Market, where we were hoping to find 50 pairs of socks at good prices.  Christina said we should be able to get 5 pair for 100 rupees ($1.60).  After checking several little cart vendors we found one that would give us that price, in the colors we wanted.   We just needed to give them about half an hour to get additional socks brought over.  I’m always amazed at their resourcefulness.

So, we wandered and looked at other things for a while.  It’s always interesting making your way through these markets because you are bombarded by people trying to sell you any number of things.  The items being peddled by people who walk up to you and shove them in front of you wanting you to buy them are pretty common from one market to the next. There are washing machine coves, (I always wonder why they think a tourist would need a washing machine cover), plastic aprons, fabric tote bags, lace table clothes, handkerchiefs, sunglasses, jewellery, and a number of other things.  One that I particularly like are the guys who walk up to you carrying a handkerchief which they secretly open to reveal 3 or 4 watches.  Now these obviously aren’t just any watches, but great watches at great prices that they can only secretly sell you. 

Back to the socks.  After a while we returned to the cart to get the socks.  I probably don’t need to mention that at this price these are not the highest quality socks, so we needed to look thru each pair to make sure they were okay.  As we were doing this, all of a sudden the cart guys start grabbing all the socks and start moving their cart over and behind a more permanent booth.  I soon realized that all the cart vendors were doing this.  Things were being moved and pulled back into the permanent booths and out of the center of the walkways.  Someone had “spotted” some authority who would fine them if they caught them selling from these carts, which I’m guessing aren’t licensed and they are selling illegally.  It is amazing to see how quickly the word goes out and how quickly these people disappear.  After a brief disappearing act, carts began to come back out and business goes on as usual.  A false alarm I guess.  I’ve seen this happen a couple of times now; it’s crazy!!!  

Socks purchased, let the painting begin.  It turns out that footprint stamps are not easily found here so after some experimenting, I ended up just painting footprints on 50 socks. They’re all done, and handed out to the girls last night.  Done.

In the middle of church assignments I’ve been trying to buy some fabric to make some things to wear to weddings that we are invited to.  Weddings here are a big deal and so is wedding attire.  Guests are dressed in elaborated outfits.  Think formals that are ornately decorated with metallic braids, jewelled bead work, you name it.  The more colourful and bejewelled the better.  Typically the bride is dressed in red and both bride and groom very ornately attired.  I can’t bring myself to be that glamorous, so I am trying to strike a happy medium (for me) between western and Indian wear.  Something that I would possibly wear other than to the occasional wedding. 

I know I have mentioned this one small trim booth before, I use the term “booth” loosely.  It is located by some of the fabric stalls I go to.  It is located on a stairway that is barely wide enough for two people to pass each other on and you stand on the stairs to shop for trims. I’ve been able to get a picture of it so maybe that will help explain.  It is so narrow that it is hard to get a good picture, but hopefully you get the idea.  Oh, just a reminder that this booth is only about 4 feet tall if that. You’ll notice that the young man is kneeling because he can’t stand.  Imagine spending you day in there.  Hope the pictures help explain this better than I have.

Coming home from fabric shopping the other day there were two stray donkeys roaming our neighbourhood so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of them.  If you look you will see that one of them has a tether and rope tied to its foot and is dragging it along.  Phil said they were still there at the end of the day when he came home.  They were gone the next day so hopefully their owner found them.  You just never know what you might see.

Phil mentioned that he is very busy preparing for the accreditation that is coming up.  Part of getting ready is preparing the campus and I’ve been able to spend some time consulting with them on some things that could be done to help things look more presentable.  I’ve been advising them on some paint colors, helping to select some pictures that will be used as art work for different spaces and making some other recommendations to help make the place look fresher and nicer.  It’s been fun and I always welcome getting to do those kind of things.  

This coming weekend we have a wedding to attend.  We are invited to three different days of the celebrations.  We’ll share about that later.   

 Namaste.