The Joys of Living in India...

I guess it's just part of living in the hills of India.

Last night we had a pretty heavy rainfall. The wetness of monsoon loosened up some of the hillside behind our apartments up on Suncliffe. I was sleeping rather soundly. The pattering of rain on the tin roof made for some superb white noise but there was a sudden crash around 4 or so. I woke up, thought nothing of it and went back to bed. Then Andrzej, my neighbor, knocked on my door sometime around 8 asking if I had water. Of course today was the day I decided to sleep in since I didn't have any big meetings this morning so I got my butt out of bed and checked. Sure enough, a trickle came out of the faucet and promptly stopped.


Crap...

I put on my mocs and ventured outside to survey the damage. The water pipe that ran down the hillside to our apartments was laying in a few pieces on the ground. Water spewed from the other end. Rather like a pretty, personal waterfall. A pile of rubble covered the walkway. In short it was a mess.

It's 11pm now. It's still not fixed. I just got back from the neighbor's to use their facilities. Tomorrow it should be all put back together and I will be able to shower in my own cold shower again.

Ten on Tuesday

Admittedly it is only quarter to ten on Monday night, not Tuesday, but I'm bored and need to procrastinate from lesson planning. The idea came from Maggie whilst at our beach house in Michigan. She got it from someone else's blog. I dunno, I pick a theme and top ten it I guess. Let's go with the ten things I love about being at Woodstock.

1. The views are stellar. I haven't even seen the best views yet because of the monsoon but the ones I have seen are wunderbar.
2. The wildlife. I'm surrounded by bugs, scorpions, spiders, monkeys, jackals, yellow throated martens, birds, trees, ferns, mosses, flowers, leopards, and so much more. It's just amazing.
3. The people. Seriously, they're amazing. Everyone, new and old staff alike, are so friendly. I've been invited to several dinners, shindigs, drinks, what-have-you. I'm not really wanting for something to do (especially with lesson planning looming over me).
4. My ayah. Raji, my ayah, seems like a great woman. Communicating is a bit tough but she comes highly recommended from some older staff. She'll be washing my clothes, cleaning around the house, and cooking whenever I get around to buying groceries.
5. The food. Not something I would've guessed either. So far the food has been good. Nothing too hard on the stomach. However, rice and daal is already getting a little boring.
6. The kids. I've only met the kids of other staff members so far but I've heard stories of these kids. They really seem like an absolutely amazing group. I can hardly wait for them to come here so I can meet them.
7. Tailors. I go pick out some fabric I like, bring it to the tailor along with a shirt I like from home and he copies it for me. It's comfy and affordable. And, it gets addicting.
8. The bread man. Every week a guy comes up the hillside to sell you bread he baked in his little oven over in Mussoorie. It's delicious and he's quite the character.
9. Being the minority. Being a white guy in the middle of India is kinda fun. You really do get stared at a lot and people even stop you on the road to take their picture with you.
   
10. It's a slower pace. Tonight I went out for dinner. If I did that back in the states it would take about an hour to get to the restaurant, order, eat, and get home. Tonight my neighbor, Andrew, and I left around 6.15 and didn't get home until about 9.30. Things may take longer to get done but they do get done. Eventually.

So, there you have it. My first Ten on Tuesday.

Hindi Lesson: Namaste - (nom-es-tay) - The traditional Indian greeting.

I'm too good to you

Two days and three posts? Wow, I even make Mike look bad. No contest on Becky.

Anywho, the skies cleared up yesterday as I was going to high tea so I ran back and got my camera so I could take some pictures of the view.

You may now be jealous. It'll clear up even more in about six weeks.








And just for fun... Here's Mr Musch doing his famous Toyota Jump at Barrett and Cathy's wedding.

pictures

The view from where I live. When the clouds clear you have a wonderful view of Dehra Dun (quite stellar by night as well). When the clouds are out I quite feel like I'm living on the edge of the ethereal plane (or at least visiting the restaurant at the edge of the universe).

The view of my front door as you would normally approach it.

My backyard.

The side yard.

Let's go in and take a tour eh?

Kindly take off your shoes as you come in. Lord knows what you've been walking in around here. There's a bench here you can see in another picture that I call my Mr Rogers bench. I come in and change my shoes there. It's such a good feeling to know you're alive...

What you see when you first come in. It's my steps and a set of dressers. Bathroom through the door on the right.

Kitchen, the room I'll probably be using the least.

My Aquaguard. Gives me clean potable water. I've been sticking with bottled water for the most part but it works just fine for brushing your teeth.

The living room as viewed from the kitchen.

The mantle. Just a few knick-knacks. I want dad to notice the moose is up and even has my safety goggles on. The trophy was left behind.

Up the stairs. At first they were a bit daunting but you get used to them and now I'm running up and down them with ease.

The bedroom area of the loft.

A little crossing to the office area.

A top down view of the living room. You can see the Mr Rogers bench in the top middle.

Indians are brilliant. Stick a lightbulb in your closet and it dries out your clothes during monsoon!

The view from my bedroom window. Not that great right now.

The ever present monsoon black mold.

A shower visitor. This guy is about the size of my palm. Post-monsoon they're supposed to get the size of your hand.

Mussoorie has a ferris wheel. Man-powered. They climb up and use momentum (p=m*v) to start and stop it. They hop in the middle like a hamster wheel and even dangle from the backs of the carts.

Ok, hopefully this will satiate your hunger for pictures for the time being. They take especially long to upload here and I'm sure the IT people won't be happy with the bandwidth usage.

Just something a little fun. Here's a list of the critters I've seen so far in India:

• rats
• mice (next door has a good story about this one)
• Jackals
• monkeys (Two kinds, they like to make a lot of noise and look in your windows. Yeah, I live with monkeys, get over it.)
• Scorpions
• leeches
• Really big spiders
• Really small spiders
• numerous stray dogs
• one schizo cat
• a few birds
• cicadas
• these worms that all hatch at once when it rains and look like a pile of noodles in the dirt

I think the most surprising thing to me since coming here has been the weather. I knew it be monsoon but I didn't realize just how cold it would be. Obviously I knew cooler but it's been really cold, especially during the nights and mornings. Just coming back up from Dehra Dun yesterday I was very warm in the city and freezing by the time I got up to school. The worst thing is that you can't really wear warmer clothes because of the humidity. Any amount of walking and you'll immediately break into a sweat.

I'm acclimating fairly well. I still get winded walking around but it's not that bad.

Anywho, time to go to high tea.

Surviving.

Ok, sorry it's taken so long since my last update. There's something about flying all day
that messes with your sinuses and then coming to India in the middle of monsoon when everything is wet and mildewy that makes you easy prey for a sinus infection that requires you to be hospitalized for the better part of a week. So, bare with me if I'm a tad slow at updating the blog right now.

And you thought American hospital food was terrible.

--

But really...

I had to get my computer configured to work on the school's network. Then I had to wait until we went to Dhera Dun to buy the proper electrics. I didn't want to use a school computer
to update my blog. Which reminds me. I have yet another new email address. They prefer if you'd use this one since it won't take up as much bandwidth as, say, a webmail account.


jamesrice@woodstock.ac.in

Use that one and I shall reply to you as speedily as possible.

Ok, so I'm sure you all want a real update and pictures and all that jazz. Well, you shan't be disappointed. Well, maybe you will. Even if I take my camera with me I tend to neglect to take pictures. Not sure why. I'm just not much of one for taking pictures. Not my style. When I do, I feel kinda like a tourist but at the same time, how can deny you, my adoring public, and not take them?

I'm trying.

Ok, seriously. It's been over a week now so I may forget some names or something else. I arrived in Delhi around 11 or later last Thursday night. I met a few new staff members while waiting in line for customs. The baggage claim took a long time. I had to wait for my backpack to show up since they checked it into storage as I boarded the plane. I was also helping out some fellow staff members, the Endos. They had three kids and 15 bags/boxes to take care of. When I finally got my bags and made it to the meeting point one of the staff members meeting us there mistook me for Mr Endo and was very concerned to see me sans family.

Once we got some bug spray (100% DEET, burns the skin) and loaded the bus with our bags we headed up to the Centaur Hotel. The hotel left a bit to be desired but it was air conditioned and served sweet lime sodas. A few of us stayed up that night chatting and discussing our apprehensiveness. I think we all finally clocked out around three in the morning. I was up bright and early around 7. Jet lag... Those of us who wanted to went out and saw Delhi. I picked up a couple of kurtas (shirts) and a pair of pyjamas. We have to wear traditional garb on Indian Independence Day. Pictures will come after that day. (soon)

I wasn't a real fan of Delhi. Like any city, it was crowded and dirty. The worst thing, though, was the driving. We took taxis to where we needed to go. Now, the thing is, that in India... there's not really any traffic laws, they're more like traffic suggestions. There are three lanes painted going one way on the road and about 6 lanes of traffic. There's a lot of honking too. Not the same kind of "get-out-of-my-way-you-jerk" honking that we typically see in the west. This is more of "I-drive-a-motor-rickshaw-and-I-don't-want-to-get-hit-by-you-as-you-pass." They say it's more of a courtesy thing. I just don't think I could ever drive over here.

From Delhi it was an eight hour train ride to Dehra Dun. I saw lots of rats at the station. Have fun Cindy when you guys visit. I chatted most of the time with Jennie and Megan. They'll be two of the new music teachers. They went to school together and are brand new teachers as well. We stopped in Dehra Dun for a bite to eat before boarding the bus to take us to school. I ended up taking some Dramamine just in case. I fell asleep but didn't miss much because the clouds had rolled in by that time. I was so out of it when I got to my apartment. I'm living in the Sun Cliff area with Jennie, Megan and Andrew (Andrzej), another new staffer. It has a stellar view (when you can see it). Anywho, I took a nap before Neeraj came over to take Andrew and I over to his place for dinner. The pasta was delightful. I, however, was just having too much thrown at me at once and Maija, Prakash's wife, had him take me home. Sleep was greatly appreciated. The next day Maija and Prakash took Andrew and myself to the bazaar to see it and pick up a few things. I got a non-functional alarm clock and a few other things.

Honestly, the rest of the week is a big blur. Lots of meetings and new people. The entire science department is new this year which should make things pretty interesting. I'm the only one new to teaching though. The school facilities are pretty good. I could desire a few things here and there but I'm not going to complain because we have an assistant to prep labs for us. Very nice.

There's also a 'bonus block' at the end of each Friday where the teachers put on programs for the kids. I had a couple in mind. The first one that popped in my head was to do a critical analysis of comic books. Initially, Kingdom Come popped in my head but there are tons of other we could look at. I'm sure Mike would have a few ideas. The other one I was thinking about was doing some campfire songs and skits. I think that one has a lot of potential.

Speaking of that. There's a large number of former scouts and guides on staff and a lot seem to be interested in helping out putting a troop together. Our head of grounds is very excited about the prospect and has offered to head things with our help. Lord knows we have plenty of resources to pull it off. The tricky part would be figuring out the Indian way of scouting. I'll keep you all updated as to how it progresses.

Yesterday we took the bus down to Dehra Dun to pick up some essentials that are not easily gotten in Mussoorie. It was a rather uneventful trip. Lots of boring shopping. There was a couple of things that really stuck with me though. The first was how we could be outside in the open and I still feel extremely claustrophobic. There's just people everywhere and you have to walk in the road to get anywhere so the cars are literally less than a foot away honking to let you know where they are. You just feel like you can't get anywhere. The other thing was two beggers we saw. Now, these were by no means the first beggers (or even the hundredth) we've seen since coming, but the thing that got me about them was their arms. Each of them had their arms broken at the humerus. Not just broken so that it looked like a gnarled branch but completely severed so that the lower arm just dangled uselessly. If it had been one I wouldn't have really given it much thought, but seeing two just got to me. Later, I spoke with Neeraj and he told me that sometimes kids are abducted from villages and their arms are broken like that so they are more pitiful beggers.

Up at school you can sometimes forget you're in India but then you see something like that in the city and remember you are in a third world country.

I'm arrived

I'm alive.

That said, let me bore you with the details.

We got to the airport bright and early. Cindy parked the car while dad and I checked bags. The gal at the counter tried billing us $400 for extra bags and being overweight. I had her call Air India and they told her it should be $200. After dad and Cindy cried like babies I passed through security and got to my plane.

The layover in JFK was pretty boring. Nine hours of sitting around was just amazing. I made phone calls (sorry if I didn't get to you, my phone was running out of juice (you lika da juice?)) and walked all around the international terminal. The flight to London was uneventful. I fell asleep during Blazing Saddles but managed to stay awake for 2001. Figure that one out. I sat between to Indian fellows who were coming back for vacation. They were nice to talk to and gave me a few pointers about India. After a brief stop in London it was back on the same plane and going straight to Delhi. I can't complain about the airline food but it felt a lot like they just served us a meal every hour or so.

It wasn't until going through customs that I met other people going to Woodstock. There was actually about nine of us on the flight. So far everyone seems really cool. Most of us spent the day getting lost in Delhi and picking up some new garb.

My sinuses are driving me nuts. I think it was all the altitude changes that did it. Basically, they're draining and really making my throat sore. Other than that though, I'm fine. The food's been mild and the tea plenty. I'll see about getting some pics up when I get to school. I had the camera with me all day but forgot about it. Anywho, big staff meeting/dinner in a few minutes. Need to get going.

T minus....

So, here I sit on a bed in the La Quinta hotel not far from Lambert Airport in St. Louis. It's 12.54 in the morning and we're supposed to be up in about three hours so we can be showered and ready to go. And by we I mean me.

Cindy and dad are already snoozing away. Even if I wasn't too [excited, jittery, insert adjective here] to sleep I wouldn't be able to anyway because of the large amount of snoring going on. Oh I'm sure that in the peaceful foothills of the Himalayas I'll welcome the noise. Probably not.

My first flight is from St Louis to New York at 7.15 in the AM. I then have a bit of a layover at JFK until 7.45 in the PM. I'm sure that in that time I'll be napping, making phone calls, journaling, or walking the concourse. My flight takes me to London where I'll have another layover (just two hours this time). Once we're back in the air it will be another eight hours and twenty minutes until we reach our final (well, final airline) destination of Delhi at 10.35 PM on Thursday night. Once in Delhi we'll spend a day or so there while others come in and then it's a train ride and stint in a cab up to the school. All in all it should be a fabu time traveling.

One would think I'd be most concerned with starting a new job fresh out of college in a foreign country, but, honestly, the thing that worries me the most is getting there. We've had enough of a hassle of trying to ship my stuff and then get it all into bags that I'm this close to chucking it all save for the sleeping bag and Harry and spend my time in India like that. I think come winter, I would have regretted such actions but that's too much to think about right now.

Anywho, it's been a long couple of days and the most sleep I've gotten in a solid block was in the car ride down here. I'll brave the snores and try to get some rest. I'll update once I get to India and let everyone know I made it and am alive. So, until then, cheers.

Update of sorts

Some people have asked about what I still need to get before I go. Honestly, I've got it about covered after several trips to the store, and internet shopping happy step mother, and a few generous benefactors. There's really only one thing I still NEED and one thing that would be cool to have. See if you can figure out which is which.

• Fleece- Warm jackets to keep warm during the frigid mountain winters.
• Accordion- An odd request but some friends from camp and I were discussing how there's always the cool guy that comes around and plays guitar and sings songs. Then we decided that it would be much cooler if that guy would play accordion. Then I decided I wanted to be that guy. If the accordion came with a person to teach me how to play it too that'd be pretty cool too.

So, like I said, I pretty much have everything I need barring those items listed above. Less than a month and then I'm outta here! I must say that I'm really excited about it but also quite terrified at the same time. It's going to be great.