Steinbox

I’m back from India. It was a long trip. Headwinds made the flights longer on the way back. It was 30 hours of travelling. The layover in London was 5 hours. The layover in DC was simply customs and sprinting to the next plane. The flight from London to DC was marked by sharp contrast.

Sitting next to me were an Indian man and his wife who were travelling to America to visit their son who works for Ameritrade. It appeared to be their first time flying. I spent an hour and a half helping them with their immigration forms. He was very proud that his son was working in America.

Across the aisle were two British girls who thought the best thing to pass the time of an 8-hour flight was to get drunk…so obviously drunk that the flight attendant started refusing them alcohol. The girls found it quite funny when they tried to get it from another attendant, a sure sign of inebriation. They recovered a bit as the flight attendants suggested they get some sleep to sober up lest immigration deny them entrance to the country.

I leave for the airport late tomorrow night. This will likely be my last post from India.

There are many poor people in India. Unlike America, the majority of those living on the streets are homeless purely due to finances. It’s not difficult to find someone begging for money. Beggars will even come up and tap on car windows sometimes. Giving out cash to those who beg is never straightforward no matter where you are.

I would like to share with you what I saw one day while on my way to work. I saw an elderly woman crawling face up along the sidewalk. In order to move along she would scoot her bottom a few inches in the direction of her feet, reset her hands and feet, and then scoot a little farther. Every few scoots, she would pick up her purse, which would be by her arms, and put it by her feet. It took me a little bit to realize all that. She had a bandage on her right shin, which was probably preventing her from walking normally. She was dressed in a faded sari (putting on a sari is a difficult task). She was not begging. Wherever she was headed it was not close. There were no possible destinations for hundreds of feet. What I respect about this woman is that despite all of this she had dignity. I rather doubt I could equal her fortitude in similar circumstances.

Every so often when I look out a 4th floor window at work I see a lot of smoke coming up from down the street. Today I mentioned to one of my co-workers that if someone saw that much smoke in a city in America they would call the fire department. My co-worker said after a small pause: “That is the final fire. They do burials there.”

I prodded him further and I’m pretty sure he isn’t putting me on. There’s actually a crematorium down the road. Apparently it results in quite a bit of smoke.

Before I left for Chennai, I got contact information for a church of the same denomination that we go to at home, from Jess’ cousin Ben Scripture who has been a guest speaker in India many times. Read the rest of this entry ?

Saturday afternoon I was taken sight-seeing by my Indian coworkers. The trip began aroud 3:30pm to avoid the heat of the day. The first stop was Crocodile Park. It’s a zoo for crocodiles. At the admission desk we bought 6 tickets. One for each of my coworkers, one for me, and one for my camera. Yes, it costs a full price ticket to bring in your camera. Hey now! The camera may be an extension of my body but it is not it’s own entity. Luckily it was not video camera or it’s ticket would have cost seven times as much as a normal ticket. Yikes!

Upon entering we went immediately into reptile city. Reptile city admission was half that of the overall park and my camera was coming so we again had to buy six tickets. The main feature was the snake pit where they hold live demonstrations of venom extraction. As you can see below, they also had a scorpion. I’m not sure if they take venom from scorpions, but the guy held it up so I could get a good shot.

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I went walking on the beach this morning to get some photos and found Parthieban. Or perhaps he found me. Read the rest of this entry ?

I’m sick of writing so I’ll just post some pictures today.

This little girl was playing with a stack of newspapers.

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I stayed late yesterday. When I was ready to leave, I called the driver to pick me up. Yes, I have a driver. If you saw traffic in India you would want one yourself. The driver and car are paid for by our company for the residents of the corporate apartment. The driver came upstairs which is unusual. He probably just wanted to make sure I got to the car ok. It was the first time I was being picked up by myself.

We walked to the elevator where we joined a security guard who was going down.

The elevator doors slid shut and with a couple creaks the elevator started down.

After a couple of seconds it eases to a stop, the doors crack open and… Read the rest of this entry ?