How do I know I'm in India?

My Indian friends do not all look or act like my friends at home.  The geckos and I have formed a new relationship--intimate.  This morning, it was showering together, then as I went to make the bed, I discovered a friend that probably spent the night with us.  A couple of days ago I was standing by the shelves in our room and a little one leaped off the top shelf to land on my shoulder.  This is definitely getting all too familiar.  We have a lot of lizards at home, but Indian geckos prefer a certain closeness that I'm not quite used to!

Busy week around Rising Star Outreach.  We are in the process of getting some micro- businesses started with the children, including chickens, and crops:  rice, chilies, watermelons, ladyfingers (okra to us), and vegetables with tomatoes, eggplant, etc.  The idea is to have each family (we have 3 boys families and 3 girls families) have a project that is there own to develop. The crops will be sold and the children will begin to work towards their future with bank accounts, to be used upon graduating from 12th standard.  We have a power tiller, which our land managers use to prepare the ground.  Some of the planting is then done by the village women and some of it by the children.  The children will be responsible for the weeding, and general maintenance of the planted areas. It will be a big job--we have several acres planted! The chicken problem has not been totally solved yet--we are down to 4 chickens after losing several to a night marauder.  The boys responsible for them have now built barricades around the coop, certain that no critter will be able to penetrate it. Our egg production has dropped to zero since the night terror.  We're hoping it will pick up again as they begin to feel safer.  Saturday was our biggest day yet in the fields, with nine boys planting half an acre of watermelons. They worked so hard hauling very heavy containers of water all over the field, after getting each patch prepared and planted with three seeds.  Ron and Joyce got into the act, but our land manager, Mani, directed it all.  They were tired, but they also had a ball playing in the water that was running to irrigate the rice field.  It dammed up making a great hole for cooling off! 

Next week the girls will start plugging the rice fields that are all prepared.  The green of the rice fields, is the most beautiful green seen in God's kingdom of color!  The rice has been growing in a "nursery", and will be tied and plugged ready to grow in the flooded fields.

Today was Republic Day for India.  We had a wonderful program this morning with a holiday the rest of the day. The children decorated the base of the flagpole with the Indian colors, gave speeches in Tamil and English, and performed more exercises that the PT Master (physical education or PE to us) had taught the children.  It was very fun.  India is the largest Republic in the world--for 59 years more people have lived in freedom than anywhere else.  It makes me think of all the contrasts we see here--so many living in freedom, but with such a minimum subsistence; so many living in freedom but with a government that is run on bribes, influence, and protection of a lot of evil people.  On the other hand, it is a country that is making available higher education to so many. Hopefully there will be jobs for all these engineers that are filling the thousands of colleges. We are working hard to prepare these beautiful children at Rising Star to take advantage of the higher opportunities that will be available to them.

Sorry the pictures are in reverse order--I always forget how they upload!

India, Land of Color

We're back, and happy to be here.  There's more for us to do, so for the present this feels like home!  The children were as happy to see us as we were to see them.  I'm sure there's always doubt that anyone will really return.  We ended our stay in the US with a great board meeting for Rising Star Outreach at the beautiful home of JaLynn and Greg Prince.  Our added bonus was having three more days with Matthew and Natalie Hanson and four of our great grandsons before we headed back.

We arrived during the week of Pongol (harvest festival), the biggest of all the holidays in Southern India (at least big in the length of time they celebrate--five days.)  The children will return to school today, after many days off.  We're all excited-- the children are ready to get back to a regular schedule.  Big event on Thursday was our first official field trip.  Children, house mothers, cooks, and assorted others were loaded into five vans for the drive to a nearby bird sanctuary and Mammalapuram, a big tourist attraction at the beach.  Exciting day--it almost finished off the adults, but the children having been up since 4:00a.m. were pretty exhausted as well.  Ron was so grateful not to have lost children in the high surf or scrambling over the great rock formations. Counting noses at the end of the day and having the same number as at the beginning was big! 

In the afternoon, we headed for the local village, Thottenaval, for a celebration with them of the blessing of the cows, part of the Pongol celebration.  The cows were beautifully decorated--clean, painted and decked with balloons, flowers, seashell necklaces, etc.  The children and mothers were also colorfully attired, with new clothes or saris if possible.  We were invited into three homes after the drum corp and parade show, and the puja (Hindu prayer with food offering) was completed.  We received food: hot buffalo milk with sugar, fruit, sweets, and chapatti with sugar, as well as a gift of money for each of us.  There is much we are learning about kindness and generosity.  We find ourselves being the receivers, more often than not.

Christmas and Wedding!

We received some great pictures and wonderful reports about the children's Christmas program and the party on the last day of school.  We were very sad to have missed it, but with our own schedule here in the US we were not able to be a part of it.  In addition to the "Dance Master" Shaun Parry having prepared the children for the program, the Marriott folks from the Chennai Marriott, came and brought all the food for several hundred, and gifts for all the children.  It must have been a fabulous day, and a great send off for the children for the holidays.

We also have had an outstanding couple of weeks--a terrific visit with all our family, old fashioned Christmas Eve with our home-grown Nativity, (two year old Seth looking a bit large and old for the baby Jesus),  and a great Christmas where our focus was on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  It was such a perfect celebration where Santa was almost left out of the equation.  (There were a few children that were still happy he hadn't completely departed.) The marriage of our Grandson, Alex Wilson to Christina Koelliker  followed the Christmas celebration.  The evening of December 26th we had a fun party for the bride and groom at our home with about 75 guests from Christina's family and ours in attendance.  It was a beautiful occasion, with good food, lots of laughter and a few tears from the parents.  Alex is our first grandchild to be married, and even the Grandparents (us) were a bit nostalgic thinking of how fast the past 23 years have gone.  He has been such a great example for the 17 siblings and cousins following, who have truly looked to him as their guide. Now we will share him with his lovely wife and her dear family.

On Saturday, the 27th, we all journeyed to San Diego to the beautiful Temple for the marriage. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we believe that the marriage and sealing that takes place in the temples, is efficacious for all eternity as well as for this life. It is very sacred to us.  Alex and Christina had chosen, both by choice and by the way they have lived their lives, to be married there.  The sealing/wedding was performed by Ron, as he has received the power to perform this ordinance in the temples.  It was a great day for all of us.

The beautiful reception in the evening was the frosting on the cake!!  Food, flowers, music, bride and groom--all was perfect (including the red velvet cake!)  We felt so happy we could be home and a part of this very special family celebration.  The cute couple are off to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, for a short honeymoon before returning to cold, snowy Utah to continue their studies at BYU. 

We have loved having the Elizabeth and Bob Tempest family here for the entire holiday, and our son Matt and Natalie Hanson and their family, are now also with us for a week, after being delayed with a bad bout of the flu.  We feel very blessed to have the Andy and Katie Hanson family and Jenny and Chris Wilson family in residence here in Laguna. We are sad to leave them again, but they are excited for what we are doing.  They join us in wishing all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.  We will be back in India by January 13th, after a Rising Star Outreach Board Meeting in Washington D.C. and are looking forward to the continuing challenges.   

Home!

It's nice to be home for Christmas--my bed feels good, the house looks beautiful (thanks to our daughter Elizabeth and her friend Dana Earl who flew from Utah to have Christmas ready for us). The lights outside are all up--thousands of them, carefully strung by our son Andy, and his sons Blair and Ben, our son-in-law Chris, and his sons Alex, Nate, and Jeremy.  Jenny had stocked the frig with everything we love, including blueberries, blackberries and raspberries--lots of them.  Katie had placed fresh flowers, hydrangeas, and orchids in all the right places.  It is spectacular inside and out.  Laguna is as charming as ever, always enhanced by the beauty of the Christmas season. We have been blessed with beautiful sunsets, as well as much needed rain.

Our wonderful family has greeted us with so much love, and we feel gratitude beyond measure that we can be home with them.  The grandchildren have all added inches and pounds and beauty.  Being in Church with our dear friends of so many years, was like a bit of heaven.

There is a slight restlessness in my soul, however.  I realize part of me has been left in India--I miss the children, the warm rain (we've frozen since we have been here), the wild roads, the cows, the colors and the Indian people.  Our landscapes down the freeways look like backdrops, waiting for someone to bring their paintbox and add the color and the excitement--even the garbage!! The driving is so orderly... and boring! The quiet is almost unnerving.   Who would have guessed! 

It's good to be home for the holidays... but for a few more months beginning in the middle of January, it will be good to return to a land we have truly learned to love.  

We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas--at this wonderful time of year, we rejoice in the gift of God's Son.  All of His children are precious--those near, and those far away. May you feel the peace and joy of His love.

Lovingly, Joyce and Ron

Coming Home!

Ready or not, we're due to be on the airplane in three days.  It's very difficult to imagine--after five months, this has truly become our home.  We miss our family and friends and home so much, but this is our life right now.  Christmas and home feel like another world.

Today while working on leaving things in a tidy way, and trying to decide what to put into the suitcase, I found a little friend who had decided she would like to try being an American puppy instead of an Indian puppy.  She has decided I am the only one--Indian or American --that has a soft spot for an Indian dog.

This week we were invited by our new Hostel Warden to attend a Seemandhan for her daughter-in-law.  This is a blessing that is for a mother-to-be, who is somewhere in her third trimester of pregnancy, but only for the first born child.  The flowers and some of the ritual reminded me of a wedding, but the purpose is to bless the baby and the mother with health and happiness.  Part of the ceremony was adding a bracelet onto each of the mother's arms.  The "elder" women present were invited to come place a bracelet on each arm.  The first bracelet is made from the neem plant.  It is followed by gold bangles, silver bangles and then glass bangles. The sound of the bracelets is for the baby to hear the lovely sound the bangles make as the mother moves her arm.  Sweet sounds for the baby.  After delivery, they are all removed. There was also a food blessing with each parent being fed pieces of a cutup banana, and then the whole thing was followed by a feast up on the roof.  Very interesting and we felt honored to be included.  I likened it to the baby showers we give to honor the first born baby.

This morning our three 8th standard children set off in the dark for a long drive to Chennai for the official testing. There are several benchmarks for the students, including 8th standard, 10th standard, and 12th standard.  As they pass each of these tests, they can then move on to the next standard--or not.  They left at 6:00 a.m. to be in their seats and ready to go by 9:30 a.m.  They are probably not going to do too well, as this group of kids came to us late, and are not our best learners, but the teachers wanted them to have this experience and also use the test as a benchmark.  The testing lasts all week--five days.  They went up last Monday, but the tests were cancelled, due to the rains.  Chennai was pretty well under water for a few days.  It is going to be a long week for these three.

As we will be beginning our major building projects when we come back in January, I'm taking pictures of some of the wonderful figures that are hung outside new building projects to ward off problems.  I thought the fellow pictured above was particularly attractive!

Next blog from the USofA!!  Happy Holidays to all.

Children On the Town!

Last Sunday four of our children had a special treat.  The Courtyard Marriott in Chennai were having a Christmas celebration, which included decorating a life size gingerbread house.  We were called and asked if we would like to bring four of our "Rising Stars" to be part of the celebration. We considered who we thought should be taken for this very exciting event, conferring with our school director and our general manager.  We chose two boys and two girls, all from the 6th standard.  Three of the children are 11, and the other little boy, Krishnamoorthy, will turn 10 this month. Each of these children are doing well in school, have good English skills, and generally are all around good citizens.  We pieced together some outfits for the boys, while the girls seemed to have more clothing choices that looked very nice. The only thing we laughed about (to ourselves) was the big tennis shoes that the girls wore with their chiddidars (traditional Indian dress.)  The boys on the other hand, had new sandals on one, and black lace shoes found in the storeroom for the other.  

We started with a buffet breakfast, with everyone from the new General Manager of the Chennai Marriott, down to all the cooks and servers making such a fuss over them.  The kids knew many of them from their visits to Rising Star, and of course the Marriott employees know the children.  The children were very impressed with the many choices for breakfast--I can assure you, that there are no choices here--they eat what is served or they don't is their choice. I was surprised with the things they chose--most of it American.   After breakfast, we went to where they were decorating Christmas cookies with frosting to stick on the gingerbread house. There were photographers everywhere, and our children were at the center of the flashes.  The local TV station had a reporter there, and she interviewed our girls.  I asked the girls if they spoke in Tamil or English, and the reply was "when the questions were in English, we answered in English, and when they were in Tamil we answered in Tamil."  Of course.

The bathrooms were a mystery to them--the boys wanted to know where the water was in the toilet area, (everything is washed down with a small bucket of water in an Indian toilet),  and the girls were amazed that the water turned on when they put their hands under the faucet. They were very concerned that it wouldn't turn off, and surprised when it did it all on its own. They didn't brave the American toilets at all.

They had a big jumping house set up, which the boys loved, but the girls would not attempt.  It was such fun to see the difference in all the non-Indian children, who were in a great majority, to our four beautiful unsophisticated children, that had never seen such a thing as a hotel, or all that was presented to them.  It was truly magical for them and for us!

My vivid picture of the day is Shama, one of our most beloved housemothers, sitting on a low stool with her umbrella, next to our lake (it used to be our playground), small bucket in hand filling bigger buckets for the girls.  Half of the girls were still getting soap out of their hair in the shower, when the water pump quit!  "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink"--or bathe in, we might add.  The rain has been incessant for several days.  Our huge wells have filled up by a third, at least.  I've never seen rain come down like this.  We have been without power a good portion of the last few days, but until this morning we have had water for all uses other than drinking.  It was quite laughable this morning.  One of our boys brought a small fish to live in our house.  I couldn't figure where it had come from, but as I am looking out the window at the "lake" I can see little fish jumping.  Anyone out there able to explain this to me?

School has been closed the last few days--when the government declares that schools be closed, it means schools are closed! Apparently you can get in big trouble if you don't close. Even private schools.  I suspect no one checked this morning, because after two days with all of us locked in the hostels (locked in by the rain) we were all a little crazy.  By the time the children ran their short distance to the school, they were soaked. Now we'll probably have everyone back sick.  I took a few children with my umbrella, and had to come home and completely start over on my clothes for the day.  To complicate things, the puppies have not left for their new homes.  Their new owners keep telling me that it is not auspicious to take them in the rain!!  Of course I am their adopted mother, which is also a 24/7 job when it rains like this.  At the moment they are locked in our bathroom, because the electrician is trying to fix another electrical problem (joke) and they were spending their time where one of the main panels resides.  Why do I care???

We have been concerned about the news out of Mumbai, but here at the land we feel very safe. No one would have a desire to brave our muddy-rut roads to do harm.  We are not being cavalier about it, but do feel that we are in a good spot.  Ron, unfortunately, had to go to Chennai today.  He called to say they were swimming through the streets in their vehicle.  We have heard that 60 people may have drowned or died in this last rain period.  The rivers run wild with this amount of precipitation all at once, and they live so precariously near the rivers.

This week, picture us not "Walking in the Sand", but walking in the mud!