Monthly Meeting, World Cup and Hoganakal!

Well it's been a while since I wrote my last entry, about two weeks, so I figured it was round bout that time to update the two of you about what I've been doing here. Last Saturday (the 10th) I went on an aftercare 'monthly meeting' trip where we check up on our clients, see how they're doing, assist our aftercare partners with anything they need and basically try in any way we can to communicate with our clients. We got in the car WAY too early for a Saturday (8:00 AM) and headed off for a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was very interesting seeing India outside of Bangalore The land outside of the city is beautiful, especially in Tamil Nadu where there are mountains and forests. We stopped at this small shack looking place for breakfast:



Don't judge by the appearance! Although it looks incredibly shady, it had some amazing food. I was particularly excited for breakfast since it was my first time experiencing a real Indian breakfast. Coming from the States, I was expecting something very hearty and maybe even a little sweet. To my surprise, however, breakfast was not really different than lunch or dinner and was, of course, very spicy (honestly I don't even know why that surprised me). I ordered Idly which are these circle rice cakes that you break off and dip into chutney (a kind of thick sauce). They were amazing!

After breakfast we hopped back in the car and drove maybe ten minutes away to a church where the clients were. Since the clients don't speak English, this poses as a problem for all the Western language speakers. Many of the more experienced interns, however, have been able to break barriers and become friends with some of the clients through smiles, holding babies and sometimes translators. My job was just to sit and back and take pictures during the meeting. After the meeting was over I went outside to take more pictures and found myself getting accosted by some children from a local school. Once they saw that I had a camera they each had me take their pictures and show them their picture. They thought it was hilarious and would pose for me smiling, saluting or in a boxing stance. Eventually there recess was up and they had to go back to school so I got a bit of a breather. Shortly after I got my breather we went away to lunch where I had my first traditional South Indian meal served on banana leaf and all!



The thing is that you eat with your right hand and ONLY your right hand as the left one is meant for (ahem!) other purposes. Basically you make a little pile with your fingers, scoop it into your fingers then place it up to your mouth and shove it with your thumb! I am anxiously awaiting when my manners minded mother comes to visit and I can for once 'play' with my food in peace!

The next day was the World Cup and since the place I am staying at has a TV, we decided to invite some people over to watch the game. I woke up way to early in the morning for a Sunday (7:30) and went to St. Mark's Basilica which is part of the ecumenically minded Church of South India. The CSI was formed in the mid 1900s from many denominations with the main purpose of their unification being that the church be united. The service was very similar to an Anglican Church service and was packed with people! After church, I got lost. A couple hours later I found myself back at home and bought some supplies for the game that night. Everyone came over around 9 or 10 and we kicked off the night with a dance party!



Most of the interns (and Neenu and Wincy, two nationals who works at the office and hang out with us a lot) came as well as a staff member, John, who came with his wife and twins! Naturally, we included them in the dance party:


(That'd be Neenu and Hanne dancing with John's daughter to 'Waka Waka' by Shakira)

The dance party was a lot of fun but it wore us all out so most of the crew passed out within the first ten minutes of the game. For those of us who didn't and stayed up until 3 AM to watch the end of the game (it started at midnight) we ended up regretting it as we were zombies for work the next day. The next week of work was spent learning form Lela (the intern who I was replacing). Honestly I don't know what I would have done if she had left early! I feel like she does everyhing! Unfortunatly this past weekend she and another intern, who shall remain nameless due to her fear of being mentioned on the internet, left our office. So we threw a 'party' for them which is really a poor way of describing this get together as most people were in tears. It is really sad the way interns come in three phases. You might become really good friends with someone only to see them leave in a couple weeks or a few months and then who knows when you'll see them next! Either way it was nice to hear all the nice things people had to say about these two. Afterwards we went to our place and watched a Bollywood movie Pardes. It's an interesting movie. I'll just say I learned a lot about what American life is like.

The next morning we got up WAY too early again (for real this time. 5:30 AM) and took a trip out to Hoganakal.



The headache inducing road to Hoganakal. To be honest these roads were WAY better then some of the others we had to drive over. Some of them were not paved and had rocks about the size of my fist to serve as the pavement.



The waterfalls of Hogenakal! It was very much worth the rocky ride!




This was the boat all six of us went in to view the falls and then go swimming in the river!



Water Buffalo cooling off in the water.




Neenu and Emily. Emily had an unfortunate experience with a greedy monkey who stole here bottle full of orange soda. It's a good thing she loves monkeys!



You could say we hit some traffic on the way home...

These past two days have been my first two on my own. Luckily right now the office is a little slow since a lot of the staff are taking trips for work purposes so that's given me a chance to get my feet wet slowly. I've mostly just been doing some filing and IT work. Not the most glamorous work but someone's gotta do it. For those looking to pray for myself and the Bangalore team here, we would really appreciate your prayers in regard to the casework. We have been facing a lot of road bumps and have for a few weeks so just pray that eventually all our team's hard work will pay off.

Thanks to all for your prayers and support.

-Mark

One Week Down...somewhere around 47 to go?

Well it's been a whirlwind of a first week here in South Asia. The first few days I was pretty much living on three to four hours a night and then dragging myself to work only to be really conscience and coherent for maybe...3 of those hours. The rest of the time was me pretty much taking up space and trying to focus. But overall I think it went pretty well considering the mental state I was in. I got a brief orientation of the work that I'll be doing and seems like it's going to be pretty tough due to the amount of areas I am responsible for (IT, finance, recruiting and maintaining the shared website). I'm a little worried though as I have absolutely zero knowledge of computers or finance so it'll be sink or swim for the next year.
Since stepping off the plane I have found it more and more enjoyable due in large part to the people I have met here. Everyone, nationals and ex-pats, has been really great and friendly. It seems like it really is a cohesive group. On Friday we had doughnuts and a dance off at the end of the day. I was still in my little jet lag phase but I promised to participate in the dance off after I had taken a few bollywood hip hop dancing lessons. The next day all the interns took the three of us new interns out into the 'city center' of Bangalore to show us the sites of the city. There aren't too many but here are some highlights

This is the entrance to the High Court of Karnataka (the state where I live). A close up of the arch reveals the goal of the High Court. It says 'Justice for all - Real & Speedy.' For some reason I just find that hard to believe.

This is the parliament building of Karnataka. The motto for this building is "Government Work is God's Work." Let's hope that's not the case.

These are some of the girls from the office:

And the only three Ex-pat guys in the office:

Getting around is pretty easy. We usually just walk or take autos but dealing with traffic is a bit of nightmare.

Needless to say this picture does not do it justice but it's amazing that more accidents don't happen here.

Cows eating some trash in front of a college. Would you honestly expect anything else?

Sure they look really cute but these things are out of control! There are tons of these dogs around the city that do nothing but sleep all day but at night these things turn into monsters and that's coming from a dog lover. They own the night and roam around the city in packs and when they start barking and howling it might be one of the most frightening sounds I've ever heard.

After the tour of the city, we went to a bar to watch the World Cup and have a few beers. While there, we watched the Argentina/Germany game. To my suprise, a good amount of Indians were there watching the game. This was strange to me because coming here I heard the soccer was not that big of a sport; Cricket was the sport to watch/play. But when we went to the bar/restaurant, there were tons of people watching the game. The thing I loved about it was that none of them were cheering for any team in particular. They were cheering purly for excitment. When Argentina almost scored a few goals they would gasp in anticipation and exhale with dismay. But when Germany scored, it was yelling and cheering and high fives all around. I thought this was hilarious.
The next day was independence day and Sunday so I went with a couple interns to a Presbyterian Church. I think in total there was about 30 people in the small church. Afterwards, we went and bought beef (yes beef) and talked to some of Rob's (one of the three ex-pat male interns) friends from church who invited us to come camping in the rainforest. That sounds incredibly awesome and terrifing at the same time (see my phobia of snakes). When we had gotten all our supplies we went to an apartment and had a real American BBQ in Bangalore full of Burgers, Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, Apple Pie and Beer! It was great and felt like home. At least it felt like home until we were told not to leave the house all day monday, due to a strike that would last all day and that could potentially become violent. So the next day we all went to our boss's house and had a second BBQ though not nearly as poppin as the first one.

Although there are some parts, like the random cows and traffic, that can be a hassle it really is a fun experience learning about a whole new place and getting to experience it first hand. I never ate that much Indian food before I came here but now I find that I love the food and especially the spices! It seems like I've had something different everyday and have loved each dish! All in all I like it here and am really glad I did this!
Until next time,
Mark

I'm Here!

So in case anyone didn't know, I arrived in...South Asia...three days ago at 4:30 in the morning. Since then it feels like I've been in a bit of a daze since I have been going into work everyday and have been getting by on maybe 3-4 hours of sleep a night. To say the least the country I'm staying in...South Asia (do the math)...is very different from the US as you obviously can imagine. There are cows and dogs roaming the streets everywhere. No one does anything to move the cows obviously because they are sacred and the dogs own the night, roaming around in packs around our neighborhood barking and howling constantly. Crossing the streets, let alone driving, is quite a chore as there is little regard for traffic rules but I find myself being very impressed by the fact that accidents don't occur every two minutes! Surprisingly though it's not nearly as bad as I was expecting! I probably had heard what other people had told me and had blown it out of proportion but the city in which I live is actually pretty nice once you get used to the new things. Anyway just updating everyone that I'm, officially here. More will be written later when I have more to say