Tamil Nadu Small and Tiny Industries Association

This past week has been a flurry of activity and inactivity. Some highlights (in rough chronological order):

- Meeting up with Jeff's uncle in Chennai (he lives in a different part of Tamil Nadu). We went to a very popular coffee shop chain called "Cafe Coffee Day" - so it was three Jeff's (Jeff Weaver also joined us), two Jeff McManuses (Jeff is named after his uncle) and 2.5 McManuses (since I was reminded I'm partway there).

- Going to church with Jeff's uncle. Definitely an experience. Probably 2-3,000 people there, and the sermon was given by the charismatic leader who heads up this evangelical movement in India (his father founded it). The sermon rambled a bit over the course of an hour + (it was pretty clear he didn't have prepared remarks). Choice moments include the statement "if you kill a monkey, be sure to run fast or a mob will kill you," and his condemnation of a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. But the music was great (the boys lent me the songbook, the consolation prize since the church was gender segregated so I sat by myself. You can imagine how well I took to that).

- Meeting up with my mom in Chennai, getting to stay at her super posh hotel and use the fitness center (which apparently only Americans use, so said the guy who stood about two inches away from mom while she was on the treadmill, clearly convinced she would hurt herself).

- Having to repack a suitcase in the airport because when it was put on the scale to measure the weight, the scale read "ERROR." Apparently they aren't equipped for 45kg (100lb) bags. What a shocker. (I'd packed a duffle on the top of the suitcase in case we had any issues, so we just checked an extra bag). And before you judge me, remember that I'm going for the year and my mother is a doctor, so fully half of the suitcase is medicines (because of course I'll need three different kinds of splints...how I wish I was joking).

- Arriving in Patna and being driven from the hotel to the airport. Seeing hundreds and hundreds of men and a handful of women. My first thought was "Maybe there's some kind of event at 3pm on Tuesdays that's very popular with women." Of course, it's just that Patna (and Bihar) is much more conservative than Chennai, so while there are definitely women out and about, there are many, many more men doing so.

- Seeing cycle rickshaws for the first time! After two weeks of auto rickshaws (motorcycles with a cage-ish thing to sit in) blasting exhaust into the air and honking like crazy, it's wonderful to have mostly (maybe 65-35) cycle rickshaws (with super cute tinny little bells), about even numbers of motorcycles and bicycles, and some cars. Doesn't make the traffic calmer or much quieter, but it does make it less polluting. Plus, the cycle rickshaws have the coolest embroidery over the awning-like things that you can pull over your seat for a little shade.

Auto Rickshaw:                                                          



Cycle Rickshaw:
 
(P.S. my first attempt at including photos! apparently it works)

- After several days of worriedly trying to figure out how I would find an apartment with minimal Hindi and minimal knowledge of Patna, we were basically handed our apartment on a platter. We have been enormously lucky that an acquaintance of my mom's through work is a very generous and helpful man here in Patna, and he found us a fabulous apartment - three bedrooms, three porches! (oh the plants I will grow, with Allison's advice, of course), nice tile floors, a western style bathroom, a backup generator maintained by the building. Basically a dream. We don't really need three bedrooms, but there will be a ton of JPAL people in and out of Patna over the course of the next year, so we'll hopefully be able to make things more comfortable for folks visiting.

- Best of all, being joined in the apartment inspection by none other than Irfan Alam (http://www.worldandi.com/subscribers/feature_detail.asp?num=26743). He was looking at another unit in the building, and basically tagged along while we walked around our apartment. He's a friend of our acquaintance, and a really nice, funny guy. What a delight!

- Getting an Indian cell phone ("mobile" phone), which requires both buying a new cell phone and getting a sim card. As usual, we're blessed with incredibly helpful people in our life here in Patna, and Jeff's friend and project assistant from his time in Uttar Pradesh got us sim cards so our phones are functional. Hurray!

- Finally, pausing an episode of Numb3rs I was watching with my mom because of a loud commotion outside and discovering that our hotel was hosting a wedding. Of course, we didn't know that until much later. But we enjoyed the awesome procession around the big park in front of the hotel, and up to the hotel (but not so much the embers that landed on us from the ridiculously close fireworks). Not knowing that it was a wedding, we walked back up to the entrance of the hotel, and when a man offered me a plate of juices, I took one (why turn down free juice?). And we didn't really notice that we stumbled through a line of people at the entrance to the hotel, which mom realized this morning (to her horror) was the receiving line for the wedding. Yikes. So basically we trampled through someone's wedding, but can quite honestly write it off as "stupid Americans."

And weddings are definitely on my mind, since today is my and Jeff's pre-anniversary. Because one year from today, Jeff and I are getting married. And even though Jeff and I aren't together right now, we're both very excited!