A cold, a sick economy = rupee, rupee, who's got a rupee!

December 20, 2016

I have been in bed for three days now. My cold took a turn for the worse just as I was getting better. I had a bad night of sleep on Friday and now have some kind of infection. So I am on drugs and bed rest in hope of a quick recovery. Given how hard the beds are here I also am taking ibuprofen to help with back pain from being is bed so much. Yesterday I saw a doctor who prescribed three meds. The doctor visit was 100 rupees…that is $1.50…yes I do have the decimal in the right place. I couldn’t help but laugh when he told me. I told him it would be more like $100 in the US and he replied ‘Yes but India isn’t like the US’. HA! That’s an understatement.

We are nearing a panic mode over rupees here. I mentioned earlier that the government on Nov 8 demonetized 500 and 1000 rupee notes causing a real problem. It gets worse by the week. We found out last week that the banks are not replenishing the ATMS which is our only way to get cash here as we do not have an Indian bank account. The banks stopped refilling the ATMs because non customers could withdraw rupees and daily the ATMs ran out of cash. So the banks stopped refilling them but their customer could cash checks inside the bank to get cash. We are rupee-less as a result. We do not have enough to pay our staff at the end of the month.

Ron visited a bank with a foreign exchange office and was told they would NOT take US dollars in cash in exchange for rupees, only wire transfers. Incredible India.  We have lots of US dollars because we sold our car and asked for US dollars instead of rupees to avoid a major problem of converting hundreds of thousands of rupees before we left the country. We were shocked to discover how hard it is to exchange the dollars. There are multiple places besides banks that do foreign exchange but NONE of them have any rupees because the government did not print replacement currency before they implemented the new policy!!!!!!!!! I think you are beginning to see the picture here and how the government failed to see the problem with implementation when they did not preprint and supply new currency to replace the currency they demonetized. I feel badly for all the small businesses that are closing or larger companies that are laying off workers because no one has cash to be spending.

I am an optimist by nature and I would have to say I am naive sometimes but I am hopeful that by the end of December they have printed and distributed enough currency that this nightmare goes away. Ron scoffs at me for being so hopeful.

 December 21, 2016

 Happy Winter Solstice, one of my favorite days of the year. It means the days lengthen and there is more daylight. We are still enjoying temps in the mid to high 80’s and sun every single day. I absolutely love living in the Grayt NW of the US but the winters are so gray for so long. It never bothered me much until we lived in Sri Lanka which is five degrees above the equator and we had four cloudy days in 14 months! So now in the winter we often leave the NW for sunnier climes. Our days and evenings here are so much like the Portland summers: chilly mornings and comfortable days. We were told yesterday it gets cold here in January but who knows what that means. When we walk in the mornings around 6:30our neighbors who are walking are bundled up in sweaters, stocking hats, neck scarves, and jackets. We are in our t-shirts. I am not sure they know what cold is here but they make up for it by truly knowing hot!!!

Yesterday Rahul and Ron paid a visit to Rahul’s bank to talk to the manager as to what options we had for getting rupees. Today a foreign exchange agent is supposed to come to Ron’s office between 11-2 to exchange $1400 dollars for rupees which should get us through until time to leave. We have our fingers crossed. If this fails for any reason then we can wire money to Rahul’s account and use his account as our ATM.

The demonetization plan/implementation is taking some interesting turns. For starters the finance ministry keeps changing the rules and they are getting worse by the week. Now people cannot deposit more than 5,000 rupees of the old money without being interviewed by two bank employees asking why. Once they approve of the customer’s reason they will approve the deposit. Just think of the staff time involved in that transaction. OY! Originally the deadline was Dec 31^st to deposit or exchange any old notes but that was one of the rules that got changed. Today the minister said people should deposit all their old notes at once. Just a little problem with those two rules. The worse one now is you cannot withdraw more that 8,000 rupees from your own account. Yesterday a man filed a police report because he submitted a check for withdrawal of 24,000 rupees and was told to come back in the afternoon. When he returned he was told they could only let him withdrawal 8,000 at a time and to write three checks. I think you can see how arbitrary the rules are and they literally change bank to bank and day to day. All at the inconvenience of the depositors.  My favorite recent story came from a small village where the villagers ordered every employee out of the bank and they locked the door with their own lock because the bank had no money to meet their needs. It has been 41 days since this policy was implemented and we are just beginning to see people who had been patient long enough and are now protesting one way or the other.

  

As you would expect this has impacted tourism greatly. Booking are down 65% and foreign bookings are down 40-45%. I have no idea how a tourist can get rupees for traveling in India when ATMs are empty! It is totally nuts to me. So today I will pray to the two million Hindu gods and goddesses that our foreign exchange guy shows up with rupees in hand. Wish us luck.

Aha. It is done. We have rupees, close to enough to take us through our departure. Yippee!!!!

Back in the USA - A Whirlwind Trip

December 10, 2016 

We left Ahmedabad on Nov 28^th on a late evening flight to Abu Dhabi, about a three hour flight. We got to bed at the airport hotel around 12:30 and were up a bit before 5:00 to catch the next flight to LAX., a 16 hr trip. We get to go through customs in Abu Dhabi and the US Customs service here is fully automated so we never had to stand in line. We are asked to verify our bags on a computer screen and off we go. This is a huge time saver in LA.

We fly Etihad, a UAE carrier. They have been a good choice in terms of price, connections and service. On that first leg we were seated in a three person row and our seat mate was a young mother with a loud, squarely toddler. The attendant took one look at the situation and invited us to the row in front of her that was an exit row!!!!!!!!!!!! Yahoo! Those seats cost a few hundred dollars more.

On our trip to LAX the exit row in front of us was empty and Ron asked permission to sit there and it was granted. Since it cost more, often the request is denied. I think our age may be in our favor but who knows. We arrived in LA and after a 2.5 hr wait boarded for Portland. We arrived at our condo around 7:30, threw the bags on the floor in the living room and walked to the nearby grocery store to pick put our dinner from a deli case that is excellent. After dinner we unpacked the bags. We brought a lot of things home so we would not have overweight charges when we return in April. Then we packed some clothes for NY: dressy and other warm items were included. We fell into bed and slept for a few hours but our bodies were a bit confused since we were now literally half way around the world. Ron had an early doc appointment for a flu shot. I walked to a grocery store to get items Kamla had requested. I got 10 lbs of cooking chocolate, Ziploc bags and coffee filters that she uses to make paneer, an Indian cottage cheese. I got a flu shot at the store pharmacy. I took a bus back to the condo since the weight was a bit heavy for walking 20 blocks.

Ron realized he had forgotten to reinstate our car insurance and we decided to not drive the car. That limited any activity I had planned but nothing was critical. Mostly I had planned to visit two kitchen stores for Kamla. I could walk to one but not the other.

We met our best friends Rick and Ellen for lunch at a nearby deli which was within walking distance. We live in an excellent area where we can walk to grocery stores, restaurants, retails shops, post office and the library. We had a good visit and parted. The afternoon flew by and at a little after 5:00 our friend Wendy who just moved to Portland from the Bay area came over for a visit and dinner. We trucked down to the same store and each of us picked out our dinners. We all felt it would be easier to visit at the condo and the store offers enough selection that all of us were content with the choices.

I met Wendy when I administered her GED when she was 16 and I was in my mid 20’s. We have HISTORY!!!!!!!!! She and I became friends, she worked for me when she was a student at the college where I was working and we have never lost contact with each other. We are thrilled to have her in town. In the summer of 2015 when I had multiple surgeries she come over to the condo and helped Ron move us in and get settled. I was unable to do anything at the time so I feel indebted to her for your kindness. I regret I couldn’t reciprocate when she moved to Portland a month or so ago.

We fell into bed and had another inadequate night’s sleep before arising at 4:00 to catch a plane to NY. Our dear neighbor Pam volunteered to take us to the airport. I resisted but she insisted, saying she usually got up at 4:30. We arrived in Newark and took a cab to Manhattan where our Airbnb was. What luck, it was a block away from where David and Anne had recently bought a condo! We dropped our bags and headed out for a bite of lunch as it was late afternoon and we were hungry. Three blocks away and we found a great Mexican place near an Indian restaurant. We had decided not to eat Indian cuisine while in the US. We needed a change. Afterwards we went over to David and Anne’s place and got to visit. By 6:30 we were nodding off on the couch while he was showing us a montage of photos of Elizabeth. We went back to our place and fell into bed…again not able to sleep through the night. Jet lag is hell sometimes.

Friday is a blur but it was the beginning of Elizabeth’s Bat Mitzvah. We went over to the condo to help with preparations: food prep and venue prep. Around two we took a break for lunch. Much of our time was spent at the temple covering chairs with slip covers and tying them.  The event started at five and we were there dressed for photos at 4:00. There was a service followed by a seated dinner for a large crowd of 80 I think. The next morning we were there by 9:30 and stayed through lunch for about 130 or more.  We were thrilled to get in a visit with Ron’s uncle and aunt who live in Philadelphia. We promised to come see them in the summer. We think it would be great to do an east coast trip where we start in RI, then NY, Philadelphia, and SC to see family.

On Sunday we met with Sandi and Bill, their daughter Rachel and her son Reid. Sandi is Ron’s sister and the four of us love to travel and get together whenever we can arrange it. From Rachel’s condo we went to breakfast at a nearby restaurant. Afterwards we went to their bnb and visited until we needed to move on. Ron and I stopped by a kitchen store on the way home to get some extra large silicon spatulas for Kamla. That night we had leftover Bat Mitzvah fare for dinner at David and Anne’s.  Monday we met Sandi and Bill for a movie (we are starved for good movies) and saw Manchester by the Sea which was excellent. Afterwards David met us all for lunch at an excellent Italian restaurant that we all enjoyed. That night the NY Bergman’s needed to crash and I was developing a sore throat and only wanted soup for dinner. Ron called the Mexican restaurant and picked up a soup and we dined at our Airbnb. I never slept through a single night.

On Tuesday we went to see Moonlight with David and it was another great film. We felt sated in terms of our movie desires. I told Ron I would like to stay another week to catch up on good movies but alas we leave on Wednesday arriving in Ahmedabad on Thursday evening.

That night we took David and the kids out to dinner at an Italian place in the neighborhood. It started to rain today but we had our umbrellas so we were prepared. It has been cold the entire time we were in NY but we had taken warm coats from Portland so were not too uncomfortable although we both felt we had acclimated to India’s temps and never felt warm in NY when we were outside. After the movie we all went to our bnb and packed up our dressy clothes and warm clothes and gave the box to David to mail to our neighbor in Portland who looks after our condo for us. Jim and Barbara have been a godsend looking after needed duties like running the faucets, flushing the toilets and running the dishwasher once a month. Plumbing can dry out and the results are sewer gas and lose joints that can lead to flooding so we are most grateful to them for helping us out.

We left the bnb around 9:00 on Wednesday to JFK airport. Our host is an Uber driver so we were set. Our host is from the Rep of Georgia so we had lots to talk about since we had lived there for two years. He also is a neurosurgeon/scientist who is waiting on FDA approval for a medical device he developed with others that helps with aneurysms. He talked about how the device works on the way to the airport. We were intrigued. 

We were so grateful that the flight to Abu Dhabi was 12 hrs instead of 16 hrs. While waiting to board I asked a staff member is the flight was full. She said first and business class were full but there were a few empty swat in economy if I wanted to change seats. I said ‘NO way I am sitting next to the most handsome guy on the plane.’  We laughed and I went back in line. We were in the last group to board, group 6. As the last of group 3 were boarding she caught my eye and signaled for us to come over and she nodded to the ‘gatekeeper’ that it was okay. She let us board with group 4! She said something funny like ‘so you can enjoy sitting next to the most handsome man’.  We were thrilled. If we hadn’t gotten on with the earlier group we would have never had room for our carry on luggage. This plane held 600 passengers, an Air Bus 800, the biggest commercial jet. Some of them have apartments in them!! Oh those emirs…

The trip was doable although we were cramped in our seats and I was having muscle spasms in my back. A couple of ibuprofen took care of it. It was so much better than a 16 hr flight. We both slept on the plane after a week of poor rest. We arrived in Abu Dhabi and caught our next flight after a two to three hour layover. It was a quick three hr flight to Ahmedabad. Ron had asked the staff member if we got priority boarding since we now have ‘silver’ status with Etihad. He said yes. We got in line for our group 4 boarding and again we were signaled to front. This time we were upgraded to BUSINESS class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could hardly wait to recline that chair to sleep position. I told Ron I wanted to enjoy the great food, recline and sleep all at once. I never got to sleep so I thought I would ask if we could just keep flying so I could get a nap in but decided against that idea.

It took over an hour to retrieve our luggage in Ahmedabad. I discovered that they do not have conveyor belts to off load luggage. It is done manually. I thought we would have to spend the night there. OY! Rahul was there to take us home. His new car was sitting in our driveway. He is fast becoming an Uber driver. He and Ron negotiated a deal where we would pay him almost twice as much to be our driver in his car and we would sell our car when we returned. By selling it in December instead of January, we avoid the depreciation related to the car being last years model. He is so excited.  We made scrambled eggs and toast for dinner and unpacked our bags. Ron and I never wait until the next day to unpack even though we were both tired. We fell into bed exhausted around 11:30. We were just starting to adjust to US time when we left so…it will be a few days of transition back to our time zone here.

                           

Friday

I took it easy today because between jet lag, lack of sleep for over a week and starting a cold, I didn’t feel like doing much. I did get a few groceries and then decided that was enough. I rested and slept some in the afternoon.

 Ron started work on selling the car, posting an ad on line and creating posters to put up on campus. The car should sell easily because we bought it new and it has low miles and it less than six months old. He has listed it at a reasonable price and is willing to negotiate. We know we can sell it to brokers and we got quote the day we left so we know what they will pay for it which helped Ron set the price.

I made a spaghetti super with salad and had made the sauce before I left so just needed to thaw it. Afterwards we went downstairs and watched Patton on the TV. We toddled off to bed at 12:30 and we slept until 8:00.

The on-line ad has generated a lot of interest in the car. Two people have come by and more are schedule for later . We feel sure we can sell it near our price and we are hoping we can get the money wired to our bank in the US to avoid any money issues since the banks are still overwhelmed with the demonetization that started about two weeks before we left. 

Searching for the elusive ATMs

November 22, 2016

Lately I have noticed some truly bad behavior on my part. I am not sure if it is a thousand tiny injustices or a paradigm shift knowing that we are leaving. Yesterday I got annoyed and realized I was audibly grumbling like an old lady. Oh heck I am one! The first time was when I entered the only chain store I know that sells the one cereal we like here. It is a small store and has crowded aisles and checkout stands. I found the wanted item but it was on the top shelf. Keep in mind I am taller than most Indians. If I stood on my tip toes and stretched I could reach the cereal. However the shelf had a two inch lip requiring that I lift the box up over the lip in order to get it down making the task difficult. I hit another barrier because they had put a box on top of the wanted item, lying on its face giving next to no room to lift the box that was upright due to the low ceiling. So I started makes grumbling noises and saying things like ‘what a stupid thing to do’…I managed to get two boxes down but couldn’t get the third one because it was too far back to reach. When I can find this cereal I buy four to six boxes to save time and energy going to multiple outlets of this chain trying to find it in stock. Welcome to developing countries. Oddly this item is made in India, not imported from Australia or other parts of the globe. So with my two boxes of cereal I walked towards the checkout counter and saw a woman racing to get in front of me. Again I made a rude comment that was audible but I doubt comprehensible to anyone but me. I think I may have said ‘bitch’ but don’t remember. I came home and told Ron I needed to get out of here before I became a truly ugly American visitor. These episodes are a lead in to what happened today to put me in my place and to remember that I am in Incredible India because it is incredible: both ways!

As I have mentioned the country is in a struggle to overcome the storage of cash due to the monetary change ten days ago. We still have long lines at banks and ATMs. Banks and ATMs run out of cash daily. With 1.3 billion people here the lines are unreal. Today I went to the mall where I can usually find an ATM with cash. Neither one had any this noon. So I went back around 3:00 and there were 25 people in line ahead of me. I started talking with two men from Bombay who were here for a conference. One of them went to the front because some people bring multiple cards and withdraw cash for others I assume but they take up a lot of time. So this man decided to monitor the machine and tell people two withdrawals only because the wait was so long. He met a friend in line and signaled the other man beside me to join him. The line was moving at a snail’s pace and I wondered if I would have to send Rahul on to pick up Ron then come back for me. The first man I was speaking with signaled for me to come forward and so did the security guard. I went up and he said you are next. I assume because I was the only ‘old lady’ in line. Most Indians, men and women dye their hair when it turns gray. I stand out with my lovely gray locks. I was so embarrassed to move ahead of everyone but all those near the machine were most gracious and no one seemed to mind.  So again I was reminded of Incredible India…the other way. Hopefully I will stop grumbling now! Note: We went to dinner with friends a few days later and one of the people with us works for the World Bank and is doing some project with CEPT. When I told him the story he said he didn’t think it had anything to do with my age but that Indians  think foreigners should not have to endure the inconvenience since they have nothing to do with the black money. Interesting perspective. The two other Indians present agreed with him.

The Little Man Next Door, Denial and Changing money

November 16, 2016 

Kamla’s grandson is Vihan and he is four. He could charm the horns off a Billy goat. When I first came to Asopalav he would walk by my door with his nanny or his mom on the way to school and yell out “Good Morning Auntie (older women in India are always referred to as ‘auntie’. In the evening after playing on the green he would yell out “Good Morning Auntie” His nanny would say loudly “Good evening Vihan, good evening” trying to correct him. It was months before he said good evening to me. Vihan is quite handsome and he loves to pick flowers and give them to his mom, his grandmother and to me. But he is very smart so he always gives the best, freshest flower to his family members. I take no offense and feel he has already figured out some important things to know in life.  He also likes to pick up bird feathers. Our society is filled night and day with peacocks and pen hens. So Vihan has a small collection of feathers. One day he gave me a broken peacock feather which I graciously accepted.


Yesterday the gardener was at his house and Vihan ran to him yelling ‘mali, mali’ which is a generic term for gardeners. When I first arrived I thought it was the gardener’s name. He gave Tilakram, the gardener, two of his peacock feathers and asked him to plant them so they would get bigger or maybe so there would be more feathers. So today when I was returning some dishes to Kamla I spied the feathers and took a photo. What a sweet story this was.

Today I went to CEPT where Ron works. He was at another location teaching a class. A friend at CEPT is married to a banker who has been most generous and offered to help staff avoid the long lines at the banks/ATMs which we think will persist for some time yet. Some people wait in line for three and four hours and the most you can exchange at any time is 4500 rupees, about $67. So I got the needed paperwork, attached a photocopy of my passport and visa and turned in 4500 rupees. Tomorrow I will get either new notes or all 100 rupee notes. Either way it will be legal tender as the 500 notes no longer are legal. Ron and I will submit paperwork for the next three or four business days and will have exchanged all our 500 notes. I have to say this is almost too good to be true. I will offer to take any notes Narian or Rahul need exchanged as well.

Narian came to work today after a four day absence. I knew he was taking Saturday and Sunday off but was surprised when he didn’t show up on Monday or Tuesday. I asked him today if I made it clear when I hired him that if he didn’t call me and tell me he wouldn’t be coming I wouldn’t pay him on those days. He said I had told him that. He said a friend committed suicide over a broken heart. His friend was having an affair and it wasn’t approved by his village. Who knows where the truth lies…Sankar has made me a little skeptical. I told Narian I was very sorry about his friend and that I never minded him missing work but he needed to let me know. He seems clear on this point now. I am convinced that we are living in a face saving culture where lying is acceptable to save face.

November 16

After work today Ron and I sat down with Rahul to tell him we would be leaving at the end of January. He got a little weepy and talked about how he never felt like he was coming to a job with us. He felt like he was coming to his parents. He has said this kind of thing to us before. I also sensed a bit of panic. Rahul has a huge mortgage, over half of his salary. He has talked for months about wanting to be an Uber driver so we had assumed he would follow through and buy our car. After we told him of our change in plans, he said he would talk it over with his wife tonight.

November 17

 Rahul told us this morning that he and his wife decided they couldn’t afford another bank loan. He told us separately. He told Ron on the way to work and he told me on the way to the ATM. I said ‘then you need to get a job. We will try to arrange our schedule so that you can take time off during the day to look for your next job.’ He told me he wouldn’t do that because he would not find a job that paid as much as we paid him and he said he really needed to make 30,000 as an Uber driver not 18,000, given his financial obligations. He gave me several other reasons he wouldn’t get a loan. Then he said he hoped we would loan him the money. This is quite unrealistic since we will not be living here and he would have no way to get money to us in the US. I said ‘if that isn’t possible what will you do?’ He said he didn’t know and that he would have to think of something else. It breaks my heart but this isn’t something we can fix. I suggested he think about borrowing the money from his in laws who are have some wealth from selling the land they used to farm. He didn’t think that would be possible.

Today I went to two ATMs at the mall at 10:00 hoping to beat the lines. I did except one machine was out of order and the other one was out of rupees. Great. I returned at 11:30 and there were only 10 people in line. There seemed to be some problems at times with the ATM and anytime that happened five of those in line would surround the person trying to use the machine. Forget privacy while entering your PIN. At one point a young man oozed pass me in line. I just moved closer to the man in front of me and occasionally looked a the guy trying to cut in. We both persisted. I was thinking about how I might assert myself or embarrass him. I was thinking to myself ‘he thinks I’m a little old lady with white hair. Well he has another think coming.’ Finally when it was my turn he eased back into the appropriate spot and I didn’t have to say anything. However as I was pressing buttons to withdraw cash I was searching the screen for ‘yes’ because I wanted a receipt and sure enough he spoke up and said ‘yes’ and pointed to it on the screen. Like I said, forget privacy. This is India and personal space is a foreign concept.

Late in the day when Ron got home he announced that the government is now restricting exchanges to 2000 rupees a day instead of 4500. Crap. We are trying to get enough cash to pay our driver, housekeeper and gardener before we leave here on the 28^th. I will need to make daily ATM trips and Ron will need to submit a form for each of us daily to his friend at CEPT. We decided to tell the landlord to use our three month deposit we made when we came for this month’s rent. That will save me four trips to the ATM! I so hope this issue will be resolved by the time we get back on December 8^th . To add to this cash crunch my debit card had four fraudulent charges from Sacramento so now my card is canceled. I feel vulnerable with us only having one ATM card and because we do not have a bank account here. The adventures continue.

The days of our life

November 14, 2016

I am sometimes reminded what a different world I live in here in India. Today was an example of that. My neighbor Kamla has a staff of about seven people: one cleans, one takes care of the four year old when he isn’t in school, two drivers, one who washes clothes, one who has been with her since he was 10 and lives with the family and he mostly does kitchen work and one who cleans the ‘utensils’ in the kitchen. An outside person irons for the family.

Jinal is 16 and mostly works in the kitchen and pitches in where needed when the child care person doesn’t come to work. I think she helps with cleaning the other rooms as well.

Over the weekend she was seen going with a boy into his home when no one was home. This isn’t acceptable apparently so now her mother said she can no longer work for Kamla because she will use a phone at their house to arrange other meetings with the boy, maybe even run away. The mother isn’t eager to marry her off yet because she earns a wage. The father has threatened to kill her if she runs away. So last night through negotiations Kamla got permission for her to work a few days more until her live-in guy returns from his village.  The mother will accompany Jinal to Kamla’s house to make sure she doesn’t slip away and the mother will return to pick her up when her work is completed. Basically the girl’s life has changed overnight because she was seen talking to a boy. She will be under the watchful eye of her parents and chances are they will move forward to getting her married sooner than later. OY!

Follow up: Jinal told Kamal she wouldn’t run away because various family members showed up at her house to give her a slap or a kick for going into the boy’s home. It sounds like nothing happened between the boy and Jinal but the father said he would kill her for spoiling the family’s reputation. What? Murder is okay but spoiling the family’s reputation isn’t? Incredible India.

Saturday night Asopalav Bungalow Society, our residence, had a gala affair in the garden. Karaoke, catered dinner, a form of bingo with cash prizes and a Hindi movie. To encourage people to show up they were charged 100 rupees ($1.50) per person and that money was refunded at the party. Apparently it worked to motivate people to attend. Too funny. Our evenings are delightful now. No more radiant heat from the day’s blistering sun. No more blistering days. Our temps range from the low 90’s during the day and the low 60’s at night. It feels a lot like a Portland summer to us. No more AC either. I leave the doors open during the day with the overhead fans we do just fine. What a relief.

This morning on our 6:00 a.m. walk we ran into a neighbor we saw for the first time Saturday night. He was getting out of his car this morning and ‘cordially invited’ us to a religious ceremony at his home at 9:30 this morning. On my walk with Kamla at 8:00 she said she and Badlani were going and asked me to join them. I decided to go to have yet another ‘cultural experience’.

We walked into the home after removing our shoes. In the living room which was devoid for furniture for the occasion, they had set up an ‘altar’. A tapestry of a famous temple in Gujarat was hanging on the wall. A coffee table was decorated with tiny colored pebbles in circles and ornate designs. Rose petals and marigolds were sprinkled all over the surface. Very colorful and pretty. Then we were directed to a relative’s house nearby, about six houses away near the entrance to our society. There they were serving Jain cuisine. Jain’s are a sect of Hinduism that does not eat anything that grows underground: garlic, onion, carrot, peanuts, etc. I couldn’t imagine how you can eat Indian cuisine without garlic and onion. Almost every dish starts with these ingredients. It was delicious and I was curious as to how they seasoned it. I had dhal, idly (ground, steamed rice paddies), sambar (a spicy soup) and a fried bread. All were tasty. There was another dish Kamla told me to try. I have had a variation on this dish and don’t care for it but tried it anyway. It is semolina, sugar and ghee (clarified butter). Then we were walking home and we again invited into the first house. Chairs were set up outside so we found a shady spot. About ten minutes later, an elderly woman dressed in all white, carrying a while bag and what looked like  a fly whisk sat down and gave an hour’s talk in Gujarati on being a good human. Guests and family members surrounded her at her feet and a few of us sat in chairs. Kamla has to sit in a chair after her back surgery. She wears a wide brace that is about 12 to 15 inches wide. If I can get on the floor I cannot sit there for an hour and jeez getting up is a sight to behold. What happened to my agility? Oh I’m not 35 years old anymore….

We came home and I started working on dinner. Tonight I am serving salads. We are so tired of carbs. I think I have mentioned some meals here are all carbs. So we will have a green salad filled with all kinds of veggies, a bean and corn salad with red and yellow peppers, hot peppers, purple onions and cilantro, and a beet salad with walnuts and blue cheese.  YUM.

November 15 2016

Our weather is delightful: humidity 35%,highs in the low 90’s and lows in the low 60’s.  It is difficult to stay inside. Narian, our housekeeper left for his village on Friday after a quick clean here, saying he would return Monday in time to clean. Nope. Then this morning after he didn’t show Rahul called to find out he was waiting on the bus in his village. He would see us tomorrow. Rahul went into hyper drive both Monday and today washing clothes by hand, sweeping then mopping the floors. and sweeping the driveway. I tell him it is not his job and it is not required but he just cannot help himself. 

This week is a big week for us. Ron told his employer last night he would not renew his contract and today he will tell the university. He will complete his hours in late January most likely. We may do some traveling in India before heading to Thailand where we will stay with our Thai family until we come home in April. We have the use of a lovely home in Thailand on family property and have grown quite close over the years. The matriarch is Pa Cha An and she is in her 90’s. She had a bad fall two years ago and has been bed ridden ever since. She is also blind now but her spirit is vibrant. We have a photo of the three of us and we take it where ever we go. It sits on our bedroom here so we can say good morning each day.

The chickens come home to roost - for those with chickens

November 11 2016

This has been quite a week in India. There is a big problem here called ‘black money’, undeclared income that people stash away in their homes to avoid paying taxes. Some of this money comes from business people who don’t record transactions, some comes from drug trafficking and some is counterfeit.

Modi, the PM, promised while campaigning to fix this problem.  About two months ago the government announced that anyone with black money could deposit it into their bank account and no questions regarding the source would be asked, but the tax would have to be paid. A number of people responded and did just that. A number did not heed this warning sign. So on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. after banks had closed there was an announcement that as of midnight the 500 and 1000 rupee notes (the two highest denomination bills) would no longer be legal tender. That meant your stash was worthless. Until December  30^th you can exchange your old notes up to 4,000 rupees (about $60) daily by waiting in long lines at the banks. No ATMs were available for two days and now ATM withdrawals are limited to 2,000 rupees, about $30. Banks were closed the day after the announcement. Now we see double lines snaking out the bank doors and winding down the stairs. Rahul took 4,000 rupees from us and it took over an hour in line to get 40 100 rupee notes. We are currently holding 38,000 rupees, all in 500 notes, some left over from our latest trip and some from a hidden stash. We can pay Rahul and our rent with these rupees and that will use 28,000. That money can be deposited into their accounts with no problems on either side. That leaves us with another 10,000 to get exchanged before Dec 30^th. Hopefully the lines will shorten between now and then. If not we can deposit it in Rahul’s account before the end of December and he can make withdrawals in the new currency that is printed. Because the inventory of new bils is tight there are restrictions on withdrawals so more people can get some and we hope that will change soon since that is how we get our cash. We have no accounts here. We mostly use credit cards for purchases.

Those who hit the panic button on Tuesday night ran to the jewelry shops which ended up staying open past midnight and people started buying gold and diamonds like crazy. The price of gold nuggets increased from 29,000 to 55,000 during this one evening ‘gold rush’. This allowed people to dump their cash for gold nuggets. Otherwise they would have nothing. As long as they could get the shop owner to date the receipt for Nov 9^th they were legal. On Wednesday I was walking to the veg market when a neighbor who has never talked to me approached me to talk about this episode. She asked me what I would do. At that point we had assumed we would go to the bank and exchange our currency for the newly printed notes. We also assumed we could exchange up to 20,000 a week. She said ‘what are we Indians to do?’ She said she would only be able to exchange 80,000 by Dec 30^th. In essence she had been stashing unrecorded income from their two businesses in her home and now she had no way to off load it given the restrictions. Did I mention there was a 200% penalty for anyone holding more than a certain amount which obviously applied to her? I think her next request may be to ask me to take some of her money to the bank. Frankly I don’t have any sympathy for folks who don’t pay their fair share of taxes and particularly the uber rich. Modi is to be commended for his strike and how many were caught off guard. How he kept this a secret is truly amazing. It has created a lot of inconvenience for the population but he should gain income for the country from this move.

                  

Another Village, a bad meal and "Where or where can my little dao be"

Oct 31 2016

Today we drove back to Kohima and dropped our bags back at Morung Lodge before heading to Khonoma, population 3,000, an Angami village perched high on a mountain top. It was absolutely breath taking. Along the way there are highway road signs reminiscent of Burma Shave for those of you who remember that piece of history. Today we saw one that read “All those who wish to save fuel, raise your right feet” and another one read “Drive slow and enjoy the scenery. Drive fast and join the scenery.”  

We had a local guide from the village which is required with this village so Nino was not with us. This is a historic village because it was the site of two major British – Angami battles in 1847 and 1879.

On each side of this village are terraced paddies that flow down to the valley floor between towering mountain ridges. Here they grow rice as well as veggies that they sell in the markets of Kohima and Dimapur. If they go to Dimapur it is a long ride and requires leaving at 4:00 a.m.  Selling the veggies gives them income. Otherwise they grow rice for their consumption.

First our guide took us up a long climbing staircase to see one of the original seven gates used in the village. One had to enter and leave by the same gate. Guards were posted at each gate to ensure a safe community. The pathway is on the edge of the mountain and the incline is STRAIGHT down! The village is quite pretty and appears to be very prosperous with three large churches. Our guide said the churches in the US help to pay the cost of building the churches.

Because this village in on a very steep incline the homes are on terraces and again we walked down and up narrow footpaths that were paved with flat stones. Some homes were newly built of concrete and were three stories high. Other homes were typical village homes made from a variety of materials including the oft seen corrugated metal sheets. As steep as the terrain is, there did not appear to be any problems with landslides which cannot be said for this area’s roads. It will be much worse with the road widening construction project on the main road from Dimapur to Kohima.

This village has built roads all the way down the steep incline to their fields. When you look at the photos of this village and where the paddies are you will see why this is significant. It is amazing how much land is under cultivation. There are paddies on both sides of the village and beyond. We didn’t see any children today because it is Monday and they are in school. This village has three government primary schools and two private high schools. Before we left we visited their new hotel which was impressive. Neither of the other villages had a property is passed down to the son. If there is more than one son then it is divided between them but supports the whole family. However no one really owns the land. It is to be continually passed on to the next generation.

When we got back to Kohima and we went shopping. Our goal in visiting Nagaland was to purchase a dao, the head hunter’s knife. We had told Nino and her staff before coming that was one thing we wished to accomplish. I also wanted to try and find a Naga shawl worn by the men. I discovered that one staff member’s mother had woven a shawl and that it was for sale. We looked at it and liked it but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for so decided to say ‘maybe’ and see what else was available. We visited a couple of shops quite close to our hotel with a staff member. The first shop had a shawl we liked better but the two women who were staffing the store didn’t know the price. It was not marked. We said we would come back later and see if they could find out what the cost was. Weird. So we visited a couple more shops in the same complex. One store said they had daos. Well yes they did, tourist souvenir daos, with plastic parts. We are so disappointed. We could have asked a villager to sell us one had we known that this was all that was available in town. We returned to the first store and discovered that the owner wouldn’t be in today and they couldn’t tell us the price. This is an example of how cultures differ. Yet another disappointing episode.

The staff member asked if we would like to try a Naga restaurant and we said ‘sure’. BIG mistake. The menu was extensive but they only offer two choices at lunch. So our choices were dried pork and fish. I have eaten fish n Asia a lot and usually find it is cooked on a high temperature which makes fish stink like…fish. So I opted for pork. It was not edible. The owner tried so hard to find something we liked so he kept bringing out different dishes: fish, soup, tea, and finally momos which are dumplings. It was tasty but we had lost our appetite after the first try of dried pork with overcooked veg.

When we came out of the restaurant our taxi was parked across the street. However someone had double parked and our guy was trapped. It was 45 minutes of a parking attendant and two different police officers reaching inside the car and beeping the horn trying to get the driver to return. It was just stupid and horrible.  In final desperation several people pushed it out of the way.

We then visited the Naga Museum. It was a small museum but had good exhibits of the various tribes. There were textiles, shawls and vignettes of family scenes. There were displays of weapons, small brass statues and jewelry. We left to return to our hotel and hit a horrific traffic jam. It took probably 40 minutes to get back. There are no traffic control devices here other than traffic circles. However people drive according to the laws here unlike Ahmedabad. 

We go head to head with the erstwhile head hunting Nagas

October 29 2016

We got up around 3:00 AM for a trip to the airport after three hours sleep. We flew to Kolkata about 2.5 hours then caught a short hop to Dimapur in the state of Nagaland in extreme NE India on the border with Myanmar (Burma). For a little background, Nagaland is considered the ‘wild east’ of India.  Until recently some 16 head hunting Naga tribes fought off any intruders. The last incidence of head hunting occurred in the 1960’s. I don’t have the history but the missionaries arrived and helped to stop the practice and today this state is 90% Christian: Baptist, Revival and Catholic.

A truck and a bus going in opposite directions on the narrow road

A taxi met us and whisked us away towards Kohima, the capital. Our driver drove like a bat out of hell, passing everything in sight and did a good job but making us a wee bit nervous passing cars on blind curves with a narrow two lane mountain road. The trip is two hours traveling 42 miles (68 km). We started with paved albeit narrow road with no real shoulders. However as we started the climb up the mountains the pavement was history and what remained was sub base and native soil. I felt like I was on a ride at the fairgrounds, being jostled much more than was comfortable. My brain was rattling around in my skull. The rocks in the road were large as were the holes. Some places were mud and some heavy trucks were mired in the mud. At times the driver drove on the other side of the road because it was less muddy or fewer boulders. It was exhausting and I arrived dreading the return trip in four days.

Our lodging in Kohima was basic, including bucket showers. If you haven’t experienced this let me describe it for you. There the hot water was in the hallway which we could access from our bathroom. So I took a bucket out there flipped the geyser switch and waited ten minutes and came back to fill the bucket. Since the water was scalding I only needed to fill it half way. Then I carried in into the shower area, no curtain and large 30 gal plastic container filled with cold water taking up half the space. So I added cold water to my bucket and proceeded to dip a two cup vessel in my bucket, poured the water over my body then soaped up. You now get the picture.

The town is located on steep terrain and the surrounding hills are quite beautiful. There are areas in town where you can cut in between buildings and travel to the next level up or down by taking stairs. Because of the elevation it is cool here, requiring sweaters and heavy pants in the evenings and mornings as opposed to very thin and light cotton. I love it after the brutal heat of Ahmedabad. 

The staff was terrific. We had a good view out of our bedroom of the mountains and town. The sky is so blue and the clouds are magnificent. It was about 3:30 when we arrived so we asked for a restaurant recommendation for lunch and headed a few blocks away for some fried rice.  Back to the hotel to stretch out and rest from a long day. At this point we discovered I did not have my eye medication. I take three prescriptions for glaucoma for a total of six times a day to maintain the correct eye pressure. I couldn’t figure out how I lost them. Then we realized what had happened.

Airport security in India requires the traveler to put the carryon bags, purses etc on the same kind of scanner we have in the US. So I took my meds out and put them in a tray and then the men and women are separated for the body scan. That’s because the women go into a room that has curtains for privacy because the female staff member not only waves a wand over the traveler’s body but also rubs her hands over your breasts, pubic region and between your legs. Good lord! A little too much. So it takes longer for women to get through the process. Ron finished before me, so he picked up my purse, sweater and carry on bag and off we went leaving the meds behind at security. He didn’t know I had taken them out of my purse and I was so discombobulated by security that I forget about it. So we went to a pharmacy and no luck but the person there pointed up the street to the hospital pharmacy and I found one of the three needed items. I just had to hope for the best because we were in a remote area. We ate a simple meal at the lodge and I think we were the only guests. For these 3 meds at home we pay about $500per month as co-pay.  This med was only $7.50 with no insurance.

October 30

We got up early and after breakfast we visited the WWII cemetery. There was a significant 64 day battle here between the Brits and Japanese. 1400 British, Commonwealth and Indian soldiers are buried here. The battle was informally named the ‘tennis court battle’ because this area had been the area where the Brits had their club and tennis courts.

We are transferring to our host’s second facility which is closer to the tribal villages we will visit today. It is about 9 miles up the road from Kohima. This area feels much more like Asia than India. If you look at the map of India, there is a tentacle in the NE that stretches over Bangladesh and connects several states to India. Nagaland is one of those states. People’s physical features, the way the villages were laid out and the terrain which is mountainous all contributed to the feeling of Asia.  On our drive we saw huge, beautiful Poinsettias, both red and white. On the way to Kigwema we stopped at Kisama Heritage Village where the famous Hornbill festival takes place. This village has a representative selection of Naga houses and morungs (think bachelor dorms). We walked around for about an hour taking photos and enjoying the various buildings. Some needed maintenance but overall it was a good experience.

We drove further to Kigwema and checked into our lodge. This is a family home built in the late 1990’s and designed by an architect. It is truly beautiful and its décor is accented with wonderful Naga weavings including several of the Naga shawls from different tribes. Each tribe wears specific colors.

We then toured two villages in this area, both Angami tribal villages. It is always humbling to see how others live and to be welcomed into their villages is an honor from our perspective. As we toured Mema, the first village we were amazed at how ‘tight’ everything was in terms of space. Given that the village was on steep terrain, houses are close together, yards were tiny but filled with flowers, plants and veggies growing in very small spaces.  

Each home had neatly stacked wood, often forming a wall around the house. This is used for heating and historically cooking (but since gas delivery has come to the area most residents have switched to gas cookers). The lanes were narrow so walking single file was necessary and the lanes were lined with rocks. Typically the front yard is used for chicken and pig pens.

 

People were coming from church, the men wearing their colorful hand woven heavy cotton shawls. Our guide, Nino, is well known here as she is promoting tourism to Nagaland. She encourages villagers to open their homes to tourists for home stays. So she is greeted warmly. Nino is a Naga from the Angami tribe. One couple invited us for tea and we readily accepted. 

Their home was two stories but we sat in the kitchen on the ground floor. They had a fire going in the open hearth; the home was constructed of concrete which is one of the better homes as some are made from either woven bamboo strips or thin stalks of bamboo that is then coated with mud mixed with dung which makes a plaster like coating. They had a three burner gas cooker like ours and a electric tea kettle.

 

Most of the tribal people are farmers growing rice in terraced paddies. We were surprised to learn that they do not sell the

rice but keep it for their own use. As we exited we counted seven large wicker grain keepers in the storage area outside the house. I asked how many of these they would use in one year. The answer was one. That means they have six in reserve. These grain keepers are at least five feet high and have a diameter of at least three feet if not four feet. They are huge. We asked how they retrieved the rice and they said a small person (child?) would crawl in to get the rice. HA! Who knew? We also saw places where they dried the rice outside in the sun on woven bamboo mats or the ubiquitous blue tarps. We saw logs that had been carved with mortar and pestle for grinding rice for rice beer. We had never seen anything like this. 

 While sitting in the kitchen and having tea we were joined by the gentleman who invited us, his wife, his two adult sisters and his mother. All treated us as honored guests. The man’s wife worked for the state so that provided the family with income. We were served bananas, moong dal (a dry crispy dal) and hot tea. The funniest thing is one woman was making tea in the kitchen and another woman was making tea upstairs. She arrived carrying a tray of milk tea which is the common way tea is drunk here and didn’t realize the other woman was pouring black tea for us. We all laughed. The kitchen was a large room and we sat against the wall on a bench with a cushion. It was a lovely experience.

As we walked we passed several places where young men or older boys were doing their laundry. We learned that each khel or clan within the village has their own water ‘basin’ for lack of a better description. There were five khels in this village. I asked the age of the boys and learned they were early teens and told them I was impressed and that our sons learned to do their own laundry at a similar age. Of course the difference was these boys were doing everything by hand and our boys had a machine instead of a bucket.

We went to another village and watched men working to erect a tennis like net using the dao, the knife used in head hunting, to shape stakes to help hold the net for a game they were about to play. 

We also talked to a gentleman who was sitting with other men in front of the morung who spoke great English asked if we were having a good experience in Nagaland. We said enthusiastically ‘yes’ and he replied ‘then I am happy’.  

We entered the morung and there was a communal bed where the boys would have slept. This was a simple single slab of wood that was about six feet wide and 15 feet long. Here is where young boys would have learned the lore of their culture. The Nagas appear to be a proud and very friendly culture, a big shift from their former days of head hunting where it was considered manly to bring home the head of your enemy.

Two young boys were flying a kite and took to following us for awhile, making sure we saw that they knew how to fly a kite. Numerous times they would send the kite aloft and look to see if we were watching. Other children were playing cricket. We were surprised to see that many people spoke English. Apparently this is another part of the missionary legacy. The government provides elementary education but secondary is done by private institutions. Higher education requires students to leave the area which is hard on the parents due to the cost.

Since this area is 90% Christian, cows are eaten here. In Hindu states it is against the law to kill cows. So as a mark of status, when a wealthy man was building his home there would be a big feast and the villagers would be invited.  The carvings on the front of his house would reflect how many cows had been butchered for the feast. Each cow head that was carved represented one cow. 

Village elders - Man on right showed us the viewpoint

At one point a man approached us and wanted
to show us a view point so we followed him through a winding path up and down some stairs and got a beautiful view overlooking their paddies. They were growing rice, millet, corn, guava, beans and pomelo, a member of the grapefruit family that is meaty and not very sour. He mentioned that they had bee hives too. I asked if they were having die offs of the bees like much of the world and he said no; they don’t use any pesticides. There crops were organic. Impressive! 

We spoke with older man who was sitting in the sun in the village square wearing a beautiful purple shawl. He is 88 years old. Because we are at a higher altitude it is cooler here. All the adults were wearing either a homemade shawl or a store bought shawl. We didn’t see jackets. 

Women wore sarongs, a piece of cloth that is wrapped around her waist and tucked into the waist. The women where we had tea changed into western wear when they got home from church. We don’t know if this is an influence from the missionaries or not. Perhaps the US churches send clothing to the villages. We don’t have an answer but found it unusual to see western wear in such a remote area. We saw no commercial activity and assume there is little and that Sunday is a day of rest here.

MORE VILLAGE SCENES

Back at the hotel we rested. Later we met a 15 year old girl who was with her ‘sister’ who was a friend of Nino’s. Apparently the friend came to Kigwema to wash her clothes because of the expense of water where she lived in Kohima. Hard to believe that it is worth the expense of petrol which is very expensive in Ahmedabad. Not sure of the price here since we are close to Assam which is oil rich. The 15 year old asked to have photos of us.  She took multiple photos with her phone. We were reading our ebooks in the living room when this occurred and she asked to see the photos thinking our ebooks were cell phones. We told her we didn’t have any photos on the ebooks. 

Ron got his phone out and she sat very close to him and nestled her head on his shoulder

which melted my heart right then and there. We learned later that her dad was dead, her mom had to work very hard to support three kids and that Nino’s friend was not her sister but had taken Sunita under her wing and brought Sunita to live with her so that it would relieve the mom of so much responsibility and to give Sunita more opportunities in life. Sunita was shy about speaking English, saying she didn’t do a good job and that it was so hard for her. We told her she was easy to understand and to keep practicing.

While we having dinner by the hearth in the kitchen she wrote us a note that said  “I like people who are very smart just like both of you. Thank you and may God bless you”.  I wrote her a note to keep and said ‘We also like smart people and we like sweet people... Just like you. Stay sweet and stay in school to get even smarter.” She said “I want to see your money”. It took a few seconds to realize she wanted to see what US dollars looked like but of course we don’t carry dollars in India but Ron had a dime and a penny in his carry-on so I gave her these to keep so she would remember us.