The heat and an Aniversary Present

September 9, 2016

Today our temperature will be 91 but humidity will be 89% making it feel like 105 degrees according to Accuweather. Let me say it beats 120 degrees!

Most mornings Ron and I walk for 30 minutes between 6:00 and 7:00 depending when we wake up. We don’t use an alarm clock. I now am walking with Kamla, my neighbor who is recovering from back surgery. She is supposed to walk for two hrs a day so she and I walk in the morning and the evening for 45 minutes each time. I sweat a lot because we walk later, usually around 8:30 or 9:00 so the sun is up and we walk around 6:00 or 6:30 in the evening when it is still quite warm. But it feels good to be getting more exercise and I am enjoying our chats as we walk. She and I walk on the ‘green’, a little park like area in front of our houses.

Ron and I are planning a week long trip during Diwali, a week long Hindu holiday at the end of Oct and early Nov. On the previous trips to Myanmar (Burma) we bought some Naga tribal pieces at a shop that specialized in ethnic textiles and tribal items. The Naga tribes live on the Myanmar/India border. There are 16 tribes in this small state of Nagaland. We have a warrior’s belt and a helmet. The belt has a wooden scabbard but no knife. So we will be on a treasure hunt for a dao, the knife worn by tribesmen that was traditionally used for head hunting. I think it was the British Raj or Baptist missionaries who put a stop to head hunting in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. If possible I would like to pick up one of the tribal shawls worn by the men. Nagaland is in the extreme NE of India and is a mountainous state. We are really looking forward to this trip. Ron even traced the scabbard before coming here so if he can find a knife he will know if it will fit. We will be based in Kohima which gets 72 inches of rain a year.  I think that is about twice what we get in Portland.  We will visit three other villages during our stay. On the way home we will spend a few days in Calcutta, now known as Kolkata.

September 11, 2016

Friday night we walked up to the mall and ate at a restaurant there that we like. We thought they were open all day but when we walked in we were told they didn’t open until 7:00. It was 6:30 ish. But they said we could wait inside and showed us a table. We are in the midst of a 10 day Hindu celebration called Ganesh Chaturhi, which celebrates Lord Ganesh’s birthday. He is the elephant headed god in the Hindu pantheon. Families celebrate in their homes, work and in public. They buy a Ganesh statue some times made of clay and highly painted and worship it throughout the celebration. At the end or sometimes on the fifth day Ganesh is immersed in a large body of water such as the river or sea. Those made of clay eventually disintegrates. Those made of plaster or other materials pollute I would guess. Those who are environmentally conscientious put him in  a barrel of water.  After serving us or drinks, the manager came over to say they would be doing a ritual for Lord Ganesh and he hoped they wouldn’t disturb us and that we were welcome to join them. We jumped at the chance. We went to the foyer of the where a table was set up with a highly colored statue of Ganesh, who had a saffron robe and garlands of marigold flowers around his neck. There were food offerings such as dried fruits and nuts and a coconut still in the shell. A brass plate with seven ghee (clarified butter) candles were lit along with a few sticks of incense. The staff drew in close in a semi circle and the man with the platter waved it in a circle while recorded music played a song about Lord Ganesh’s life. All of us clapped in time with the music. When it was over we waved our hands over the smoke as the platter was brought in front of us and rubbed our hands over our faces and hair. Being Americans we find it so foreign to have religious symbols/rituals in public places. Thailand and Sri Lanka are Buddhist countries and government offices with have shrines to Buddha in the offices. We are sensitive to the fact not everyone shares the same religion but it doesn’t matter here. The predominant religion prevails.

As we were finishing our meal a teenager walked up to our table and started asking questions about where we were from and telling us about her dream to go to New York. It was apparent after a while that she was developmentally disabled. At one point she asked what our caste was and I told her we didn’t have castes in the US. After dinner we went to see Sully, our first film in months. Seats are reserved here so I picked seats that were more expensive that I was told would be the quietest area. You may remember our previous experiences where conversations ensue and continue throughout a movie here and cell phones ring, are answered and more conversations occur. It kind of makes us a wee bit annoyed/distracted. Well, these seats were perfect with fewer folks and no one was chatting or using their cell phones. Hurray. The movie was engaging, good entertainment but not art. We were desperate for a film and were happy with this one.

I got a bit queasy after breakfast his morning so I canceled my walk with Kamla and rested until my stomach settled down. I’m fine now. Yesterday was a difficult day for Ron. He had several battles with his computer in the morning. We use Quicken for our financial records/banking reconciliation and it isn’t working. He just got it repaired when we were in the US last month and now it is locked up again. He tried calling and got disconnected. The end result is we are both locked out of our bank accounts. Fortunately we keep a small stash of cash in the house so no worries. A Skype call Monday night our time should take care of the bank lock out but not sure what we can do about Quicken at this point. He was kind of grumpy as a result and it set our day’s plan behind schedule. No big deal.

We ran some errands with Rahul after lunch then at 3:30 left for a shop that specializes in hand crafted textiles from western regions of India and a neighboring region of Pakistan. I had visited the shop a few weeks ago but didn’t have much time to really explore it and I wanted Ron to see what they had. They have been in business since 1960. Mazharkhan has worked in his father’s shop for 35 years and was a wonderful host, showing us new and antique items. Ron has been looking for wood block hand printed shirts for months and we haven’t seen any in the style he likes. He had purchased two on a previous trip to India and those are faded. However the shop had scads of fabrics that were what we wanted and Ron order two shirts to be made. Yippee! Then Mazharkhan showed us many varieties of older fabrics in a variety of items such as blouses, shawls, kurtas, etc. Some were unbelievably exquisite.  We found a kanjari, a backless blouse covered in fine embroidery. We looked at quite a few of these but we kept coming back to one he had shown us as the embroidery stitches were quite fine. Each year we pick out an anniversary present together. Initially in our marriage we gave each other practical items such as a shirt or sweater. Ron’s mom, Sonia, said to us one year ‘You two are so boring’. HA! We agreed and started buying artwork each year instead. Now we can’t fit all those paintings and photographs, etc. on the walls. We will be celebrating our 31^st anniversary in November. We started collected textiles in our travels and now have a good number of them, some new and some old. Each one reminds us of the place we were visiting when we bought it. Thanks Sonia, wherever you are.

Not sure if I have mentioned this before but I find that many people who know us do not knock before entering the house. Kamla sends over food often and one of her servants just walks in and the other one rings the bell. Even Kamla just walks in. I think this must be standard practice here. It isn’t a problem but it is another cultural difference.