I've been here for a full week and I now finally have proper internet access! So my first hodgepodge of posts are going to be hopelessly out of order, based on how detailed my notes were over the past week....
For instance, this is from Saturday....
It was very very hot today. Don't get me wrong, it has been ungodly hot since I got here (you may a have seen our heat wave on the news), but today it went to a new level of ick. But then around 4:40, something wonderful moved in: a thunderstorm. It brought with it cool winds and lots and lots of enormous raindrops- and power outages. I sat out in it for over an hour, soaked to the bone and Not Hot for the first time in a week. The entire world smelled of damp earth and lightning strikes.
After the storm had passed, I spent some time watching life on the street below. First came the wave of motorcycles- intrepid cars had continued to drive during the worst of it, but for that twenty minutes or so the bikers and their passengers all sought refuge under store overhangs. Once it had been slow for about ten minutes, they all resumed their journey as one.
Then came the burning of the palm trees. This was not an intentional thing, of course- a large palm tree in front of our building had a number of fronds that draped over a telephone wire. When lighting ran along one of them, it set the fronds to slowly burning for about the next half hour. All of the adults in the surrounding buildings, myself included, kept watch to make sure it stayed a slow, localized burn and didn't decide to flare up and take the whole tree. Little bits would burn and fall off every minute, so one man down on ground level tossed a giant stick in the road to keep people from driving under the danger zone.
I was watching this all unfold with Deepa, who was watching the children's home for the weekend so the house parents could have a break, when suddenly she said "Here come the cows." And, I kid you not, an entire herd of water buffalo walked by.
And I didn't have my camera.
Well, we're due for a few more this month (supposedly a smaller monsoon usually rolls through during June each year), so I will be better prepared next time!
For instance, this is from Saturday....
It was very very hot today. Don't get me wrong, it has been ungodly hot since I got here (you may a have seen our heat wave on the news), but today it went to a new level of ick. But then around 4:40, something wonderful moved in: a thunderstorm. It brought with it cool winds and lots and lots of enormous raindrops- and power outages. I sat out in it for over an hour, soaked to the bone and Not Hot for the first time in a week. The entire world smelled of damp earth and lightning strikes.
After the storm had passed, I spent some time watching life on the street below. First came the wave of motorcycles- intrepid cars had continued to drive during the worst of it, but for that twenty minutes or so the bikers and their passengers all sought refuge under store overhangs. Once it had been slow for about ten minutes, they all resumed their journey as one.
Then came the burning of the palm trees. This was not an intentional thing, of course- a large palm tree in front of our building had a number of fronds that draped over a telephone wire. When lighting ran along one of them, it set the fronds to slowly burning for about the next half hour. All of the adults in the surrounding buildings, myself included, kept watch to make sure it stayed a slow, localized burn and didn't decide to flare up and take the whole tree. Little bits would burn and fall off every minute, so one man down on ground level tossed a giant stick in the road to keep people from driving under the danger zone.
I was watching this all unfold with Deepa, who was watching the children's home for the weekend so the house parents could have a break, when suddenly she said "Here come the cows." And, I kid you not, an entire herd of water buffalo walked by.
And I didn't have my camera.
Well, we're due for a few more this month (supposedly a smaller monsoon usually rolls through during June each year), so I will be better prepared next time!
Quite the adventure so far! Most of us thankfully will never know the ungodly heat of summer in southeast India ;-)
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