Elephants & Memories of My Grammie Jean

I am missing my Grammie today. She died 5 years ago today. She has been in my thoughts all day. Well, she is in my thoughts every day. My Grammie would have loved this picture. A friend e-mailed this to me a few years ago and I have loved it! It always reminded me of Grammie. She loved elephants. I remember collecting any elephant sticker i found growing up so that I could mail them to her to stick on her walking cane. She had a pretty good collection from all us grandkids if I remember right. I cannot help but think of her every time I see an elephant whether it is just a hand carved figurine, a giant statue made of stone or a real one parading up and down the streets of Jaipur.
Grammie actually spent quite some time here (several months) in India ministering to a lady Missionary friend here. Grammie Jean was such a special lady to me and often makes me tear up to think of how much I miss her. I miss her so much it hurts! There is so much here I want to share with her...and so many times I wanted to hear your voice, her advice, and just talk, give her my arm to help her walk, and her hugs!

Oh I miss those hugs. She is now in Heaven, singing and dancing with the angels. I also love to think that perhaps Jesus has a very special role for her in Heaven snuggling and loving on lots of special babies there that have no earthly Mommies to snuggle them, just like she did for me as she was the first Mommy I can remember. Don't you think that would be the perfect Heavenly role for her? I like that thought. Goodness that makes me cry all over again. Well, I am missing her today. I am comforted as I feel like I am surrounded with things she would love. I am privileged to get to see both India and elephants here like she did and I think she would liked to know that I am here in a place that she loved and amidst the creatures she loved so much.I know she is in a better place now, but I sure wish she were still here on this Earth with me. I miss you Grammie.
-Your Jenny

In the News

Miles was recently interviewed for the New Indian Express Newspaper. This newspaper has a section that specifically highlights expats and their lives in India. Miles was honored to be asked for the interview and a great article was written up complete with pictures of our travels. The interviewer was a girl friend of our friend Paloma. Her questions for Miles consisted mostly of places we have been, where we have traveled, the restaurants we like to frequent around town, and what we like to do in our spare time together as a couple in the city. The interview was over the phone which made us laugh because the article is written from the perspective of two people sitting around a coffee table face to face. She added in things like, ...and we nod"....which of course never happened as it was all conducted over the phone with no face to face interaction. She did a good job though capturing Miles words and answers accurately and respectfully. We were both pleased with the outcome.

The interviewer became VERY excited upon discovering our blog. She asked to highlight it in the article. We of course agreed. Since the article has been published our "viewers" have increased phenomenally and we have also been contacted by local Chennains giving us feedback and thanking us for the good publicity of Chennai, for doing the article, and kind words in our blog about the city we now call home. What do you think?

I hope the picture is clear enough you can read it, however you can also read the article here.


Well, the recent media attention has made this blog even more famous and that is a very good thing! Our blog has been visited by 32 different countries around the world! A very good thing indeed.

...and in honor of our celebrating....another Giveaway!
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One random commenter on this post will be selected for a surprise giveaway of a special gift from us here in India. The Winner will be announced on the next post.

Comment away!
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-Jenny

Beauty Salons in India

Often we have laughed as we pass beauty parlors here in India. They are often called Saloons. Interesting. Hair cuts, walls of polish, pedicures, and wax are not exactly what comes to mind when I think of a saloon.

I have been thankful for my little outings with Ann for so many reasons but it is pretty fabulous that she introduced me to Alice's salon. I will keep the actual name of her salon private for security/safety reasons but I love supporting her business because she is a Christian! I love supporting the businesses or ministries here that further the kingdom. Such a cool deal.

Well Ann introduced me and we have gone for pedicures, haircuts, brow threads, and hot oil massages many times since I arrived here. Man Oh Man, those head massages with the hot coconut oil can put you in a trance! Seriously! Wonderful stuff.

The differences in salons back home and the saloons here is quite drastic. I only mentioning these things not to be critical but just for the sake of comparison. Most salons in the States are clean, modern, hip spacious flats that allow for privacy and pampering....and are pretty expensive. None of those words could describe anything in this country, least of all a salon, however this is India, and I was not necessarily expecting the same standards I was used to back home but I have to admit I was a little surprised. The space is very small and cramped and takes some getting used to. The pampering happens as I consider a pedicure pampering and a massage -both of which I have had here- so that one works. Comfort though was a tough sell in such a small cramped place. The pedi's and massages are done while sitting in what I know as plastic lawn chairs and the pedi was not clean by any means. The bucket of cold water was lightly rinsed and re filled after the previous client for soaking my feet prior to my pedicure. Interesting. The same tools were used (without rinsing or chemically treating) after scrubbing the bottoms or scraping underneath the toes between Ann and I. We had different girls at the same time working the bottoms of our rough and tough -lived in India now for months now- feet but they shared the same tools which I found a little gross that they were not cleaned between use/client. Interesting. But seriously, I was getting a much needed pedicure. No way would I be complaining about anything! It is just the way it is. And I have yet to mention the cost. Things in India are usually way cheaper than in America and the salon is no different.

I still do not understand the waxing customs here too. Women here often wax their legs but do not wax their eyebrows. They thread them. I had my eye brows done today because of the Italian in my blood they tend to get out of control rather quickly. I have to say -O-U-C-H! OUCH!!!!! Threading is way worse and burns and hurts. A lot! Waxing is so much easier I just do not understand why the women here do not wax -especially if they wax everything else. Again, I am not complaining- although maybe the painful brows are a little sore- but merely mentioning it to document the differences.

For all that being said, i truly mean it when I say it has been fun going to Alice's place. Coffee is always served in tiny little espresso sized mugs with tiny matching saucers and is always so yummy and comforting. All three times I have been in the salon new brides are in getting ready for their big day. The super fancy Saris, veils, hair braided with gold threads and jewels adorning their heads....absolutely beautiful! My favorite was this one bride in a fancy white sari. She was sitting right next to me as my hair was getting a slight trim. She was sitting there alone as her attendants were in the next room. She and Ann and I were completely alone for a moment as the salon ladies left to go attend to her attendants. I sneakily stared at her and she was just gazing at herself. I would have given anything to know what she was thinking. She just studied every aspect of her face and hair and all of herself in the mirror before her. She looked perfect. And as I was staring at her (hopefully for me-completely unaware of my infatuation with her beauty and excitement for her and her big day ahead) she smiled a herself approvingly. She just smiled and it warmed me greatly! I could not help but smile myself quickly looking down and away not wanting to be found out that I caught that, or caught myself for staring, I was so excited to witness that subtle happy approval of herself on the day she should be glowing. Very sweet. I would have taken a photo but I felt uncomfortable being the silly and invasive tourist that sees a beautiful bride and asks to take her picture. Oh dear. I sure wish I did though. She was truly stunning!

I have been to the salon several more times after this. Ann and I as well as some new friends come along and we make it a ladies day of pampering. Often pedicures and brow threading takes place amidst the typical American girl talk discussing our new lives as we know it in India and it is so nice to sit back in those chairs and sip on sweet'n milky Indian coffee with my Girls! Now that is not too unlike how it is done in America. However, I do seem to appreciate those times here more that I did when I was back home. With all the reminders in Alice's salon that it is still and Indian "saloon" it is a wonderful way to spend time with the Girls and enjoy a little something a little extra for me too!!


-Jenny

Phuket, Thailand and the Elephant Safari

On another day Miles and I went with Siam Safari to an elephant camp. We got to ride an elephant through the jungle, and meet and play with some fabulous baby elephants, and also learn a lot about history and culture of the people of Thailand including daily life.

This was our elephant. We could not understand her name. Sad. But she was a happy girl and very sweet. Her Mahout (keeper) talked to her the entire trek. We laughed ourselves occasionally because he had full on conversations with her and occasionally laughed and laughed at whatever it was he said in Thai as if he was telling her jokes. We chuckled at how cute that was and how funny it sounded as we did not understand a word of it and yet the elephant must have because she responded very well to his calming voice and his funny stories.
I love her toes! Aren't they pretty?
Our elephant was hungry the entire trip and made frequent stops along the trek through the jungle for light snacks. This was a huge grassy hill that our tall elephant was eye level with and her trunk could reach the "good stuff".
We loved being able to talk to her ourselves and touch her. She was very rough and hairy all over. We found out that she was only 7 years old. Elephants are born with very dark skin and lighten and get more wrinkly and spotted as they get older. She was still very dark skinned and oh so pretty!!!

My new friend.

Pretty eyes! Her finger at the tip of her trunk she used to point directly to the baskets of food. She knew she deserved a snack of watermelon and bananas. She was so smart!

After our ride we got to go to the baby elephant camp. It was one of our favorite little adventures on this safari. We met three babies there who did all sorts of things to entertain us and introduce us to who they were. They were well fed and very well taken care of.
Hello Baby elephants!
The elephants did tricks for us. Here they were being introduced to us as they walked around a ring holding each other's tails. Their "Mahouts" (mah-hoots) meaning "keeper" walk along side them and are the caregivers or personal trainers. Each elephant has his own Mahout who has been with them since they were little...some since they were born. A very trusted and respected honorable position to be an elephants Mahout. They kicked and caught soccer balls to us! Yes, we were playing soccer with baby elephants. It was incredible! The little one kicked a ball rather hard and straight to Miles. He caught the ball and handed it back to Baby.

And if that was not cool enough, they played harmonica too!!! All three of them at once played their version of their 'song" which was wild and crazy and all over the place but the baby had a final note that was a perfect clear note that rang out in a finale and it was so cute, and quite funny. These lil guys were so clever! And so proud of themselves!
This elephant's name was Hutchu. He was so talented. He painted pictures with many colors. The Thai taught them colors that also correlated with the days of the week. Hutchu was very excited to paint and used several bright colors to paint us a very lovely painting. Yes, we bought it and are so excited to show it off to you all when we get home. **

Lastly, they waved goodbye to us with little red handkerchiefs and seemingly blew us kisses with their trunks. So sweet!!!! Sa wat dee kah, baby elephant!

You can check out all the videos of the elepahants and their tricks on the next post.

We even got to feed them! The little one LOVED bananas and watermelon...and was quite grabby. Hutchu on the other hand (far right there) was doing a funny little dance the whole time...shaking his backside as if to say, look at me...i am cute too....I want watermelon. It was so funny. We fed all three of them and it was so satisfying.


After waving goodbye to the baby elephant camp we went on to see other parts of the camp set up in stations and got ourselves an education about the daily life of those who live there. Cooking, plowing, harvesting....it was amazing!
One of the other amazing things we got to see was how to extract the milk from freshly shredded coconut. SQUEEEEZE it! Who knew? To make the oil we learned that they boil the freshly squeezed milk for 6 hours! We got to taste it at every step of the process and it was oh so good!
Petting the buffalo. He really was sweet even after he worked very hard plowing the fields, he was willing to pose nicely for us to take a picture. All he wanted to do was jump in the mud and cool off.
It was rather hot and we cooled off with some Thai coffee with coconut milk at the bottom. It was some seriously good coffee. Wish I had the recipe to share.
We watched a woman harvest rice (jasmine) which was an amazing process. I had no idea rice came in so many colors and was so wonderfully fragrant. They showed us how to hand mix Thai spices and meat and fresh pinapple and mix it in with fresh rice....It was delicious!
I was amazed at all the colors.

This trip was such an amazing journey. The things we got to experience were once in a lifetime and the memories made here in Thailand will be treasured. It was a magical place with hospitalble people, amazing food, jungles, and water in shades of blue I had never seen before. It was wonderful and we recommend this place and experience to everyone. GO!

(Don't forget to check back again soon for all the videos. They are uploading now)

-Jenny

**Hutchu's painting is now framed in our home. Photos of that to come!

Happy New Year to You from Us in Chennai!

We rung in 2011 at Sparky's Diner with our friends (including Thom the owner) and employees India style. We had a wonderful buffet dinner and rounded off the year with a fireworks show off the roof of the restaraunt. It was fabulous! Quite a show! It turns out that Indians celebrate the new year just as much as we Americans do if not more so. More flair anyway! We must have shaken every single Sparkys employee's hand with a Happy New Year as is their custom and it was just a very loud and exciting time. People raced up and down the main street dragging metal behind their motorcycles to create bright and glowing sparks flying at high speed and yelling and wooping it up. It was quite electric and fun.



Here is a video of a small portion of the fireworks display off the roof at Sparkys. Enjoy!

Today in church the preacher pointed out that since 2011 is here, we are one year closer to our Lord and King returning and bringing us HOME! How cool is that? So I leave you with that to ponder! One year closer.... such a great perspective. Are you ready?

May we grow closer to our Lord and Savior this year and live in such a way that others around us know we are different and proclaim WHO we belong to, bearing HIS light so that they too can KNOW HIM and live FOREVER with HIM.

To everyone back home and to everyone else around the world who have been reading this blog:
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A "Biutiful" Night at the Chennai International Film Festival

Last night I went to the Chennai International Film Festival. They were showing a Spanish language film “Biutiful” directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The movie stars Javier Bardem as Uxbal, a Spanish man raising two children surrounded by pain and struggle in the slums of Barcelona. He learns early in the film that he is dying of cancer. While he keeps this knowledge from most people around him, the one person he confides in advises him to “put his things in order”. His efforts to do so, however, are continually frustrated. No matter how hard he tries, situations grow more desperate as death hovers over him. The film depicts hopeless situations in Uxbal’s life involving criminals, exploited immigrants, and his family (his bipolar ex-wife and two children). As things near the end, Uxbal tearfully pleads with his daughter to just remember him. His only comfort and hope was knowing that he would live on at least in his daughter’s memory.

The film was depressing and difficult to watch, but also very powerful in its portrayal of life. Iñárritu described it as “a reflection akin to our brief and humble permanence in this life. Our existence, short-lived as the flicker of a star, only reveals to us its ineffable brevity once we are close to death.” It is short, and when we die we leave behind nothing but our memory. “Biutiful” did not offer much hope, but there is a hope that truly is beautiful. Leaving the theater, I was struck by the large Christmas tree all lit up in the mall. It stood out to me as a symbol of hope, a representation of the eternal beauty that the film did not offer. Without Christ’s birth life is hopeless. Without Christmas our lives are just desperate attempts to “put our things in order” before we die. Thankfully we do have Christmas, and we do have a hope beyond this life. “Biutiful” may not have put forth any hope in its depiction of life and death, but it reminded me that this life is not what we are living for and that more than our memories will live on after our death. That is something worth remembering this Christmas season.

The music playing over the ending credits of the movie was Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G 2nd movement. It is a beautiful and emotional piece of music which fit perfectly with the tone of the movie. I love it, so I thought I would include a version of it I found on YouTube:

Thanksgiving Weekend in Dubai

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Jenn and I decided to take a vacation to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. We will blog in more detail about some of the specific things we enjoyed there, but I thought I would do a post about our trip overall and our impression of Dubai.

We absolutely loved Dubai! It is a very modern, very clean city that prides itself on having the newest and the best of everything. It has the largest building in the world, the largest man-made islands in the world, two of the largest malls in the world, the largest dancing fountain in the world, the world’s first 7-star hotel, etc. Everything there is just really, really nice. Besides the big things, there were lots of little details that made it a really nice city. Road tolls, for example, are taken automatically by a sensor that reads the bar codes that are on everyone’s windshield. When we returned our rental car they let us know the total number of tolls we had gone through and how much we owed.

The Burj Kafila

The area we spend most of our time was around the Dubai Mall. The Dubai Mall is the largest mall in the world, with tons of really nice stores and great restaurants. Right next to it is the Burj Kafila, the tallest building the world, and right between the two is beautiful pool with the largest dancing fountain in the world (that plays with music every half hour in the evenings). We ate most of our dinners in that area, spent several evenings enjoying the spectacular fountain, and went up to the observation deck of the Burj Kafila.

The Burj Kaflia and fountain

On Thanksgiving we spent all day at the Aqua Adventure waterpark. It is part of the Atlantis resort which is on the tip of the Palm Jumeirah Island, one of the gigantic man-made islands off the coast of Dubai in the Persian Gulf. It wasn’t a traditional Thanksgiving, but we had a great time in the water on a beautiful sunny 87 degree day.

The "Leap of Faith" Slide






The Burj Al-Arab, the world's first 7-star hotel

We also visited the Mall of Emirates, another huge mall in Dubai. It also has tons of great stores and restaurants, but what sets it apart is Ski Dubai. Ski Dubai is an indoor skiing and sledding slope. We didn’t pay to go inside (people were sledding for free that whole week back home), but it is visible from the mall. It was weird to see people playing in the snow in the middle of the desert. If we had stayed longer, we probably would have gone in…maybe next time.

Ski Dubai

On our final full day in Dubai we went on a desert safari. A driver in a Toyota Land Cruiser picked us up and our hotel and drove us out a ways to the desert. Then he took some air of the tires while we got out and took pictures of the sun setting, and we were off driving up and down the sand dunes. After a very fun and bouncy ride we arrived at a large camp where a bunch of other people in other vehicles were also arriving. They had some activities available (like snowboarding down the sand…I guess that would be sandboarding). After a bit they opened a great buffet of traditional Arabic food.

Like I said, we will have a couple more blog posts with more details about some of our favorite things. We were just really impressed with Dubai. Maybe that is partly because we have been living in India, where nothing is clean and most things don’t go as smoothly as they could (like driving), but Dubai seemed like the cleanest and most modern city we have visited. Next we leave for a longer vacation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (and day and a half) and Phuket, Thailand (seven days). We’ll try to be quicker in getting blog posts up. In the meantime you can check out our pictures on the pictures tab.

View of the city from our hotel pool

Diwali ~Festival of Lights

Last week was Diwali here in India. While Diwali is popularly known as the "festival of lights", the most significant spiritual meaning is "the awareness of the inner light".* A very new agy philosophy rooted and central in Hindu religion and customs is the assertion that there is something beyond the physical body and mind. After some research on this topic we found it explained that just as we celebrate birthdays (the birth of our physical being) Diwali is the celebration of this inner light.This inner light is in particular the "knowing of which outshines all darkness awakening the individual to one's true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality."* With the realization of the inner light supposedly comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). "This inner light and higher knowledge brings Ananda" (joy or peace)* "While the story behind Deepavali and manner of celebration varies from region to region (festive fireworks, worship, lights, sharing of sweets), the essence is the same – to rejoice in the Inner Light (Atman) or the underlying reality of all things (Brahman)."*

Photo of the little girl:(free)courtesy of michaelckw.blogspot.com.

This is a crazy holiday and probably bigger than any other of the calendar year. Diwali is a day to give presents, candy, and jewelery and gifts to loved ones and much like any other holiday is filled with much noise and fan fair, however this festival outweighs them all by way of the amount of noise. We were warned it would be comparable to a real war zone and it truly sounds like that. If we had not been warned we might be hiding underneath our beds and thinking it was the end of the world. It really was that crazy! Not over exaggerating or anything here, but people spend thousands of dollars on firecrackers and chains of them 10,000 long and fire them off. So the amount and length of the noise is unlike anything else we have ever heard. One strand of crackers can last for 10 minutes straight and sounds exactly like automatic weaponry firing at will. There are no safety laws here either or awareness of safety that we can see. While we loved to watch the entire ordeal from our balcony it was horrifying to watch little tiny children lighting some big rockets sized fireworks off and not getting fast enough out of the way. The other thing that made us nervous was some people we saw who live in some apartments near our house who were lighting fireworks off their balcony. Remember I said "balcony apartment" (which here means the same as back in the states) there is often an apartment above them and they were shooting them directly into the roof of their balcony which ricochet off and went all sorts of different directions. Ay YAY YAY! I could not watch as I was terrified that some little one was going to have his toes ripped off or worse lose a foot or two. I am sure it happens as we watched several people encounter some close callsThe fireworks and crackers were going on all week but at a distance...they really started more heavily the night of November 4th and went all night, all day the 5th, all that night, and really taperd off but could still be heard for the rest of the week. Amazing!.

It was a beautiful site. We had such a great view off our balcony. It was one of the best fireworks shows ever as the entire skyline at times were filled with firey colors exploding into other colors...It was better than the NYC Fireworks show on the 4th of July (I would know, I have been there, right Aunt Linda?) and better than any show in the US as these fireworks when on for 24 hours straight! We had wished we had requested reservations at a local roof top restaraunt to get an even better view of the city but alas we were too late in doing so and every one in town was booked. Although we did not participate much in this particular holiday it was beautiful and it was neat to be here to witness it as it is an experience we will for sure never forget.

* Quotes taken from the blog: His Grace Is Sufficient at: http://michaelckw.blogspot.com/

-Jenny