Nearly There

We have now been in India for almost exactly two weeks. Today marked the end of all of our new staff orientation and the welcoming back of old staff. The occasion called for a wonderful party. Apparently this happens at the beginning and end of every semester. There was a wonderful banquet prepared by the kitchen staff here at school. When we were walking up to our house to change, we saw them warming up the tandoor ovens behind the kitchens. Beth changed into one of her new Indian outfits, but Dave's new kurtas were not quite formal enough for the occasion, so he went with the Western clothes.

After our wonderful dinner, we were treated to some wonderful live music. The guy on lead guitar and vocals is our neighbor, Pete Wildman. He and his wife, Dot, are also our official Woodstock buddies and they have been so wonderful in helping us get adjusted to life here. Pete and Dot are from Liverpool, so you can imagine that the set list was dominated by the Fab Four. In addition, there was some Monkees and some Cream.

It was a very fun time once we got out on the dance floor. Beth can be seen dancing with Julie, one of our fellow new staff members who comes from the small Scottish island of Islay.

After the dancing was over, we went to the home of some of our new friends here and watched a couple episodes of The Office. The Hatches have a projector hooked up to their DVD player, so we had quite a few folks crammed into their living room. On our walk back, the sky was again clear, so we tried to get a picture of the Doon Valley from our porch. It turned out pretty well, but doesn't do it justice.

The school year officially starts on Wednesday. Some of the new students will be arriving on Saturday and Sunday. It is sometimes hard to believe that the reason we came here was to teach. Hopefully we will get all of our lessons planned and our rooms prepared before the first bell rings.

Dave and Beth

The Little Things

Today we thought we'd share some pictures of the little things that make life different for us so far in India. These are not major changes that we've had to make, they are just things that we have to get used to. The first is something that we haven't really had to use yet. I'm fairly certain that none of the buildings on campus have central heating. Much of Mussoorie was originally established as a summer getaway for the wealthy British elite. The hill gets pretty cold in the winter time so our house, built in the 1840s, needs some form of heating. Our living room has a big wood stove in it, and we'll probably need to get a propane heater for our bedroom.

The second item is one that we do need to use every day. The water in India is not the safest to drink in the world. When we're away from our home here, we always need to drink bottled water. Thankfully, we've got a water purifier installed by our kitchen sink. We use this water to drink, clean our food, and brush our teeth. It's kind of a pain to have to wait for the water to work its way through the purifier, but it beats getting amoebic dysentery.

Next is a look at the way electricity works here. The electricity supply at Woodstock is exceptionally good for India and particularly Mussoorie. At least a couple times a day, the power goes out. It takes about ten seconds for the school's generators to kick in until the power goes back on. The switches below are in our kitchen. One interesting fact is that the light switch on the bottom, and the one second from the left are on. This has taken some getting used to because we are used to the American way where up is on and down is off.

Below is a picture of one of our big new investments. This is especially important for someone that likes to bake as much as Beth and for someone that likes to eat as many baked goods as Dave. We ordered this electric oven at the electronics store in town and they carried it up for us. Thankfully, our 9x13 pan that we bought in Dehradun juuust fits.

The last picture is something that hasn't taken much getting used to. Although the monsoon mists cover the surrounding valley much of the time, we do get glimpses of things every so often. We're told that the monsoons start to burn off in mid-September and by October we have beautiful views all the time. The view below is from Beth's classroom window. Dave's classroom is across the hall and has breathtaking views of...nothing but the side of the hill.

We are definitely looking forward to October and the stunning views that we're told we'll have. We will also be sure to post plenty of pictures once we get them. In the meantime, you'll have to be content with photographs of light switches.

Dave and Beth

John Denver and Vaccinations

Today was the start of our second week of actual work here in India. We started the day out with general meetings with all of the staff. After staff devotions and lunch, we had some more meetings with the new staff getting us ready for life at Woodstock. The real fun began after those meetings were finished. We decided to head to the Health Centre to get our vaccinations up to speed. We knew that we needed some when we were getting ready to come here, but we decided to wait. The cost of the sort of thing is significantly less in India than it is in the states. Today, we went in for our tetanus, typhoid, and round one of rabies. We each got two in our left arm and one in the right. Our arms are a little sore tonight, but it might get worse. Tomorrow, we have our hepatitis A, with the second part of the rabies vaccine coming next Monday. The third and final rabies shot comes three weeks later. Though our arms may be sore, I imagine it's far better than getting rabies or typhoid. And the best part was that we got three pieces of candy each for our three shots.

This evening, we went out with the middle school core staff for dinner. We went to "The Tavern," which is a very nice restaurant in the middle of the bazaar. The food was excellent and included butter chicken, paneer, some spicy potatoes, rice, dall, and fresh-baked naan. To top off the evening, there was live entertainment. A nice balding Indian fellow sat in the corner and played his guitar. We heard such rousing selections as "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "The Sounds of Silence." He was actually quite good and it was a nice chance to meet with most of the middle school staff outside of the school setting. When dinner was over, we walked back to our house rather than taking a taxi. There was a group of about six of us, and it was a very good choice. The night sky was clear and we could see thousands of stars in the sky above us. We could also see the lights of Dehradun in the valley to one side of us, and thousands of lightning bugs to the other side of us along thr road. Everything seemed to sparkle for us. As usual we did not bring our camera. But there is hope. Tomorrow, we have dinner again at The Tavern with the social studies department. Hopefully, the evening will be just as nice and we'll have the pictures to prove it.

Dave and Beth

The Monkeys (3)

I'm sure that you are all sick of posts about monkeys by now. We promise that this will be the last one for a while. As mentioned earlier, there are two species of monkeys that frequent our campus. Today we went on a walk and spotted a group of the bigger, friendlier Langur monkeys. They were on a path right above our house. We hadn't taken the camera on our hike, but Beth ran back to the house to grab it and got some nice pictures of these cuties as the daily monsoon rains started to fall.


Dave and Beth

The Monkeys (2)

Today, we took a trip down to Dehradun to get some of the essentials that we can't otherwise obtain here in Mussoorie. Before going down, though, Beth went to the school to get a little work done in her room. She remembered to bring the camera with her so that she could get some pictures of the monkeys. The first picture below gives a nice idea of how deceptively cute the rhesus monkey is. The second picture--with at least a dozen monkeys visible in the frame--gives an idea of the nuisance that these critters are.

In addition to this sample of photographs, Beth was able to take a couple of short videos from the safety of her classroom. It looks a little blurry at times because it was looking through the glass of her window. To the far right of the scene, you can see how close the monkeys get to the stairway that leads to Beth's art room.

Now imagine the noise that all of those monkeys would make fighting on a metal roof above your head. Things are not always as cute as they seem.

Dave and Beth

The Monkeys (1)

When we first started telling people that we were going to be coming to India, we made a couple of connections with people. These were people from our church and other places who knew people that had worked at Woodstock. One common thread through all of their stories was the monkeys. We've been seeing monkeys here since our first taxi ride up to Mussoorie from Dehradun. Today, though, there seemed to be an extraordinary number out and about on campus, so we thought we'd share a little of our experience.

There are two types of monkey that we have on Woodstock's campus. The first is the gray langur (Semnopithecus entellus for those that care about such things):

First of all, you should note that we did not take these pictures. We never seem to have our camera around when there is a nice monkey sighting, so these images come from Wikipedia for the time being. The langur is a pretty big monkey that looks really majestic as it climbs through the trees and, often, runs along the ground. They are not particularly friendly, but they leave well enough alone and will not get in your way if they see you walking toward them down the path. The other monkey that we have at Woodstock is the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), which most people around here just call a rhesus monkey:

These fellows are a little bit smaller than the langurs, and based on the photo, you're probably thinking to yourself that these are cute and cuddly little animals. You are very WRONG! These are nasty little creatures that are very aggressive. When we were first taking the train in from Delhi, our more experienced colleagues warned us never to make eye contact with these guys. The interpret that as a show of dominance and they respond with aggression. This morning, we awoke to some footsteps on our roof which we correctly assumed were rhesus monkeys. Beth made it to school safely for an art meeting shortly after. By the time Dave made it out the door an hour later, there was a full meeting of the rhesus monkeys from our area. They happily blocked the path to anyone that did not want to contract rabies. Dave was forced to walk back up to the house and take the other path down. Even then, a smaller group sat on the path and he waited patiently until they decided to move elsewhere. All the while, Dave was trying his best to watch out for monkeys without looking them in the eye. When both of us were at school, we listened to a turf-war going on above us as monkeys fought on the roof. Periodically, we would see a monkey fly in front of our window as he presumably lost that war. Thankfully, not all of our days have been this monkey filled, but let that be a lesson to those that might otherwise think these are cute little critters. STAY AWAY!

Dave and Beth

New Relationships

This morning, we awoke to a ring at our doorbell from the "bread man." He is a merchant that bakes bread and delivers it several times a week around Mussoorie. He had first stopped by on Monday and said he'd be back on Wednesday. We ended up getting a loaf of wheat bread and some cinnamon rolls. It was definitely a new experience for us to pay someone to deliver things for us. It is one of the new relationships that we need to get used to in India. Today this really began to hit home when a man (employed by the school) came by to pick up our trash and sweep our porch. Later this afternoon, the grocery store had all of the food we ordered last night delivered to our door. The most prominent of these new relationships is our ayah. An ayah is an Indian maid, or domestic worker. Ours is named Umilla and she just started today. She took the groceries that arrived today and even cooked us dinner. Though I doubt she has ever left this region, she makes an excellent lasagna.

In addition to cooking for us, Umilla will clean our house in the afternoons and do our laundry for us. We have never paid people to do things like that for us, but this is just something that people do in India. The nice thing is that we get to help people by spending money in the local economy. It is definitely a relationship that will take some getting used to.

In addition to these new relationships, we are getting to know the people that are working here at Woodstock with us. Since we knew that we were going to have a hot meal prepared for us today, we invited three other new staff members to eat with us. It was a very nice time of fellowship and we even had ice cream with fresh peaches for dessert. In this picture are Megan, Jennie, and James, with Beth getting everything set up in the background.

We've also been able to spend some time getting to know the more established staff here at Woodstock. We've had dinner at a couple homes already with promises of more to come. We are excited to make more connections and build more relationships as our time here at Woodstock continues. It's amazing to think that we've held our first dinner party, and we haven't even been in India for a week.

Dave and Beth

Setting up shop

We now have the internet available on our home laptop. This gives us a chance for a little more in-depth coverage of the things that have happened over the last week or so. After our arrival in Delhi via New York and London, we had a day to relax and recuperate. During that day, we had a chance to visit a shopping district and pick up a few authentic Indian clothing items. Beth can be seen below in her salwar kameez. Dave just picked up a kurta to wear but did not get the pants to go with it.

After our day of shopping, we had a dinner with all of the other new staff at our hotel. The next morning we got up at about 4:00 to make our way to the train. The trip took about six hours to Dehradun, the capital of the state where we live. On the way, we saw lots of cows, pigs, goats, chickens, and monkeys. They all seemed to be eating trash along the railroad tracks, so we both decided to get the veg meal en route.

When we arrived in Dehradun, we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then survived an crazy cab ride to Woodstock at the top of the hill. There was much honking, passing while rounding blind corners, etc. It was very exciting, to say the least. We've been in Mussoorie for a couple of days exploring and have even made it down to the bazaar to buy some supplies. We are comforted to know that Snickers and Ritter Sport bars are readily available here just in case we need them.

We are now setting up our classrooms. Dave is teaching social studies and Beth is, surprisingly, teaching English and art. We will both be in the middle school. The hike up to our house is strenuous, but should get better in the next few weeks as we acclimatize to the altitude and get in better shape. In the meantime, we get short glimpse of the valley when the monsoon fog lifts for a moment.

Dave and Beth

Safe Arrival

We have now safely arrived in Mussoorie! The trip from Chicago to Delhi took about 23 hours. We then had a day recuperating at our hotel near the airport. After that, we took a six hour train ride to Dehradun and an hour cab ride to the school's campus in Mussoorie. It was a lot of traveling, but we are excited to be here. So far, we have not been able to hook up the internet in our home or get our phones working. When that happens, we will post more in-depth updates on the happenings here and some of you may even get phone calls. In the meantime, keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we adjust to life on a new continent. We miss you!

Dave and Beth