Beginning of April

On April 1st it started to heat up for the summer. It was about 98-99 degrees. April 2nd was 102. Then, in typical Indian form, our air conditioner broke on April 3rd. It was just our bedroom air conditioner, but still! It forces me to choose between being extremely hot on my soft comfortable mattress that we shipped from the States or to be cool on a rock hard Indian mattress in one of the boy’s rooms. I usually start in my room and end up in a cooler room by 2 am! We buzzed Gavin’s head at the end of March so that has helped him stay much cooler. Poor Braden’s head is always wet with sweat but I just can’t get myself to buzz my little baby’s hair! The fan in our kitchen also went out at the beginning of April. I managed to get that fixed within 2 days, while we are still waiting on our a/c to get fixed. This reminds me of a question I have. Why on earth do they not put air conditioners in the kitchen in India? They put them in all the other rooms. The kitchen is where women spend a large portion of their day cooking. The gas stove and my little toaster oven heat the kitchen up enough on their own. You almost don’t need to add salt to any of your food because you have enough from the perspiration that has dripped off your face while you were cooking! Okay, that is a gross exaggeration, but you get my point.

I forgot to tell you this story from a few months ago so thought I would include it now…I was so excited when I saw that strawberries were in season at the grocery store! I bought a package and came home to get them all cleaned up. If you are going to eat fruits and vegetables raw and not peel them, you have to be much more careful with cleaning them here than we are in the States. First of all, with sewage all over the place, you never know where your fruits and veggies were grown. Secondly, they don’t use pesticides so you have to make sure all the bugs are gone. I carefully cleaned each strawberry in filtered water and cut the leaves and bad parts off. Then I let them soak in filtered reverse osmosis water for 30 minutes. I know you can put a drop of bleach in to help clean them, but I just don’t feel right eating fruit soaked in bleach water. After 30 minutes I rewashed them and felt I had done a good enough job for my family to eat them. We had some for a snack that afternoon. The next morning, we ate almost all the rest of them with breakfast. They were delicious. When we were done, I took the bowl back to the kitchen and noticed something on one of the last strawberries left…a white worm crawling out of it! Gross. Who knows how many we ate along with the strawberries. I wanted to teach you some more about the Indian culture. I had written in the past that there are always beggars coming up to your car when it stops at intersections. Joel and I had noticed that sometimes the women beggars actually looked like men. We finally asked Lilly and Richard (our former driver). Well, according to them, the women we saw were “not man not woman” but sixers. A sixer is a transvestite. They make money by begging and putting curses or blessings on children. A sixer is believed to have the power to bless or curse a child or baby. Families are very concerned about this and spend lots of money to make sure they get the blessings. I have seen a sixer go up to a pregnant couple on a motorcycle. As soon as the husband saw her (him), he quickly started digging in his pockets to find some money to give her. I have had them come to my car and point at Gavin through the window. I don’t believe in their curses/blessings and dismissed her. I am sure we were at least “cursed at” for not giving her money but I don’t believe in their superstition! Richard told me that sixers will walk the neighborhoods and figure out who is having a baby soon. They will then mark the house and make sure they return around the time the baby is born demanding money for a blessing or else they will get a curse. Richard knew one family that didn’t pay and the child died a month later. He believes it is because of the curse. Personally, I believe it is because there is a high infant mortality rate in the slums! I will try to get some pictures of some sixers for you. I was interested in finding out more about them so I got in the internet and did a little research. Thought you might enjoy…
http://countrystudies.us/india/89.htm stated the following:Hijras are males who have become "neither man nor woman," transsexual transvestites who are usually castrated and are attributed with certain ritual powers of blessing. Most hijras derive from a middle- or lower-status Hindu or Muslim background and have experienced male impotency or effeminacy. A few originally had ambiguous or hermaphroditic sexual organs. An estimated 50,000 hijras live throughout India, predominantly in cities of the north. They are united in the worship of the Hindu goddess Bahuchara Mata.Hijras voluntarily leave their families of birth, renounce male sexuality, and assume a female identity, name, and dress. A hijra undergoes a surgical emasculation in which he is transformed from an impotent male into a potentially powerful new person. Like Shiva--attributed with breaking off his phallus and throwing it to earth, thereby extending his sexual power to the universe (recognized in Hindu worship of the lingam)--the emasculated hijra has the power to bless others with fertility. Groups of hijras go about together, dancing and singing at the homes of new baby boys, blessing them with virility and the ability to continue the family line. Hijras are also attributed with the power to bring rain in times of drought. Hijras receive alms and respect for their powers, yet they are also ridiculed and abused because of their unusual sexual condition and because some act as male prostitutes.The hijra community functions much like a caste. They have communal households; newly formed fictive kinship bonds, marriage-like arrangements; and seven nationwide "houses," or symbolic descent groups, with regional and national leaders, and a council. There is a hierarchy of gurus and disciples, with expulsion from the community a possible punishment for failure to obey group rules. Thus, although living on the margins of society, hijras are empowered by their special relationship with their goddess and each other and occupy an accepted and meaningful place in India's social world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia) stated the following:Hijras are often encountered on streets, trains, and other public places demanding money from young men. If refused, the hijra may attempt to embarrass the man into giving money, using obscene gestures, profane language, and even sexual advances. Hijras also perform religious ceremonies at weddings and at the birth of male babies, involving music, singing, and sexually suggestive dancing. These are intended to bring good luck and fertility. Although the hijra are most often uninvited, the host usually pays the hijras a fee. Many fear the hijras' curse if they are not appeased, bringing bad luck or infertility, but for the fee they receive, they can bless goodwill and fortune on to the newly born. Hijras are said to be able to do this because, since they do not engage in sexual activities, they accumulate their sexual energy which they can use to either bestow a boon or a bane.
Speaking of sexual energy…Joel was hit on by a Bollywood star at the pool! There was an Easter party in the clubhouse for children today (April 12th). I decided to take Gavin (Braden was at home) while Joel just relaxed at the pool. While he was lying out, an Indian lady swam over and started talking to him. You will have to hear the story from him sometime as I was not there, but she started commenting on his good looks! He told her that he was married and his wife and son were inside but she kept talking! One of her friends came over and started chatting too. They told Joel they were Bollywood stars and invited him to come join a big table of their friends for lunch. Always up for an adventure, Joel joined them (by the way, I met all of them when I came out). One of the guys eating with them told Joel, “You know, these two ladies are big stars.” So, we came home and looked them up on the internet. Actually, we told our nanny and she was super excited that we had met them. She couldn’t believe we hadn’t taken a photo with them and begged us to next time. So, Manisha Koirala and Urmila Matondkar think my husband is hot. It made his day for sure!!!

I just heard that a man was taken and eaten by a crocodile in the lake near our house. There are supposedly around 40 crocs in that lake and the one near it. I always see Indians floating in these little inner-tubes fishing. I know I wouldn’t be getting in knowing that there are crocodiles in there. Another interesting animal story in the paper was that a man was just killed by an elephant. He was bird-watching in one of the national parks and the “tusker” trampled him to death. Dick and Barbie (Joel’s parents) heard about it in the States and were concerned about seeing elephants when they come visit us soon. I assured them that I would make sure we were safe J Speaking of hearing things from afar, Oklahoma made our newspaper in Mumbai! Unfortunately, it was under the “that’s weird!” section. “Library Book Returned with Fine after 61 Years” is the title. Apparently, it was returned with a $250 check to cover the overdue fees. It was great to see something from Oklahoma in the paper, but I guess it was a little “weird!” Also in the paper, there was an article on “How poor is poor in [the] city?” For a person to be considered poor in Mumbai (according to the Supreme Court of India) they have to make less than 18 rupees ($0.36 cents) a day. That means that you “escape the poor tag” by making over $6.50 a month!