Some Indian Friends...

Finally, I can share some photos with you - hopefully they will place me a little better for you. More to come! The saree (don't worry they made me pose like that) and cake eating scenes are from by birthday, the group of girls are the ones I am being a 'House Parent' to and generally hang out with a lot, and then the little guys are just some of the winners of this world - my friends Selvum, Dhami, Karti, Ajit and others...

Tastes like chicken??

For the random roamer of our World Wide Web, who is peeved that this blog is in fact a blog and not a list of recipes for dishes that taste like chicken, but are in fact NOT chicken...

Perhaps you are allergic to chicken, but miss its sweet sweet tasty juices?? Perhaps you are bird-flu-phobic, but are ashamed to admit this and fear being called paranoid by your guests / parents-in-law / significant other who is coming to dinner and desires chicken? Perhaps you are a parent, whose painful child refuses to eat anything that does not taste like our feathered friends...? Are you a member of the 'TLCCC' (the 'Tastes Like Chicken Cannibal Club')?

My advice to you:
- to the allergic among you: deal with it. I'm sorry, but your life is just going to have to be that little bit less exciting. Substitutes in this life suck anyway. At least you're not allergic to genuinely tasty things like profiteroles, or guavas, or red jelly.

-to the bird-flu-o-phobe: hmmmm... I admire your carefulness, and suspect your problem lies not in fact in the realm of recipes, but in the realm of your sense-of-self. Don't be so driven by other peoples opinions - sicks and stones etc.

-parents:chicken stock. That stuff totally does not taste like chicken though, it gives me the creeps. Makes me think of all these chickens having the juice and lifeblodd squeezed out of them, being ground to a pulp, dried in the sun, and then squished into tiny little yucky cubes. Better yet, read that to your child and then feed them 10 cubes of chicken stock, raw. Serves the little critter right.

-TLCCC members: EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW. gOand eat some chicken instead. I wouldn't know, but if boys and girls really do taste like chicken surely this will do the trick.

my Indian birthday

'Like water to a thirsty soul is news from a far country...' (Proverbs 25:25, if I've remembered it right). That Solomon knew what he was on about, shame about all those wives. I love hearing about pieces of home, and now have an inkling of what the waifs girl means when she says 'I miss you like a left arm that's been lost in a war...' - you keep subconsciously expecting people to be there, to 'use' them (in a good way) like you normally would, but instead there's just this absence. Not in a tragic lonely way or anything, but an absence all the same.

I now feel like everyone should have a birthday in India at least once in their life...dagnamit, it was so cool. Photos are having problems so you'll just have to imagine.

After a day of shaking hundreds of tiny hands and giving out as many lollies, the 15-20 girls in my cottage threw me the best surprise party I've ever been to. They moved the bunks in their room, and had many countless tiny bouquets to decrate the walls and doors. They all got dressed up, and then proceeded to dress me up in a saree (sari?), beautiful marone silk with gold brocade. I cannot believe how much material they use, metres and metres of the stuff was skillfully wrapped and twisted and folded around me, until I could hardly sit down. They pinned my hair with fresh jasmine, and let me to a chair of honour they had decorated with their shawls, presented my cake ('Happy Birthday Felici'...an earlier cake got 'Pheli'), and sang for me. Then came the fun part - while I now vaguely recall that it IS an Indian custom, all of a sudden what felt like hundreds of hands were stuffing cake in my mouth, force feeding me, while someone was madly taking photos. Girls, hands, yelling, cake, photo flashes...I had already completely lost it, when the other 'custom' I discovered restrospectively began - people smearing icing on my face, while the photos kept on coming...

Pretty cool. No better way to start being 22 in my opinion.

a lame poem :-)

HOOOOOOEEEEE, boy do I feel like I could have mastered the theory of relativity just waiting for this page to load.

While there is no place I would rather be right now, just sometimes...

I miss ricotta pancakes
and I miss the ABC,
I miss being able to walk down the road
without causing World War three.

There's 200 or so hugs I would have got
from certain people that I've missed,
I miss the sound of 'Felicity'
instead of 'pheli' or'please' or 'bliss'.

I miss being able to tell a joke
without the endless fumble of translating,
and while bluntness can be a virtue,
the personal comments can get frustrating.

I miss chocolate like an old old friend,
its just not PC to miss the smell of leather,
my legs miss sunlight, my stomach thai food,
and every single hour I miss Trevor.

Time to Kill in Bangkok airport...

hey hey all,



I write to you from Bangkok airport, from someone called 'Subho''s laptop who was sitting next to me on the plane and who has proved very friendly. Nothing else to do here for like 6 hours so...howdy do! Funny airport's, how they all manage to make you forget which country you're actually in... am hoping ridiculously much that my bag keeps our rendezvous we have planned for Mumbai at 7pm tonight, I will be very upset indeed if it stands me up.



Leaving CR and HK was insane, it crept up on me like Christmas (sudden worried thought: come back Subho! cannot mind your bags forever! what if you are dodgy and... ok silly. He's back. Feeling very guilty for doubting.). Typical me style I left packing until about 6 hours before I left, so had about 1 and a half hours sleep...not looking like sleeping for the next 2 days due to my overnight airport mumbai wait so my state of mind upon arriving in India could be interesting :) was so thankful this morning that whatever state our minds and hearts are in, they are trapped in a physical body, that has to keep eating and sleeping and walking and checking in, thus the world keeps on rolling.



Subho has to check in soon and feeling rather rude, SO I may make some more friends and write from Mumbai :)



love to all xo

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

The Father of the Fatherless...

Some people here wrote this song: Its fairly intense (another intense blog entry...I promise I am actually chilling out and doing normal things as well, they're just less interesting to write about!). I think its amazing and have for some time now, so thought I would share part of it with you...its sung to the tune of 'Danny Boy' or whatever that famous tune is called, which makes it a lot more powerful I think so try and sing it along in your head. Its called 'The Father of the Fatherless'.

Lord, give us eyes to see the needy of the world:
The countless millions suffering and in pain;
Orphans who weep, the destitute who hunger,
Oppressed where'er injustice seems to reign.

We turn to you, the father of the fatherless:
Filled with compassion, mercy, hope and grace,
You feel their wounds, you lift them from the ashes,
And on each little one bestow your loving gaze.

Lord, give us ears to hear their whispered agony,
May other noise not cause us to pass by.
Help us to name the horrors that have scarred them...

We turn to you, the father of the fatherless,
And intercede for every silent cry,
Make us a voice for all those who are voiceless,
That at the last your justice will be set on high...

Lord, give us hearts that ache with your compassion,
For those whose wounded, outstretched arms are shunned,
Invade our comfort zone, shake our indifference,
Let not our lives to apathy succumb.

We cry to you, the father of the fatherless,
Ask you to break us, let us find no rest,
Until your love is poured out to the nations,
And you are known from north to south, from east to west.