Our Blog Has Moved!!!!!!!!!!

Hey all our blog has moved!!!! I know we haven't been very good about updating it but we've learned our lesson and the new version on wordpress will be much better! Here's the address: http://rjkabroad.wordpress.com

Happy Diwali!!!

Fireworks have been going off in our neighborhood at all hours for the past week, but last night marked the big Diwali celebration. After playing some horshoes, eating some delicious McDonald's, and watching (and setting off) fireworks from a friend's balcony for a good 4 hours, a tired Ruby and I returned to our apartment to find our landlord had decked out the front yard these beautiful candles and flowers. The holiday apparently commemorates a lot of things (the triumph of light over darkness, the return of Lord Rama from his 14-year exile) and is one of the biggest holidays for hindus, jains and sikhs. Happy Diwali!!!

Lighting Stuff On Fire!

Last sunday we arrived back from an awesome vacation in Sri Lanka (post to come) where we had some great weather and hung out on the beach for a couple days. Upon our return however, I immediately headed out to watch some celebratory effigy burning for the hindu celebration of Dussehra. As the story goes (or as I understand it) Dussehra is the celebration of the victory of Lord Rama over the demon, and king of lanka, Ravana. Ravana apparently stole Rama's wife and brought her to Sri Lanka, so Rama had to go kick his ass (along with his brother and son) I had heard from our friends Jason and Justin that there would be some big effigies set on fire near their neighborhood of Visant Vihar. After a little searching, and some help from a friendly tuk-tuk driver, we were able to join a crowd bound for some Dussehra fun down the road in Air India Colony. As we approached the school grounds where everything was going on the crowd became immense, with people lining streets and perched atop the school building itself. Check it out. These people had a great view of the three tall effigies (Ravana, his son Meghnadh and his brother Kumbhakarna) that were to be set on fire following a reenactment of the battle between Rama and Ravana. While we couldn't really see the dance from our spot within the crowd on the field, we could see the massive figures of the demon and his family. Everyone was super excited to see these guys go up in flames, and after the reenactment the first one was lit. I expected that it would burn gradually until the wood broke and it fell to the ground. Wrong. Arjun, one of the drivers at AES who we had run into with his children on the way to the grounds, informed me that inside of each figure were tons of fireworks, and that the burning would be way more intense. Indeed it was. Once Ravana's brother went up the crowd began to cheer. His son (whose burnt corpse I would later raid along with tons of schoolchildren) was next, leaving the demon king Ravana for last. Of course, his demise was loudest and brightest. Once the big guy went down all the children (us included) rushed towards the fallen demon bodies to salvage a piece of the corpse. Apparently they are to be kept in the house for good luck until the next burning, when you get a fresh one. After much effort and a couple splinters I was able to grab myself a piece of Ravana's son Meghnadh (Ravana was all gone within seconds). So now when we walk Ruby we have the protection of Lord Rama. Needless to say we are way more hardcore. Stray dogs watch out!

The Only Real Sport at the Commonwealth Games

LAWN BOWLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you ever want to see a different type of athlete make your way to a lawn bowls match. With the Commonwealth Games being held here in Delhi for the past two weeks we thought it would be a perfect time to check out this awesome, bocchi-like sport. After driving around Nehru stadium with our friends Kate and Jason looking for the entrance for a bit, we were able to find the ticketing booth where we could pick up the 50 Rs. tickets I had purchased earlier online. Though there was a huge line it seemed most people were trying to buy tickets for some of the more popular events for later in the week (we would soon learn that lawn bowls was NOT one of the more popular sports). As a result, we got to bypass the line and a helpful volunteer came out of the back of the booth with our tickets a couple of minutes later. We also got to skip the long line of people trying to get into the stadium to see the track and field events. Instead we were whisked through the entrance to the lawn bowls "rinks" and into the action. As I mentioned earlier lawn bowls is similar to bocchi, except don't ever tell a lawn bowler that. We ended up watching the Canada vs. Cook Islands match with some relatives of the Canadian bowlers (and avid bowlers themselves) and they had some no-so-kind words for the inevitable bocchi comparison. The major difference between bocchi and lawn bowls, aside from the more complex scoring system in the latter, is that the bowls used in lawn bowls are "on the bias". Basically this means they are like thick donuts with no holes and so they can travel on a curved path towards the small white ball (called the "jack"or "kitty"). The Canadians spent a good deal of time explaining some of the finer points of the rules and strategies in lawn bowls, but I've totally forgotten it all. What I do remember are seeing some sweet bowls from some incredible athletes from islands and countries that don't often get the chance to be in the spotlight. Go Niue!

Back with a vengeance....and garlic naan pizza!

Sorry we've been gone for so long! The end of the 1st quarter at school and our October break meant we have not been able to do as good a job updating as we would have liked. But we're back, and we haven't been completely lame over the past couple weeks. For example... A couple of weeks ago we decided to experiment with one of the delicious treats we've been eating here in Delhi. Moti Mohal, our local north Indian restaurant, has the most ridiculously large garlic naan that we have ever seen. Even more impressive is the not-so-subtle teardrop shape. Regardless of whether or not they are tears of joy or self-pity, when you've finished one of these guys you are definitely crying. Our first time we ordered one Kelly had the genius to wonder what could happen if we made pizzas out of these deliciously garlicky bread tears, and once she proposed it I couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally a couple of weeks later we organized some other, equally excited friends and put our plan into action. While there were some setbacks (our Indian-sized oven, some questionable pepperoni, and a garlic naan that was pizza-ed with the garlic on the bottom) we ultimately prevailed, and a delicious tradition was born.

Sorry!

Sorry for the delay. We've been busy and have not been giving the blog the attention it deserves. Since we last posted, Jake got Dengue Fever, also know as Break Bone Fever. It's transmitted by mosquitoes, so we are being super careful and applying repellent EVERY time we leave the house. He was out of school for a week. He is now feeling MUCH better. He's been back at school and back in the swing of things. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Jake is taking Hindi classes. He's already learned a lot and has been practicing on Ruby whenever he has free time. Our weeks have been busy and the weekends even busier, but we managed to get out of town last weekend to head to Jaipur in Rajastan. Jake and I, along with 12 other newbies and their families, headed in two vans for a 5 hour drive towards the desert. We did some shopping, visited a Monkey Temple, saw the Amber Fort, and checked out some of the other sites. I'll post some pictures in the next post. One of our friend's shipments arrived yesterday. When we asked about the status of ours, we were told that India is experiencing it's worst monsoon season in 10 years and they did not know where our stuff is. I expect we'll get it in early October! We are missing everyone, but time is flying by so quickly that is it going to be winter break before we know it.