Date: March 17, 1998<\/p>\n
Subject: I got your letters<\/p>\n
Dad and Mom,<\/p>\n
Today is 3\/17.\u00a0 In the mail I received the letter from my employer which you sent and also a card to each child and to Anita and me.\u00a0 I also got letter 1 and letter 2.\u00a0 Thanks for sending them.<\/p>\n
Last Friday was a Hindu holiday called Holi.\u00a0 Part of the celebration involves throwing handfuls of BRIGHT (pink, purple, green, red, blue, etc.) powder on everybody around you.\u00a0 If we had gone out in public in certain crowded places, we would have had colors thrown on us.\u00a0 Also, people throw water balloons filled with colored water.\u00a0 Some people actually get hurt doing this though mostly it is good “fun.”\u00a0 Since I had Friday off, we went to a hill station about two and a half hours drive from our home.\u00a0 I will describe our interesting and very Indian week\u2011end in an upcoming e\u2011mail to the whole family.\u00a0 It irritates the kids that they do not have regular access to e\u2011mail yet.\u00a0 It would not help to come to my office in the evening, since the lines are hopelessly jammed (not the office’s lines but e\u2011mail access in general!)\u00a0 I am working to get us connected but like so many things here IT TAKES TIME!!!<\/p>\n
Finally, could you save our letters?\u00a0 I am keeping a journal of sorts, plus when I start e\u2011mailing from my own computer I will have that record too.\u00a0 Still, it would be helpful if you could save (just to a disk) a copy of these messages so they could all be located for sure at least in one safe location and then, after two years here I’ll have enough to use for my memoirs.\u00a0 I’ll give you a half priced, autographed copy.<\/p>\n
What a deal!!<\/p>\n
love,<\/p>\n
Gary<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Date: March 18, 1998<\/p>\n
Subject: Nice to hear from you<\/p>\n
Hi John and Karen,<\/p>\n
So good hearing from you.\u00a0 When I get my own computer at home connected to the Web, I will include your address as part of a group mailing from me. Until then, I hope you don’t mind reading the forwarded email from mom and dad.\u00a0 India is really amazing.\u00a0 Except for the times we are not enjoying it, we are really enjoying it!\u00a0 And actually everyone is doing well with the normal expected illnesses (something I forgot to tell mom and dad: Aaron got an amoeba, but was successfully treated…see, you do get some new and original information here and so can’t complain that all you get from me is old, second hand, or forwarded!)<\/p>\n
Regards,<\/p>\n
Gary<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Date: \u00a0 March 18, 1998<\/p>\n
Subject: \u00a0 At the Hill Station<\/p>\n
Dear Family,<\/p>\n
Hope this finds everyone well.\u00a0 Thanks, Dad, for sending these messages on.\u00a0\u00a0 I am now applying for Internet access at our permanent home here, the apartment where we will be moving possibly this week\u2011end (3\/20\u201121).\u00a0 Also, thanks\u00a0 to all who have discovered my work e\u2011mail address which I don’t know off the top of my head but which my father knows.<\/p>\n
This past week\u2011end we\u00a0 took a little vacation.\u00a0 It was a three day week-end due to the Hindu\u00a0 festival of Holi.\u00a0 We\u00a0 spent two nights at Matheran, a hill station about two and a half hours drive from Bombay.\u00a0 We hired a car and driver to get there.\u00a0 Matheran is one of the places from where the British ruled India when it got too hot in the lowlands such as Bombay.\u00a0 We actually wore jackets up there in the evening.\u00a0 The drive up the mountain was exciting and filled with breath taking views.\u00a0 The narrow road, often without hardly any guard rail, had to sometimes accommodate two cars.\u00a0 And we thought that going up would be the exciting part.\u00a0 You should have been there going down! (Please brakes, don’t give\u00a0 out!!)<\/p>\n
There are no cars allowed in Matheran so we were deposited in the parking area where the car was immediately swarmed by about 30 friendly Indians, two of whom, after long negations with our driver, carried our luggage 1.8 kilometers to the hotel for about the equivalent of two dollars each.\u00a0 We watched our luggage bob down the trail on the heads of these folks and didn’t see it again until we got to the hotel.\u00a0 We rode to the hotel on horses.\u00a0 The kids loved\u00a0 it.\u00a0 The dad DID NOT!!.\u00a0 Bloody horses!\u00a0 Nita went up in a rickshaw which she vowed never to do again as it was both pulled and pushed uphill by a couple of profusely sweating guys.\u00a0 It made her feel like a heavy burden.<\/p>\n
The price of the week\u2011end included food, so when we were ensconced in our rooms we had lunch served.\u00a0 As we sat outside on the covered porch eating some pretty good Indian food, our server stood in the yard waving a stick to keep the monkeys away.\u00a0 No kidding!\u00a0 There are scads of monkeys at Matheran, and so long as you don’t have food, they leave you alone.\u00a0 Actually they are cute and we have a lot of monkey pictures, moms nursing and grooming their young, etc.\u00a0 Our hotel was the only one with a pool, a treat for the kids.\u00a0 This place was a “resort” by Indian standards.<\/p>\n
We were the only Anglos at the hotel and among the very few in the whole area.\u00a0 The other guests were middle to upper-middle class Indians.\u00a0 We were sort of treated like VIP.\u00a0 In fact, on our last evening there, one of the\u00a0 managers asked if I would like to hand out prizes won earlier that day in some games the resort sponsored.\u00a0 Let me tell you, it’s a big deal having someone from where I work stay at your resort!!\u00a0 Aaron just laughed and laughed at the thought of me being a VIP.\u00a0 I did too!<\/p>\n
One of the highlights for me was making some Indian friends.\u00a0 We met and spent time with a lawyer and his wife (our age) from Pune, a town about four hours west of Bombay, and a nice Parsee couple from Bombay.\u00a0 They will be some good friends for us, I think.\u00a0 They took us around and went shopping with us and made sure we paid the right price.\u00a0 As Americans in India, the target is not on our person but on our WALLET!!\u00a0 During the day we hiked all over the place.\u00a0 We loved the breathtakingly dramatic views, plentiful since this hill station sort of rises up abruptly from the\u00a0 surrounding area and is surrounded somewhat by other abruptly rising\u00a0 hills.\u00a0 I think we were up about 2500 feet.<\/p>\n
Suppers were served Indian time which means 9:30 or 10:00 at night.\u00a0 We are looking forward to Pepcid arriving in our consumable shipment; sort of tough eating yummy curries (masala is the local term) and spicy things that late and then going to bed!\u00a0 We poop out around 10:00, but most Indians stay up late and wake up a bit later; most stores don’t even open till 10:00 in the morning.\u00a0 Saturday evening we rode some more BLOODY HORSES to Sunset point where we watched the sun set, naturally.\u00a0 We had a nice time and it accomplished just what a vacation is supposed to: help you get away from it all while making you anxious to get back home, which Bombay is starting to become for us<\/p>\n
A\u00a0 few brief things:\u00a0 the kids are doing well in school.\u00a0 They all have\u00a0 friends, and are involved in various activities.\u00a0 Aaron is even on the phone with friends in the evening: a good sign.\u00a0 Nita has applied for a temporary job (two months) as the Office Director’s secretary while the actual one is on R & R.\u00a0 We’ll see.\u00a0 She also goes to some local expatriate lady’s club meetings and this week has been involved with workers setting up our new apartment.\u00a0 She stays busy.\u00a0 We\u00a0 have had a bit of sickness here and there but we have a great, US\u00a0 trained internist who provides medical care for the American staff, and we\u00a0 haven’t gotten anything that isn’t treatable and only mildly uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
Love to all,<\/p>\n
Gary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Date: March 17, 1998 Subject: I got your letters Dad and Mom, Today is 3\/17.\u00a0 In the mail I received the letter from my employer which you sent and also a card to each child and to Anita and me.\u00a0 … Continue reading