Spring Break in Kerala

We are back from Kerala where we enjoyed a leisurely and beautiful vacation. We saw lots of things from tea plantations to backwater rice patties and the sunset over the Laccadive Sea.

We first flew in to Cochin and headed straight to Munnar. It was a beautiful drive up as it got more lush and green as we went. We arrived at our bungalow about 2 1/2 hours after leaving the airport. It was so nice to be out in fresh air and greenery.

The first full day in Munnar we went to the Tea Museum where we learned more about how they process tea. Green tea, white tea, black tea...we know it all now. Kevin is now convinced that we need to plant our our tea plant and process it ourself. Guess we will just have to see where we can plant that tea plant.

That same day we drove up to a national park to see a rare species of mountain goat and enjoy some misty fresh air. It was a fun little side trip and it's always interesting to see different Indian wildlife wherever we can.

We spent a relaxing 3 days in an old plantation bungalow with our own personal staff to cook and clean for us. The highlight of hanging out in Munnar was the Cricket World Cup Final in which India was playing Sri Lanka for a chance to win their first World Cup since 1982. This was the second cricket game we have ever watched (the first being the semi-final of the World Cup a few days before against Pakistan) and it was quite a blast. Yes, the game took 8 hours, but it was fun to watch and it was great to root for India and cheer for a great finale to the game. It was also quite fun to watch it with the staff at our bungalow even though it took a lot of convincing to get them to stop working and come watch. :-)

It was then back to Kochi where we spent a few days enjoying the old Portuguese mansions, the wooden Chinese fishing nets, Vasco de Gama's old grave site and supposed home, and some time relaxing in our haveli-turned-vintage-hotel. We also got to do some shopping and finally found an antique door to make into a table (something we have been looking to do for a while).We also decided to throw in an embossed painted Rajisthani-style cabinet just for kicks. (Last chance shopping!! Yay!)

We also went to our first Kathakali show which was just as cool as we had heard. It is a theatre performance of Hindu stories from the Ramayana that uses elaborate costumes and makeup and contains a very unique performance art of using micro-facial expressions to portray emotions, commands, etc. It's very similar to mime in a lot of ways but with a lot more flair.

It was a very cool experience especially because the entire prep work of putting on makeup and getting ready for the show was part of the show. We watched the whole elaborate painting of the faces and creation of the masks and accessories out of cut paper and glue all by professional Kathakali experts who had been doing this for decades. Very neat.

It was then off to head further south for a couple days on the beach in Varkala. On the way down we got to experience one of the trademarks of Kerala, a house boat in the winding backwaters. Southern Kerala has a large lake/inlet that has reshaped itself a few times over the course of history from various major floods to result in a few large bodies of water and an intricate series of water alleys which have been inhabited and are now lined with houses, palm trees, and rice fields.

We spent 2 nights on the house boat with our chef and 2 engine workers where the only thing on the agenda was to eat, sleep, read, and repeat. It was a great time just relaxing and watching the daily lives of villagers pass us by.

We ended on the beach just relaxing, enjoying the sun and letting Elizabeth recover from a stomach bug :-( Most of our vacations tend to be a lot of walking and touring around so it was nice to be a little more low key and relaxing. Lots of nice sites, great weather, fantastic food, and just enough culture and history to still remind us we are in India.

क्या कहाना

K&E

Non-Inflammable...huh?

We have not done a lot of blogging then when we first moved to India mostly because we have a typical life in the sense that we go to work every day and come home, we still do live in India which makes for some intersting observations. Again, I'm always impressed with other bloggers who seem to find the little things to blog about. So when I was looking over pictures from a recent trip I found this little interesting fact, something new I learned from India.

I took a picture of this because I thought it was funny that it said highly inflammable.  I first assumed that inflammable meant the opposite of flammable. It seems like an oxymoron. However, on further discussion with Kevin and reference to Wikipedia it is actually written correctly. Here is the entry from Wikipedia entry on Flammability:

Flammable and inflammable are synonyms and mean capable of burning. The word “inflammable” came from Latin “'inflammāre” = “to set fire to,” where the prefix “'in-”' means “in” as in “inside”, rather than “not” as in “invisible” and “ineligible”. Nonetheless, “inflammable” is often erroneously thought to mean “non-flammable”. In the United States, this safety hazard is typically avoided by use of flammable, despite its not being the proper Latin-derived term, on warning labels referring to physical combustibility. 

The antonym of flammable/inflammable is non-inflammable, incombustible or non-combustible.

So there you go, you learn something new everyday.

क्या कहाना K&E

Bollywood Stars and Indian Bueracracy

I know Kevin and I have not been great at continually posting blogs about our life here in India. We tend to blog about our big trips or big events in our life. The truth is, most of the time our days are all the same: going to work and going home.  And, although we see things new everyday, we don't have the time or the organizational skills like some people to actually put it up on a blog. Well, here is my attempt to tell you all a little more about life in India.

Bollywood Stars

Living in Mumbai and especially in Bandra, one would expect to see a few Bollywood stars. Everyone knows where they live and where they go. We hear lots of stories about people seeing them, at Golds Gym or at the restaurant around the corner. There are two things you normally need to be in a situation were you see a Bollywood star. 1. Know who they are and be able to recognize them. 2. Go to places they might be at. (See note above about Kevin and my daily routine.)  

Well, I happen to luck out big time, because I saw our first Bollywood star the other day. After finishing my Masters Degree, I felt like I needed to treat myself so that it felt a little more like I was actually done, so I made an appointment to get a pedicure before going on vacation. Luckily, the place I go to is one that some Bollywood stars often go to as well. Of course I still don't really know Bollywood stars (I can only name/recognize about 4 of them) but again, lucky me, someone else did the work for me. As I was sitting there, letting the polish dry oblivious to the woman sitting next to me, all the sudden a group of ladies walked up to the woman and began to gush. They said, "Oh we just had to come say hi and tell you how much we love you. We've seen all your films and are big fans" etc, etc etc. The woman was very kind and polite considering her mani-pedi was getting interrupted. 

Now the sad ending to this story is that I still have NO IDEA who she was. I tried to describe her to a friend who knows much more about Bollywood stars and we couldn't figure it out. Oh, well, at least I can say I've seen a Bollywood star in person. 

Indian Bureaucracy

Anyone who knows a little about India or has been here has probably heards something about the bureaucracy. Well, I recently experiences a typical situation that I wanted to share with you all. Kevin and I decided to bring Suri home with us at Christmas. (There are many good reasons our decision including weather, other flying concerns for Suri and health issues even though we already miss her a ton and have only been home for 2 weeks. It's going to be a long 5 months!!)

In order to take her out of the country, we needed to get a vet to fill out a healthy to fly certificate, and then we need to take that and 10 pictures of her to get approved by the government. Of course we have to use an agent to get this all done. So I took her to the vet, got the necessary paperwork including photos and then on the Wednesday before we were leaving the agent took all of this paperwork, me and the dog to the government agency for their stamp of approval. 

There is another couple who were bringing home their dog at this time and a HUGE thank you to them for letting us ride their coattails on all of this as they did all the legwork and we decided a week before we left that we wanted to take Suri home too. So David a got in a van with our and drove an hour and half to Navi Mumbai. When we got to the government office, the agent said to wait while he went in. 

So we waited, and waited...and waited. Four hours later, the agent and government representative came out, looked in the van and nodded. About ten minutes later we left for hour hour long ride home. This whole time, we just sat in the car, or walked our dogs around the concrete parking lot. I'm not sure why we had to go, why our dogs had to be there, but that is what we had to do. 

And now she is home, happily enjoying the weather.

क्या कहाना K&E

The Beginning - Part 2

So December is again time to renew contracts in the world of international schools which means everyone has been spending the last months making big life decisions about the next year and whether to stay or take a leap into the unknown. I don't think we've ever posted about how this whole process works so here's the basic idea.

Schools in the US usually make their employment decisions in the spring/summer for the following year. Contracts are signed around April or May and job listings are posted around June and sometimes as late as September, within days of school starting. To find a job, you contact specific schools, do a couple interviews and see what comes of it.

In the international system things work quite differently. You have to decide whether to renew contracts somewhere between November and January (about 6 months before the end of school). For us, it was Dec 1. If you decide not to sign again then you have to go through this very stressful period of unknown employment purgatory where you have no idea what you will be doing when school is out. Depending on the situation you then have to wait for all the other schools to renew their contracts so you can see what jobs are available and then begin the hunt. You sign up with an employment service of some kind. There are about 4 or 5 major ones out there, we used Search Associates again (same as we used the first time).

So you pay a bunch of money to register yourself with these companies and then get ready for the job fairs. They begin in Bangkok the first week of January and move west across the globe until all the jobs are filled by the final fair sometime later February in the western US. Depending on which organization you signed up with, you have the choice of going to 4 or 5 different fairs based on where you are from, what type of schools you are looking for, and how early/late in the game you want to get in. There is a big push to get into the Bangkok fair as it is the first one and the chance to get your first shot at the fresh openings.

The tough part is the time between when you commit to leaving in December and the job fair in January. This month is filled with emailing schools, Skype interviews and trying your best to get a foot in the door somewhere so you don't have to spend the travel money and the risk of going to a huge job fair. This can result in many situations where some schools are offering you a job while others haven't even figured out their openings yet. Decisions have to be made quickly and major life choices are made with a very limited amount of information and the hope that you don't accept one offer only to find your dream job open up the next week. It's a crazy process, not only for the insecurity of the job search but also the fact that your dealing with international jobs which means shifting your family to a whole new part of the world which adds a whole other level of things to consider.

Most contracts at international schools are for 2 years with the option of renewing a year at a time. We completed our first two years and went through these conversations last December and decided to stay for a third year. Now, Elizabeth has finished her Master's degree to become a librarian and she is ready to start on a new career path which meant that we had some tough decisions to make this December. We love ASB and really did not want to leave but unfortunately, they didn't have any options for Elizabeth as a librarian so we had to start the search process and start dipping our toes in the water. This started in October as we signed up with Search Associates again and started looking for the early openings.

This is actually a great year for a math/library combo as there were a lot of really great schools that had positions for both of us. On the other hand, because these are all really great schools, the applicant pools are huge and competition is fierce. But at least there were options, and they were all places we had been and knew we would love to live. Nearly all the top schools we've come to know and respect in Asia had openings as well as a couple unfamiliar ones in Europe and South America. We did a lot of research on all the schools that had openings and ended up in a position where we would gladly move to any of these places with no reservations. So we sent out some resumes and played the waiting game for a while, deciding whether to risk giving up our spots at ASB to go for some of these other schools.

We got a couple "thanks for sending your materials, you have been added to the pool" type of emails but started talking a bit more with a small school in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The more we researched the school and communicated with the director the more we came to really love it and felt that it would be a great fit for both us and the school. We interviewed with the director and were lucky enough to get a job offer on the evening before our December 1 deadline at ASB. This is extremely rare to have a job in hand before the deadline so we are very blessed that we don't have to go through that unknown period (or pay expensive hotel and flight costs to go to a job fair).

So we are officially reaching an end to our time in India and are off to Brazil next year! We will be working at the Pan American School of Porto Alegre which is a tiny school of about 300 students (half of ASB) of which 80% are Brazilian students. It runs an "American" curriculum and is all taught in English (just like ASB). It is a private school and caters to a similar population of diplomats, foreign businessmen and women, etc. only with a larger portion of local Brazilians looking for an international school system. Check out the school profile here.

Elizabeth will be the K-12 librarian and I will be the HS math teacher. Yes, THE math teacher. As in one. There are about 50 students in the high school so I will teach them all. One section each of Algebra 2, Geometry, Pre-Calc, and Calculus. It is a tiny school with a lot going on and headed in a great direction so we are very excited to be a part of everything they are doing. They have recently started some programs and taken on some projects that ASB has been doing for a few years now so we can provide some great insight to help them along the way. They have an aggressive tech plan and although they are not a 1-1 laptop school like ASB, they do have smart boards in every class and we are making new additions every year. We are excited to help them build with our experience coming from the best and longest running 1-1 school laptop program in the world.

It's a great job opportunity for both of us and Porto Alegre sounds like a fantastic place and a welcomed change from the craziness and dirtiness of India. Plus we are excited and ready to explore a new culture and a whole other part of the world in South America.

So big news! We are off to a new adventure next year and are super excited! It's bitter sweet though as we really do love ASB and are sad that we are leaving such a fantastic school. We still have another 6 months to enjoy it though and are trying to work out a plan to get a couple more stops in India before we go.

For now we are finishing up the last week before winter break and will be heading to Seattle on Friday to spend Christmas at home. We might even be bringing Suri with us if things work out...more to come on that process. Hopefully we will get to see a bunch of people during break and can't wait to be back home again!

See everyone soon!

Curta que a vida é curta.

K&E

A Nepali Diwali

We're back to work after a Week Without Walls trip and a week vacation in Nepal. This year I got to travel with the 8th graders to Sajan and Dabhosa for WWW which was a new trip and a neat chance to see yet another side of India. Located a few hours out of Mumbai, Sajan is in the middle of village life, surrounded by some beautiful Indian country side.

We stay in large tents in an adventure complex where students learn and practice some outdoor skills like: orienteering, rappelling, raft building, kayaking, etc. After a few days, we drive a couple more hours up to Dabhosa where we do a full day expedition through the villages, wheat fields, rivers, and waterfalls of the country side.

It was a great trip aside from some student frustrations here and there. But we did have some great adventures including visiting a village school to build a brick bathroom building and rappelling down the face of a waterfall.

We also had a lot of chances to work on leadership and share some fun and cultural experiences. We had a visit from a number of Warli villagers who performed a traditional Warli dance. We also had a talent show where some students sang and our principal juggled some fire. All in all, lots of good memories and another fun WWW trip.

The day after getting back we hopped on a short 2 hour flight up to Kathmandu, Nepal for our week long Diwali vacation. It was a very spur of the moment decision to go to Nepal. We wanted to do some exploring in north India and see some plantations and get into the Himalayas but all the Indian cities up north take quite a bit of flight hopping and driving to get to so a 2 hr direct flight to Nepal made the decision for us.

We really knew nothing about Nepal before going except for the trekking/mountaineering type of tourism. After going there and learning more about it though, I would not hesitate for a second to go back. The cities are pretty impoverished, dirty, and lacking infrastructure just like India, yet there is a completely different feel to it. First of all, Nepalis are some of the nicest people we've met. They make the list right along side Egyptians and Cubans as the friendliest people on Earth (according to our personal experiences). That alone makes a country so much more fun to travel in when you know you are welcomed and can let down your guard a little bit.

Beyond the general kindness and overall tourist-friendly atmosphere, I never expected to see so many cool and beautiful things in Nepal. The culture of the country is an interesting blend of Tibetan Buddhist, Indian Hindu, and indigenous tribal and village life. Even though it lies between two massive countries, it still has it's own identity which makes for some really interesting food, art, architecture, and cultural values. (We should note here that we bought more stuff in Nepal than a few of our other trips combined...oops!)

What makes the Kathmandu valley so interesting and unique is that it was not settled by Indians, nor Chinese, but the Newa people who created a unique combination of both. There are pagodas and temples that hint of Chinese architecture yet they are side by side with innately carved stone Hindu temples. My favorite architectural and artistic piece was the detailed wood carvings that were used all throughout the cities and villages. Nearly all buildings are made of brick (as opposed to the ugly cement towers of India) and they frame in beautiful pieces of wood to make windows and door frames.

In our first few days of hanging around Kathmandu, we went out of the city to a couple of these Newari cities, Bhaktapur and Patan where we spend the day walking through the old medieval streets and grand Durbar Squares to enjoy the sights and experiences of historic Nepal. It was beautiful and culturally and historically interesting which makes for a great trip. Even our hotel had the same amazing architecture and art work all around which only added to the ambiance and overall experience in Kathmandu.

We also made our way to a number of Buddhist temples and sites to get a feel for the Tibetan influence. This included a hike up to the top of the monkey temple to see the judgmental and ever watching eyes of Buddha overlooking the city (and of course the monkeys that give it it's namesake) . A short drive away is also the Boudhanath which is one of the largest stupas in Nepal and the world.

An interesting place for sure. Not to mention the markets and food and, of course, the mountains that surround the whole valley. We could only see some white tips behind the hills in Kathmandu but a quick 20 minute ride to Pokhara put the massive peaks right in our back yard.

Pokhara is the second largest tourist spot in Nepal and lies between foothills on a lovely lake. This is a gorgeous spot and definitely makes it into my top list of favorite places. It's got that serene, hang out on the lake and relax atmosphere. It's got miles of restaurants and shops following the edge of the lake.

It's got hiking, mountain views, caves, waterfalls, and everything you need for a adventurous or relaxing vacation. We stayed at a really nice hotel that you had to boat across the tip of the lake to get to. We had a great time here, hiking up to the Peace Pagoda, hiking over to Devi's Falls, an underground waterfall and accompanying caves, and the pinnacle of our trip (literally) paragliding off the Sarangkot view station.

Pokhara is nested at the foot of the Annapurna range (not where Everest is...sorry) which holds several of the highest peaks in the world. Because of its close proximity, the views are stunning and virtually unobstructed.

The landmark peak is Machapuchare or the "Fish Tail" due to its very geometric triangular shape. While not the largest peak in the range, it is the closest to the city which makes it dominate the center of the range when seen from Pokhara. A short 20 minute drive up the side of the hill and you are in Sarangkot, a small village that has a perfect panorama of the valley and the Annapurna range.

This is of course the place to be at the beginning and end of every day to watch the sunrise or sunset over the mountains. We woke up early one morning and drove/hiked up to see the sunrise which was spectacular. Of course we were surrounded by other tourists and a line of professional photographers trying to get their perfect shot. The views were stunning and we stayed up there for a couple hours just enjoying the view and having some breakfast. And what better way to get back down the hill than to just jump off! So we booked a 30 minute tandem paragliding trip that hooked us up with a professional pilot who strapped us in and ran us off the edge of the mountain.

We floated around the Sarangkot ridge for a while just enjoying the mountains in the distance and the lake and terraced rice fields below. Amazing experience and a hobby that I wouldn't mind picking up. The pilots were great and explained how everything worked and even let me maneuver the controls for a little while. We floated out over the lake to a landing field back at the edge of town. We hopped in a van and were back to our hotel before lunch. Fantastic.

All in all, a surprisingly outstanding trip given the fact that we knew virtually nothing about where we were going prior to leaving. Somewhere I would not mind returning to some day.

Pictures are already up and ready on Picasa so have a look. I've got some video of the Warli dancers and a few other things from WWW that I'm working on getting up to YouTube as well so stay tuned!

For now, it's trying to keep pace with the blazing speed in which November is flying by and getting ready to head back state-side for some Christmas in the northwest (no singing...please). We'll be spending most of our time in Seattle but will make it out to Boise for new years as well (if the region doesn't get hit by another ice age like the last time we were home!!)

From now until December I need all of you to be salting the roads every day and get your hair dryers out and ready to clean off that runway cause we don't want to play airplane leap frog through the south west again!

See you all soon!

K&E

We're Baaaaack!

So I think we have fully established the point that we are not good at blogging. We got in a good year or more before we got too lazy...I mean, busy. But we're trying to get back into it now and we have a lot to talk about so hang on to your hats, seats, horses or whatever metaphorical object you are holding. Here goes....

When we last left our dashingly handsome and adventurous heroes they were bumming their way around India with a ragged group of explorers from the states and traveling through the jungles of South Africa in search of leopards and the French national teams' pride (still nowhere to be seen by the way).

Since then, our adventures have taken us back to the exotic nether-regions of Syracuse and now back to our home camp in Mumbai. For those who were paying creepily close attention to our posts, you may have noticed something fishy. How curious that we went from December to June so quickly without making a stop over for 10 days in April. Well guess what? We went to Thailand and apparently didn't even bother going through the pictures or mentioning it on our blog.

But now is the time for forgiveness and redemption so if you would kindly look to your right you will see a bucket load of new pictures dating back to our India trip with the Johnson crew, our spring break in Thailand, and all (yes all) of our stops in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.



We're just going to skip the post for Thailand all together, but the pictures are there, so enjoy. We went to another NESA educators conference in Bangkok for 4 days in which we did all the regular stops - temples, markets, river rides, megamalls, red shirt political uprising, etc. We then headed south to the beach at Krabi where we relaxed and soaked up the sun while doing some swimming, eating, island hopping, and our favorite activity of the trip, a kayak tour through a mangrove forest and caves. Very cool.

You may also notice as you are perusing the list of new photos that we have another India trip already under our belt this year. We had our first three day weekend of the year and traveled several hours out of the city to visit some ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples carved from the side of mountains. We flew into the city of Aurangabad which took about an hour, then visited two famous sites: Ellora and Ajanta.

The Ajanta caves are about 90km outside of the Aurangabad, are carved out of the face of a cliff and are known for their elaborate paintings found inside. This was the home of a Buddhist colony about 2000 years ago and the caves consist of large open spaces with high ceilings and shrines for gathering and worshiping as well as smaller rooms where daily life and meditations would have occurred. The caves and temples were also plastered and painted in some areas and there are some amazing, thousand year old paintings to admire.

As Buddhism began to decline in the area, they began to move back south toward the city where they created an even more spectacular set of stone temples at the site of Ellora. What is so brilliant about these temples is that they were not built stone by stone, but rather carved with a chisel out of the side of the hills. All of it, the whole thing.....chisel. There are amazing multi-story temples and plazas all carved straight out of the stone with all of it being one giant continuous piece of rock. Totally amazing.


We traveled with our new friends Reid and Rachel and had a great time getting to know them and enjoying the sights together. We crammed quite a bit into a short weekend including a trip up to the top of an abandoned fort overlooking the city and a stop by the Mini Taj Majal, a near exact replica of the Taj created by the son of the last Mughal leader in Aurangabad. It was planned to be built with the same materials and outline but daddy pulled the rug out from under the project part way through to save money resulting in pieces that are made of beautiful marble and craftsmanship and the rest made from limestone which definitely does not look as nice.


It was a great weekend and even though it was exhausting from all the hiking, it was great to spend time with friends, get some fresh air, and enjoy such an outstanding piece of history. It was also a good warmup for all the hiking we are about to take on over our next vacation. In a couple weeks we have our Week Without Walls trip followed by our Diwali break. For WWW this year, I will be with the 8th grade team which means instead of Matheran again, I will be heading somewhere new, to Sajan/Dabhosa which should be a great time. Then, for Diwali, we will be heading to Nepal to explore the north a little bit and get our first real taste of the Himalayas. So stay tuned for some amazing shots of us summiting Mt Everest....it's going to be epic!! (and by summit I mean taking pictures from the bottom, probably several miles away)

Enjoy all the pictures! More to come soon!

K&E

South Africa Here We Come!!!

We are off to South Africa in a couple days and we have set up some different forms of communication to keep track of the myriad experiences and stories we will have to tell.

We have created a separate site through OnTheRoad.to which allows us to capture media and short descriptions of events via our cellphones and post them directly to the web in a neat little travel-log format. The homepage for this travel journal/mini-blog is

http://indiake.ontheroad.to/worldcup

The feed is also posted at the top of this page so you can follow the links directly from this blog if you would like.  If everything works out to plan, we should be sending many little snippets of pictures and comments throughout the trip via our cellphones through this OnTheRoad app.  We will also write some longer posts here when we can.

We have finished year 2 in Mumbai and it's been a crazy one to say the least. It started off fast, then got faster, and never really slowed down.  Now the classrooms are packed up, exams are done, and it's time to shift into official vacation mode. Looking forward to the most epic vacation of all time (at least it better be since its taken 16 months to plan it...)

Wish us luck. More to come!

Viva Espana!!!

क्या कहाना K&E