Around Bangalore

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Before coming to work today, I saw one of the groundskeepers in the gated community climb the coconut tree in front of the house. He climbed it just like a monkey - no special equipment. Apparently, the coconuts were ripe for picking - he started dropping them to the ground. The coconuts are collected in a bag and delivered to your door. There is also a papaya tree and banana tree in the yard. The sweetest bananas I have ever tasted. The papaya is like the small variety you can buy at home that are totally tasteless. If you want a sweeter papaya at home, you typically have to buy the big red papayas, but these small ones here are sweet as far as papaya goes.

I love mangoes, and I had the sweetest, juciest mango I have ever tasted a few days ago. I cut it up after coming home from work one morning, and literally inhaled it. Delicious! Craving more. India is one of the top mango producers worldwide. Many different varieties.

I'm going to start save my entries every few lines, because I lost my entry twice yesterday due to power outage. After awhile, I just gave up! It has been raining every evening now for the last 2 weeks. Rainy season starts early in Bangalore. The power has even been going out at the house last few days. On off, on off. I keep the hot water geyser switch on all night/morning so I can at least have a hot shower in the afternoon before work. Even if the power were to go out for a few hours, the water stays hot quite a long time. There is a geyser in each bathroom and the kitchen. You turn it on about 20-30 minutes before you want to use hot water for any reason. The only good thing about working this shift is that you have the early afternoon light so get ready for work if the power's out - except you can't use the hairdyer. Yesterday, power went on about 10 minutes before had to leave for work. What luck - I got to dry my hair!

Pretty ordinary ride into work today observing traffic, pedestrians, streetside vendors, males urinating along the side of the roadways - oh, did I not mention that before? Public urination by males of all ages is very common. If on a long trip and no toilets available, I believe women will look for some privacy like bushes. It's just the culture.

Speaking of toilets, when I showered with my casted leg, I had to prop the leg on the toilet seat next to the shower to keep it dry. The toilet seat was already broken on one side when I arrived here. One day, I put my leg up on the seat and hit the edge of it with my cast knocking the whole seat off. You pay the price for luxuries. Example: cost of Orthopedic consultation at one of India's finest medical facilities = 250 rupees; cost to replace toilet seat (plastic with plastic screws and bolts) = 300 rupees; making sense of this = priceless!

There are many small tent communities alongside roadways. Their homes are A-style tents typically made with blue plastic tarps. More permanent tents are made with palm or coconut tree leaves/branches with a tarp for the doorway. These branches or leaves are very large - 5 or 6'long or longer and probably 3-4' wide. They are also fashioned in A-style tents. It might be possible to stand up straight only in the very center unless you're a child. Other forms of housing are made from corrugated sheet metal (or maybe it's steel) or fiberglass panels. I've been under the shelter of the corrugated fiberglass, and they do shield you from the heat of the sun. I expect the steel or metal radiate heat! These structures are constructed as crudely as the tents in a square box style. Some have the corrugated panels for the roof with tarps down the sides. Floors are dirt. They have no running water, no toilets. They cook over an open fire outside their tent. I see women washing clothes against flat rocks. The clothes are hung over the top of the tent or a line tied between 2 trees. And just a few feet away is the crush of rushing traffic, pedestrians, street vendors, oxen-pulled carts, cows, dogs ...

Entire families work at building sites. The family sets up a tent at the site or live inside the structure while it's being built. Scaffolding is made from small diameter tree trunks. At the big commercial building sites, older steel scaffolding is used. I have not seen alot of newer machinery for the construction going on here other than a few large cranes for the highrises. The dump trucks and semi's would not even be allowed on US roads!

I saw a bus this past weekend with people literally crammed inside, and others hanging on the outside, and more sitting on top of the bus. This bus was travelling on a highway, and not a very good highway - very dangerous. Even on a highway, you encounter cross-traffic of all kinds including an occasional vehicle going the wrong way in your line of travel.

Gotta get to work now. Later, I'll tell you about my recent vists to various sites.

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