A bad case of stripes

This morning Kaya and I were singing the song "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book. I realized at one point that he must have misunderstood the words, because he was saying "stripes" instead of "strife."

Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities
Forget about your problems and your stripes.

Ha! It was so cute, I couldn't bring myself to correct him.

random thoughts

This isn't very good, just a bit of rambling on my part.

I told Sheela the other day that I think I will "have my head around" my work by maybe after Christmas. I have never been so busy at any job I have ever had. It got so bad last week that I started waking up in the middle of the night thinking about things I need to finish. My head is spinning. That being said, I feel like I can see the bigger picture and I am enjoying my new challenges. I really do like my job and I haven't enjoyed teaching this much in quite some time. But OMG, I can't wait until January!!! A lot of it is just getting used to a new system and the added responsibilities of being head of a department.

I went to Tioman, Malaysia a few weeks back. I was one of four teachers that got to go. It was pretty amazing. I really need to devote a whole entry to what I experienced there. The most eye opening part was the kids. Many of them have travelled the world, but have never really left their nannies behind. I couldn't believe some of the things I was seeing and hearing. I came away from that trip a much more educated person and I understand our kids much better now. I promise more on that soon!

FYI, right now my brother is running the Marine Corps Marathon. www.marinemarathon.com. I feel like a parent, watching and waiting (online) to see how he does. Fortunately, they have updates every 5k. I am very nervous right now!!! I really hope he gets the time he wants. I will not comment on that any more since I am a bit superstitious. Anyhow, if you know him or would like his number to call and congratulate him please shoot me an email. He has worked so very hard for more than 18 weeks and he certainly deserves a phone call!!! I love that guy!!! His wife is also running and it would appear as if she is going to achieve her PR as well! Way to go!

I head to Tokyo in a few days. I am super excited. I can't really imagine what it will be like. I keep imagining Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Anyhow, I am heading there for a professional development workshop. I look forward to the workshop, but hope it doesn't go late into the evening so that I might do a bit of exploring.

I have been feeling a wee bit homesick lately. We recently received our shipment and so I suspect that is the reason. All the items we haven't seen since mid-July back in Chapel Hill. Ed, Mike...been thinking about you guys. Our house in the woods is sounding pretty good right about now. I had an epiphany the other day. I was showing another teacher my disc-golf discs and I started thinking about where we could go outside of school.....and my realization was that there isn't really anywhere we could go. The field at school was pretty much it. That hit me pretty hard. In a city of 15 million people there is little space to throw frisbees around. For someone as active as myself that is a tough one to swallow.

We were out and about the other day. This small child that wasn't much taller than Kaya did her best to sell some flowers to us. I really wasn't interested in the flowers, but I was curious as to how old this child could possibly be. I had Sam, Sheela's father, ask her and she didn't know. That also hit me kind of hard. What a tough life this kid lives and it will only get more difficult. She didn't even know her own age, there is no way she had any education and most likely no plans to do anything except just make it. I felt so bad for her. I bought the flowers, she stopped badgering us and left. I ran into her later and gave them back so she might make a few extra taka. I remember the days back in Belize when I would sit in my hammock and say to myself, "I need to appreciate all that I have." Well I am doing the same thing now. I truly treasure and value all that I am experiencing. I can already tell this will influence me in ways I don't even realize. I hope the same for Kaya and Miss Shia as well. Both times I have lived abroad it does something to me and I find myself thinking a lot more than I do when I am back in the States. There's a big world out there and I gotta see it....live it.....understand it.....

Holy #$%^ He did it!!! He qualified for Boston!!! He just finished. He ran a 3:08:59!!!! That is incredible. I love that guy so much. I am so happy for him!!!! Genna, can my brother stay with you when he comes to Boston!? What a stud, wow!!!

Good night, I think about you all often. I miss you and can't wait to see you sometime soon.

Here is a video of the drive to work. It must have been shot during Eid because there is no traffic. There is normally loads and loads of cars and rickshaws everywhere. At least you can see the route we take to school. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54N8VEmsr4

Guest Contributor: Mama

Chris is in Malaysia this week for work: the 10th grade field trip this year is a week-long trip to Tioman Island, and Chris was invited to be a chaperone. Tough job. Not to be outdone, Kaya and I had our own adventure, a week with my parents and other relatives in Kolkata, India. It was a pretty amazing trip, so I thought I would share a few photos.

The trip was planned by my dad, who wanted the whole family to be in India during Durga Puja, the Hindu celebration of the goddess Durga. It is celebrated by Hindus around the world, but just as Rio de Janeiro is the place to be for Carnaval, Kolkata is the place to be for Durga Puja festivities. It is the biggest event of the year. The main attraction is the pandals, which are temporary structures that are built to house the statues of Durga and her family members, and in which the religious ceremonies take place. The main part of the festival lasts only five days, so one might think that the pandals would be very basic and reflect the temporary nature of their purpose. One would be wrong. Some may be pretty basic, but many of the pandals are bigger than peoples' homes. Many are multiple stories tall. Many are breathtakingly beautiful, artistic, and meticulously detailed, having taken nearly a year to plan and weeks or months to build. All of this for just a few days, after which they are dismantled and the planning begins for an entirely new and different pandal.

It's really impossible to describe the spectacle of Kolkata during Durga Puja -- despite hearing my father talk about it, I never imagined anything like what I saw -- but here are a few pictures. There are literally thousands of pandals in the city, and we saw just a few.

A pandal, easily four or five stories tall and covered top to bottom in tiny bits of glass. This was on the first of the five main Puja days, so we were told this crowd was "small." Note also the lights on the apartment buildings. The whole city was lit up like this, just for Puja.



Another pandal, huge and decorated with really fantastic paintings, with drummers walking around it. Everywhere we went in the city, there were drummers and music, starting at dawn and lasting well into the night. The drums were the soundtrack to our trip.


The statues of Durga and her family inside another pandal, attended by a priest (in orange). The statues are built from clay and then decorated, all by hand (again, only for five days!).

At the end of the five days, the statues of Durga are taken to the river, where they are immersed in the water so that she and her children can symbolically travel to reunite with her husband, Shiva. We went to the river to see the immersions, which was another incredible sight. There were trucks arriving constantly with statues from all over the city, and groups of people who had walked alongside the trucks, singing and dancing along the way, to bid Durga farewell.


The top photo is of trucks lined up (in the background) with statues waiting to be unloaded, and the bottom is of men carrying Durga down the riverbank.

Kaya was completely fascinated by Durga and can now identify her and name her children (Ganesh, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Karthik), along with their attendant animals and the demon that Durga is usually depicted killing with a spear. Surely this knowledge will prove useful at some point.

Aside from all of that, we had a wonderful time with our family, and Kaya did really well. There will almost definitely be more trips to India in our future!

kaya strikes again

The hits just keep coming!

The other day I was about to leave for a softball game and I was talking to Kaya about it. His response to me telling him I play softball was, "But Daddy, girls play softball!"

Kaya has a fascination with rickshaws. So... we should not have been surprised the other day when he declared, "Daddy, when I grow up I want to be a rickshaw driver."

Yesterday was his Birthday. We had a nice party for him with a Thomas the Tank Engine cake, over 20 people and lots of presents. At the end of the day we were asking him how his Birthday went and whether he had a good time. His response: "Well... (long pause) not as exciting." We asked him why not, and he said, "Not many people came." (Meanwhile everyone except for two people that he invited had shown up.) We asked him who didn't come, and he said, "Gregory, and Uncle Josh, Aunt Kasey, Hannah, Ben, Elena, Aunt Jacque, Aunt Annie, Uncle Troy, Cooper...." You get the idea. For those who may not recognize these names, Gregory is his friend here in Dhaka. All the rest are family members who live in Omaha!!! Poor Kaya.

Finally, this evening I asked Kaya whether baseball was his favorite sport. He said no! When I asked what his favorite sport was, he said, "Playing!"

Also, I think it's so funny that in all these photos Kaya never has a shirt on!!! He is so his father's son....