Life with the Hyde’s in India

 

Well it’s been a while!

We have intended writing a new blog many times over the last few months but didn’t. Our life here had become chaotic in many ways and we both felt that the blog was beginning to be nothing more than a monthly diary from us. Perhaps we just needed a break. 

Well whatever the case this is our new style blog, we will not publish on any given dates but when we feel we have something to say or something you might be interested in. It’s a look at our life in India and for this first blog we have included some background on us for new readers. If anyone wants to know more about us than please read our earlier blogs, there are plenty to choose from. Any comments are very welcome.

 

So welcome dear reader to;

  ‘Life with the Hyde’s in India’.

It’s now monsoon. If you have never experienced a monsoon rain storm trust me you have not seen rain, full on waterfall style rain! It’s an incredible experience to stand and literally be soaked to the skin within seconds with beautiful warm water. After months of dry heat half the population of India is in the streets dancing in the first heavy rain. It causes vast flooding, rivers burst their banks in fact rivers that don’t normally exist burst into life during monsoon. The amount of water that falls within these few months is quite literally all we shall have until next monsoon. It floods town’s roads houses anywhere where there isn’t sufficient run-off. Unfortunately this means that many of the works of man suffer. Roads are in some cases completely destroyed for the rainy season. The only sensible vehicle to have if you intend going out of town into the jungle areas in monsoon is a well-equipped Jeep.

Sadly we had to sell ours to cover some of the costs incurred when the NGO we were working for without notice ended our contracts. We try to forgive the way we were treated but forgiveness is difficult when you now have literally thousands of pounds to repay in debts incurred because of that action. If you want a few more details on this please read our previous blog. We are both committed Christians so we try and I think have almost succeeded in forgiving the owner. But we still don’t know why our contract was changed from 3 to 2 years, or why the owner did not contact us directly but passed the message through a third party by WhatsApp! Anyway enough of that….

Everything is green; everywhere you look life is bursting out. Nature just seems to explode at this time of year. 

visitors from Africa

They survive by eating decayed fruit

When we first came to India we were horrified to see people chopping major branches from trees leaving them as nothing more than a trunk and stubs of branches at the end of summer. It’s a classic example of not understanding the Indian way. For most people other than town and city dwellers, and that means at least 50% of the population wood has been their only fuel source for many generations. Even now when gas is available to all most tribal communities still depend on wood. At the end of summer trees are ‘pruned’ the wood is put away to dry for use during the winter months. As for the trees, two weeks later they are pushing out fresh growth.

By this point some six weeks or so into the monsoon the trees look very much as they did before pruning! The growth rate is amazing. We planted beans that honestly grew 8 inches per day until we had to start chopping the tops off.

If we have had continues wet days we light the fire
this then drys out the house

And the washing.   Hows that for old school!

This year we are trying an experiment. Everything we have been told says wait until after the monsoon before sowing seeds. Well we have tried that time and again we find that the growing season for some of the crops we wish to grow is too short. We usually have tomatoes still happily producing fruit when the sun gets too strong and the temperature too high for them despite shading they die. This year we had a sneaky plan.

Ignore everybody and plant within a week of the monsoon starting.

Well that’s our plan. We first began planting two weeks after the pre-monsoon storms that always precede the main monsoons arrival. We are predominantly using tubs to start the seeds off before transplanting them to their permanent positions in the garden. We have gone ahead and planted way way earlier than we would ever have tried. I can only say to date we have had incredible success. Germination rates we just can’t believe, in many cases I have over sown the containers because I am used to the low germination rates we normally get. Consequently we are having to do some thinning out! I think several of the neighbors will be in the queue for seedlings.

The big danger of course is the rain. We wondered if our delicate seedlings would survive the hammering of rain and the containers being regularly flooded. For the farmers this is a risk they have to bear every year so nobody is ever 100% certain of even getting a crop. Many farmers sadly lose their entire livelihoods because of monsoon storms flooding and washing away fields.

We have included a series of photographs looking around the garden at present. As you can see there are lots of tubs with tiny green growth. Some crops, like our English runner beans have gone crazy I have never seen a bean so well named!

One of our two Cherry trees.Look at the path!

We have worked very hard to make our back garden a better environment for growing. We have role out shading, overhead misters and raised beds. Because of the way the walls and the building are positioned there is a constant cool draft being drawn through our roofed area we built to keep the bikes and winter fuel dry during the monsoon. 

We have a leak to fix next summer.

This seems to keep the back garden temperature down at least 2 and sometimes as much as 4 degrees C cooler. We are even looking at rebuilding an old cooler (so called Desert cooler, or evaporation cooler) and putting it on the wall to extend the growing season. After all it’s only a fan and a few filters so running costs will be negligible. The benefits could be huge. That just about sums up our attitude; recycle it, repair it or re-purpose it. With the composting system and the chickens, we have very little waste. Bottles and cans are collected by a very nice man who recycles them for money. That’s his entire business so we support him as much as we can by encouraging others not to just dump their recyclable waste.

Of the fruit in the garden it’s a mixture of failure and huge success. We have a grapevine now two years old that this summer had 18/20 bunches of soon to be lovely black grapes on it. We netted, moved the grapes so that they were not so accessible and we hoped that would be enough.

It wasn’t. Our grapes, the moment they started to turn black were decimated by the local bird and squirrel population, who I swear must have been keeping 24 hour watch on them. We did not even get to taste one, honestly that’s the truth the little buggers had the lot. Well at least we have the satisfaction of knowing we offer a better quality snack!

Now to a success story, as of today we have harvested over 12 kg of cherries from our two trees. Needless to say friends and family have benefited as well as our freezer. Cherry pie…. Yummy.

2 Kg of our own cherries, Amazing good  crop this year.

Jamun, a sort of Indian plum about the size of a gooseberry has also been prolific this year. Other fruit yet to deliver are oranges, custard apple, pomegranate, grapefruit, papaya and Blackberries (Indian) we have no idea when they will fruit as we were given them as a present by a really good friend this year. We also have various ‘I wonder what this is?’ Growing in various places. The mango was good this year, maybe 2 Kg of fruit. As it is growing every year the crop is increasing in proportion to the size of the tree.

I don’t think any of us have worked as hard before in our garden. Christine and Geeta have both been amazing. Geeta is especially looking forward to cropping the carrots… How many will make the kitchen remains to be seen. She understands the principles of recycling/reusing that we have adopted. When she is in the garden helping us weed she looks at it as collecting food for the chickens.

Geeta is doing well at school her teachers of very impressed by her determination. In some subjects such as Hindi writing and English writing she is a little behind but considering she is not using her natural arm and has to work left-handed we feel she is doing well. Her general knowledge far exceeds the ordinary student. We never ever fail to answer an enquiry from her the last one to me being ‘how heavy is the universe?’ Her love of science and biology in particular animal biology is we are convinced leading her to her stated ambition of being a vet. Animals just seem to love her. She has become fascinated by animal care. She has a way with her that animals respond to. She talks to birds and they call back to her. The street dogs all wag their tails at her. I haven’t seen an animal yet that did not respond favorably to her. She even has a friend called Barry, it is a water buffalo who comes to her for a head scratch and if he’s lucky a cucumber. She recently attended a one day course on basic animal care which she thoroughly enjoyed. There she met the head of animal aid Udaipur who is very impressed by her and has invited her to visit their hospital and see what the vets are doing there. Needless to say we are very happy about this because she has been talking about becoming a vet for at least a year now. She even has a book on animal anatomy given to her by a friend in the UK! She is quite knowledgeable and very keen to do practical work so we are encouraging her when we can to pursue this interest.

She is currently taking a break from her kickboxing to concentrate on school and because it’s monsoon but as soon as winter arrives she will be back to training three nights a week. I know I have told you this story before but I can’t help but tell you again because I just enjoy it. I hate bullies.

We believe it is very important that she continues this is it something she can do on equal terms with other students. On a visit to her village she had a small confrontation……. ‘Disabled girl meets local bully’ it appears he tried to push her to the ground. In front of the other local kids she avoided his push hit him twice in the chest with two straight lefts then stepped in and leg swept him. End result bully sitting on ground asking ‘how did you do that?’ Geeta answered ‘with training’. Moral of the story don’t pick on apparently disabled people. Go Geeta.

                                        

Geeta with her Gold medal (in her weight class)
The scotch is mine!

She has been working very hard on her physiotherapy for her arm (extension). Since the operation she has at least doubled the movement that was available then. Her wrist is still locked but her fingers are all wriggling to some degree, more each day. If after the next appointment with the surgeon if he agrees we are hoping to arrange for surgery this winter on the wrist. Her arm does not impede her at school she has made lots of friends. She is chatty and friendly but understands about the dangers some adults could be to her especially now that she is growing into a young lady. Marriageable age in the villages is about 12. The legal minimum age to marry is 18 although this is ignored in some of the more isolated villages where marriage can occur as young as 12/14.

She is going to see the surgeon again soon to see if she can have the next (number 5) operation. This one will we hope free her wrist.

Christine has had a bit of a rough time since we came back from the UK. For the seven weeks we were in the UK Kris had to radically up her painkillers and other drugs she is on and still she suffered more than I have ever seen her suffer. By the time we came back she was one step short of using class A addictive drugs again. Since we have been back it has taken her a long time to recover. In fact she is still not fully recovered and of course the damp of the monsoon isn’t helping. 

Both of us suffered far more in the UK than we expected. We both nearly ended up in hospital with major breathing difficulties. The continuous cold and damp is something that we had forgotten. Looking back on our life before India we wonder how on Earth we coped, I suppose we were just used to it and now acclimatized to where we live. Just out of interest the first year we were in India we ran around all winter in T shirts thinking how lovely and warm the weather was. Now we wear jumpers and sometimes even coats… Just like everybody else!

The price of energy gas and petrol has skyrocketed. Our electricity bill has risen by an easy 25% despite our efforts to keep it under control. We already have solar water heating. We installed it not long after we moved into this is house. With three bathrooms and a (very unusual for an Indian house) hot supply in the kitchen all fed from individual wall mounted geysers there was our first huge cut in our electricity bill. When we bought it we specified the larger family -sized this has proved to have been a great choice we never run out of hot water. There are days in the monsoon when there is just not enough UV to heat sufficiently for Christine’s bath so she has to shower!   We are fitting LED lighting were ever possible. We can’t afford to do this all once but light by light they are being changed. Locally grown food although the price has increased it has been less noticeable. Food grown in other states that has to be transported the costs seem to go up every month and so does the price of the crop. Apples have become a luxury here.

We had one bit of excitement a couple of weeks ago. We were just heading for bed when our main inside trip box exploded into flames! Kris was off like a greyhound to the main outside isolator while I dealt with the fire. Got it repaired. Minor damage, Ho hum just another day in India.

mmmmm, smoke and flames....thats not normal is it!

We really can’t believe it but our road has been freshly tarred, first-time in 10 years and we have even had street lights put in… Wow.

Our very front garden much to the consternation of some of our neighbors has been covered with all of this year’s fallen leaves. This turned out to be a surprising amount. Nobody here seems to have heard of mulch. They have been on now for some months, a few weeds if any have shown themselves and with the monsoon the leaves are rotting very quickly. This area will be dedicated to our own brassicas.

Whilst we were in the UK we really wanted to visit our home church Emmanuel in Durham but it was just impossible for us with our financial constraints to travel half the length of the country and back for a week end. This is for us our spiritual home. I was baptized there, Christine has been a member of the church since 1987.

We confirmed our marriage there by a full proper wedding so that we were married legally as well as having married spiritually before God some six months prior at St Mary the Virgin church Lindisfarne (Holy Island). 

It surprised us how many of the members of the church had problems accepting that we were married after Lindisfarne. We knelt and gave our oath to each other and God before witnesses. Many however understood and blessed us for our decision and accepted our spiritual marriage. To make it legal in the site of man and to celebrate with all our friends and our church we had a really fun time getting married again. Our guests all contributed to a scheme to supply breeding goats to Indian families. Hence the theme of the wedding became ‘blue goats’ we even have them on the wedding cake!

When we were called by God to move to India it is where we held all our going away sales. We sold almost everything we owned and gave it to a needy cause in India. When we arrived here we had two large suitcases and three plastic boxes that contained everything we now owned.

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.” Mark 10:21 ESV

People at the time asked us if we were mad! Two people in later life giving up everything to move to India and to live there on a pension working for an NGO? All we could say to them was that God had laid out a path for us that we had chosen to follow in faith. We have been here nearly 11 years and are still fully committed to following His word. Sometimes have been tough but he has never given us more than we could handle or targets that we could not achieve.

We have prayed many times to find a church here in India that worships as we do. That is not to say there aren’t churches here but they are not as lively as we are used to. We raise our hands and dance when we praise the Lord, we sing his praises certainly not what most Indian churches are used to. We used to attend a Baptist church here but it was 90% in Hindi so it was very difficult to join in or to understand what was being said. Since then we have tried one other small group but didn’t feel comfortable with some of the things they were doing.

We keep in touch with our home church Emmanuel but cannot take part in the service as it is not on line however they do publish the lesson (or word if you prefer) online.

While we were in Stafford we managed to attend a church that is spirit filled and progressive in their aims and worship. My daughter in the UK Francis was baptized there giving her life to Christ while we were able to attend. It was with great pride that I spoke at her baptism, she like me has walked a rough road to find the Lord. I am so proud of her. 

Francis and her long-time boyfriend are getting married in the autumn. May God bless them both. Kris and I stayed with them in the UK for the duration of our visit. It was supposed to be two perhaps three weeks, it was seven! We can both testify that we never felt we were a burden or not unconditionally welcome. And this was in a one bedroom flat. By the time we left we all knew each other very well and an unbreakable bond has formed. Unfortunately we can’t attend because we simply can’t afford it (remember those debts!) it is going to be shown online live so they will both know we are there and we can see the event happen.

Since being back in India we have attended ‘Rising brook community church Stafford’ who are on line for the full service every Sunday. It’s wonderful to be able to stand and sing the Lord’s praises with a live congregation it just fills us with so much joy. We can even comment or ask questions during the service or ask for prayer requests. We feel very much part of this church and so grateful to the Lord for giving us this opportunity we have longed for.

We will never leave Emmanuel Church Durham it is our spiritual home, they have supported us so much over the years especially since Geeta came to live with us so seriously injured. It is hard to look at her now happy bouncing around and remember the terrible state she was in. Without their prayers and blessings we could not have given her the opportunities she now has. May God bless them all.

So it would appear that we now have two churches in our lives. It’s all about gods timing isn’t it.

Our friends now know that 3 p.m. on a Sunday is worship time for the Hyde family. It surprises and pleases us when friends sometimes show up to join us….. Anybody is always welcome to the God spot on a Sunday; you may even get an invite to one of Christine’s famous roast dinners!

 

Our chicken coop and run has had a major pre-monsoon makeover. Last year the entire area they have turned into a smelly bog and the poor girls were looking very very sad. We have scraped everything level and put sand down and fitted a waterproof cover over the first third of the run. We then used every brick we could get our hands-on to lay the entire area. This year has been brilliant for them. They still have space, including a large bush and logs to play around on and under but now they are dry. Super improvement and they seem much happier.

  

 

Well there really isn’t much  more to tell you, it’s been a tough few months with covid and the cost of living increases but as ever our faith supports us. We never tire of telling people we are following a path that was laid out for us by our Lord the day he brought us together. He took two unhappy people, brought them together and made a new tool that will joyously serve him in anyway he requires of us for all our days. We know despite how difficult it can get we are never alone, we are never without him. Jesus is with us always.

 

God bless you all and keep you safe  

Chris, Kris and Geeta

Udaipur

Rajasthan

India.