Updates from India 46

Welcome to our blog. this month has been hard but a lot of good things as well as some not so good. We hope you enjoy it.

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The Garden

Comments from Kris

Our Jeep

Tattoo
Welcome to the 21st Century

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The true cost of water in India:

In the UK where I was born, we tend to take a constant water supply as a normal part of life. To be honest I rarely gave much thought to it when I lived there, in a country that has ample rainfall it is rare to have any drought conditions. Here in Rajasthan, India, it is very different.

Water supply for the whole year comes from the monsoon, a period of heavy rain lasting several months. This rain fills the lakes and rivers but more importantly fills the underground aquifers that supply all the wells.

Last year the monsoon was short and not as heavy as normal. The lakes and rivers filled but not the aquifers. To the average Indian who sees full lakes they assume all is well, it is not.

This is the first ‘poor’ monsoon since we moved here and it has highlighted just how tenuous life can be in a desert state such as Rajasthan.

Our home well is now dry as the aquifer level falls, many other wells are dry. We are buying water in a tanker that delivers to our home. We have set up a storage tank in the garden so we do have water. We are the lucky ones.

Each year Udaipur uses 17% more water than it gets from the monsoon, every time someone puts in a new well the situation gets worse.

For many years, the government and NGO’s have helped people get water for their crops or homes by providing a well. This has accelerated the use of water that cannot be replaced; eventually, more and more wells will fail to fill. This is not a theory; this is a cold hard fact: Udaipur is heading for drought conditions unless change happens and happens soon.

It’s the same as taking more money out of your bank than you put in. Eventually your balance falls to zero. There are two ways to stop this: put more in or take less out, it really is that simple. It’s the same with the aquifers.

People must drink, without water we die. Industry, here needs vast amounts of water to produce soft drinks, steel, and many other products, they pay for their water but there is a constant strain on the available supply as the civil population increases.

Can anything be done?

The ordinary person here can make a huge difference by stopping wasting water.

The government is beginning to meter water in the big cities to houses but it is also needed here to control waste.

Resorts pump thousands of litres onto their lawns to keep them green, pools are filled so that tourists can splash and swim while others thirst. How can this be right?

Farmers water by flooding in the daytime as their fathers and grandfathers did, a habit born of using animals to turn the pump, animals work in the daytime so the habit persists that watering is done in daylight. Fact: Approximately 70% of the water applied in the daytime evaporates, that is a huge amount of water wasted. Watering in the evening would do several beneficial things, it would improve crops as the plants have longer to drink, and most of the excess water would return to the underground aquifers rather than being lost to evaporation. When will anyone act to prevent the coming water crisis?

As always when the levels in the small lakes fall the pollution rises.

This summer 1.2 million children in India will die from water-borne infections, the old will be next, the sick and the infirm will follow. These people can’t afford to do as we have, they can’t afford to pay the water sellers. How can this be right?

I know that life isn’t fair; I know that most people won’t do anything until it is almost too late. We do what we can to save water and promote safe water purification methods but we really are a voice crying in the wilderness. Until more prosperous families start losing their water or local industry is affected either by rising water cost or lack of sufficient water to run the factories I fear nothing will be done.

In the meantime, it’s the poor, the children and the infirm that will pay the true cost of water in India with their lives.

Views of the  local area

Everywhere is turning brown

School children emptying their unused water into buckets at the end of the school day.

The Garden

Well as you can see from the photographs and the above comment water here is critical. We cannot in all good conscience use it on our lawn or plants. So this year we have to accept the fact that we have lost our crops and do what we can to save water.

We have been lucky with our leeks, they are ready so we are lifting them and freezing.

Melons, pumpkin, tomatoes and other crops are dying. It is so sad to see all our hard work drying up like this, but what is our choice. It would be so hypercritical to complain of water wastage and then pump hundreds of litres onto our garden while so many go thirsty.
Views of our garden

This is the lawn, thankfully the grass will grow as soon as we get the monsoon.

On a happier note, our leeks are really good with around 80 good sized going into the freezer, not counting those we eat! They are so hard to find here that now we know how to grow them we will make them a regular crop.

Our new papaya trees are about 6” tall now in pots. We will re- pot soon into large pots and plant out into the garden when the monsoon comes. They are an F1 variety not grown in Rajasthan. They are sweeter and heavier fruiting than the local variety. we got them from a commercial supplier in the south as seeds.

Our Girls have neighbours. We bought ten more chicks to rear. Bleu’ is very confused…………what’s all these birds doing in my garden!

This is our new water tank. 2000litres, it feeds to the underground tank and from there is pumped to the house tank.

                                                                          I was tempted to put the lid on!

Comments from Kris

As you can see by the photo yes I did climb inside our new water tank. Why you might ask, well although it might be fun I did need to get inside to connect the valve so we could get the water out once it was filled. It was surprisingly roomy inside but very hot so I was pleased when I climbed out albeit not very dignified.

We have had a really busy month sorting out our water pump that stopped working, a local plumber overhauled it and now it’s ok, realising we had no water to pump from the well We decided to buy a water storage container to help manage the problem as well as being very careful with the little water we had left in our roof storage tank. Fortunately, our friend knew how to get a tank of water delivered to us and we refilled our storage tank and the new tank so for now we are ok. It has made me much more aware about water wastage and I have been carefully saving the washing up water to use in the garden. I have limited the amount of laundry washing I am doing to essentials. I am really thankful that I am not one of the many here who have to walk miles to physically collect their water daily, at my age not sure I could cope with that.

I did a breast self-examination seminar with some local women recently and was struck by how much they wanted to know about the subject alongside the initial reluctance to actually do the check. It seems that shyness and a reluctance to touch their own bodies was a stronger instinct than an easy method which might save their lives. I spent quite some time discussing this with them and in the end they appeared to agree that it was worth overcoming their initial reluctance and do the checks. This was an informal seminar more of a social get together where we were able to discuss many different health issues and concerns. The gratifying thing was that the age range of the women was from the young daughter who came with her mother to the grandmother who lived in one of the flats. We even had the female manager of the complex attend. There was a mix of social classes which was nice to see them get together at the hostesses home nearby where we live. So over tea and biscuits, I shared about the importance of breast self-examination and demonstrated the simple technique. I think Chris thought I’d got lost what should have taken 45mins took over two and a half hours but was worth it. Hopefully, more to come.
On a personal front I will be 57 in May and at long last I have started the menopause, having mega hot flushes in the mega heat of summer, Chris said why couldn't I have done it in winter, I agree terrible timing. My sympathy to any other lady who is going through the same thing. Thank goodness for air con but doesn't help when out and about. 

Our Jeep

Well, we have been working on restoring the jeep for several months now doing all the work ourselves so far we have saved about Rs40,000 rupees about £400 by doing the work ourselves. total spent, Rs 1.3Lakh + Rs1500 = £1450:00. 

Chris has totally rewired what was a rat’s nest of wiring and replaced some of the lights and added new ones in, changed the oil and filters, greased all the bearings, repaired holes in the body, fitted new switches and about two dozen other jobs.

With the new lights, we can now have daylight when out and about in the villages where there is little or no lighting.

I have repainted the jeep by hand in what is known as bus green darkened a bit to our own colour palette, it’s more like British Racing Green now my favourite car colour after my beloved Morgan’s. Chris painted some of the inside and I did the rest. We can truly say we have worked hard to improve this vehicle at minimum cost. (Kris worked really hard on this as well as me so it really is a joint effort..Chris)

It’s getting exciting now as we are near the end of this work and will soon have it back on the road.
We are both really happy after the test drive, all went well, a bulb needs changing and we have a rattle from the roof frame (easy to fix).

The only major expense left are the tyres. All five need replacing but money won’t stretch that far in one go. So we are changing two now and two just before the monsoon, the best of the others will be a spare.

Now comes reregistering and insurance. We could (as so many here do) drive it without, but full insurance for us is a must. We would rather have it than risk an accident without it. We will also have person cover.

note the air con!

Tattoo

Well 65 years, I finally did it. I had never really thought I would but the opportunity was presented so I went for it.

I know some people don’t like tattoos for many and varied reasons. Some Christians also say it is something you shouldn’t do, but if we start down that road what about piercings, laser eye surgery, scar removal?

Kris loves it….really.

It is the symbols of my country, a red dragon with Wales in welsh under it.

Beautiful work and the artist has really captured the spirit of a dragon without making it look ‘Disney’.

Really nice guy, super artist and a very consistent penetration, almost no pain, just like an electric current on the skin.....mostly!
We were honoured to have the three guys from Ride2ink stay with us during their tour of India. They are Kishor, Vishwa and Sanju you can find out more of what they were up to on facebook by looking at Ride2ink, they also plan to do a youtube video. They are all great guys full of fun and were a pleasure to get to know. We look forward to them visiting us again.

Now I have to do something about the white arms!!

Welcome to the 21st century

At long last our church in the UK has started filming part of the service. This is really great for us as we feel as though we are there. We have been able to listen to the word but this is the first time it has been filmed. Alan Bell our Senior Elder was obviously the guinea pig for the experiment.

If you wish to know more about our home church or perhaps understand our beliefs a little better have a look at Emmanuel Church Durham by googling it, or go direct to www.emmanuel.org.uk

Each week different pastors both from our home church and visiting preach the word (sermon, message). It really is so much better than just listening to be able to see our church leaders “in the flesh” again.

To all at Emmanuel and especially those people who finally dragged the church kicking and screaming into the 21^st century please keep it up we love it.

When friends ask us about our church or want to watch with us it will now be so much easier to show them rather than have to explain.

Alan, have you ever considered going viral………

Well, that's about all for this month, from us here at 43degC and still rising, to all of you around this wonderful world, may God be with you and bless you wherever you are.

May He be with you when you struggle with trials and bring you joy and fulfilment when you walk with Him who is Lord of all.

Chris and Kris 

Udaipur Rajasthan India.

Updates from India 45

This month we return to our usual format. We hope you enjoyed last month's Mega photo special.

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BGI Cultural week
Holi, the festival of colors
The future of Indian cricket?
Garden
Comments from Kris

Why did Jesus need to die for us?

2016 years ago in Israel the religious leaders were crucifying Jesus for blasphemy -- for claiming to be God. He was considered by the establishment to be a radical, troublemaker, a sinner who had to be silenced.

Only weeks earlier, Jesus' friend Lazarus had been dead four days. Yet Jesus publicly brought him back to life to show His power over death.

He healed every disease, every sickness...even those blind from birth or those who had never been able to walk. Nothing was beyond his power. He even gave this power to his disciples so that they too could and did heal in his name.

Jesus had shown miracle after miracle, even if you do not believe in Him this fact cannot be denied, the miracles are recorded for all to read. They proved his deity and his equality with the Father. He had absolute power.

Yet he allowed himself to be betrayed by one of his own followers and subjected to the horror of crucifixion. What must it have felt like to him watching that betrayal and knowing what was to come? Did He feel fear? Yes I believe he did, but for us, to save us He allowed it to happen.

The whipping, thorns in his head, nails through his wrists and feet did not kill him. Neither did the slow suffocation on the cross, or the spear to his side. Jesus could have stepped down from the cross at any time. Remember his was absolute power to overcome all things. This point is vital I believe to understanding the crucifixion, Jesus chose to die, he was not killed, and it was his decision to make.

This was the equivalent of someone bending over and putting their head under water, and choosing to deliberately drown when they had the power to raise their head at any moment. Jesus chose to suffer and die. Does anyone really believe that nails driven by man could hold Christ to the cross unless He chose it to be so?

He was very clear about this. Jesus said he was choosing to lay down his life for us. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this that someone lays down his life for his friends."

Because he looked at our hearts, our actions, and saw us as sick, needy, weak, sinful, blind and lost. (This was Jesus' stated view of us). Whether you agree with him or not, he saw us as desperately in need.

And, he saw us at risk of dying eternally separated from him. Never to experience eternal life. He saw us as cut off from him by our sin, destined to die in sin.

He took the penalty of death that we deserve, and took it himself to literally save us.

In describing this, the Bible says, "perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love toward us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Hours before his crucifixion, fully aware of his imminent crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus stated his intent as he talked to his Father: "that the world may know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Instead of deserting us, leaving us to the consequences of our sin-- he came to us. He entered into our world as a man born of woman. He took the penalty of our sin and bore our death, himself, so that we may have eternal life through Him.

If you believe as I do that Jesus is my saviour there is great joy in this message, if you don’t yet believe I pray that one day you will come to know Jesus Christ and be saved from your sins as I have been. When that happens you will be changed in ways I cannot describe, a great light shines from within you; you are whole for the first time in your life.
Please consider the lines below.

"Jesus, I ask you to come into my life. Forgive my sin. I thank you for choosing to die on the cross for me. Please lead my life as you want. Lead me to my salvation. Amen."

Building the stage for the BGI* college Cultural week
(*Buddha Group of Institutions)

Every First year have as part of their degree course to undertake workshops in wood, metal, clay among others.
This set was built primarily by the First year as their Bamboo workshop. other students helped when they could but the majority of the work was done by them. they learnt about joints, tying, the strength of Bamboo in compression, flex and in tension. Also what could be done to make green Bamboo into curves, as in the doorways. This was a huge undertaking for a first year class who had no prior experience working with this material. Add to that a very tight time frame to get it built in, blazing sun to work in, we think they did so well as can be seen below. Suffice it to say they have all passed this phase of their training with very high marks.

This is the stage being laid and levelled.

All this was built without a single nail or screw.

These are all from the two nights. Songs, dancing, awards, fashion shows 

skits and much more.

Costumes were all made by the students from recycled materials.

A fantastic success, a really great time was had by all the guests, faculty and students. There is talk that this may become an annual event, we certainly hope so.

Holi, the festival of colours.

 

It always seems strange to us that some Christians will not take part in this festival while are quite willing to enjoy Diwali and that is far more based in the Hindu religion. Holi celebrates the victory of good over evil by throwing colours into the air and at each other.

Holi celebrations start on the night before Holi with a Holika bonfire where people gather and do religious rituals in front of the bonfire, and pray that their internal evil should be destroyed as the bonfire starts. For us as Christians we cannot take part, but it is an interesting spectacle to watch. The next morning is celebrated as Rangwali Holi - a free-for-all carnival of colours,where participants play, chase and colour each other with dry powder and coloured water, with some carrying water guns and coloured water-filled balloons for their water fight. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children and elders. The frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, open parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and other musical instruments, go from place to place, sing and dance. People visit family, friends and foes to throw coloured powders on each other, laugh and gossip, then share Holi delicacies, food and drinks. In the evening, people dress up and visit friends and family. It is a time of great joy.

Yes even Bleu' got involved !

Removing some plate glass windows.

Try this UK scaffolders!






Football and indoor sports as part of the cultural week at BGI

A hotly contested five a side competition between the student years.

All this energy at over 90F

We both love working here at the college, very different in some ways to what we are used to so we too have to learn. Each session we teach or project we undertake gives us huge satisfaction in knowing we are helping to mould some of the next generation of Indian Architects.

Carrom

(also known as Karrom) is a "strike and pocket" table game of Eastern origin similar to billiards and table shuffleboard. It is found throughout the East under different names though most non-eastern people know it by the East Asian name of Carroms (or Karrom). It is very popular in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and surrounding areas and in the Middle East as well. In South Asia, many clubs and cafés hold regular tournaments. Carrom is very commonly played by families, including the children, and at social functions. Different standards and rules exist in different areas.The objective of play is to use a striker disk with a flick of the finger to make contact with and move lighter object disks called carrom men, which are thus propelled into one of four corner pockets.

The aim of the game is to pot (or pocket) one's nine carrom men and the Queen before your opponent.

Ref: Wikipedia

This is a game we both like, when we
can we will buy a board.

Table tennis....far too dangerous for me!

Lookout world......the next generation is coming.

Local boys playing cricket, you see this all over India, every chance they get they play. Looking at them I wonder, am I seeing the next Kohli?

Garden .........................Mint!
Of all the things we miss in our garden one of them has always been mint. Just by chance we spotted this at our local veg market, four bunches....the entire stock. Kris has made mint sauce and it has joined our bottled storeage to mature.........mmmmmm lamb and mint sauce.

Now thats what we call a jar of mint sauce....

We have also put a few in water to see if we can get them to root, if we can it will be great as long as we can keep it alive over the summer (48/50degC).

Melon planting

If they don't come up guess
who is getting the blame.

American Pumpkin growing well. 

We have chosen this spot because it gets sun all
day, we will grow in the troughs and the melons
 will ripen on the sand.

Tomatoes.
Time to begin supporting them,
next month we will have to put
up shading or they will burn.

The leeks have now almost
 reached eating size. We are
both looking forward to leek
 with cheese sauce....yummy

Other seeds in pots to plant out.

Among them are, 6 Papaya trees (F1) that should have bigger sweeter fruits, cucumber, Peppers, Indian gourds, and now of course...melons.

 Comments from Kris.

Well here we are again, its been a very busy month with work and Cultural Week, preparations and the performances at work by the talented students.
We were asked to design and build the main stage with the students, which was a huge task. As the first years had to do a bamboo workshop we decided that this would be primarily their project. They had no previous knowledge of working with this material so that was a challenge to teach them what they could and couldn't do with bamboo. As you can see above I think they did an excellent job, it took just under two weeks to design, build, paint and then assemble, it was very well received and became the focal point of the two night show. We are very proud of the effort they all put in and the results were amazing.
I have been busy finishing off the painting of the jeep and can say at last that the painting is finished hurray, it was fun doing and I love the colour its as near as we could get it to British Racing Green,


my favourite car colour just like they paint Morgans (my favourite car). We still have some work to complete but have made great progress as we continue to do the restoration ourselves.

Holi was a fun time spent firstly with our friends and neighbours going to each others homes, eating, drinking and playing colours. This year their were not as many of us as lots of people were away or as they say here "they were out of station". We got showered and changed then more friends arrived late afternoon and we started all over again at our home, a great time was had by all. We do not get involved it the rituals of Holi as it is against our faith but as playing colours represents the good defeating evil we feel this is compatible with our faith as Christians, its also great fun! This also gives us the opportunity to testify to many people about our faith as Holi comes just before Easter which is in my opinion our main Christian Festival. People here are very open to knowing how we celebrate Easter and have asked me many times what it involves and why do we celebrate it, so of course great opportunity to share about Christianity without preaching it at them.

I am still amazed when riding in traffic at how different driving and riding is here in India. I have got used to people rarely using their indicators to let you know where they are going and relying on hand signals. However I think today was lets just turn any way we want without any hand signals to guide you, it can get crazy, but as Chris has said many times no one actually wants an accident and they do their utmost to drive around each other to prevent accidents. Today a car coming the wrong way down the main road decided to drive straight at me in the middle then looked puzzled as I had to figure out whether to ride to the left or right of him, duhhhh. I have got used to traffic coming and going the wrong way but usually they give way one way or another to let you pass especially if they are the ones going the wrong way but this guy couldn't make up his mind and was blocking the road weaving one way then the next, he only moved over fully when I decided their was just enough room to the left of him to pass but he looked at me as if I was the crazy one. I saw four adults and a child on a bike the other day I still don't know how they all managed to get onto a two seater scooter. But the funniest thing was seeing a guy in front on a bike with passenger reach down to pick up his crash helmet whilst still moving to put it on his head as we were approaching a traffic police stop. Once past he took it straight off again which is common practice. Unfortunately most riders do not appreciate the risks they are taking with their lives riding without helmets. We try to educate people when we can and have spoken to many of the students about this.

Well George our cockerel is no more, he is now plucked and in the freezer ready for Christmas. Why you may ask, well we went away last October to Bangalore (Bengaluru) and when we came back he had some aggressive outbursts, they seemed to be settling then he attacked me. He was so aggressive he caused an injury to my elbow and it came up like an egg very painful, the wound has now healed, I decided to give him another chance. But less than two weeks later he attacked me again and caused a wound to the side of my head at the hairline it bled for ages and was so painful I had just had enough I was getting that I was apprehensive going into the pen. He had been aggressive at other times but not causing injury so I was less concerned but actual physical harm is a different thing altogether and he was getting worse not better. So after discussion with Chris we felt he was getting too dangerous not only for me but for others too and he had to go. On a positive note we now have Christmas dinner sorted and the two girls (hens) are much more relaxed and contented and they're putting on much more weight. We plan to get more hens as soon as the Agricultural college have them available, we know they are well bred and the genuine local hens Pratap Dhan which is what we have been keeping. Everything is set up for their arrival were just waiting for availability.

I have just dug up our own beetroot crop and pickled them, yummy I love beetroot, they will be ready to try in about a week, I can't wait.

So now we've pickled onions, mint and beetroot, made our own marmalade and we plan to preserve other foods too. Our English carrots have been dug up and put in the freezer along with our own Broccoli so things are going well with the kitchen garden. The leeks will be ready soon and we have planted tomatoes, pumpkin, papaya, capsicum, melon among others I love having our own organic fruit and veg. Chris can't wait for cheesy leeks.
The phone repair shop has had good business out of me this week firstly my phone wouldn't charge and needed a new charging socket installed, then last night I dropped my phone and as it fell the protective case opened and crash I smashed the touchscreen oops. I went back in today to get it repaired two visits in two days that must be a record, but the shop is reliable, doesn't overcharge and is very reputable I've used them several times so becoming a good customer. Yes they repaired it today in a couple of hours, bless them I'm now back in the loop.

A bit more gossip we have new neighbours, Tanuja has moved back next door with her little girl and her parents, it is nice to have neighbours again and as we have known Tanuja for over three years it is nice to have her back on the colony. She missed the Holi celebrations though which probably was a blessing for us as she is lethal when playing colours hee hee.
Well thats about all from me till next time.

Till next month
God Bless you all
Chris and Kris