Wednesday, August 1, 2012


Today was another crazy day. I think as things are winding down, we are trying to get our “one last time” activities in, or at least the “we need to do that before we leave”.

We started out the day at Mounikas house so her mom could wrap my saree. It only took about 20 minutes of tugging and pulling and tucking and straightening and the only thing I could think of was, “how in the world am I ever going to do this again?” My answer was simply, a lot of safety pins, patience and ‘you tube’!
After I was all dressed up perfectly for the school party, and every piece of material was in place, I had to sit in the car for 20 minutes to get to school and everything ended up a mess again. Regardless of how well I did or didn’t look, the teachers were all pleased to see me in the gift they had given me and I was happy to wear it. After about an hour, all the teachers went upstairs, and the boys and I followed suite as they presented me with flowers and more flowers and showed so much gratitude. It was such a great experience for us and a blessing for my family to be able to get to know so many wonderful people in this little area of India. My kids and I will all walk away with our own unique experiences, but all will be positive and we will be better people for it. We ate spicy potato chips, bland crackers and a sweet little treat. I’m just glad there was no cake to be found!

Mounikas mom and I after the initial saree wrapping

At the school with my two favorite people there, Victoria and Nazarina

with the nursery class

We left the school in a bit of a hurry to get back down to the port. We were late (but who isn’t around here), and then we waited for about an hour and a half to get paperwork signed and filled out. We went to a foreign vessel, they kicked us off, and so we went to another Indian vessel. It was fun for the kids to see the inside of such a large ship. We even got to eat lunch on it.

at the shipyard

Tonight we went to a place called ‘Vuda Park’. Why did nobody tell me about this place weeks ago? So much fun for the kids to run and play, even paddle boat rides.

funny statue at Vuda Park

boat ride

Mounikas parents

Mounikas brother and Brayden

We’ve had such a great experience here, met some wonderful people, made new friends and will take back memories that can never be duplicated.

my new favorite sign
first one to solve the puzzles gets 100 rupees!
 We leave on Friday for Bangalore, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to update between here and there, but I will definitely wrap the trip up (and our Bangalore experiences) when we get back to the states. Now we just pray for on-time flights, no customs delays and safe travels!

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The last two days have consisted mostly of running around trying to tie up loose ends and get ready to start packing to come back home. We thought we were going to have an opportunity today to go to the shipyard where Mounika's dad works, but after driving from one office to another, getting permission and then the permission being denied, we have to wait another day. Oh, and we need to have passport size photos of us along with our passports. Everything here takes 10x's longer than it does at home, and I think it's starting to bug me. I have figured out why locals shove their way to the front of the line because otherwise they'll get the run around, too.

Yesterday all we wanted to do was to mail Mounika's transcripts to Idaho. We went to the "Post Office". There were three different windows. The first window had 4 people waiting (I thought they were all together at first, but they were just wanting to be the next person and if you stand back even a foot, someone will step in front of you...happens ALL the time.) We walk to the next window to ask what window to send international mail. The women points us back to the first window. We wait about 15 minutes to send the envelope and the women says we have to go to the last window to get a form to fill out to send international mail. We walk to the last window, tell the gentleman sitting behind the desk we need to send international mail. He tells another guy to get the form (I'm guessing that's what he said to do). The second guy looks around on a desk full of paperwork, looking under random sheets of papers, books, etc. He then opens up a drawer (not an organized drawer...kind of equivalent to my 'junk drawer'...looks through papers, moves things around and closes the drawer again. Goes back to the desk and finds some random sheet of paper to give to Mounika. It was a one sided xerox that was a bad one at that. She filled out all she knew how to (signature and date) and headed back to the first window where the gentleman told her to go. We waited for the few people in front of us to finish up, handed the paper and envelope to the lady behind the counter who gave it back and told us the envelope needed to be weighed at the second window. We head back to the second window, they weigh the envelope and we fill in the weight. Back to the first window where all the information on the form isn't filled out. I mean, we had to put more information on the paper, but there was nowhere that said the information was required, we had to write it in on the bottom. Finally after about 60 minutes, the letter was put in a stack of random sized envelopes on the backside of the lady's desk, where it slowly moved down the pyramid of mail to fall on the floor. I love America...

This morning at 4:30 am we woke up to a weird noise. I thought in my half asleep-half awake state, that it was the noise of the air conditioner, so I turned it off. Still, the noise persisted. I walked out the back door to the balcony only to realize it was  a rickshaw horn that was honking...steadily. There was no end. And it continued to honk for close to 15 minutes. Brayden, Ryan and I came up with our own theories. Brayden decided a rickshaw driver was asleep in his rickshaw and fell on the horn and that he was too tired to wake up. My practical theory is that a horn got stuck and until they figured it out or disconnected the wires it just kept honking. Ryan's theory was someone was so passed out drunk in the rickshaw they fell onto the horn and didn't care (or could hear) the obnoxious noise it was making. I think Ryan's theory was the most correct. Especially after the guy Brayden and I saw passed out drunk in the middle of the road. Traffic had to swerve around him on a tiny city street. The motorcycles and cars were no big deal. It was the bus behind us that I was more concerned about. I am assuming he is still alive somewhere, although I can't be too sure!

Today we went to the shipyard like I mentioned. We were supposed to be there at 3:00. I'm kind of an on time sort of person, so we were there right around 3:00. When we got there Mounika's dad said it would be a few minutes, so we drove through the shipyard to go look at a Catholic Church the British built in the 1940's with some pretty amazing views of the city. After awhile, we headed back down to the shipyard. Raju (Mounika's dad) told us it would be a little longer. We then went inside an office where a gentleman (he seemed pretty official - he had a desk), told us we couldn't go in unless we had a superiors authorization. So, Raju (Mounika's dad) drove us to the office of the Commander of the Port, where we sat in his office (quite cushy with leather couches, huge LCD TV and air conditioning) and chatted for several minutes (he even asked Davis if he was a boy or a girl...after I told him the names and ages of my 4 BOYS). He decided to grant us permission to enter without our passports. (Evidently he ruled out that we were spies.) We head back to the port of entry, where the other superior officer decided that we had to have our passports (they were at the apartment) and that we needed to come back another time. We are headed there today, so we'll see what happens...

It is now Wednesday morning (after having to stop trying to get anything loaded last night because of the lack of internet) and we are headed to our last day at school. We don't typically go on Wednesday, but there is no school tomorrow. I am supposed to be wearing the saree the school gave me, the only problem is I still don't know how to put one on. Before we head to the school, we'll be making a pit stop at Mounkias house so her mom can put it on for me.

Only 2 more days in Vizag...








Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sunday was a hard day for us, it would be officially the last Sunday we would be in Vizag. What a great opportunity it was to experience 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' in Visakhapatnam, India. In the short time we were here we have made so many friendships, it truly makes me want to come back to visit our new friends. The church is a funny thing, how you appear out of nowhere and instantly these people that I have never met before in my life, and may not ever see again (although I hope that is not the case), can become such very close friends. It was a very emotional day for us. The branch president asked us to share our testimonies, it was a wonderful, spiritual time. We also found out one of the missionaries is leave, being transferred to Chennai, so it was the last Sunday for him as well. Elder Bown has served in this area for 6 months. After church the branch members had a "party" for us, which was so sweet. We went upstairs to a small area that was full of people, took lots and lots of pictures and a cake was brought out. Cake is a funny way of celebrating everything around here, but it's not like you can ask members to bring a couple of dozen cookies...people don't make cookies in these parts. After the cake was brought out, without knowing what else to sing, they all sang "Happy Birthday". Haha, Brayden and I just laughed. We have so come to love the people here and the things we find so quirky, have come to mean so much. We will miss the Vizag 2nd Branch!

Some of the branch members that stayed for a picture

She was baptized last week, Ryan confirmed her a member

Good friends

Sunil and Nazirina

More friends

Some of the Relief Society sisters...I look like a giant!

cake sharing

Ryan got it on his head...I guess the office doesn't need to do that anymore!

Good friends

As we begin to count down our time here in Vizag (we leave for Bangalore on Friday evening), things are beginning to feel like a whirlwind to me. The anxiety you get from packing everything up, making sure you have enough room to pack all that was accumulated, etc, etc. But then I realize...the only things worth bringing home are the things we've collected from our trip. After that, it doesn't really matter.

With it being our last Sunday, and one of the missionaries last Sunday's we decided to have all four Elders over for one last visit. Ryan made more yummy pasta and french bread and we finished off the evening with brownie sundaes.

Our family with Elder Bown and Elder Peterson

Our family with Elder Katuka and Elder Raja
Davis wasn't allowed to show his clothes because he was wearing mismatched pajamas!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Saturday was full of running around. We took Mounika and tried to get everything situated for her to come to the States to study. We've never tried to help someone get into college from another country before and didn't realize all the running in circles we had to do. 

We started out at the bank with her dad. Because her dad is a government employee, funds are available for tuition costs. That seemed to go well. Papers were drawn up and the banker would have a letter available on Monday. Then we went to the school. We went to where she attended 11th and 12th grade, (here they refer to it as Jr. College), to get her transcripts. The principal wouldn't be back until 2:00 (it was 1:15). We ran errands until 2:00, talked to the principal and her told us we had to go to the main campus (4 buildings down the street). We walk to the main campus and wait for that principal to get back for lunch, about 15 minutes. Mounika explains what she needs again, he tells her to go to room 5. We go to room 5, explain to another gentleman that we need transcripts to be sent to a college in the US. She has a copy of her "marks" (grades) that the school gave her upon graduation. He indicates to her (and us) that what she had was an "official government document" and that it needed to be xeroxed and brought back with 2 envelopes. (They don't xerox or have envelopes at the school). We drive across the street to get copies, but there is a power outage (again, common), they say it would be coming back on soon. We wait 10 minutes, no current returns. We drive down the street further and into a neighborhood and find a place to copy her marks. We make 13 copies of several documents and pay 13 rupees for the 13 copies (equivalent to about $0.25). We then proceed to walk down the street a little further and find a shop selling stationary and purchase 2 envelopes (for 2 rupees ($0.04). We head back to the school, where the guy in room 5 looks over the documents, signs them and then has another young lady stamp the marks and the envelopes. He then tells us we need to go to another school (that's not open until Monday) to get another signature and stamp on another paper.

Good grief! I am so grateful to live somewhere that I can call, send $2 for a copy of my transcripts and have them do all the foot work!

Saturday morning Ryan also took Davis to market. He wanted to take the camera and captured some great shots:

vegetables, I love the scales they still use (look towards the upper left side of the picture)

bananas

our favorite "egg lady"

flowers

grains

onions

ginger root

Ryan buying onions

coconut

long snake vegetable thingy

mango, beans, coconut

carrots

papaya

spices

coconut

chickens

market kiosk
juice stand

food cart

The guy cooking behind the food cart. His food is pretty popular. Always a line at dinner time!

More panipuri

Fresh samosas

Tricked-out rickshaw...at night it has neon lights and loud music
 

Friday, July 27, 2012

Friday, like most other days had it's own form of excitement. I decided to let Raju have the morning off because we had no plans to do anything. I told Ryan he could rickshaw it to work. Well, the internet wasn't working, so I rickshawed with him to work, to update the blog. I've never really done anything by myself here. And being in a foreign country where the only words I really know are 'monkey' and 'shut up' aren't going to get me very far. But, after updating the blog, I mustard the energy (after almost deciding to just walk), to take an auto rickshaw home. Here's one for you...have you ever been charged at by a cow on an auto rickshaw? No? You're totally missing out on life! While being driven back to the apartment, a cow was grazing on what little grass lines the medians of the streets. He/she suddenly decided it was done, turned and started running towards the sidewalk, but the rickshaw was between it and the sidewalk. I think I squealed, but can't be certain, it could have been an internal squeal, but I doubt it.

After making it home safe and sound I had to take another squatted shower because the neighbor was in her bathroom chatting with her kids. I never know if she's bathing them or cleaning the shower, but when I hear voices, I keep it safe and just squat. It avoids the eye-to-eye contact that I'm not so fond of.

The afternoon was full of adventure as well. We headed to a place called Thotlakonda. It is the ruins of an old Buddhist Monk Monastery. The view from the top of the hill was amazing, and it was a peaceful visit.

entrance to Thotlakonda

The rooms were once used for meditation

the biggest structure left from the monasery

lily pad pond in one of the holes

resident chameleon

After we went to Thotlakonda, we continued to drive up the coast. Mounika wanted to take us to some pyramids...we got out and walked and walked through this red, sand, but never found any pyramids, only big mounds of the red sand. Afterwards we got an ice cream...this is what Davis' ice cream looked like...

The top had bits of dried fruit (have no idea what kind)...

...and all they way down were different flavors. Mmmm (not really)
 Several weeks ago we were asked by Mounikas family to come over for dinner. We happily accepted the invitation as we love to interact with people. We show up to her house last night, she hands Ryan a wrapped package and tells him it's for the family, then hands me a box. I open then box and it's a beautiful blue saree. Her mom explains to me it is a traditional North Indian Saree. Ryan's box contained some glass pieces (cups and bowls), and we were so thankful and humbled by the gifts. A few minutes after all the gifts were opened, the missionaries showed up with a cake. I started chatting with them and asked why they were there. "For the birthday, sister". What? What birthday...after several questions, we found out it was Mounika's moms birthday. Talk about feeling sheepish! They were giving US gifts on HER birthday! To our selfish American defense, we weren't told it was her birthday, and we brought brownies, ice cream and chocolate sauce to share!

celebrating the birthday

feeding her other daughter cake...

after dinner eating brownies and ice cream (now that was gooood)

in the saree given by the Meka family. I was shown how to wear it, but it will take lots and lots of practice to do it the right way


 As we drive around the city, many people get around on 2-wheelers, as I've stated before. This is a familiar site for us to see. (Remember in Delhi, we saw 5 people...not here. Four has been the maximum.)

Two kids, two adults...
My kids, thinking they are hilarious!