***Note: This blog was written yesterday and was meant to be posted yesterday, but somewhere along the way, it did not end up being posted.***
Well last night was interesting. Pretty much by nightfall, there came a torrential downpour of rain. It went on for hours and hours.. and hours and hours and so on. I think you get the idea. There was even loud rumbles of thunder. Honestly it was such an amazing sound to hear since it's been so long that I've heard such sounds. It was lovely and I slept soundly. Woke up this morning to a cool morning with lush green outside, dripping with droplets of water and a soaked sloshy ground. You see, it's monsoon season here. Hence the torrential downpour.
Monsoon season lasts from about June to September. It is necessary and depended on by farmers and India's agriculture but it can also be a nuisance to traffic and even cause flooding, especially in the poorer areas. You can read more about monsoons in India and other countries here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon and here, http://goindia.about.com/od/planningyourtrip/a/indiamonsoon.htm.
Here is a beautiful photo that you can find on the wiki page. It's a black and white photo of heavy clouds over the Salt Lake in Calcutta. You can find the photo online here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heavy_clouds_over_Salt_Lake,_Calcutta.JPG.
Once there is more time for traveling, I will have photos like this to show you. :) For now, here are a few photos I took the other day as we drove to a few places around the city.
You'll find construction is constantly going on here and in much of India's larger cities. I see it as progress. Some find it a nuisance.
Temples can be found everywhere in the city. It's quite common and I find them beautiful, ornate and so creatively well done. I plan to visit, in the next year, some of the other areas where there are some amazing statues and architecture.
A sign hangs just to the right of the of the temple (in the photo above). It has the virgin Mary on it and it advertises a local church in the city, St. Mary's.
People walk by, ride their bicycles and other transportation as a cow eats some food that has been left their for it. Cattle are seen often roaming, sleeping, walking and lazing about along the streets of Bangalore. It's kind of nice to see. With all the chaos of the traffic and busseling people, the cattle seem to not be bothered one bit and people are constantly aware of them and careful around them. What a comfy life.
I mentioned in a previous blog how Bangalore has a strong military presence here. This is a photo of a sign for the Institute of Aerospace Medicine. There are many institutes of learning here too. It gives the city a sense of safety. At least that's how I feel. I loved how the image turned out with the guy walking by and his bright red messenger bag standing out amongst the greens and blues.
You can click on any of the images to see a larger more close up version. That way you can see the details better.
So my blog today, as usual, is going to explain a bit more about India, the do's and don'ts and some of the differences between living here and living in the U.S. I'm sure most of you know that the outlets here are not like ours. You can see photos below of what the sockets here look like.
The electrical switches here function a bit differently. Now, please bear with me here because the explanation behind the switches is a long one. In the U.S., we switch the lights on by flipping them upwards (unless you have one of those double switches that you can turn a light on uptairs and go downstairs and flip the switch to turn it off, that's different). Well, in India, you flip the switch down to turn something on. Yes, I said something, because everything here is on a switch. Even the outlets themselves have a switch to turn them on and off, as you can see in the photo above. Since there are billions of people here in India and millions here in Bangalore alone, it's even more important to conserve energy. Having switches for everything is easier than trying to go around unplugging everything which is basically what we, in the U.S., would need to do if we wanted to conserve more energy (and we should if we are not using those items very much). So for every outlet and every light and every item that needs electricity, there will be a switch to control the power going to it. It's extremely necessary to only have on what you need on. For example, I'm not using the microwave, so the switch is off. When we go to bed, we turn off the switches that power the TV and satellite box. So right now, the only switches that are on in the entire house are, the TV, the satellite box, the A/C in the TV room, the outlet where my laptop is plugged in and that's it. There is enough light during the day to rarely need a light on in the house.
Keeping less on is also helping when there is a blackout. These happen all the time, especially on nights like last night when there is so much rain and boy oh boy does it get insanely dark. We realized last night, we really need to invest in the flash lights. If you're reading this Vikas, add it to your list too. Hehe! :)
There are constant black outs here. I haven't learned the full significance of it to where I can explain it thoroughly, but a lot of it is either because there is too much energy being used at once (which is probably the case most often) or because it's a way to conserve energy (such as rolling black outs). Rolling black outs are when different areas have to do without electricity for a certain amount of time to cut down on overall energy use when energy levels are low. Just before leaving Texas, there were talks of Austin having rolling black outs. Since it was so hot, everyone was staying in as much as possible and the A/C's were running full blast, all the time. We were using up energy faster than we could create it. Even now as I am typing this, the electricity switched off for a moment. The lucky thing is that here at the community (Prestige Ozone) where I live there is a generator for the whole community. It kicks on and you would never know that currently, there is no electricity elsewhere, in the area, for those that don't have a generator. There is a catch though. When the generator is on here, you can not turn on a geyser (water heater) and you can only have one A/C on. You can have lights on but the less you use the better. If you use too many items that use electricity, then it will blow the breaker and everything will shut off until you turn the breaker back on.
Okay, a geyser is basically a mini water heater here. There is one in each bathroom and in the kitchen. In the bathrooms, it's normally located above the toilet, mounted on the wall. You can find a photo (which is also below this paragraph) and an interesting article about it here, http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/01/20/india-in-hot-water/. Often there is one also in the utility room. I think, here in this house, there is only one in the kitchen meant for both the kitchen and the utility. There is a switch to turn them on. You turn on the switch when you need hot water but you have to switch it on with enough time to wait for the water to heat up, which is about 20 minutes. More than that and pressure can sometimes build and cause it to leak a bit (if that happens it needs maintenance) and too less of time, well you could be enjoying the end of your shower by rushing to beat the cold incoming feel of ice cold water.
Now a lot of you don't know but I grew up basically on a farm (large area of land). We had a water well and we had drinking water brought to us from my grandmother's house which was in the city. Where we lived, there was not an option yet for city water because there were no pipes laid down at that time for it. Today, my parents get water from a city source. Back then though, when we had the well and when the electricity went out, it did not come on for a while usually. The city would get to us when they could and since we were outside the city limits, that meant we were basically somewhere at the bottom of the list. My grandmother and dad knew enough people in the city that usually they could make enough calls and get the electricity back on sooner than later, but other than that, we had to do without until it came back. We didn't have generators back then or at least we couldn't afford them even if they did have them. So to me, living here, isn't much different from how a few things were for me growing up. Except I did grow up in America. The estate was ours and it was safe to roam any time as much as we wanted and do whatever we wanted and it was a hop, skip and a jump away from the town. Most of all, the population was small and not crowded. In a way, I wish America would conserve as much as India when it comes to electricity. Just because we have lots of it to use doesn't mean we should use it without a conscience.
Many people have asked me from time to time "if I'd be okay", "if I'm doing alright", "what will I do" and I'm sure most of it has been out of curiosity and concern which is kind and nice and even much appreciated. It's just I feel many people think because of my nature and how quiet I can seem to be at times that I might not be okay here. It is different here, mostly because there is a slight language barrier. Even those who do speak English have such a strong accent that I can't understand them at times and some can't understand me due to the English I do speak. Not pronunciation but choice of words when speaking. The Queens English is spoken here, not American English and there is a difference. There are other things too to get used to, but that's all it is, adapting. Adapting takes time, sometimes more than a year, but I will enjoy it as much as I can. I will adapt at the speed I can and no matter what, I'll have seen and learned something. Do I miss my home, my friends, and what I'm used to? Of course! Who wouldn't? I'm excited though, even when I feel slightly homesick for something familiar, I am excited about the new things I'll see. We'll travel from time to time and that's when I'll take many of my photos. When I'm home, I'm taking the opportunity of being able to relax, take naps, catch up on much needed work that I have had no time to do, especially for my photography business back home. That way, when I am back, I can hit the ground running on making that business even better and more profitable. So, please feel free to keep asking how I am because it lets me know you care, but don't worry, I was raised with a strong mind and strong will so I'm going to be great here. I also know that at any time, I have the ability to go back to my home in Austin. I think all will be quite well though. :)
Husna, our cook/housekeeper, is downstairs preparing lunch/dinner. It smells amazing! The aroma of the onion, garlic and spices are intoxicating. She's making Rajma (which is like an Indian, vegetarian chilli) and Subji (in this case it's bell peppers and potatos with spices). Subji is the name for basically any dish with vegetables (and never any meat). Tomorrow she will make a chicken curry for me to have. I'm excited to try it! I'll try to take some photos of the food soon and post them for you all to see.
Well last night was interesting. Pretty much by nightfall, there came a torrential downpour of rain. It went on for hours and hours.. and hours and hours and so on. I think you get the idea. There was even loud rumbles of thunder. Honestly it was such an amazing sound to hear since it's been so long that I've heard such sounds. It was lovely and I slept soundly. Woke up this morning to a cool morning with lush green outside, dripping with droplets of water and a soaked sloshy ground. You see, it's monsoon season here. Hence the torrential downpour.
Monsoon season lasts from about June to September. It is necessary and depended on by farmers and India's agriculture but it can also be a nuisance to traffic and even cause flooding, especially in the poorer areas. You can read more about monsoons in India and other countries here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon and here, http://goindia.about.com/od/planningyourtrip/a/indiamonsoon.htm.
Here is a beautiful photo that you can find on the wiki page. It's a black and white photo of heavy clouds over the Salt Lake in Calcutta. You can find the photo online here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heavy_clouds_over_Salt_Lake,_Calcutta.JPG.
Once there is more time for traveling, I will have photos like this to show you. :) For now, here are a few photos I took the other day as we drove to a few places around the city.
Fruit and vegetable stands are all around the city. You can find familiar fruits like apples, pineapple and guava, but then you'll find there are some fruits that are not as familiar to you. Even the guava here can be as small and round as a large lemon. At least, I, myself, have not seen a guava like that in the states.
You'll find construction is constantly going on here and in much of India's larger cities. I see it as progress. Some find it a nuisance.
Temples can be found everywhere in the city. It's quite common and I find them beautiful, ornate and so creatively well done. I plan to visit, in the next year, some of the other areas where there are some amazing statues and architecture.
A sign hangs just to the right of the of the temple (in the photo above). It has the virgin Mary on it and it advertises a local church in the city, St. Mary's.
People walk by, ride their bicycles and other transportation as a cow eats some food that has been left their for it. Cattle are seen often roaming, sleeping, walking and lazing about along the streets of Bangalore. It's kind of nice to see. With all the chaos of the traffic and busseling people, the cattle seem to not be bothered one bit and people are constantly aware of them and careful around them. What a comfy life.
I mentioned in a previous blog how Bangalore has a strong military presence here. This is a photo of a sign for the Institute of Aerospace Medicine. There are many institutes of learning here too. It gives the city a sense of safety. At least that's how I feel. I loved how the image turned out with the guy walking by and his bright red messenger bag standing out amongst the greens and blues.
You can click on any of the images to see a larger more close up version. That way you can see the details better.
So my blog today, as usual, is going to explain a bit more about India, the do's and don'ts and some of the differences between living here and living in the U.S. I'm sure most of you know that the outlets here are not like ours. You can see photos below of what the sockets here look like.
The switch next to the outlet is to turn the outlet on and off.
The electrical switches here function a bit differently. Now, please bear with me here because the explanation behind the switches is a long one. In the U.S., we switch the lights on by flipping them upwards (unless you have one of those double switches that you can turn a light on uptairs and go downstairs and flip the switch to turn it off, that's different). Well, in India, you flip the switch down to turn something on. Yes, I said something, because everything here is on a switch. Even the outlets themselves have a switch to turn them on and off, as you can see in the photo above. Since there are billions of people here in India and millions here in Bangalore alone, it's even more important to conserve energy. Having switches for everything is easier than trying to go around unplugging everything which is basically what we, in the U.S., would need to do if we wanted to conserve more energy (and we should if we are not using those items very much). So for every outlet and every light and every item that needs electricity, there will be a switch to control the power going to it. It's extremely necessary to only have on what you need on. For example, I'm not using the microwave, so the switch is off. When we go to bed, we turn off the switches that power the TV and satellite box. So right now, the only switches that are on in the entire house are, the TV, the satellite box, the A/C in the TV room, the outlet where my laptop is plugged in and that's it. There is enough light during the day to rarely need a light on in the house.
I just open the shades and leave the sheer shade down to have privacy. It may not seem like much light but it lets in quite a bit and I open the shades like this in every room.
Keeping less on is also helping when there is a blackout. These happen all the time, especially on nights like last night when there is so much rain and boy oh boy does it get insanely dark. We realized last night, we really need to invest in the flash lights. If you're reading this Vikas, add it to your list too. Hehe! :)
There are constant black outs here. I haven't learned the full significance of it to where I can explain it thoroughly, but a lot of it is either because there is too much energy being used at once (which is probably the case most often) or because it's a way to conserve energy (such as rolling black outs). Rolling black outs are when different areas have to do without electricity for a certain amount of time to cut down on overall energy use when energy levels are low. Just before leaving Texas, there were talks of Austin having rolling black outs. Since it was so hot, everyone was staying in as much as possible and the A/C's were running full blast, all the time. We were using up energy faster than we could create it. Even now as I am typing this, the electricity switched off for a moment. The lucky thing is that here at the community (Prestige Ozone) where I live there is a generator for the whole community. It kicks on and you would never know that currently, there is no electricity elsewhere, in the area, for those that don't have a generator. There is a catch though. When the generator is on here, you can not turn on a geyser (water heater) and you can only have one A/C on. You can have lights on but the less you use the better. If you use too many items that use electricity, then it will blow the breaker and everything will shut off until you turn the breaker back on.
Okay, a geyser is basically a mini water heater here. There is one in each bathroom and in the kitchen. In the bathrooms, it's normally located above the toilet, mounted on the wall. You can find a photo (which is also below this paragraph) and an interesting article about it here, http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/01/20/india-in-hot-water/. Often there is one also in the utility room. I think, here in this house, there is only one in the kitchen meant for both the kitchen and the utility. There is a switch to turn them on. You turn on the switch when you need hot water but you have to switch it on with enough time to wait for the water to heat up, which is about 20 minutes. More than that and pressure can sometimes build and cause it to leak a bit (if that happens it needs maintenance) and too less of time, well you could be enjoying the end of your shower by rushing to beat the cold incoming feel of ice cold water.
Now a lot of you don't know but I grew up basically on a farm (large area of land). We had a water well and we had drinking water brought to us from my grandmother's house which was in the city. Where we lived, there was not an option yet for city water because there were no pipes laid down at that time for it. Today, my parents get water from a city source. Back then though, when we had the well and when the electricity went out, it did not come on for a while usually. The city would get to us when they could and since we were outside the city limits, that meant we were basically somewhere at the bottom of the list. My grandmother and dad knew enough people in the city that usually they could make enough calls and get the electricity back on sooner than later, but other than that, we had to do without until it came back. We didn't have generators back then or at least we couldn't afford them even if they did have them. So to me, living here, isn't much different from how a few things were for me growing up. Except I did grow up in America. The estate was ours and it was safe to roam any time as much as we wanted and do whatever we wanted and it was a hop, skip and a jump away from the town. Most of all, the population was small and not crowded. In a way, I wish America would conserve as much as India when it comes to electricity. Just because we have lots of it to use doesn't mean we should use it without a conscience.
Many people have asked me from time to time "if I'd be okay", "if I'm doing alright", "what will I do" and I'm sure most of it has been out of curiosity and concern which is kind and nice and even much appreciated. It's just I feel many people think because of my nature and how quiet I can seem to be at times that I might not be okay here. It is different here, mostly because there is a slight language barrier. Even those who do speak English have such a strong accent that I can't understand them at times and some can't understand me due to the English I do speak. Not pronunciation but choice of words when speaking. The Queens English is spoken here, not American English and there is a difference. There are other things too to get used to, but that's all it is, adapting. Adapting takes time, sometimes more than a year, but I will enjoy it as much as I can. I will adapt at the speed I can and no matter what, I'll have seen and learned something. Do I miss my home, my friends, and what I'm used to? Of course! Who wouldn't? I'm excited though, even when I feel slightly homesick for something familiar, I am excited about the new things I'll see. We'll travel from time to time and that's when I'll take many of my photos. When I'm home, I'm taking the opportunity of being able to relax, take naps, catch up on much needed work that I have had no time to do, especially for my photography business back home. That way, when I am back, I can hit the ground running on making that business even better and more profitable. So, please feel free to keep asking how I am because it lets me know you care, but don't worry, I was raised with a strong mind and strong will so I'm going to be great here. I also know that at any time, I have the ability to go back to my home in Austin. I think all will be quite well though. :)
Husna, our cook/housekeeper, is downstairs preparing lunch/dinner. It smells amazing! The aroma of the onion, garlic and spices are intoxicating. She's making Rajma (which is like an Indian, vegetarian chilli) and Subji (in this case it's bell peppers and potatos with spices). Subji is the name for basically any dish with vegetables (and never any meat). Tomorrow she will make a chicken curry for me to have. I'm excited to try it! I'll try to take some photos of the food soon and post them for you all to see.
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