Flooding in Chennai. Emergencies in the Foreign Service.

I've been out of communication for awhile, due to the extreme flooding in Chennai (pictures below, courtesy/stolen from https://www.facebook.com/robertdilinger). I have a handful of posts backlogged, and I'll start posting them now, but before that I think I should comment on the recent situation in Chennai.

This is my first major natural disaster. I grew up in Florida, so there was always the threat of hurricanes, but it never manifested (while I lived there). In every sense of the word, this was a disaster. The death toll is currently in the 300s and there are an estimated 1.5 million displaced (at time of original writing... probably changed by the time I actually finished and published). That's as many people as the total population of San Diego or Philadelphia. Many of local staff and some of our American officers were flooded out of their houses.

I (personally) was very fortunate to be largely unaffected. We lost internet for a week and experienced regular power outages, but our house remained high and dry. I live on the corner of some major roads and my car was able to drive through the water on them (even at their highest). I did have a brief scare when a car passed me in the other direction and his wake lifted my car up and put it down a meter (yard) to the side. I guess I can market it for resale as half boat / half car!

Back to my regularly scheduled programming.

Two Years in India, Day 1

I’ll be honest, our first day in Chennai did not live up to my pre-arrival expectations for myself. I really understand why our sponsors make sure to stock our kitchens with a couple days’ worth of food. Back in the States, I’d had high hopes that I’d immediately venture out for breakfast or lunch, like I have every time I've traveled overseas. However, we didn't quite make it that far. Between the two-ish hours of sleep and the end of all our travel-related-stress, we were pretty content to hang out in our apartment to unwind a bit. We ended up making breakfast and taking a 3 hour nap (awful for getting over our jet lag, but we couldn't help it!) for lunch.

We were just thinking it was time to go out for a walk (and by we, I mean my wife and I, my son spent the entire day pointing at the front door and every balcony door and saying, “Outside?”) when we noticed that it was much darker outside than it had been all day. Over the next 30 minutes the sky darkened even more and then unleashed a huge amount of rain. I’m from south Florida, so I’m no stranger to downpours, but this was even heavier than I’m used to there! I was later told that it was probably the first rain of the monsoon season, which should indicate the end of the hottest part of summer.

A little while later, our sponsor swung by to check on us. Coincidentally, our upstairs neighbor stopped by at the same time to introduce himself. We were going to go out for dinner, but my son was sleeping in my wife’s lap, so we ended up just going out for takeout. It was early for dinner by India standards (around 5:30), so we went to one of the only places they knew was open, a pizza place named Ox and Tomato.

Guess it’s time to try to beat the jet lag. Wish us luck!