Technically a Diplomat

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Around Chennai: Triplicane

This weekend we participated in our first Community Liaison Officer (CLO) event since getting to Chennai. It started bright and early in the morning (7:00) in Triplicane (Thiruvallikeni). Located directly north from Mylapore (the neighborhood we visited last weekend), Triplicane is another really old neighborhood. The event (which seem quite popular here) was a "photowalk." Our guide (Rom) was a tour guide volunteering for the day in hope of getting paid gigs with the CLO in the future (which I think will probably work out for him).

My wife was quick to notice their ISO 9001 certification.
This really confused us...

We grabbed a ride with our neighbor and arrived a bit early at the meeting point: Parthasarathy Temple. As it turned out, he had gone on walks with Rom before so we knew we were in good hands. Shortly after arriving, it became clear that there was a festival going on at the temple. Of course the temple has a festival every month, so that's not a huge surprise, but this one turned out to be their "yearly festival." This was a several day affair, but today we got to see the priests (Brahman) carrying the temple deity around in his (very heavy) chariot.

Did I mention it was a LOT of priests?

The Chariot with the Temple in the background.

Sadly this picture doesn't quite capture the weight of the 'chariot.' These are a bunch of young, fit guys and they're really struggling with it. We noticed later that they were moving very quickly; our guide told us they tend to get tired near the end so they start running every time they pick it up - instead of walking.

These guys don't look all that excited to be here.

Heeeeeave!

Jasmines are sold all over temples. Many are also left as offerings.

We weren't clear what this signified, but this guy was putting this bell/hat on people that approached him.

Suddenly: COW!

A quick note on cows: they are all over the place. They are nominally fed by the temples so they tend to congregate around them. Later we walked down a street 'known for its cows.'

Vegetable shopping along the parade route.

This poor cow is so taunted.

Temple Tank.

After the parade, we started on our photo walk.

What happens when you take a panoramic while a guy walks by? THIS!

My son was a little antsy, so we had to keep walking. Unfortunately this meant we missed most of the "stop-and-listen" points along the walk. It was still quite interesting though. Very young cows are often tied up, probably to keep them from getting hit by cars. Anyway, we started walking down Singarachari Street to check out the cows.

Oooh, that's the spot!

It's not all cows. They don't discriminate.
Here are some water buffalo.

It's like a clothes line!

One of the interesting things about walking around in these older sections of Chennai is the crazy juxtaposition of very old buildings with recently built modern structures.

Hindu gods above what otherwise appears to be a house.
(I assume it's a temple in disguise.)

The US has no concept of what "small business" means.
This guy sells banana leaves (used as plates in South Indian eating establishments).

We started to circle back toward the temple when we learned a valuable lesson. Namely: my son is our ambassador. We were walking down a road and he just turned down a tiny little alley. Well, it turns out this was the alley that many of the temple priests live on. It's an incredibly old neighborhood and Rom told us that my son was the only reason we weren't shooed away! The ladies sitting outside of the houses were delighted to see him walking around without a care in the world!

Indian cul-de-sac.

Yep, that's a functioning well. Though we think it is ceremonial, because they had well spigots as well.

After our glimpse of the old neighborhood, we walked back to Parthasarathy Temple to check out the inside. We payed a few rupees to leave our shoes at the "shoe check" stall and walked through the temple. We were told we shouldn't take "snaps" in the temple, so I don't have much to show. We walked around clockwise (as you always do in Hindu temples). It was a huge complex with hundreds of gods carved into the walls.

After the temple tour we wound up the photo walk and made plans for breakfast. We settled on Ratna Cafe where (between the 7 of us) we go a huge variety of Idly, Vada, Poori, and Dosa.

I went with the Poori.

We had a great time on this walk, and it was an excellent way to meet some new people from the Consulate. Besides, it's not every day you get to eat a casual breakfast with the acting Consul General!

Friday, July 11, 2014

Going Away Parties

Life in the Foreign Service has a lot of strains that just aren't that frequent in 'normal life'. Living overseas is the most obvious, but generally speaking, we're people who joined specifically for that reason... so it naturally doesn't seem so bad. However, a byproduct of moving around so much is the lack of a stable work environment (pretty obvious right?). Having previously worked as a contractor, I never really stayed in the same position for much longer than a year at a time. I thought that would help prepare me for the constant moving in the FS, but now I'm finding that there's a lot more to it than that. Every time I've moved in the past, I was still within easy driving distance of my former coworkers. If I made friends... I'd keep them. The next time I change positions it'll be to another country, possibly even another hemisphere. The chances of regularly seeing any friends I make here is pretty slim for other FSOs and almost nil for LES.

Anyway, I bring this up because of the sheer volume of farewell parties going on around here. I came very early in the transfer season - just in time to watch 50% of the post leave! In the two weeks since I arrived, I've seen several farewell parties of varying formalities. Last week, the IMS I'm replacing threw a pizza party to say goodbye/thanks to LES in our section (and to introduce me to them). This week the LES in our section threw a goodbye/thanks tea party (complete with going away presents) for my predecessor. This week also saw an unofficial going away party at the Consulate General's Residence (CGR), under the guise of "come drink the wine the CG can't bring with her when she departs post this weekend." Finally, we also had the official "Hail / Farewell" party sponsored by the CLO, to welcome the new comers (like me) and say farewell to those leaving this week. Needless to say, I've seen more teary eyes and heard more heartfelt speeches in the last two weeks than I'd been expecting!

Note: The picture is of the spread from the tea party. Out of frame, there is masala chai and extra samosas and chips. They were pretty darn delicious.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Around Chennai: Mylapore

Saturday we were fortunate enough to have our upstairs neighbor take us on a mini-sightseeing trip around Mylapore, in Chennai. Mylapore is one of the oldest residential sections of the city and is known for its tree-covered streets. It's probably even better known for Kapaleeswarar Temple. We started the day off by heading to a small temple that I never knew the name of to see their managiery of animals. These animals are 'kept' by the temple, in the sense that they provide them with a place to sleep. Otherwise they are pretty much feral, finding their own food and water. Our guide wanted to stop by this specific temple, because they regularly have an emu hanging around and as luck would have it, the emu was sitting just outside, apparently waiting for us.

I Think He's Jay Walking.

Long Earred Goat.

I'd love to share where this temple was (and maybe I'll edit this post in the future), but for now, it'll remain a mystery to me.

After seeing the emu and long-earred goat, we headed to get breakfast at a very popular local place: Saravana Bhavan. The breakfast here is traditional South Indian and followed up with "filter coffee." The coffee is served with milk and sugar, however they boil the milk with the coffee, so it is served so hot that you have to pour it back and forth between two containers to cool it enough to drink. Breakfast was idlis with four "gravies" or curries to dip them in, served on a banana leaf. Breakfast and coffee for 3 people was around 220 rupees, or $3.75. This place was yet another great example of the "jobs jobs jobs" mentality in India. We caught the end of the breakfast crowd, but it was pretty close to a 1 to 1 ratio of tables to employees. We couldn't figure out what they all did, but I'm pretty sure our waiters had waiters... (Ok, that might be an exageration, but there were tons of employees.)

You can see the remanents of Breakfast.
Also, I'm definitely burning my fingers on those cups.

With full bellies, we started walking toward Kapaleeswarar. Temple streets are big market (and traffic) centers, so the streets were lined on one side with stalls and the other with stores.

Temple Market Stalls.

The Temple's "Tank."
Rarely, if ever used, according to our guide.

A Large Kolam.

The main attraction at Kapaleeswarar.

A recently repainted section of the temple.

The side streets around the temple are also filled with fortune tellers. Several of which employ small animals. This guy has a small parakeet that rifles through a stack of cards to pick the custmer's fortune. He then interprets the card. It was neat to see the trained bird in action.

This wasn't an extensive sight seeing trip, but it does have the honor of being the first "around town" post in Chennai! I guess that's the nice thing about having two years to explore a place, we'll be back later.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Two Years in India, Week 1

There are huge trees all over the place.
(even in the street!)

Well, it's official. One week down, 103ish to go. That makes it sound like I can't wait to leave, which isn't right. I just was surprised when I realized that I'm pretty much 1% done with my first post. Really makes me think I can't waste a moment here!

I've had a number of first weeks at a new job, in my career, but this one was pretty different from all the others. First of all, I've never started a new job while at the same time combating jet lag. I've never really had a problem with adjusting my sleep schedule in the past, but I've also never had to do so while also caring for a not-yet-two-year-old. My son is completely oblivious to the concept of jet lag, so he pretty much sleeps whenever he wants. Fortunately, (for me) my wife has been playing with him when he's up in the middle of the night so that I would be awake and functioning for work. Of course, sleep is only one of the differences at this job. There's also taking a shuttle, living in a new place, meeting a workforce that is about to turn over by 50%, and heck, even experiencing new foods! Let's not get too far ahead though.

I have just a three week overlap with the IMS I'm replacing here in Chennai. Since his boss, the IPO, left a week before I arrived, he's been showing me the ropes. It has been very interesting to see the similarities and differences between our training and what actually seems to be happening at post. The biggest difference I've noticed (especially when compared to my pre-Foreign Service jobs) is that almost all of the day-to-day work is handled quite capably by the Locally Employed Staff (LES) here. This means that the IMS, such as myself, tend to roam from project to project, working on whatever unusual or one-off problem that arises. A good example from this week: our AC units for the server room broke, leading us to spend a couple hours on the roof with the repair crew (a real pleasure in the Chennai heat!).

Another shot of the crazy amount of trees.

Anyway, my predecessor arranged a "going away/welcome" lunch with me and all the LES working in our department. It was a great opportunity to meet everyone and I'm now planning to do the same thing when the new IPO arrives. Other than that, I've been eating lunch in the canteen. The lunch combo there costs 50 rupees (rs, approximately 85 cents) and consists of rice, chapati, raita, and two gravies (which we'd call curry back in the States) that change daily. Everything is vegetarian and tastes alright, but you really can't beat the price! In the afternoon, I normally swing back down for chai to the tune of 7 rs (~12 cents).

I ended up working a lot of extra hours this week, mostly due to my incredibly early shuttle-dictated arrival time. I don't mind the extra work, but it did kind of stink to get out right around when it was getting dark - really put a damper on my ability to take photos to send home. Of course, on the flip side, I also spent most of the week without internet (except at work), so I guess it didn't really matter!

Traffic on July 4th.
Fortunately, the jam only lasted half an hour.

Friday was the 4th of July, so we had the day off. The Consul General hosted a party at her residence with burgers, hot dogs, and a pie bake-off. I don't know about the pies' owners, but I'd say everyone that got to eat them was a winner. We also saw our future car (my son fully approved!) and met our soon-to-be driver. I had originally hesitated getting a driver, but after spending a week in traffic here... I'm glad we pre-arranged one. I'll post more about traffic later.

Enjoy some random pictures of Chennai!

Small shrine in Alwarpet.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Our House

Welcome to a special "Foreign Service" edition of House Hunters International. In this episode, I was given one choice of places to live and after careful consideration, I picked it! On a more serious note, we filled out our housing survey a few months ago, a month ago received a text description of our house, but we were thrilled to finally see where we'd be spending the next two years.

Our apartment is on the 2nd floor (that's the third floor for you folks back in the USA) and takes up the entire floor of the building. We're in a corner building on moderately busy streets. There is a decent amount of street noise (mostly polite honking, since people honk here instead of using blinkers... or brakes), but it is not very loud in the two bedrooms we're using.

There are 4 bedrooms, 4 full bathrooms, 1 eastern style bathroom, two living rooms, a dining room, kitchen, pantry, and 5 small balconies in our apartment. It (in theory) takes 7 air conditioners to cool the entire house, but we generally only use 2 or 3 at a time. We also have 3 dehumidifiers that are running constantly to minimize the insane amounts of humidity in the air (we're trying to avoid getting mold in our less frequently used rooms). Every room has marble or tile floors and extra high ceilings.

The GSO-provided furniture is fantastic, much nicer than our previous furniture. We were also provided with a welcome kit which provides us with everything we need until our effects arrive.

Enough talk already, here are the pictures!