Thursday, March 15, 2007

My little earth muffin

My son is turning into quite the little earth muffin. He is learning in his school about the earth and how it is getting so polluted. This has led to some interesting conversations to be having with a 5 year old.

Take for example when we walked down the road to see how the work was going on for the bridge near our house that they are tearing down in order to build a newer, better, bigger bridge – albeit one that goes over one of the most disgusting smelling, fetid bodies of water in our area. As we walked over and watched the massive diggers working away, my son’s attention was drawn to the nasty water below.

“Daddy, why is that water so gross?”
“Because people keep throwing garbage and other things into it.”
“Why do they throw garbage and others things into it?”
“Because they don’t want to take the effort to get rid of the garbage properly.”
“Oh. So they just throw it here?”
“Yes.”
“That is very bad! Now the whole earth is getting polluted because of people throwing garbage in this water. Look daddy!!! Some of the water is getting hard.”
“No, son, it is not getting hard. That is something called sludge. That is part of why it smells so bad over here.”
“I don’t like sludge. Its yucky!”

Or take another conversation just the other day. Mind you this one happened right after he got up from his nap with the AC running in his room, keeping him nice and cool.

“Daddy, air conditioners are bad! They make CFCs go into the air and then the atmosphere will break.”
“Where did you learn about CFCs?”
“At my school.”
“So you don’t want to use your AC any more because of that?”
“No. We should find a different way to cool my room.”
“How should we do that?”
“Maybe we could get a REALLY big fan and use that instead.”
“I don’t think you would like that too much.”
“Well, . . . . we just have to be careful that we don’t break the atmosphere.”
“OK, we will be careful.”
“OK, I will tell my teachers we will be careful.”

I am encouraged that there are at least some here who are aware of the problems and are trying to teach young kids about it too. So many here simply throw things here and there, making the problem that much worse. Who knows if this concern will stick with him, but for now, it’s a good thing.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Road trip funnies

Had a few funny things happen while on this trip. I will post a few more in the days to come hopefully, but one of them simply needs to be shared right away.

After church on Sunday I had determined to find a place to change out of my Kurta (Indian man’s outfit) that I had worn to church. There was no way I was going to drive 6 hours or more wearing that. But there was no suitable place at the church, so while on the road I found what I thought was a good place. Often people here will change right out in the open, sometimes using a towel held around their waist to cover themselves. I however, do not have the prowess to do such a trick.

I pulled into the back corner of the government bus depot, which was almost totally empty, and parked near the fuel pumps, thinking no one would want to come back there, and I only needed two minutes to quickly change behind the car. I was no more than setting the parking brake on the car and a uniformed security guard began making his way toward us. I realized he likely thought we were trying to steal diesel from the pumps, but figured by the time he meandered over I could be changed and on our way. He came around just as I was putting my new shirt on, and said “You can’t be here, this is government property.”

I explained that I did not want diesel and I was only going to change my clothes very quickly and would be on my way. I had not even turned the car off. He repeated himself. The whole time I am continuing to change. He and his two friends who have now joined him are standing watching me get undressed and then dressed again. By the time I was done I had an audience of three grown men watching me disrobe and redress, plus my friend Ragaland who had also gotten out of the car to try to get them to understand I did not want to steal their diesel, and was only going to change my clothes and then leave.

I had no idea me changing my clothes would be this interesting. I nodded towards the men as if to say ‘I hope you enjoyed the show’, closed the back of the car and hopped in and off we went. As I got in I could hear the guys snickering to themselves, likely something about ‘crazy foreigner who takes his clothes off in the parking lot’.

Road trip stats

Just got back from our road trip to Kerala. Here are a few of the major stats for those who might care.

Number of days: 5
Total distance driven: 1872 km (1163 miles)
Total time spent driving: 29.75 hours
Average speed: 57.04 km/h (35.44 mph)
Diesel burned: 195 liters (51.51 gallons)
Average cost per liter: Rs. 34.1 (US$3.00 per gallon)
Average fuel economy: 9.6 km/l (22.6 mpg)
Number of states traveled in: 3
Speeding tickets: 0
Number of birds that hits us: 1
Number of deceased persons lying by the side of the road: 2
Number of trucks we saw that had tipped over: 12

The scary thing about the average speed is I am known as a very fast driver here. How pathetic is an average speed of 35.44 mph?!?

Anyways . . . . fun facts to know and tell.

Also . . . . .
Total Driveway Shovels: 0!!