Political Rally's equal Traffic Jams

We have had several different political rallys go past our house in the past week, in preparation for the upcoming month of elections. Makes for major traffic jams.

Another photo from a friend

This still makes me smile.

I dreamed that I was taking a nap...

I usually don't remember my dreams. I wake up in the morning and have no idea what all happened last night. I often comfort children and other "Dad" activities, with no recollection in the morning.

But this morning when I woke up, I distinctly remember that I had a dream that I was taking a nap.

Does that count?

It's just a great photo... thanks Lindsey

Amish meets Urdu

Pathway publishers prints books for Amish schools. They tend to be simple, straightforword stories that encourage reading. And the illustrations do not have figures of people (something that both good Amish and good Muslims disapprove of).

We often get visitors who like to peruse our bookshelves. One gentleman recently saw our first grade reader pictured above, got quite excited and has decided to translate this into Urdu.

We do not yet know what the Amish think of the idea. Any of you Amish want to give an opinion? I know you are reading this...

So What is an Honest Muslim to do?

A friend of mine had a dilemma. Should he insist the police do their job or not?

To back up a little bit… the other morning, his cousin called him and said that a thief had broken into their house and stolen two cell phones and a thousand dollars worth of product. His cousin wanted my friend (TT) to go to the police. Obviously, TT’s cousin was afraid to go to the police himself, but my friend TT was educated, and maybe he would go.

So TT called a friend of his from his University days, who was now in the police in a different city, and asked, “What should I do?’ His friend told him, “Go to the police.”

So TT went to the police to tell them what had happened.

In India, whenever you go to the police, for whatever reason, you have to fill out an FIR (First Information Report). This FIR is VERY important. TT told the local police officer what had happened, and requested an FIR.

The policeman leaned back and thought for a minute and then made a suggestion: Don’t file the FIR, because if we recover the stuff, you will have to go through the courts to get it back and that could take months. (“This is true,” thought my friend TT.) Instead, give us a bit of time, and see if we can recover the stuff for you without the FIR, and when we catch the guy, he is probably a serial thief anyways, and we can still send him to jail on other charges. (“That is probably also true,” thought my friend.)

So what should he do? If he fills out the FIR, it might take months to get the stuff back if it gets recovered.

On the other hand, if he doesn’t fill out the FIR, the policeman is likely to demand a percentage of the stuff, or a bit of cash, before he will give the stuff back.

What is an honest Muslim to do?

We lost the use of our small veranda for a couple of months

A couple of months ago, Amy noticed that a bird had built a nest in one of her potted plants on our little 4 foot by 5 foot veranda. Two eggs were dutifully warmed for about six weeks.

And then one morning we woke up to this.

This does not appear to be helping the situation

We had some civil unrest last week, with a few people killed and quite a few others hurt in communal rioting. Troubles started when some members of the majority community threw some colored water and dye on a mosque of the members of the minority community, and offence was taken.

The police eventually showed up and did some shooting and things quieted down.

Next day, the paper had this photo listed above. When folks are agrieved in India, they sometimes take to "Brickbatting", which means they gather up whatever bricks and stones they can find and throw them at the opposing side.

THe part of the photo that is so striking is that the police are throwing stones back.

I just can't see that this is going to help a whole lot.

We all got our problems...

Every country has its problems... the newspapers are filled with some of the problems of the country of my birth.

India also has both assets and problems. Some problems pointed out by a recent issue of the Economist include:

1. Half of Indian school teachers do not come to school on any given school day.

2. 120 of India's current 522 members of Parliament are facing criminal charges.

3. One thousand Indian children die of diarrhea each day. (I saw one a few days ago).

4. 130,000 people die on Indian roads every year.

Doing a Thriving Business

The Hindus of India celebrated a holiday called, "Holi" on Wednesday. Of unclear origins, it is most widely known for the colored water they throw on each other. Also, Hindus are allowed to do things on this day, that they are normally not allowed to do... such as eat meat.

Our neighborhood being largely Muslim, it remained largely quiet on Holi, with most people staying inside and shops closed.

The exception was the goat shop across the street, which did a thriving business from Hindus stopping by to get some meat to eat.

Sing to the Tune of, "Jesus Loves the Little Children."

OK, everyone sing together. The key is, "D". The tune is, "Jesus loves the little children."

"Mutt Karo" translates as, "Don't do that!"

OK, all together now, and a "one," and a "two", and a...

"Eli gets in lots of trouble,
As he crawls around the house,
Pulling on cords and chewing on shoes,
Doing such things as he ought not to do,
Eli gets in lots of trouble in the house."


"Eli gets in lots of trouble,
As he crawls around the house,
His sisters are yelling, "Elijah, NO!"
Go away from our tea party now, just go!"
Eli gets in lots of trouble in the house."


"Eli gets in lots of trouble,
As he crawls around the house,
His brother is shouting, "Mutt Karo!"
Don't grab my trucks and cars like so"
Eli gets in lots of trouble in the house."


"Eli gets in lots of trouble,
As he crawls around the house,
Behind the couch is the perfect place
To find some dust bunnies to rub in my face
Eli gets in lots of trouble in the house."


"Eli gets in lots of trouble,
As he crawls around the house,
His parents are wondering, 'he is now where?'
He's once again disappeared into thin air'
Eli gets in lots of trouble in the house."


"Eli gets in lots of trouble,
As he crawls around the house,
The garbage bin is the perfect height,
For a baby to play in with all of his might
Eli gets in lots of trouble in the house."

Another Guest Post from A Piper

Pliers don’t work unless both handles are used in tension with each other.
March 6, 2009 at 8:05 am ·


The two handles of a preacher’s pliers are you must come and you can’t.
He’ll grab nobody if he only wields one.


(Restatement of John Duncan’s last paragraph.)

Elections Ho Ja-ayga

India has finally decided when their next elections will be. As the world's largest democracy, it is a big deal when and how more than half a billion people cast their votes.

We will have an election month here.

Elections will start on April 16, and go until May 13, in five different phases.

Most parts of India are quite stable and an election is no big deal. Our part of the country is a little bit more tricky. Our state of Uttar Pradesh will be divided into five parts, and have the election on five different days. This is because of the huge number of armed men required to keep the peace during elections. There are simply not enough soldiers to go around in order to have the election happen on one day.

So on April 16, there will be hundreds of thousands of armed personal in our part of the State for the vote here, and then they will move to another part of the State for the second part of the election, and so on.

Wow. Many people will return to their home towns to vote, as it is tricky to get your address changed. All in all, a big deal.

Sam in the Airport

We were recently on a short visa run to Thailand. Sam insists on carrying his own backpack, even though it appears to be marginally larger than him.

And yes, I realize that my son is running around barefoot in one of the biggest and cleanest airports in the world. Don't you love Thailand?