Freaky Friday

I should learn by now not to leave the house on Fridays :-) When I went to pick up Sofia from school and was waiting in front of her school, I heard some drumming. So I turned and saw this guy coming down the street followed by a woman who was drumming. As he got closer I realized that he had a skewer pierced through one side of his mouth and at the other end a lemon was placed on its sharp tip. Lemons (and chillies) are supposed to bring luck and ward off evil. I had just recently seen a documentary on TV about this same piercing ritual, so I immediately took out my camera to take a picture (as a good tourist would do). But in doing so, I attracted his attention and he came straight to me. He stretched out his hand kind of pointing so I thought maybe he wanted me to take another picture of him, but after I did he seemed to be saying something... I had noooo idea. I got kind of scared when I saw his blood shot eyes and his semi aggressive behavior.. so I assumed he wanted money and just to get him to go away I paid him 10 rupees (25 cents)... but he still didn't go away... I was so confused... but soon realized he wasn't doing this for any religious reasons... he was a beggar! He went to other parents caught off guard tapping their shoulders and getting uncomfortably close to all of us. Thankfully the school's security guard shewed him away... and I realized by the look of disgust in his face that this definitely wasn't a "normal" or common thing around here.

I learned later through the internet this this piercing is usually done for a Hindu festival called Thaipusam... it's celebrated mostly by the Tamil community (in Southern India) on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (Jan/Feb). Usually they will do these piercings during this thaipusam festival.. but this was July! So, it was most likely not for any religious reasons (I'm guessing). Here's the wikipedia page if you want to learn more.

Blasts in Bangalore

Yesterday was a strange day. Fridays here always seem to have a mix of madness in the air, but yesterday was particularly unusual and frightening at the same time. After picking up Sofia from her school in Koramangala (about 15 minutes drive from our home)... I walked with Sofia a couple blocks away to a small shopping center where they have a Play Zone for children (similar to Chuck-E-Cheese in the States). I had been promising her all week to take her on Friday, so I wanted to keep my word. By coincidence we also bumped into G with two of his friends from work going there for lunch. This was about 1:00 to 2:30 pm. When we were eating lunch, G's friend got a phone call from a friend telling him that there had been a few blasts around Bangalore and to be careful. But he didn't really have much more information than that.

Having lived in Israel, G and I didn't freak out immediately, being somewhat familiar to such intense situations. When we got home the news was reporting 5 or 6 or 7 blasts (depending on which news channel you were watching) around the same time between 1 and 2:30 pm. Thankfully they were all low-intensity handmade timed bombs and out of the many blasts, only 7 were injured and one 32-year-old woman was killed. Two of the blasts were in Koramangala... the worst out of all of them being in Koramangala directly across a popular mall (not the same one we happened to go to!). I think they were all placed in crowded places, mostly at bus stops. Comically when I was watching to news to get some reassurance... they kept showing over and over again a police officer or "the man in charge" repeating that Bangaloreans had nothing to fear and that the situation was contained and under control... and the next picture you see is a "bomb expert" placing a orange bucket over the point where one of the blasts went off!!! My friend Angeli and I were laughing so hard!! Such is India :-)

Apparently there is some speculation that it could be a retaliation effort from the previous week's incident where someone placed pig meat at the door step of a mosque in Bangalore (riots took to the streets soon after). I think that is probably the most likely cause for these blasts... of course there's also the speculation that it was a terrorist thing, but I think if it were an organized terrorist activity, the blasts wouldn't have been low-intensity and most likely they would've aimed to do bigger damage. This seemed to me just to be from some angry amateurs that merely wanted to instill some fear.

Anywho, all is well.. people have been hibernating since the news yesterday and IT companies especially were sending people home to their families. Most things have been canceled, including my parent-teacher meeting that I was supposed to have today. We've decided to play it extra safe and just stay at home today too... which isn't such a bad idea 'cause it forces me to do the "spring cleaning" that I never got a chance to do :-)

Back to see the angels

This was our 3rd or 4th trip to see the beautiful children at Angel's Orphanage. My Aussie friend Lainie came with me again this time... she's a professional photographer and the last time we came together she took nice pictures of most of the children. This time as a parting gift (since she found out a few days before that she was being deported since she accidentally over stayed her tourist visa) she gave them a photo album with all their pictures!! And one big one of all of them together in a matching frame. It was so nice of her and when she gave it to them, it was obvious how surprised and pleased they were to see their own faces in the album.


This time that we came back was different from the other times... when we got out of our taxi... the children ran up to us and mimicked the rhymes and hand rhythms we had taught them the previous visit. Things were also a lot less formal than before. We just hugged the children and played with them and of course took their photos, which always makes them so happy. I was happy myself to finally feel like they had come to trust us and see us as their friends. Sabina, the lady who is in charge of all the children, told me once that they have a lot of visitors but very rarely do they come on a regular basis... like we have come to do. I think that they really appreciate it ... I'm glad.

Here are some shots of them posing for the camera ... and just having fun :-)









This is Grace... the youngest of the bunch (the orphanage has grown to 82 children!!!). She is about Sofia's age. She was brought to the orphanage as an infant by her mother who was really ill and could no longer take care of her. I asked Sabina if any of the children have ever been adopted... she told me this was not that kind of orphanage. When children are brought to her, she just raises them until either they are married off (girls) or go to college (boys). Wow... talk about mothering!!! What a job!!
Sofia's starting to get used to all the attention from the children :-) It's taken a while since she's naturally pretty shy.