Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Puja's, Sunday off, Cyclones...
It has certainly been an interesting few days. The weather at the end of last week was nice with with no rain. Things had begun to dry out nicely. On Saturday the 17th we came to work to find the different work areas all decorated and little temporary temples built at each area. There was one at the electrical groups area and another at the mechanical area and another at the concrete plant office. They were everywhere.
Puja, they called it. Apparently a celebration of the god that blesses the tools, equipment, engineering, workers, etc for all construction business. They seem to have a god for everything in this country. As I understand it, there are three main religious groups in the country; the Christian's, the Muslum's and the Hindu's. The Hindu religion is far and away the largest in the country and they have hundreds of gods. I was told that they had thousands at one time but since it was to much to keep up with they combined different gods into one by adding extra arms and narrowed it down a little. I wonder how the gods felt about being changed by the culture they oversee??? OK, I'll get back to the Puja. The Contractor managers came to us and invited us to go to their Puja celebration so off we went, Zac, Julia, David (a new TA who arrived just the day before) and I walked with them down to the concrete office Puja Temple. We stood there and listened to a priest or religious figure sitting in the temple chanting while a man and a little boy sat there and participated with him. Seemed like an hour or so then they put a small anvil in front of the temple and a bag of husked coconuts. Whoever wanted to, got a coconut and smashed it on the anvil, making an offering to the god. Of course, Zac had to give it a try. We left there and got dragged by others to view their Puja Temples. Everyone left site by lunch, it was a holiday of sorts for them so we just stayed in the office and got some paperwork caught up.
Saturday evening I joined the usual group at Cheers Bar. I ordered a drink and some dinner and we chatted as best we could above the loud music that the DJ was playing. Everyone else's dinner arrived and they were well into eating and mine hadn't shown yet. Sometimes I think I must be full of bad Karma... Granted they ordered just before I arrived but I ended up munching on their food while awaiting mine. As the bar was closing and bills were being paid, my dinner shows up. I told them to return it and remove it from my bill. This is the second time this has happened in about a week. I went to the front desk, filled out a complaint form and went to bed.
On Sunday I went into town for the first time just to wander around and see some local stuff. Most all the shops are closed but there is enough going on anyway. I hooked up with an auto-rickshaw driver who spoke pretty good english and had him take me around the village/town for a few hours. Murthy took me to an open temple. It was a temple for Krishna. It was very small place but there were people inside chanting and singing and rocking back and forth. Interesting place. They are constructing a huge temple all around the existing one that looks like it will be very, very impressive when fiished. Then we went out to the Cotton dam/bridge that was built in the 20's. It's an interesting but not impressive series of sliding gates with a bridge on top spanning the river. Looking back I noticed some boats tied up and was told that was the local fishing fleet As we left the bridge I noticed an interesting building and the driver said it was the Cotton Museum. Of course, I had to go see. It cost 5 ruppees to get in (abut 10 cents). Not very impressive or interesting inside. The building was the construction office for the bridge and had a few pictures and some old equipment and a dam section mock up. Ten minutes after arriving I took a couple pics outside and then we were leaving. I paid 10 ruppees for an ice cream bar outside the entrance. We drove back to the center of town, passed an accident ( I would expect to see more the way they drive here) and started thinking about lunch. After the previous night's dinner experience I opted to go to the Himilaya for lunch then wandered the streets for a bit and returned to the hotel. Adam had arrived and had everyone's goodies...
As I was leaving my room to go up to Adam's I was stopped in the hallway by some men in suits that wanted to talk to me. I invited them into my room (I recognized one of them as the hotel manager) and they came in with a housekeeping boy carrying a tray of snacks. As it turns out, one was the hotel owner, another was his multi business manager the third was the head chef and as I mentioned the fourth was the hotel manager. They handed me a letter of apology and we sat and talked about the problems I've had here at their hotel. They asked me about lunch and I told them I had eaten at the Himilaya because of what had transpired the previous evening. We discussed the cultural differences, both obvious and subtle and I ended up telling them that theirs was the poorest example of a hotel I had ever stayed at. We discussed in detail why I felt that way. Again, some cultural differences are hard to bridge but basic cleanliness and good service should be expected everywhere. It was a friendly discussion that ended with their promise that they were going to change my opinion of their hotel. We'll see, although they are off to a good start as my room is being more thoroughly cleaned and smells fresher than before and meals have been coming out quickly since then as well.
Monday morning I awoke to a storm. The winds whipping about with lots of rain. I guess the good weather had to end sometime and it is still Monsoon season here. Nagaraj, our driver has taken good care of us while we are here. He is a good driver and runs errands for us constantly finding things we need or just want. He got us here safely but then things got even worse. We found out then that a Cyclone was coming ashore just a bit north of us and we were experiencing the edge of it. None of the work force showed up that day as the rain and winds were just to bad to do anything. The wind and rain continued throughout the day and into the night. I was glad to make it back to the hotel. It was nothing like going through a major hurricane but a bit unnerving just the same. This morning we woke up to more winds and rain but it was obviously not like yesterday and has gotten better as the day goes by. By this evening we should be back to normal (whatever that is here).
Puja, they called it. Apparently a celebration of the god that blesses the tools, equipment, engineering, workers, etc for all construction business. They seem to have a god for everything in this country. As I understand it, there are three main religious groups in the country; the Christian's, the Muslum's and the Hindu's. The Hindu religion is far and away the largest in the country and they have hundreds of gods. I was told that they had thousands at one time but since it was to much to keep up with they combined different gods into one by adding extra arms and narrowed it down a little. I wonder how the gods felt about being changed by the culture they oversee??? OK, I'll get back to the Puja. The Contractor managers came to us and invited us to go to their Puja celebration so off we went, Zac, Julia, David (a new TA who arrived just the day before) and I walked with them down to the concrete office Puja Temple. We stood there and listened to a priest or religious figure sitting in the temple chanting while a man and a little boy sat there and participated with him. Seemed like an hour or so then they put a small anvil in front of the temple and a bag of husked coconuts. Whoever wanted to, got a coconut and smashed it on the anvil, making an offering to the god. Of course, Zac had to give it a try. We left there and got dragged by others to view their Puja Temples. Everyone left site by lunch, it was a holiday of sorts for them so we just stayed in the office and got some paperwork caught up.
Saturday evening I joined the usual group at Cheers Bar. I ordered a drink and some dinner and we chatted as best we could above the loud music that the DJ was playing. Everyone else's dinner arrived and they were well into eating and mine hadn't shown yet. Sometimes I think I must be full of bad Karma... Granted they ordered just before I arrived but I ended up munching on their food while awaiting mine. As the bar was closing and bills were being paid, my dinner shows up. I told them to return it and remove it from my bill. This is the second time this has happened in about a week. I went to the front desk, filled out a complaint form and went to bed.
On Sunday I went into town for the first time just to wander around and see some local stuff. Most all the shops are closed but there is enough going on anyway. I hooked up with an auto-rickshaw driver who spoke pretty good english and had him take me around the village/town for a few hours. Murthy took me to an open temple. It was a temple for Krishna. It was very small place but there were people inside chanting and singing and rocking back and forth. Interesting place. They are constructing a huge temple all around the existing one that looks like it will be very, very impressive when fiished. Then we went out to the Cotton dam/bridge that was built in the 20's. It's an interesting but not impressive series of sliding gates with a bridge on top spanning the river. Looking back I noticed some boats tied up and was told that was the local fishing fleet As we left the bridge I noticed an interesting building and the driver said it was the Cotton Museum. Of course, I had to go see. It cost 5 ruppees to get in (abut 10 cents). Not very impressive or interesting inside. The building was the construction office for the bridge and had a few pictures and some old equipment and a dam section mock up. Ten minutes after arriving I took a couple pics outside and then we were leaving. I paid 10 ruppees for an ice cream bar outside the entrance. We drove back to the center of town, passed an accident ( I would expect to see more the way they drive here) and started thinking about lunch. After the previous night's dinner experience I opted to go to the Himilaya for lunch then wandered the streets for a bit and returned to the hotel. Adam had arrived and had everyone's goodies...
As I was leaving my room to go up to Adam's I was stopped in the hallway by some men in suits that wanted to talk to me. I invited them into my room (I recognized one of them as the hotel manager) and they came in with a housekeeping boy carrying a tray of snacks. As it turns out, one was the hotel owner, another was his multi business manager the third was the head chef and as I mentioned the fourth was the hotel manager. They handed me a letter of apology and we sat and talked about the problems I've had here at their hotel. They asked me about lunch and I told them I had eaten at the Himilaya because of what had transpired the previous evening. We discussed the cultural differences, both obvious and subtle and I ended up telling them that theirs was the poorest example of a hotel I had ever stayed at. We discussed in detail why I felt that way. Again, some cultural differences are hard to bridge but basic cleanliness and good service should be expected everywhere. It was a friendly discussion that ended with their promise that they were going to change my opinion of their hotel. We'll see, although they are off to a good start as my room is being more thoroughly cleaned and smells fresher than before and meals have been coming out quickly since then as well.
Monday morning I awoke to a storm. The winds whipping about with lots of rain. I guess the good weather had to end sometime and it is still Monsoon season here. Nagaraj, our driver has taken good care of us while we are here. He is a good driver and runs errands for us constantly finding things we need or just want. He got us here safely but then things got even worse. We found out then that a Cyclone was coming ashore just a bit north of us and we were experiencing the edge of it. None of the work force showed up that day as the rain and winds were just to bad to do anything. The wind and rain continued throughout the day and into the night. I was glad to make it back to the hotel. It was nothing like going through a major hurricane but a bit unnerving just the same. This morning we woke up to more winds and rain but it was obviously not like yesterday and has gotten better as the day goes by. By this evening we should be back to normal (whatever that is here).
