Thanks to everyone’s concern about our safety in light of the earthquake in Kashmir. Hyderabad is quite far from this location, we are safe, we didn’t even feel a tremor. Unfortunately the number of casualties is increasing every day. Please keep the people in this area in your thoughts and prayers.

Saturday Clay played in the inter company cricket match. Unfortunately his team was smoked 117 to 58. I only caught the end of the game, but I hear it was pretty ugly. Clay was the “wicket keeper” which is somewhat like the American baseball catcher. Unfortunately when it was his turn to bat, he got out on the first throw, because he stepped out of the box and didn’t step back in soon enough. It was a rookie mistake. They were all so excited that he was attempting the game that they wanted him to go again (both teams), but he wanted to play according to the rules, so he didn’t. How nobleJ

Saturday night we went to a Dasera (correction- in the last email I referred to it as Diwali) celebration at the Hitex Exhibition center with 2 co-workers and 4 of their friends. We arrived at 8:30pm, when it was supposed to start, but no one was there. So we went back to our apartment and introduced our 6 companions to the fine game of UNO. It was quite the hit. We wandered back to the exhibition hall around 11:30pm when things were just getting hoping. It was quite a site, everyone was dancing in a circle and they all had beautiful bright outfits on. Many were dancing for fun, but there was also a competition going on. We danced along with the crowd, I’m sure we looked ridiculous. I did catch a photographer snapping a shot of Ash and me. Who knows where that will show up. Probably in the “what not to do” section of the Dasera manualJ We left at 1:00am, and people were still coming. I’m guessing the celebration went on until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. It was a family event, kids of all ages were there, but of course little Clarinski was sleeping by 8:00pm.

Sunday we went shopping in an area called Abids. We bought Claire a couple of toys, some shirts for Clay and me, and shoes for Ash and me. It was nice to get out and walk around in a shopping area like that.

Clay is off to play in another cricket match tomorrow, Kenexa vs. Google, wish him luck!

“Had your lunch?” I was reminded about something this week when I received an email from my friend Matt who is currently working in the Philipines (he mentioned a similar observation which prompted me to include this paragraph in the email). A common greeting here (and in the Philippines) is, “Had your lunch (breakfast, dinner)?” At first I thought when people asked that they really wanted to have a conversation about lunch, or maybe they were just making fun, I didn’t know. Now I realize that it is just a nice greeting. Just like we would say, “How are you?” in passing in the hallway, they will say, “Had your lunch?” with a brief pause for an answer. Whether my answer is “yes” or “no,” they smile and keep walking. So I have come to learn that this is a greeting, not a conversation starter. This initially struck me as different when I arrived, but I had since gotten used to it and forgot to mention in my emails.

Claire Update:
We had a first this week. Saturday afternoon she slept in the car on the way home from the cricket match, but Clay and I wanted to take a nap when we got home. So we thought we might be lucky enough that she would want to lay down for a bit. We put her in her crib, shut the door and went in our room to lie down. We heard her through the baby monitor; she was saying random things like, “milk, horse, shoe, etc.” Sometimes she mumbles as she is falling asleep or while she is sleeping. So we let it go for a while. Then we heard a lot of wrestling around, so we decided that she wasn’t going to sleep and we might as well give up on our naps. So I went into her room to get her and she wasn’t in her crib or her room. She was in her bathroom pulling things out of her closet and drawers, hats, barrettes, and anything else she could get her hands on. She had climbed out of her crib onto the regular bed in the room, got down on the floor then went into her bathroom and started raiding her closet and drawers. Nice.

Claire’s New Words:
Papes=Shapes
Waya An=Watering Can
Raya=Running

Hyderbadi Quotes of the week:
“I am here, right now currently”
“We are doing that, as of now currently”

Sincerely,Julianna Ehlers