Hamburgers, Loadshedding, Peaches & Batman

Warning to readers: this is a post full of random happenings from this week and S. Asia life in general.

Today I went to go buy some meat from the meat man in my neighborhood. When I walked up to the meat stand I was suddenly overcome by the smell of incense and spotted pictures of Ganesh hanging on the wall. "Wait a second... there's something wrong with this picture. Have I mistaken this business for M.slim or has it been Hindu all along and what's up with Hindu's selling beef? " Anyway, I took my meat home to make some hamburgers. This was my first time making hamburgers since I've been here for two reasons 1) I'm not a big red meat eater 2) I'm kind of scared of meat here BUT I decided to take a chance and make some burgers. They turned out horribly! It wasn't the meat that made it bad, but my lack of hamburger cooking abilities. What has happened? How could I have gotten so bad at cooking a burger? Maybe it's because I'm not used to cooking with gas or the fact that I was so concerned about the meat being well done. Hard to say, but sad. I think I'll stick to chicken.

My roommate bought peaches in Delhi while she was passing through last week. We can't get peaches here, so this was a real treat. Yeah for peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream!

This Sunday at church this man stood up and announced that he wasn't a Commie devil. Later, after the service he asked me where I was from which automatically led into a conversation about politics and the upcoming election. He announced rather matter-of-factly, "If Obama wins then the US will align itself with Africa, but if McCain wins, the US will align itself with Latin America." Hmmm.

One of my friends is on a road trip cross-country in America this summer. I was talking to him online and he was telling me about how they use grease/oil from fast food places to fuel their vehicle. He knows a lot about mechanics, so I did not doubt his ability to make this work somehow, but at first I panicked. "Wait, is this what everyone is doing in the US now because gas is so expensive?!" Wow, I've been away way too long and I like to jump to conclusions, apparently. I think he was amused by my uninformed question.

Did you know that anytime it rains in my city the power goes out? I think it has something to do with the poor quality of the wiring. Just a guess. The power also goes out when the government of the state you're living in doesn't budget enough money for power. Bring on the loadshedding. The loadshedding is supposed to only be one hour a day, but really it's probably 6-8 hours a day. So with monsoon season well underway (meaning heavy and frequent rain) and loadshedding, our power has been less than reliable for the past few weeks. Luckily, we have a battery backup for our flat, so when the power goes out it automatically flips over to the battery. We can't run our toaster oven, washer, coffee pot or water heater when we're on the battery, but I'm thankful that it's enough to run the lights and fans. I feel pretty fortunate to have the battery backup even though that eventually runs out too sometimes.

Last night I saw the new Batman movie "Dark Knight". I went with a group of 15 other Americans which proved to be interesting as we watched the movie. Now, in India it's common for people to cheer and boo and shout at the movie, which is pretty fun actually. However, it was so interesting to hear what the Indians cheered and laughed at and what the two rows of Americans cheered and laughed at (okay, so we didn't really cheer. I guess Americans are reserved in that way, at least in the theater). There were two times in particular in which I recall our two rows laughing while the rest of the theater remained silent and they both had to do with American pop culture references. I'm going to be so out of the loop when I come back. Anyway, I don't want to write much about the movie so as not to spoil it for you, but I highly recommend seeing it. I'm not sure if I like it as much as the previous Batman, but Heath Ledger was phenomenal and stole the show as The Joker. Quite the performance. I can see how that role could have played a part in his death or at least the need for sleeping pills. Hope you can see "Dark Knight" while it's still in the theaters.

And a few pictures for you below to round out this delightfully random post:

How I got around in Thailand. This is a sung teow (sp?) - basically a covered pickup truck. Large groups of us packed into the back of these to get around Chiang Mai. Sometimes there were so many of us that some people had to hang off the back - fun!

Fancy suits. My roommate, me and my roommate's best friend at a wedding the week before I left for Thailand. We attended an engagement ceremony that morning, too. The engagement ceremony was basically like a wedding. Around 200-300 people attended and a Hindu priest sat on stage with the couple while he read the stars and the bride and groom-to-be's birth dates and times of birth to determine the best date (most auspicious) to have the wedding. We would call this "fixing the date" here. Did you know it's auspicious to have foreigners at a wedding? Woohoo. Their wedding date has been fixed for August and 1000 guests are expected to attend. Can't wait.