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A couple weeks ago, a group of us from eMi made a trip to a city called Haridwar. Haridwar has special importance this year because it is the site of the Khumbh Mela. This Hindu festival has such great significance that, over a 3 month period, 100 million people from around the world will travel to Haridwar to bathe in the river Ganga (Delhi population is 14 million). There are many reasons why they do so, but for many people, the merit / favor-earning act of pilgrimage itself is just as important as their particular / personal request to the goddess. I am told that many come to seek forgiveness from sin and that bathing in the river makes the person clean both physically and spiritually.
We visited Haridwar to further our understanding of Hinduism and to experience the mass of humanity (it is said that the “high day” of the Khumbh Mela is the largest gathering of humanity on earth). We watched the events, visited with folks about the Khumbh and simply walked the experience. I pray that these people will someday find what they are seeking…forgiveness…redemption…Hope.
We bought a car!!! It's a '97 800cc Maruti hatchback. Most guys in the US have motorcycles with larger engines but it does the job for us here in the mountains. We figured out how to get two car seats in the back (probably not the standard design for installation but again, it does the job for us).
We made it back, I bought the car (even with the loose bolt rattle) and we drove it directly to the shop for the alignment that it needed. You can imagine what happened next...the repair men started finding everything possible wrong with the car. We ended up being there for about 6 hours and the one thing with the greatest need was...the breaks. It seemed that everything that they touched broke. I finally told the guy to stop touching my car so that we could go home. During our time there Carrie and the kids hung out in the "office car" which is exactly the same make and model as our car only a couple of years newer. Amazingly, they sat in the back seat of the office car for nearly 6 hours while the repairs were made to our vehicle. Later we found out that a McDonalds was only about 5 blocks away!
Every few months the eMi India office puts out a publication called The Indian Thread. It is a way for us to share about all that is happening through our office in South Asia. This month is an exciting one for Team Frank as we have been featured as new staff. Click here to check it out.
Some time has passed since we have been able to get a significant internet connection. It's been a frustration for us because our expectations were high coming into this new environment. We figured we would be able to skype friends and family a the drop of a hat and we thought that we would be able to post photos of life on a regular basis. We bought a majicJack thinking that we would have an Omaha phone number here in India thanks to the incredible internet. None of those expectations has been met and it has taught us what it means when we tell Hudson to, "be patient."
I think we may have an internet connection that will serve us to the capacity that we pay for each month (it only took about 300 phone calls and 20 trips to the broadband office). We're going to try to get caught up on all that has been happening around here with some regular updates. For now...here is a picture I took a few mornings ago. It's amazing to wake up to the Himalayas in the back yard.
We made it back, I bought the car (even with the loose bolt rattle) and we drove it directly to the shop for the alignment that it needed. You can imagine what happened next...the repair men started finding everything possible wrong with the car. We ended up being there for about 6 hours and the one thing with the greatest need was...the breaks. It seemed that everything that they touched broke. I finally told the guy to stop touching my car so that we could go home. During our time there Carrie and the kids hung out in the "office car" which is exactly the same make and model as our car only a couple of years newer. Amazingly, they sat in the back seat of the office car for nearly 6 hours while the repairs were made to our vehicle. Later we found out that a McDonalds was only about 5 blocks away! 
