Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Go tell it on the Mountain
One of the nice things about living in this apartment is you meet lots of different people in the lift. Most just nod or say hello, others strike up a conversation. This is always cut short when you reach your floor. Normally this is as far as it goes. But there's one particular Korean lady who's spotted me a couple of times, and also the kids, and eventually she'd found out what number flat we live in, and told the kids her number (191) and said she'd invite us up for tea. They passed the message on and I admit I didn't give it another thought...
Fast forward to Monday afternoon. The internal phone rings and Rod answers it. It's often very difficult to understand people on the internal phone, that's because the main people who call us on it are the security guards, who are generally much more fluent in Hindi than they are English. Rod's having trouble as usual...repeats 191 and courier, can't work out why they're asking him, and says I'll get my wife. I'm assuming the voice on the phone said wife, because if he can't follow the conversation, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to. But it transpires the call is not from the front gate about a courier to 191, but from the Korean lady in 191, and she'd like us to come up to tea this afternoon.
So when the kids get home from school we walk up the four flights. I stand outside her door, and cannot fail to notice the plaque on her door. Lots of people have plaques on their doors, usually bearing their name. This plaque says Korean Emanuel Church. The Korean lady answers the door and welcomes us inside. It transpires her name is Esther and she speaks very little English. She offers me coffee or Korean tea. She has no English tea, and as I don't really like coffee, I take Korean tea. I've never tried it before, but I can tell you it tastes like the tea at Chinese restaurants, of almost nothing. She also offers a plate of melon and orange segments, which are much tastier indeed.
So now we try to have a conversation. It's a bit stilted, because of her limited English, and to be fair, my non-existant Korean. The first question: What was my name, and the names of my children? The second question: Where did I come from? (Actually that's always a bit tricky, because I'm Australian, but I came to India from Britain. Sometimes this question is asked by someone who is expecting a simpler, one country, answer.) Her third question: Are you a Christian? Now, this was a bit of a curveball, because the usual third question is how long have you been in India? But I can't say it was unexpected...the plaque on the door was a bit of a clue. Now I don't have any problem with people practicing their religion, but I don't really see why I need to explain my beliefs to people over my first beverage. I say I was brought up a Catholic, but I don't practice anymore. She looked at me in a perplexed fashion, and I wondered if I'd offended her. Did that make me worthy of extra attention? Would I be worth more points to bring back into the fold? Then she replied "Mother Theresa", or would have, if she had been able to pronounce her "th's" and her "s's". I nodded, and thankfully the subject was dropped.
We got onto less dangerous ground, and found we had a number of things in common. We both had two children, hers almost exactly the same age as mine. We were both housewives in India, accompanying our husbands who came here to work. There were a few differences, of course. I've never been a member of the Korean Symphony Orchestra or a missionary.
Fast forward to Monday afternoon. The internal phone rings and Rod answers it. It's often very difficult to understand people on the internal phone, that's because the main people who call us on it are the security guards, who are generally much more fluent in Hindi than they are English. Rod's having trouble as usual...repeats 191 and courier, can't work out why they're asking him, and says I'll get my wife. I'm assuming the voice on the phone said wife, because if he can't follow the conversation, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to. But it transpires the call is not from the front gate about a courier to 191, but from the Korean lady in 191, and she'd like us to come up to tea this afternoon.
So when the kids get home from school we walk up the four flights. I stand outside her door, and cannot fail to notice the plaque on her door. Lots of people have plaques on their doors, usually bearing their name. This plaque says Korean Emanuel Church. The Korean lady answers the door and welcomes us inside. It transpires her name is Esther and she speaks very little English. She offers me coffee or Korean tea. She has no English tea, and as I don't really like coffee, I take Korean tea. I've never tried it before, but I can tell you it tastes like the tea at Chinese restaurants, of almost nothing. She also offers a plate of melon and orange segments, which are much tastier indeed.
So now we try to have a conversation. It's a bit stilted, because of her limited English, and to be fair, my non-existant Korean. The first question: What was my name, and the names of my children? The second question: Where did I come from? (Actually that's always a bit tricky, because I'm Australian, but I came to India from Britain. Sometimes this question is asked by someone who is expecting a simpler, one country, answer.) Her third question: Are you a Christian? Now, this was a bit of a curveball, because the usual third question is how long have you been in India? But I can't say it was unexpected...the plaque on the door was a bit of a clue. Now I don't have any problem with people practicing their religion, but I don't really see why I need to explain my beliefs to people over my first beverage. I say I was brought up a Catholic, but I don't practice anymore. She looked at me in a perplexed fashion, and I wondered if I'd offended her. Did that make me worthy of extra attention? Would I be worth more points to bring back into the fold? Then she replied "Mother Theresa", or would have, if she had been able to pronounce her "th's" and her "s's". I nodded, and thankfully the subject was dropped.
We got onto less dangerous ground, and found we had a number of things in common. We both had two children, hers almost exactly the same age as mine. We were both housewives in India, accompanying our husbands who came here to work. There were a few differences, of course. I've never been a member of the Korean Symphony Orchestra or a missionary.
Monday, February 2, 2009
How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?
Well, it depends if it's an Indian lightbulb. The bulbs had blown in the light behind my quilting table, and as they weren't a regular bulb we didn't have any replacements. So I took one of the blown bulbs with me to the shops at Galleria. They were in stock at ElectriCity, and the assistant checked them for me. See, quality control in India is not at, shall we say, international standards, so reputable shops selling lightbulbs have testing units, where they plug the bulb in to see if it lights up. These two did, I handed over my 30 rupees and came home. That part didn't take very long at all.
Came home and asked Rod to change the lightbulbs. That part didn't take very long either. But as the new lightbulbs didn't change the illumination levels of the room enough (i.e not at all), we knew we had a bigger problem. Because these lightbulbs had worked in the shop not half an hour earlier, the problem was somewhat bigger than we had thought, and a more comprehensive approach was needed. Rod got out his toolbox. He unscrewed the light fitting from the wall and armed with his electrical multimeter, proceeded to check all the wires. Now I don't know too much about the next bit, but I do know you're supposed to get a different reading when you touch different wires. Something to do with the live wire having some electricity to it, I think. Well, I can tell you, the live wire was flatlining. It was d...d...dead.
So Rod returned to his trusty toolbox, and got out a screwdriver. He prised the cover off the light switches which was held on by paint, and took off the two screws holding the front plate. Two wires are needed to make each switch work - in untechnical terms, one incoming, one outgoing. If I'm getting this wrong, remember I'm a quilter and not an electrician. But I've seen Rod fit enough switches to know that if you don't push the wires down far enough before tightening the screw, the connection won't be a good one. As we could see the ends of one of the wires we could assume the person who installed this lightswitch was a quilter and not an electrician too. Rod, who is not a quilter nor an electrician, made good the connection and my two new lightbulbs burst into light.
So now we have a light that works but is hanging off the wall, and a set of lightswitches which also work but are also hanging off the wall. Rod tries to screw the front plate back onto the lightswitch box. He has only the two screws that he took out of the box in the first place, but he cannot get the frontplate back on fully. For one of these screws is too long for the job, and the other has stripped the thread. Try as he might, the frontplate won't lie flat. Being facetious, I suggest we superglue the frontplate back on. Reader, it's a good idea, but it doesn't work...we tried. My next suggestion was duct tape, and if we'd had it in white Rod may not have rolled his eyes so much. Running out of good ideas (remembering I'm a quilter, not an electrician), I retired to the kitchen to make lunch, as the tiny job of screwing in two light bulbs had taken hours, and serious sustenance was now required. I have no idea exactly what he did to make the light switches lie flat on the wall again, but I can report Rod's not a quilter nor an electrician, he's a miracle worker!
Came home and asked Rod to change the lightbulbs. That part didn't take very long either. But as the new lightbulbs didn't change the illumination levels of the room enough (i.e not at all), we knew we had a bigger problem. Because these lightbulbs had worked in the shop not half an hour earlier, the problem was somewhat bigger than we had thought, and a more comprehensive approach was needed. Rod got out his toolbox. He unscrewed the light fitting from the wall and armed with his electrical multimeter, proceeded to check all the wires. Now I don't know too much about the next bit, but I do know you're supposed to get a different reading when you touch different wires. Something to do with the live wire having some electricity to it, I think. Well, I can tell you, the live wire was flatlining. It was d...d...dead.
So Rod returned to his trusty toolbox, and got out a screwdriver. He prised the cover off the light switches which was held on by paint, and took off the two screws holding the front plate. Two wires are needed to make each switch work - in untechnical terms, one incoming, one outgoing. If I'm getting this wrong, remember I'm a quilter and not an electrician. But I've seen Rod fit enough switches to know that if you don't push the wires down far enough before tightening the screw, the connection won't be a good one. As we could see the ends of one of the wires we could assume the person who installed this lightswitch was a quilter and not an electrician too. Rod, who is not a quilter nor an electrician, made good the connection and my two new lightbulbs burst into light.
So now we have a light that works but is hanging off the wall, and a set of lightswitches which also work but are also hanging off the wall. Rod tries to screw the front plate back onto the lightswitch box. He has only the two screws that he took out of the box in the first place, but he cannot get the frontplate back on fully. For one of these screws is too long for the job, and the other has stripped the thread. Try as he might, the frontplate won't lie flat. Being facetious, I suggest we superglue the frontplate back on. Reader, it's a good idea, but it doesn't work...we tried. My next suggestion was duct tape, and if we'd had it in white Rod may not have rolled his eyes so much. Running out of good ideas (remembering I'm a quilter, not an electrician), I retired to the kitchen to make lunch, as the tiny job of screwing in two light bulbs had taken hours, and serious sustenance was now required. I have no idea exactly what he did to make the light switches lie flat on the wall again, but I can report Rod's not a quilter nor an electrician, he's a miracle worker!
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