It's been an interesting week, I will have to say. We started out by flying over the weekend and then again on Monday. I had my friend in town and then after one day off it got busy again with a long day and then an interesting day. Friday was a trip to Chandigarh, which is a joint use military base and always requires lots of radio communication in order to get in there. I had a contract pilot for the day but he is retired Indian Air Force and used to be base commander here so he was talking on the radio to all his buddies in their language. Once on the ground we went to visit one of his Air Force buddies and his family. The son is quite brilliant and had one year of study at Stanford University in the USA all paid for by scholarships and grants. He now works for Barclay's bank out of London and is in the process of being transferred to Tokyo. He was home for Diwalli for the first time in 7 years and is only 24 years old. Really nice kid and fun to talk with. The airport was supposed to close at 8 p.m. we had been told we would be spending the night in town if we weren't airborne by 8 so that's what I told my boss. We had brought in the Chief Minister for the Indian State of Haryana, along with Mr. Jindal and they were going to a political meeting so when I called at 7:45 to see how they were doing I was informed that they had put in a special request and the airport would remain open until we left, thank you. I am learning quickly how India really works.
I went to the Gurgaon SDA church today for the first time and it's really just a home church that takes place at the ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) headquarters, which is a lovely, big home in a nice section of Gurgaon. I had first visited here only a couple of weeks after I first arrived in Delhi with Richard from the US Embassy, when we went for the drive in his car, exploring all over the place. Interestingly, they are looking for a pastor and tried to recruit me on the spot but I had to tell them that I would not be there half the time and it would just be very disappointing after I let them down so many times when I was out of town. I imagine it will provide some very good teaching and preaching opportunities if I do decide to attend their regularly. There is Paulo Lopes and his wife from Brazil and Carlos Lopes and his wife from Portugal, so the place should be having services in Portuguese but they do it in English so the rest of us know what's going on. Paulo has a 13 year old son who goes to one of the schools here in Gurgaon. When church was over the Portuguese family offered me a ride home and I told everybody that I needed someone who spoke Hindi to talk to my taxi driver and let him know what was going on. This 13 year old Brazilian kid takes the phone out of my hand and speaks perfect Hindi to my taxi driver. I was SO JEALOUS. I wish my mind could absorb and learn like that.
Our flight department has been kind of quiet for the last two weeks as our new American CEO is in Canada and America for a month, taking some class and seeing about the delivery of our new Global Express 5000 that is coming in November I am told. My boss asked me if I would like to fly this plane, which of course I would, but it may not be possible in India as they require that captains have at least 100 hours of Pilot In Command time before being certified in India. I could get about 10-15 hours in the Simulator which would count and probably about another 20 flying to India, but that still leaves me short so we'll see what comes of it. Kind of frustrating to have everything in place and then the Indian government steps in to stop the program.
It is getting scary here because I have stopped taking pictures of the cows and other animals in the road already. I knew this was going to happen!! It's also scary because my India flights are getting routine, which means that I have adjusted already to a very messed up ATC and government program. In 5 more days I will have been in India for 4 months and I still don't have my airport pass so I am treated like a passenger on my own flights. It's in someone's drawer, waiting for rupees.
Karen has me on a pet purchase program and I have one of the pilots who called and says he has kitties and a dog for me so I may go get them in the next couple of days. Now the housekeeper will have more to do!!
Later - Dan
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