You might think that I am talking about going out to eat at this place, but I was getting my Honey Shredded Mini-wheats out the other day and I noticed a couple of dark spots that looked like they had little legs. I immediately began to get the bad feeling and so I poured out the entire contents of an otherwise fairly new and normal but expensive (at $7.50/box) of this cereal onto a plate, where I could inspect and examine these guys. There weren't many of them so I decided to go ahead and pick them out and eat the rest of the box over time, which was 2/3 full. This grossed Karen out but since I had already been in Africa for a year and was born in Bolivia, where my father used to talk about cockroaches in his soup, I was kind of ready for this. I am active on Facebook so I asked my group what I should do about this problem. I received many interesting and experienced answers. I think my favorite one came from Cindy Frank, who was a teenager in Botswana when I lived there in 1972 and 73. She suggested just eating in the dark. This would certainly work and would be the easiest. Then, one suggested the microwave and that would surely work but most suggested putting the cereal in the freezer for a couple of days. These are microscopic little guys, not any kind of big bugs at all. I guess over here it's okay to kill something once it gets to a small enough size. My boss is a Jain Hindu, and they are very strict about their diet and taking care of all living creatures. The really strict ones have shrouds on their house fans so that bugs don't get sucked in and killed. One of my American friends here was talking about going over to visit some Jain Hindus and she was unaware of this rule and was clap-swatting the mosquitos in the room that were flying around. Her husband had to explain to her later that she should not be doing that in front of Jain Hindus, who don't want to kill any living thing. There is a RAT temple not that far from us and since rats can be a problem here, and they are not to be killed, our apartment complex has a pretty high-tech ultrasonic device that keeps rats away. When I first moved in here I was up very late one night and heard all these whistle soundings going on. I got up, went out on the porch and couldn't see a single security guard with a whistle in his mouth. I called the manager the next day to complain and he told me I was hearing the anti-rat sonic system. It must work as we haven't seen one here. Most people who have lived overseas totally understand what is necessary when you are trying to keep food in your cupboard in a tropical type climate. Much of our food is not expensive, but if you have a craving for the stuff you remember from back in your homeland, there are special stores that cater to ex-pats and they also have special prices. Not that they are THAT greedy, but there is a 108% import tax on things brought into India from another country. Think how THAT alone would change the landscape of America, if they did that to protect our jobs and products coming from other countries. So, since I eat on the road a lot and it tends to be more Indian, I often choose to eat my favorite breakfast cereals and pancakes and stuff like that when I am home. Milk is about the same a back home, although it comes in a box and has a shelf-life of many weeks since it is super-pasteurized. You can just grab a milk box out of the cupboard and put it in the fridge the night before you want it. Since food and entertainment are all I pay for here, I do tend to eat some favorite foods from back home like peanut butter, nuts and stuff like that. To offset the expensive, imported foods, eggs are like .30 cents a dozen and bread is 35 cents a loaf for wheat bread. Karen has some favorite fruits that she loves, like pomegranites. These are prohibitively expensive back home and take a massive amount of work to prepare but here they are pretty reasonable and beautiful in season AND the househelper will peel and get the fruit out of as many as you want. She preps one for Karen every day that there is one in the house.
Many of you said that bugs in your food would be a stopper, but you also have bugs in your food in America, you just don't see them because of the way the food is processed. I just consider the ones that I don't get out as extra protein and hope they don't float to the top of my milk as I am eating. If they do, then they get picked out. Karen doesn't eat cereal and doesn't have to put up with this. So, while you may be thinking I was worried about bugs at the above pictured restaurant near our home, it's in our kitchen that they grow. And, this is a brand-name world recognized brand of cereal, too.
We got the windshield back in the plane last week and started flying on Wednesday. Now, it's been really busy and tomorrow I have a day trip to Mumbai and then a 3 day trip way over to Eastern India, to the Myanmar (used to be Burma) border. We will spend the night and then fly back to Western India, Pune. If we overnight there, I will get my driver to take me out to the big SDA school there, Spicer College, and try to get a campus tour. I don't know how far from the airport it is but we'll try. I alway carry my camera to towns I haven't been to before because I never know what I am going to see.
For those of you who aren't on Facebook, I would encourage someone who is tech savvy in your family to get you signed up. You can have a good time finding old friends and even family that you have lost track of in the ensuing years. I post pics there on almost every flight from my Blackberry, so it's almost live action on there. I will put some more pics up here from my trip to Rajahmundry and Chennai last week very soon. That was a nice, long trip and I hadn't been to Chennai before so that was fun.
Take care and drop me a note once in awhile so I know you are alive,
Dan
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